The P’s of Language Revitalization (Reprinted from e-newsletter of 2005--2009)
The First P/Make It Personal
In 1994, I was presenting a paper on what works in language revitalization when an audience
member piped up with a challenge to my professorial approach to the topic. What he said still
makes a lot of sense. To create language revitalization, a person must create a time and space for
an endangered language.
In my interviews with Maori about their language, te reo, many stated that learning Maori was a
spiritual journey for each of them. There was a part of each that yearned for it. Speaking the
language was what made them Maori. they had made this time and space for the language and
found it rewarding.
In our day-to-day lives, what does speaking the language of our ancestors mean? We all have
other obligations and necessities. Sometimes, taking time out of our already busy schedules
seems frivolous. At the same time, many of us do want to speak our own language. We have
those same yearnings to take that personal journey to spiritual reconnection.
Also, some groups have few speakers or maybe no speakers. The language may seem part of a
dim past, hard to grasp in a fast-paced, modern, English (or French, Spanish) speaking
environment, where economic forces of shape everyone’s futures. Life has changed from those
days when the language was strong.
The Kai Tahu is a populous iwi (tribe) of the South Island of New Zealand. They are surrounded
and out-numbered by their Pakeha (European) neighbors. They are scattered all over the South
Island. They have very few speakers of their dialect left, a dialect with noticeable pronunciation
and vocabulary differences from other varieties of Maori. Also, racially they may look little
different from their European neighbors.
Ancestry is very important to the Maori. A traditional Maori can recite his/her ancestors back to
the ancestor and waka (canoe) that ancestor came to these islands on. That ancestry is what
determines Maori identity. At the same time, they are proud of their European ancestry too.
Because the Kai Tahu lack a cohesive community from which to rebuild their language and
culture, they have created their own approach to revitalization. They have made it personal. Kai
Tahu make a personal commitment to use as much Moari language as possible in their respective
homes, to make Maori a home language.
The first P: Make it personal.
There is a small group of language learners in Dunedin, the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh,
and settled by Scottish immigrants. I sat in a circle of about 20, a hui (gathering) on my behalf to
welcome me. There were all ages from teens to an elder (in his seventies). Each one introduced
him/herself to me in Maori. Most of them were not fluent speakers and some had to continue in
English. Yet here each was using whatever language they had. It was OK for them to be
beginners.
Paulette, who is in charge of the Kai Tahu language program here, creates both classes and
situations in which people can use their language. One of these language situations is to have
coffee at different restaurants and cafes. Paulette brings language games that participants can
play so that everyone has a chance to use language. A mother of three young children, she is
working with other mothers to create a preschool language environment for the children of
working mothers (this is different from kohunga reo, or language nests, to be discussed in a
future article).
To learn more about the Kai Tahu program contact them at<
info@ngaitahu.iwi.nz>.
In a kitchen, a young Moriori woman sits with her Maori partner, speaking Maori with their three
young children. The aren’t part of any organized program. This is the commitment they have
made for the future of their children. The Moriori language of the Chatham Islands is a dead
language, but Chris, the young mother, plans to return to help revitalize it.
Native people in the U.S. have been doing this as well. A little over ten years ago, two women
from different parts of the country and different languages made personal commitments to
revitalizing their languages. Margaret Mauldin, a Muskoke language speaker, ran classes from
her home. Donna Pino Martinez at Santa Ana Pueblo didn’t wait for permission or funding from
the tribal council. She just started classes. In Wisconsin, Gerald Hill, Oneida, and an adult began
his personal journey to learning the Oneida language over ten years ago. He began by getting to
know the elders in his community. At one conference, he said that he had started going to church
because that was where the elders were. Regardless of your age, you can begin learning your
language. I saw many 70 + year olds learning Maori. Both Margaret and Gerald are involved
with the Indigenous Language Institute. You can contact them here. i
li@indigenouslanguage.org
Donna Pino Martinez can be contacted through the Pueblo of Santa Ana at their webpage
www.santaana.org.
On Easter Island in the Pacific, the most remote island in the world, the indigenous population
fell to 100 people less than a hundred years ago. Now, with their children no longer growing up
speaking Rapa Nui, Marta Hotus Tiki is challenging the socio-political structure by organizing
the women of the community into having a voice in the future of the island, to having a voice in
revitalizing the language. Due to her determination, the community now has some input into
creating language materials for the children.
To learn more about the program on Easter Island, contact Marta Hotus Tuki at
kararakurapanui@entelchile.net.Make it personal. Make it your personal journey. Add your native language to your life.
