Preserving Indigenous culture through language

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iguanamon
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Preserving Indigenous culture through language

Postby iguanamon » Tue May 22, 2018 8:35 pm

This came to me today via twitter from CBC (Canada) Radio: How Ryan DeCaire is working to preserve Indigenous culture through language.
CBC Radio wrote:Ryan DeCaire didn't become fluent in Kanien'kéha, the language of his Mohawk ancestors, until he was in his 20s.
Now, he teaches it to students from all backgrounds at the University of Toronto in the hopes of keeping the language alive.
Growing up in Wáhta Kanien'kehá:ka Territory just east of Georgian Bay, Ont., DeCaire only knew a few Kanien'kéha words. He was always curious why conversations in the Mohawk language in his community never went beyond "hello" or "goodbye."
Eventually, DeCaire reached a realization that unless something was done to preserve the language, it would disappear... What was it like going through into an immersion setting for two years?
It was one of the most challenging things I've ever done. You know, I've done a BA, I've done an MA, and comparing that to my immersion time, immersion was much more challenging. We're in there for six and a half hours a day every day, for 1,000 hours, for the entire school year, culminating in 2,000 hours total. And it's a rule to only speak Mohawk.
So when you don't know anything, it's very, very challenging, and to admit to yourself that you don't know anything, so you feel stressed, you feel anxious. But eventually you realize the more you learn, it starts to become more comfortable, and then you kind of get over this mountain and you start to realize you're beginning to speak more fluidly. And at the same time, you're building a community of other younger speakers — and that's what I often tell people, is that's one of the things we really need that's most important: a community of people who are striving to the same thing.

I also found this quote interesting and informative
CBC Radio wrote:Now you're teaching the first-ever Kanien'kéha language class at the University of Toronto. It turns out most of your students are non-indigenous. Did that surprise you?
Coming into Toronto, I knew there would be a lot more people from diverse backgrounds. And I was OK with that because there's two reasons, in my opinion, I teach language. I teach immersion to community to create speakers, because we need to create speakers so we can restore intergenerational transmission.
But we need to work on language revitalization at many levels, and another way we need to do is we need to create what I call "good neighbours," and that's really helping young non-Indigenous people to understand the importance of language in Indigenous people's culture, ways of thinking, and also realize that one's Canadian identity or their Canadian identity is built in a relationship with Indigenous people.
And if you really want to understand what it means to be from Canada, you have to understand the Indigenous perspective. And there's no better way, in my opinion, than to learn a language.

Also, with Hawaii being in the news a lot lately, this came to me as well via twitter:
What the Hawaiian language revival means for conservation
Kehau Springer wrote:In Hawai‘i, we have a proverb that says “He aliʻi ka ʻāina, he kauwā ke kanaka”: “The land is a chief, and man is its servant.” In our worldview, there is no separation between nature and people; just as the land takes care of us, we need to take care of the land.
This concept may seem simple, but years of cultural repression following the United States’ takeover of Hawai‘i jeopardized this connection — and we’re only now beginning to restore it. Much of this recovery is due to the resurgence of the Hawaiian language. ... I was born in 1982, only four years after Hawaiian became an official language in Hawaiʻi alongside English. I did not learn Hawaiian until I was 13 years old, and did not become fluent until college. Once I learned my mother tongue, many things began to reveal themselves to me. I was able to understand the meaning behind place names, which often describe characteristics of that landscape or the resources found there. ...As I began to understand Hawaiian place names, these connections became clearer, and it led me to think about how land and oceans were managed and cared for. This was only the beginning of my journey to seek out respected elders and practitioners who continued these traditions.

A language is more than verbs, vocabulary and grammar, it carries a people's culture.
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Re: Preserving Indigenous culture through language

Postby Decidida » Wed May 23, 2018 11:58 pm

iguanamon wrote:A language is more than verbs, vocabulary and grammar, it carries a people's culture.


