Watch your Language!

For today's class reading, two articles were assigned that covered Native language survival. One was by a Native Hawaiian woman trying to preserve her native language by setting up a language school. She talked much about the importance of language survival. The other was by an Arapaho man, also trying to preserve his tribe's native language by forming language schools. Both schools were relatively successful, if I remember correctly.

On the surface, the issue of preservation of language can seem a little arbitrary, at least less important than preserving religious rituals and other aspects of culture. But language is a cultural practice just like any religion, ritual, or work of literature, art, or music is. Often, language defines aspects of a culture. Certain words only have meaning in a particular language. Tenses and ways of referring to objects can be different. For example, there is a group of people (no clue what their name is or where they're from) who refer to inanimate objects as having 'life' of some sort, some kind of activity or spirit. In English, an object is just an object; if we forced these people to learn English, they would lose an important aspect of their culture. 

I don't think the circumstances are different for the language of any Native tribe. Sharing a language and being able to communicate in a particular way with others is one of the most important parts of a peoples' ability to be connected. In some ways, language is a defense mechanism. If English speakers can't understand what Natives are saying, the Natives have the ability to say whatever they want without repercussions. It's the reason my mom and I want to be able to speak French better--so we can talk about people without them knowing. We saw this in Reel Injun. In the movie, Native actors would say offensive things to the white actors in their native languages. Of course, the white actors could not understand them. This connected the Native actors and gave them strength.

I understand now that language is just as important as an aspect of culture to be preserved as religion, the arts, and traditions are.