Language change begins with you.
The Second P/Purpose
After making a personal commitment, a person needs a strong purpose. Otherwise, life will just
wash away that personal commitment like waves wash away sand on a beach or the wind carves
up sandstone in the desert.
In Otaki, NZ, I visited Te Wānanga-o-Raukawa, a tribal university. The head of that school is
Dr. Whatarangi Winiata . Dr. Winiata trained in the U.S. in business. While there, he observed
American businessmen undergoing week-long immersion sessions in foreign languages so that
they could conduct business in other countries. A similar approach is also used by the Defense
Department. Because he has a purpose to revitalize Maori language, he brought this idea back to
New Zealand, and, thus, "language camps" were born. This was about 1975 after Maori had
received the news that the language was in serious trouble with speakers growing older and few
children growing up speaking the language.
These language camps have become a stock part of Maori language revitalization with several
being held each year in different parts of the country and on both the North and South Island.
These camps allow adult learners a chance to use what they have learned in the classroom in an
immersion setting. Originally, the camps were held at marae (traditional building representing a
particular Maori community) with elders in attendance to help guide the conversations. These
camps have served to boost the language proficiency of many adults.
To learn more about language camps, go to
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/RIL_2.html.Dr. Winiata is the CEO of Te Wānanga-o-Raukawa</A> and president of the Māori Party
http://www.maoriparty.com.
At about the same time, Philbert and Lucille Watohomigie on the Hualapai reservation--located
in the northern deserts of Arizona--began work on revitalizing the Hualapai language. Seeing the
rapid erosion of the Hualapai language due to the separation of extended families by HUD
housing and the intrusion of English-based television, they began work on a Hualapai bilingual
program with the end goal of producing balanced bilinguals. At that time, Hualapai had no
written language, so they started from scratch. Lucille often shares stories of those early days
with the many discussions they had with elders and the community about creating the
orthography. By 1981, however, they had produced enough materials that the school board
adopted the Hualapai Bilingual/Bicultural Education Program, which went on to win awards.
To read more about this program, go to http://depts.washington.edu/~centerme/hualapai.htm
Mapitzmitl (aka PAZ) was raised with traditions from Mexico even though he was born in the
US, some of these traditions having an almost 400 year history in New Mexico: Coronado's
exploration of the US Southwest was attended by Nahuatl speakers as was the colonization of
northern New Mexico. In fact, they had their own section in Santa Fe prior to the Pueblo Revolt
(1680-92) and many of them sided with the Pueblo and Apache peoples in that fight to regain
autonomy and independence. Even before their coming the Pueblo people maintained trade with
the peoples of Mesoamerica.
As a consequence, it was natural that during the reawakening of identity of the 60's and
70's and at the urging of AIM leaders he should move closer to the traditions of his
ancestors. Since that time Mapitzmitl has dedicated himself to recreating the Red Tradition, the
dance tradition, of the old Aztec Empire, an empire built on thousand year old traditions of that
region, Mesoamerica. Using the dance as the primary activity, he sees his purpose and the
purpose of the dance group, Kalpulli Ehecatl, to recreate as much of that tradition, including the
language, as possible. This is no mean task as the area is removed from its origins in both space
and time. Despite that, he has devoted most of his adult life to that recreation, first making
himself fluent in Nahuatl.
You can reach Mapitzmitl at this address
pazehecatl@hotmail.comand see photos of the group at
http://kalpulliehecatl2.blogspot.com
Leroy Sealy grew up speaking the Choctaw language, a growing rarity in Oklahoma where the
Choctaw language has been steadily losing ground since the 1970’s. Choctaw has been a
written language since about 1830. Until about 1880 it was used in all aspects of life in the
Choctaw Nation. After the advent of the state of Oklahoma, Choctaw churches were one of the
places where Choctaw was spoken and sung, but even that is giving way to English. Leroy is a
young man, but he has a strong purpose to revitalize the Choctaw language. Working at the
University of Oklahoma as a Choctaw language instructor, he shares his love of his own
language with others and has worked to create new courses.
Leroy Sealy can be contacted at this address
chahtanakni@ou.edu.
Make recreating your mother tongue(s) a strong purpose in your life. This purpose will help you
create a time and space for this language(s) in your own life.
The Third P: Planning
One thing that impressed me the most during my visit to New Zealand was the amount of
planning. I consider good planning a major part of successful language revitalization.