This post is over 24 hours with no responses, so I am going to take the liberty of going a little sideways with it.

"A language ... carries a people's culture."

When Haiti's schools teach French instead of Creole, what affect does that have on the country's culture? It sure is not good for the literacy rate! But are there even more important issues? Even more important than the critical issue of literacy?

When I skim lists of 50 and 100 languages and do not see the language listed even though it one of the top 10 languages spoken in the USA, I cannot help reacting to that.

My school offers Italian and German and not Creole, despite Creole being spoken so much more often.

I does not make sense to me when a language played a key role in the country's successful revolution, but the language of the old masters is retained. The final conquerers did not enforce their language as THE language.

When Israel became a nation again, they resurrected their language into a modern spoken language.

The old order Amish retain their language at home, even though the children are schooled wholly or partly in English. It is interesting to compare this to the Haitian French speaking schools.

This is not my most organized or clear post. LOL. Oh well.
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Re: Preserving Indigenous culture through language

Postby iguanamon » Thu May 24, 2018 2:20 am

Haitians express themselves very well in their native language, Kreyòl which has the vocabulary for Haitian life and culture. The language is rich in proverbs. There's a saying in Kreyòl about French that describes how French is often used by the powerful in Haiti- "Li pale franse, li bay manti". "He/She speaks French, he/she lies." People were often tricked by government officials or unscrupulous people into signing legal documents only written in French and not fully understood by the majority Creole-speaking population.

Michel DeGraff, of the MIT Haiti Institute, has written extensively about the linguistic situation in Haiti. His position is that children learn best in their native language and that not even their teachers have a full command of French, which is only spoken by 5-10% of the population in Haiti and has been used as the language of education despite the equality of Kreyòl as an official language in the constitution. I wrote about it in my log at HTLAL.

The language is taught at several universities in the US- Indiana University, MIT, Kansas University, Duke, Notre Dame and University of Florida are the main ones, to name a few. I've gotten a lot of my resources from UF, KU and IU. In Miami and South Florida, Kreyòl is the third most spoken language after English and Spanish.

Why doesn't the language get more respect? Part of this is due to the economic situation of Haiti being the poorest country in the Americas and one of the poorest in the world. Part of it lies in the mistaken belief that Creole languages are not "real" languages. This is something that Professor DeGraff fights against every day. Part of his plan is to produce educational materials in math and science written in Kreyòl for use in Haitian schools.

My experience as a "blan" (foreigner) speaking HC is a positive one. The Haitians are a very warm and friendly people who love life. I've only ever received good vibes from Haitians when I speak Kreyòl. In terms of numbers, HC may be the fourth largest language in the Americas when the diaspora is included- after English, Spanish and Portuguese, with French a close fourth.

The linguistic situation is changing, slowly, with Kreyòl playing a bigger role in Haitian life, but it still has a long way to go before all Haitian kids are taught in their native language. Professor DeGraff says that if kids know how their own language works, they can learn other languages easier and better. So, ironically, through teaching in Creole, Creole-speaking kids will be able to learn French as a foreign language much easier. I agree. I can understand a lot of French thanks to Kreyòl and English and my other languages.

You might enjoy learning Kreyòl in reverse from the English instruction program on Lavwadlamerik (VOA Creole) Anglè San Grate Tèt. Sorry there's no transcript. It's all audio. The first lesson will teach you the alphabet and counting- bilingually- you might want to skip the first couple of minutes. The second lesson is how the rest of the series goes with dialogs in English and explanations/translations in Creole. Bòn Chans!
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Re: Preserving Indigenous culture through language

Postby Ani » Thu May 24, 2018 4:06 am

iguanamon wrote:
My experience as a "blan" (foreigner) speaking HC is a positive one. The Haitians are a very warm and friendly people who love life. I've only ever received good vibes from Haitians when I speak Kreyòl. In terms of numbers, HC may be the fourth largest language in the Americas when the diaspora is included- after English, Spanish and Portuguese, with French a close fourth.


