Day 9: Language Preservation
Choose one thing to read, watch, listen to, do, or engage with today. Try to mix it up each day between the categories!
READ
Reading, Writing and Preserving: Native Languages Sustain Native Communities The alarm has been sounded on an impending Extinction Event in indigenous languages. Learn who’s doing what to address the loss. by John Haworth (Cherokee) Magazine Of Smithsonian's National Museum Of The American Indian (2017)
Preserving Native Languages: No Time to Waste Ethnologue lists 245 indigenous languages in the United States, with 65 already extinct and 75 near extinction with only a few elder speakers left. This is why the Native American Languages Act and the Esther Martinez Act are so important. by Lillian Sparks (Rosebud Sioux Tribe) Administration for Children and Families (2015)
Native American Languages Act: Twenty Years Later, Has It Made a Difference? Despite federal programs and grants to support the survival of native US languages, setbacks and barriers obstruct their success. by Kelsey Klug Cultural Survival (2012)
WATCH
CONTENT WARNING: Blood, gore, concentration camps (violence of war) America's Native Prisoners of War Aaron Huey's explanation of “reservations” TEDxDU (2010) 15 minutes T CC
21-Day Questions
What is the connection between language preservation and the message in this TED talk?
Native American Culture - Language: The Key to Everything Ron Corn, Jr. (Muqsahkwat Menominee) offers an intimate look at the impact of language reclamation and preservation. TEDxOshkosh (2018) 12 minutes T CC
LISTEN
The race to save Indigenous languages Language researchers just released the latest version of the Ethnologue, which aims to catalog the state of all of the world's languages, all 7,164 of them. Many of these languages are endangered. Some have so few native speakers that you can count them on one hand. NPR (2024) 6 minutes T
Tongue Unbroken podcast by Avery Keatley & Scott Detrow available on multiple platforms. (2024) 60 minutes +/- per episode. Pick an episode! T
BRING IT HOME
Order a bilingual (Indigenous language/ English) children book from the !Colorín colorado! website.
Roger Paul, Wabanaki language expert, and B'ella Ixmata-Schaaff, cognitive science and linguistics major at Wellesley College, at Harvard University Pow Wow 2023 (photo by Claudia A. Fox Tree)
DO
Identify 1-3 natural features in your area (water bodies, mountains, etc.) and investigate their names.
21-Day Questions
What language is its name in?
What group/s spoke this language?
If it’s Indigenous terminology, Is the word intact or an Anglicized version of the original?
Is the cultural pattern where the English language tends to name places after people while Indigenous languages tend to name places after its physical features happening in this case?
EXPLORE & REFLECT
Journal about these reflections:
21-Day Questions
Imagine what it would feel like to be told you can’t speak your language.
Have you ever learned, or tried to learn, another language? What would it have been like to learn that with no ability to speak your own language while learning the new one?
What would it feel like to be physically punished for speaking your own language?
Think about these aspects of Indigenous language:
21-Day Questions
When you list foreign languages, do you list English? Why or why not?
When you learn a tribal name, how can you tell if it’s how tribal members refer to themselves or if it’s a colonizer-given name?
T Transcript Available
CC Closed Captions Available