Both the Ngāi Tahu and Te Wānanga-o-Raukawa began with 25 year plans. As I mentioned
previously, the group at Otaki (TWOR) began in 1975. Their original purpose was to prepare the
40,000 members of the iwi (tribes) and hapu (subtribes) located approximately between the
Rangitikei River and Cook Strait for the 21st Century. One of the results is Te Wānanga-o-
Raukawa (incorporated 1984), an educational institution where a person can receive an education
primarily via Māori from pre-school (kohunga reo) to a Ph.D. Even the computer classes
incorporate as much Māori language as possible by teaching the key terms in Māori (they write
the materials themselves). Their web address is
http://www.twor-otaki.ac.nz.One thing I really liked about this institution was the expressed curricular emphasis on
promoting the survival of Maori, particularly the 40,000 Maori it represents. That’s what drives
the curriculum--not current government funding,
The Ngāi Tahu have a different 25 year plan, one that has started fairly recently. You may
remember that their language is virtually gone. Their Kotah Mano Kaika is a program intended to
have at least 1000 Ngāi Tahu homes involved in speaking Maori and passing the language from
one generation to the next. For more information about this program, contact
info@ngaitahu.iwi.org.
I really like this approach because it is creative. This plan better fits their situation: While
numerous, they are generally out-numbered in most communities by non-Māori. Also, they are
having to revive their dialect from scratch since there are only a handful of speakers left.
The Hualapai (mentioned in previous articles) too had to do planning to move their language
from an oral medium of older individuals to an award winning bilingual program in a short
period of time. Planning is just as critical for individuals--how are you going to work in learning
and using that language in your busy life.
Raglan is known as the “surfing capital of the New Zealand” and, therefore, seems an unlikely
spot to find a Māori language program. Nevertheless, there is a Māori community there, and one
with an important history. This is where Eva Rickard took a stand against the confiscation of
Māori land and helped to back down the New Zealand government.
At the same time, many non-Māori live in the area. To address the educational needs of both
communities and to offer more choices to the community, the Raglan Area School has created an
immersion school within the regular school. In the “regular” school, students also have the
option of taking classes to learn te reo Māori, and all classes include lessons in Māori culture.
This approach takes considerable planning and working with the community, and community
participates regularly as individuals drop in to visit classes or participate in specific activities.
One of the local elders attended my powhiri (formal welcome) done at the school the day I came
to visit.
This planning fits the educational needs of this small community that includes both Māori and
non-Māori.
Planning*
Planning is an important part of success in language maintenance and/or revitalization. In
fact, planning is important for the success of many things. As we end this year, let’s
begin the process.
Step One—Set your goals. These goals or objectives must be known by all involved so
that everyone can take actions that will create them. Get together with your friends and
family over a good meal and come up with some goals for your own language.
Start now!
Purposes
Now that you have set up your goal(s), you are ready to define your purpose(s). Purposes
may be lesser goals or the why behind the goal.
These two together might look something like this for a group.
Goal—1/2 of all household actively engaged in learning the language and using it in the
home
Purpose(s)-(1) to increase language usage, thereby ensuring the survival of the language;
(2) to use language as the basis for revitalizing families and community; and (3) to ask all
members of the community to take responsibility for revitalizing the language.
For an individual, it might look like this.
Goal—to converse at a basic level (you can always create new goals as you have reached
an old one)
Purpose(s)—to ensure the future of the language; (2) to be able to pass some of the
language to my grandchildren (or children); and (3) to connect myself to my cultural past.
As you go along, be sure to align all of the steps. That may mean doing some revising in
wording as you move through the process.
More Planning
So far you have created your goal(s) and purpose(s).
Here are the next steps. Create your operational rules or guides for the organization or
activity that are not to be changed. These are your Policies.
Recently in a meeting with other community Native Americans, we decided not to
become angry or upset with each but to listen with respect to each other. This is our first
Policy. An example of a language policy in a family might be always to greet each other
in the target language or to never laugh at someone’s attempts to use the language,
depending on the level of language proficiency of the family, of course.
After you have established the policies, begin on the short-range broad agenda. These are
the Plans.
The next newsletter will go through expanding these plans.
Planning and MoreHere are the steps we have covered thus far.
Goals
Purposes
Policy
Plans
Programs—the series of steps in sequence to accomplish a plan
Projects—sequence of steps to carry out ONE step of a program
To this we need to add these steps.
Orders—the directions that need to be given to carry out a program or apply a general
policy
Ideal Scenes—this is how everything ought to be; for example, having all Choctaws
fluent in the Choctaw language
Statistics—these are the numbers and amounts that you can compare to an earlier number
or amount to see how you are doing.