I always love your posts. You make me want to add Creole to my list.
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Re: Preserving Indigenous culture through language

Postby Decidida » Thu May 24, 2018 10:39 pm

Thank you for the link, and author name!

The "real language" debates amaze me. The same criteria used to judge Creole are not used to judge other languages. I can see how some groups profit by systematically denying a language, but it seems there is profit for other groups to do the opposite.
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Re: Preserving Indigenous culture through language

Postby Cavesa » Thu May 24, 2018 10:44 pm

Iguanamon, would you mind not tempting me to start learning Creole before my exams? :-D

Now seriously, I love your posts! And this thread, thanks!
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Re: Preserving Indigenous culture through language

Postby Decidida » Thu May 24, 2018 10:57 pm

There is not a study group for Creole, right?
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Re: Preserving Indigenous culture through language

Postby Ani » Thu May 24, 2018 11:54 pm

Decidida wrote:There is not a study group for Creole, right?

I don't believe so but now someone needs to start one.. someone like you :)
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Re: Preserving Indigenous culture through language

Postby iguanamon » Fri May 25, 2018 12:20 am

I could create one, but you and I would be the only members. So, not much point. I'm more than happy to help you any way I can. I was once where you are. I enjoy all my languages, but I really like Kreyòl in a special way. You can PM me any time, or drop by my log.

Francophones can learn Kreyòl easily. The pronunciation is similar but more regular than French. Once pronunciation is learned, the spelling is, thankfully, phonetic: FR souhaiter = swete in Kreyòl, both pronounced almost exactly the same. The grammar is different but much simpler too. There is a small Haitian diaspora in France and to a certain extent in Belgium and Switzerland too. A larger diaspora is in the Miami area, Boston, New York, New Orleans and Montreal. There's also a growing Haitian diaspora in Brazil. Plus, here in the Caribbean, Haitians can be found on every island, even the French islands and French Guyana, legally and illegally.

There are a couple of good learning resources available en français. Assimil has a de poche for HC. There's also the French based course- J'apprends le Créole Haitien/Ann aprann pale kreyòl. The Assimil "le Créole sans peine" course is for Guadeloupean Creole- similar but a different, much smaller population, language spoken in the Lesser Antilles.

J'apprends le Créole Haitien wrote:Mwen manje pen ak zaboka = j'ai mangé du pain avec de l'avocat.
Liv ki la a pa pou vann = le livre qui est là n'est pas à vendre.
Elev yo achte kaye pou fè devwa = les éleves ont acheté des cahiers pour faire des devoirs.
Of course, I can show you Kreyòl that isn't that much like Metropolitan French too.

There are a couple of good learning resources available en français- Assimil has a de poche for HC. There's also the course- J'apprends le Créole Haitien/Ann aprann pale kreyòl. The Assimil le Créole course is for Guadeloupean Creole- similar but a smaller population, different language spoken in Guadeloupe and mutually intelligible to a large extent with Martinican, Guyanan and St Lucian Creoles- Haitian too, but more for native-speakers, along the lines of the Scandinavian languages.

Anyone interested in the education situation and the importance of Kreyòl for education in Haiti can read this interview with MIT Professor Michel DeGraff in English and Kreyòl (great for a parallel text) at the online Woy Magazine Michel DeGraff: Defender of the Kreyòl Language as a Tool for Education and Development and Michel DeGraff: Defansè Lang Kreyòl la Kòm Zouti pou Edikasyon epi Devlòpman.
Last edited by iguanamon on Fri May 25, 2018 2:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Preserving Indigenous culture through language

Postby Systematiker » Fri May 25, 2018 1:47 am

If a Kreyòl study group happens and if there’s an option for my notoriously cheap self, well, I might be up for dabbling in it - I’ve always loved reading it when iguanamon posts in it.
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