Native American languages

[Chris]

I spent 12 years in L.A. many moons ago, and have always had high regard for native American culture. At the risk of sounding like today's precious species that take offence at every little detail, I prefer the Canadian 'first nation' title for their native peoples. More appropriate, methinks.

Anyway, back to the point - if I had more time, I'd be interested in leaning Lakota or one of the Apache languages - probably Lakota, as it sounds so melodic and smooth. I don't know why I'm surprised, but I'm fascinated at how different they both sound.

I live in England, so there'd be no practical benefit, but Lakota sounds so nice and it would help keep the language alive.

Does anyone have first-hand experience of any of native North American languages?

[Serpent]

Be careful, there are those precious species among the mods
I hope we can have a peaceful on-topic discussion here These languages don't get anywhere near as much attention as they deserve.

[iguanamon]

The issues with learning Native American languages were addressed in a thread at HTLAL started by one of your fellow countrymen: Why does nobody learn American languages?. I definitely advise reading this thread first.

...I live in England, so there'd be no practical benefit, but Lakota sounds so nice and it would help keep the language alive.

I think you've answered your own question- "no practical benefit". As one who has learned a minority language (Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol) spoken to some degree by less than 100,000 people in the world today- none of whom are monolingual. I can tell you that this is the problem. There is no one to speak to, and little in the way of modern media. At least with Ladino, there is a 500 year literary tradition, a daily newscast, a couple of weekly broadcasts/podcasts, musical artists and a thriving online community. For most native North American languages, there isn't much of that available.

I don't believe that by learning Ladino I am "helping to keep it alive". I'm not Jewish. It's not part of my culture. Don't get me wrong, I love exploring the Sephardic culture through Ladino. Learning the language has given me access to so much that has never been translated. Still the only people who can truly keep this language alive are the people from whose culture it is a vital part. The same is true for native-American languages, native Australian languages and other languages that are dying around the world. If a hundred thousand non-natives learned Ladino, it would not bring Ladino back as what it was- the language of a distinct community with a distinct culture, history and tradition. For that to happen, the descendants of the Sephardim in Israel, Turkey and around the world have to learn and embrace the language again.

To sum up, there's nothing wrong with learning a native-American language as an academic exercise, but be under no illusions that you will be helping to keep the language alive. Without access to the culture and the people who speak it and with little to no access to native media, I don't believe you will get very far. I have far more native material available to me for Ladino than exists in most of the North American languages.

Why not look in your own backyard? There is an active revival movement in your own country for Cornish. So, you could get the experience of actually bringing back to life a native language of England. Welsh is close to hand, a distinctive and very different language with native-speakers closer to your own culture and sharing the same island with you. There is literature, television and radio. You can visit Wales and speak Welsh and not be an obvious outsider as you would in a Native-American community with all the baggage that implies. Member Montmorency is learning Welsh and can help. There's also Scots Gaelic to consider with at least a couple of members here actively learning it. Manx is also experiencing a modern revival after having been declared dead. Good luck.

[Xmmm]

At the risk of sounding like today's precious species that take offence at every little detail, I prefer the Canadian 'first nation' title for their native peoples. More appropriate, methinks.

Maybe the term that other Americans use to address Native Americans should be decided by people who actually live in America.

FYI "Native American" is a US-government approved politically correct substitute for "American Indian." It's probably the first PC term introduced into American English. Every American since the 1960s has been taught in school that "Native American" is the polite and correct form of address and that "American Indian" is rude and uncultured.

And yet it is a term that Native Americans themselves don't particularly like, preferring "American Indian" if they have to be lumped into a massive collective and can't be addressed by their tribal affiliation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Am ... ontroversy

[galaxyrocker]

To sum up, there's nothing wrong with learning a native-American language as an academic exercise, but be under no illusions that you will be helping to keep the language alive. Without access to the culture and the people who speak it and with little to no access to native media, I don't believe you will get very far. I have far more native material available to me for Ladino than exists in most of the North American languages.

I think this is something learner's need to learn for any endangered language. I see it all the time with respect to Irish, Breton, Scottish Gaelic, etc.

[Serpent]

Maybe the term that other Americans use to address Native Americans should be decided by people who actually live in America.

I certainly agree but let's please stay on the topic of languages.

[Xmmm]

I certainly agree but let's please stay on the topic of languages.