Valuable Final Products—speakers of indigenous languages
Happy Planning!
Persistence, Proliferation, and Participation
Part of the Māori success is because they persist.
They are determined (strong purpose) to revitalize te reo Māori and make it the language of
every day life once again. Keep in mind that reversing language loss is likely to take as much
time as it took for the loss to occur. Also, remember that change is the hallmark of the universe
we live in, so persistence is key to maintaining ourselves as individuals and groups in all our
endeavors.
Another part of the success is proliferation. While Māori kōhanga reo (language nests) has
received much press, it is not the only activity being use to revitalize the language. There are also
classes at universities, polytechs (like US community college), marae (a building serving a subhapu,
a smaller division of a tribe), corporate headquarters, and high schools. Education can be
obtained from pre-school through Ph.D. now through the Māori language. Children’s books,
alphabet charts, and adult books are available in the language. One program (Ngāi Tahu)
promotes the usage in the home. It’s an all out onslaught against the loss.
This leads me to conclude that, regardless of the number of speakers, a single approach can only
be a beginning and not the final solution.
Proliferation also implies that anyone and everyone who wants to participate in revitalizing the
language is allowed to do so. If a language is to survive, it must have speakers. Dr. Margaret
Mauldin, Muskoke language specialist and a speaker of that language, once observed, “I don’t
know who some people think they are saving the language for.”
Because of the diaspora caused by the Removal Act of 1830 (US), groups like the Cherokee,
Choctaw, Creek (Muskogee), and Seminole were torn apart and scattered around the US, leaving
various disconnected communities. There are more Cherokee than any other group, but they are
located all over the US and even in northern Mexico. This scattering resulted in great language
loss. Today each group is working on revitalizing the language. Given the large numbers of
potential speakers, they might want to reunite around language revitalization, thereby increasing
the participation.
A similar situation exists for the Choctaw (numbering about80,000 according to the 2000 census)
with the Oklahoma Choctaw being the largest group and offering the greatest possibility of
participation byoffering online courses, community courses, and materials for sale to thepublic.
Several educational institutions also offer classes—the University ofOklahoma, several high
schools, and even a community college in Dallas, servingthose Choctaw who landed in north
Texas after the removal.
In some communities with fewer speakers, individuals have used a different approach. They
have spent time with an elder learning the language. This approach allows the transmission of the
language and group knowledge in a more natural way. This was part of the original idea behind
kōhanga reo.
The original idea of the kōhanga reo was to have elders who spoke the language fluently to
interact with young children to provide the Māori language for what the children were doing
(scaffolding). The children’s mothers attended along with the children, making this an
intergenerational activity. In some instances, teachers in kōhanga reo are no longer elders but
adults trained in early childhood who have learned Māori as adults. Whenever possible, parents
are expected to attend with their children.
Such is the case at Te Kōhanga Reo o Ngā Kāaka, located on land leased from the University of
Waikato. The parents of the children attending are generally associated with the University in
some way. It is one of the places I visited on my trip. Their day begins with a karakia (prayer).
The curriculum not only prepares children for school activities but also prepares them for
functioning in an adult culture. Praying in Māori is an expectation of that culture.
This was visible at Te Matatini, the national celebration of traditional Māori performing arts,
where the celebration opened with the Lord’s Prayer in Māori. I was one of the few people who
did not know the words.
Other activities include songs with movement (prepares them for kapa haka, the traditional
performing arts) and general pre-school activities—learning the colors and the names of basic
things, and responding to teacher questions (expected school behaviors). Movement is an aid to
understanding and remembering language, so the songs with movement aid both the learning of
the language and prepares them for other activities. At this particular kōhanga reo, parents were
in attendance, using whatever amount of Māori language they had.
Of course, this effort alone would not accomplish the purpose of revitalizing the language. No
one single way is the answer. Incorporate as many as you can to maximize participation.
Inertia and the Big Push (Sep 2007)
As you may know inertia is a phenomenon in the physical universe that either matter at rest or
keeps it moving. It is the tendency of matter at rest to stay at rest and the tendency of matter in
motion to stay in motion. And since we live in a physical universe, this law applies to all of us.
Think of your language program as a huge boulder. It takes a big push to get it started. Once it is
rolling, it takes less energy. That is the law of inertia. The Big Push needs to come at the
beginning. After that, you can probably keep it rolling with a regular nudge now and then.
This is a simple idea, but one worth considering. If that ball isn’t rolling yet, keep pushing and
see if you can get some of your friends to help you.
