North American Indigenous Language Resources

All about language programs, courses, websites and other learning resources
galaxyrocker
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Re: North American Indigenous Language Resources

Postby galaxyrocker » Tue Jun 07, 2022 8:44 pm

lowsocks wrote:It is terrible when languages die, but from stories I have read, usually the last few speakers are willing to work with linguists, to see that their language is at least documented. The situation you describe sounds very unusual. Even if they could not care less about outsiders, their decision would seem to deprive their descendants of any accurate knowledge of their ancestors' language.


I'll see if I can find it -- I read it on r/linguistics years ago (like, probably closer to a decade than 5 years even). Their reasoning was basically because linguists kept asking and they felt it was the last thing they had of their tribe that they had control over, if that makes sense. They said it was a loss for their descendants, but rather than give it up just because colonisers think they should study it, they'd rather it die with them as basically a sign of rebellion against that.
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kundalini
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Re: North American Indigenous Language Resources

Postby kundalini » Wed Jun 08, 2022 5:23 pm

galaxyrocker wrote:It's often because linguists didn't approach it respectfully that we have these issues to being with. It's a lasting effect of colonialism, and these people's relationships with their language is much different than we have with ours (same for most minority/endangered/indigenous languages, honestly). See the whole deal with the Lakota Consortium, where they willingly talked to someone...who then refuses to give them any of the stuff back, and copyrighted it all and got federal grants himself, none of which went to the Lakota people. That's a huge injustice, and, honestly, we shouldn't be promoting that.

Also, why would someone want to learn a language where it's clear the speakers would prefer it to be kept to only people with ties to the language? To me, it just reeks of entitlement: "I don't care what's happened to you and your language in the past, but I, with absolutely no connection to you, deserve to be able to learn it if I want to, regardless of whether you want me to or not."


Are you sure that the Lakota (or other tribes) would want you to speak on their behalf? If you sincerely care about this issue, it would be best for you to contact them directly and see whether they're OK with the links that have been posted.
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Re: North American Indigenous Language Resources

Postby rdearman » Thu Jun 09, 2022 4:16 pm

księżycowy has redacted some links, and I would ask everyone to consider this matter closed. księżycowy is the maintainer of the resource list and if they have deemed it appropriate to redact some links then so be it, if they decide to keep links then that is also their decision as the maintainer of the resources page.

The policy of this forum is we allow the publication of links to legal materials. So a link to materials legally sold while potentially controversial wouldn't be removed by the moderation team. For example, Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov to download from a sharing site would be removed, however a link to the Amazon book page would not regardless of the fact many people find this book offensive.
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księżycowy
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Re: North American Indigenous Language Resources

Postby księżycowy » Fri Jun 24, 2022 3:35 pm

Here is a link to the Doyon Foundation that has a partnership with Transparent Language and has produced language lessons in several Alaskan Athabascan languages for free online.

https://doyonfoundation.com/language/do ... es-online/

I'll put in in the list properly a bit later.

EDIT: And here is a site for learning the extinct Eyak language while I'm at it: http://eyakpeople.com/project
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