Okay. For all language hobbyists interested in Native American languages, you may find this article about the Maidu of interest:

"The people who want their language to disappear"

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29804445

[emk]

Let me put on my moderator hat here for a moment. This forum operates under basically the same rules as the HTLAL forum, which say:

RELIGION & POLITICS
No religion, no politics - house rules. Like a barman in a saloon, I ask you not to discuss politics and religion in this forum, but only languages.

We've tried relaxing the rules against politics and religion several times in the past, and it usually results in horrible, angry 20-page threads. This is partly because political discussions on the Internet almost always turn to into angry fights, and partly because we have a diverse international membership, some of whom come from countries that have longstanding conflicts with each other. So the rules against politics stand.

I spent 12 years in L.A. many moons ago, and have always had high regard for native American culture. At the risk of sounding like today's precious species that take offence at every little detail, I prefer the Canadian 'first nation' title for their native peoples. More appropriate, methinks.

The comment about "precious species that take offence at every little detail" is clearly political, and thus off-topic. You are welcome to have political discussions elsewhere on the Internet, but please refrain from them here.

Secondly, with regard to matters of polite terminology: The moderators have actually talked this over, and we have tried to find a rule that works well for an international community, and which fits with our traditions of respectful discussion. Our current draft rules of thumb are:

• When referring to a group of people, please use terminology which that group would normally consider polite. To figure out what terminology a given group would normally consider polite, you might occasionally need to do some research about how unfamiliar cultures use certain words. But this forum is all about learning how other cultures use words, so we do not consider this too much to ask.
• If a specific member of the forum asks you, "Please do not call me X; please call me Y instead," then good manners strongly suggest that you call them Y—even if their reasons seem personal or idiosyncratic.

So, in light of these principles, I direct anybody who is interested to this Wikipedia page which talks about terms like "First Nations", "Native American" and "American Indian." Short form: We're actually talking about hundreds of individual cultures and nations here, and it's actually kind of awkward to lump them all together under a single term. But when speaking of US groups, the most neutral collective term is probably "Native American," though many people refer to themselves as "American Indians." When speaking of Canadian groups, one commonly-accepted term appears to be "First Nations" (or premières nations in French), although as I understand it, that generally isn't considered to include the Inuit or the Métis. When in doubt, please refer to the principles above, and try to choose something which the group in question would consider polite. If you accidentally chose a term which is considered rude, then please apologize and move on. Once again, this is a good language learning skill!

So, with that in mind, as Serpent says, "let's please stay on the topic of languages." (However, if you belong to one of the groups being discussed, then it's certainly on-topic to explain what terminology would typically be considered polite—we generally consider that an actual language-learning discussion, because at that point, you're a native speaker explaining your language and your culture, and we certainly wish to permit that.)

[aokoye]

To sum up, there's nothing wrong with learning a native-American language as an academic exercise, but be under no illusions that you will be helping to keep the language alive. Without access to the culture and the people who speak it and with little to no access to native media, I don't believe you will get very far. I have far more native material available to me for Ladino than exists in most of the North American languages.

I think this is something learner's need to learn for any endangered language. I see it all the time with respect to Irish, Breton, Scottish Gaelic, etc.

I third that. I see it all the time as well and it's rife on the DuoLingo forums as well. Mind you I chalk part of that up to (very) young idealism but it still drives me up the wall. I do think preserving languages is important but I think it's important that people understand, even in very small part, how that work actually happens.

[solocricket]

I'm also very interested in several Native American/First Nations/Inuit languages. Actually, right now I'm looking into learning some Inuktitut In the past, I've also looked into Lakota and Navajo and some others. As a caveat, I really haven't spent a significant time learning any of these, so yeah, take all this with a grain of salt. I think the biggest roadblock with these is a lack of resources-- without access to the communities that speak and use these languages, it'll be difficult get beyond maybe an A2-ish level, and that's with a language that does have good quality resources, mostly online.

However, not all of them are the same. Navajo, for instance, is a language that has a vibrant and active community. In fact, I've found a couple radio stations in Arizona (found through tunein.com) that have content partially or completely in Navajo. There are also some good apps and websites for them. Inuktitut is another one with a decent number of resources-- CBC North has some broadcasts in Inuktitut (I like my talk radio...), and I found some lessons at http://www.tusaalanga.ca/ that I'm thinking of working through.

So, I think if you want to dabble (and you're far away from communities of speakers, like I am) and depending on the language, there are a good selection of resources to go on. If you want to get very far in the language, I would think finding speakers would be necessary, because the resources just don't exist beyond dictionaries and phrasebooks. Good luck!