Persistence and Perpetuity (Oct 2007)
In the last issue of this newsletter, I discussed the push needed to overcome inertia. In this issue,
I want to return to the idea of persistence. Culture is created, and it only exists as long as we
create it. The ‘we’ is you and I and, hopefully, many, many others.
And since each of us is limited by the physicality of a body with its very limited lifespan, each
individual and group must plan for the perpetuation of the culture—who is going to carry on this
creation? Plan now to leave the language in a state to be carried forward by others. Recruit young
people who share your enthusiasm. And recruit even those who find no use for it. Persist, and
people will begin to wonder what you have that they don’t.
Also, take the language to the people who need to learn it. Invite them to learn some part of it.
Invite them to support the efforts of perpetuating the language. Get more and more people on
board. This is a big project, and there is plenty of room for everyone to share in the responsibility
and the glory when it triumphs.
Share your successes with others because this gives people hope, and we live in a world that
currently offers little hope. And count each new person learning the language as a victory.
Finally, realize that almost none of us ever reach our full potential.
Power, Prayer, and Prestige (June 2008)
Many people think of power in terms of politics or economics. These types of power are, of
course, important for language revitalization. However, there may be a more important sense of
power that each of us has—maintaining a position in space. This is simply being ourselves, and
speaking our own native languages is part of being ourselves. Having and speaking our own
languages maintains that position and gives us power.
In an earlier issue, I mentioned that power is also potential, those things that we can bring about.
This potential can be brought about through communication. Prayer is one mode of creating this
potential through communication. Moreover, prayer is a prestigious use of language: some say
the most prestigious. I was reminded of this at the Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium
as I listened to people praying in their various indigenous languages. I am echoing what I heard
in my interviews with Maori and what I have heard my own Native American students say.
What I am trying to suggest is that each of us should use the power we have inherent in us to
bring this renaissance about.
Place and People (July 2008)
Since many of us want to be bi or multilingual, each of us needs a place to speak each language.
This is especially true for those who are learning our heritage languages as second languages.
During colonization of native peoples, school became the place for the dominant language,
leaving the heritage language to be used some place else, often the home. As we all know, some
parents mistakenly thought that using the dominant language was the best language for the
children and ceased using the heritage language in the home.
One of the Maori children that I interviewed explained that he only used the Maori language in
the classroom. He did not speak it on the playground or at home with his parents even though his
parents were Maori speakers. Clearly in this particular case, the place for using Maori is the
classroom. Many Maori and Pueblo families continue to use their heritage languages as a home
and family language. The home is the place for the language. In some instances, heritage
language use is confined to ceremonial purposes only.
The important idea is that the speaker has a place to use the language.
Related to the idea of place is having people to speak to in that place. It would seem, then, that
any place with other speakers would work for this. Since one primary purpose of language is
communication, having others to communicate with through the heritage language is paramount
to learning the language. As a result, part of your language planning needs to include place and
people.
People (Aug 2008)
Ultimately, it is people who revitalize languages by using them. On my journey, I have met
many people—many, many people who are using their own languages. These people come from
small pueblos in New Mexico, from different places on the Navajo Nation, from the Seneca
Nation on the Canadian border, from the Cree people in Canada along with the Blackfeet,
Nakota, and Athabaskan speaking people, from small islands all over the Pacific, from the
mountains of Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, and from the mountains of Guerrero, Mexico.
Each time a person speaks in her/his native tongue, that language gains strength—like a
hurricane.
Population and Politics (2009)
Recently while visiting Puerto Rico I encountered two very different views of the Taino, the
original inhabitants of Puerto Rio. The first view was voiced by the white, park ranger who
assured a couple of tourists that absolutely no Taino existed—yes, there were people who
claimed to be Taino, but they weren’t really Taino. The next day, I encountered a totally
different view from the Puerto Rican guide: Not only were there still Taino, but there were 117
full bloods.
These two encounters bring to mind a dilemma faced by many groups. It is difficult sometimes
to divorce language revitalization efforts from issues of politics, part of which is determining
who is the target population. Languages need people to speak them. “The most important
safeguard against language death is obviously having many speakers” (Gross 2007, p. 21).
Unfortunately when the language is lost, as it was for the Taino, identity may be determined by
other factors and by outsiders.
Gross, Joan. (2007). Forging a monolingual country. In Joan Gross, Ed. Teaching Oregon Native
Languages (pp. 7-34). Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press.
*Planning steps are taken from the works of L.Ron Hubbard.
