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Language Shift, Language Death���Language Revival, Language Revitalization Four Examples

Cathy O’Connor & Katie Franich LX 340 Language Myths  

Revival; Revitalization…���Bringing something back to life, or bringing back its vitality

An incredibly complex undertaking…

To understand why it’s complex,

we have to ask certain things about a particular case of language revitalization:

To understand the challenge of language revitalization:

•What are you trying to revitalize?

•How far gone is the variety you are trying to revitalize? What do you have to work with?

•What does it mean to revitalize it? What are you trying to accomplish?

• Who are you? Who’s in this effort with you?

• Why are you trying to do this?

>>But first, an antecedent question: ��� why did the language stop being used? ��� How did it become moribund?

A first case: Northern Pomo

An indigenous language of Northern California, spoken for thousands of years in the valleys around the Russian River….

Potter Valley, CA Potter Valley, CA

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Mrs. Edna Campbell Guerrero 1907-1995 When Edna was a child, around 1915, everyone in her family and community spoke Northern Pomo.

In 1995, when she died at age 89, none of her grandchildren spoke the language.

Her children’s generation understood, but didn’t speak fluently, and didn’t know many words and constructions.

Her grandchildren knew a few words…

What happened?

Russians

Spanish

Masan (White people)

So why would this influx of White People make the Pomo people stop speaking their language?

Edna’s grandmother (saw the Spaniards arrive)

Edna’s mother (forced march to Covelo)

Edna (segregated schools; Indian schools)

Edna’s daughter (de facto segregation)

Edna’s granddaughter (1960s--still signs “No Indians”)

Edna’s great-granddaughter

To understand the challenge of language revitalization:

•How far gone is it? What do you have to work with?

Fluent speakers? A few elderly speakers Written texts? No. No writing system.

•What could it mean to revitalize it? Knowledge of the lexicon and basic grammar? The subtleties of the language? Knowledge of culturally important words? Basic fluency? For who? How many?

To understand the challenge of language revitalization:

•Whatever level of revitalization you aim for, how will you teach it?

Most language teaching presumes a written form of the language, just for convenience. How do you teach a spoken language to adults with no written materials?

Step 1: How do you construct an orthography that will capture the important phonological distinctions of the language?

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This  layout  compares  sounds/le4ers  in  isola5on  and  in  words  

Mrs. Edna Campbell Guerrero

dog   hayu   the  dog   hayu nam  

basket   phik'a  

To understand the challenge of language revitalization:

•What are you trying to revitalize?

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Mrs. Elenor Stevenson Gonzales 1905 - 2004 Not from Potter Valley… “That’s not my dialect”  

To understand the challenge of language revitalization:

•What are you trying to revitalize?

•How far gone is it? What do you have to work with?

•What does it mean to revitalize it? What are you trying to accomplish?

• Who are you? Who’s in this effort with you?

• Why are you trying to do this?

At the Senior Citizens’ Barbeque “Why are you trying to steal our old people’s stories?

To understand the challenge of language revitalization

(Pomo person about my age to me) “Why are you trying to steal our old people’s stories?”

(“Old Lady” to Edna)

“Why are you selling our language?

It should die with us.”

(Young person to Edna)

“Why didn’t you all teach us the language?”

To understand the challenge of language revitalization

Language ideology:

"self-evident ideas and objectives a group holds concerning roles of language in the social experiences of members as they contribute to the expression of the group" (Heath:53) and "the cultural system of ideas about social and linguistic relationships, together with their loading of moral and political interests”(Irvine:255) ���

Woolard & Schieffelin (1994)

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To understand the challenge of language revitalization

Linguist: “We must revitalize this language. The people should know their language.”

Person: “The children should become totally proficient in the socially dominant language as their key to higher education and a better life.”

Person: “The language is part of our cultural heritage and our children should learn it, even though we didn’t.”

A second case: Classical Hebrew

A spoken language for a thousand years until the 2nd or 3rd century CE….

Modern Hebrew: ���A Study in Language Revival (ca. 1890-1914)

•  Classical Hebrew gradually ceased to be a spoken language some time after the 2nd or 3rd Century CE

•  But Hebrew remained a high prestige liturgical language learned by Jewish males for daily religious services

•  It was used as the medium of the secular “Haskala [enlightenment] literature” in the late 18th to mid-19th century

To understand the challenge of language revitalization

•What are you trying to revitalize?

•How far gone is the variety you are trying to revitalize? What do you have to work with?

•What does it mean to revitalize it? What are you trying to accomplish?

• Who are you? Who’s in this effort with you?

• Why are you trying to do this?

The Zionist Movement: ���Return to Palestine •  In the late 19th century, Jews from many different

language backgrounds (i.e., Slavic, Germanic, etc.) came to settle in Palestine (the “Babel Generation”)

•  They needed a common language for communication and for cultural cohesion

•  They had Yiddish, but attitudes towards Yiddish were largely negative, while attitudes towards Hebrew were highly positive

‘Corpus Planning’ in Hebrew •  Vernacularization of Hebrew was initiated by

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda who immigrated to Palestine in 1881

•  Although the vocabulary and written form of Modern Hebrew remained Semitic, European syntax was often adopted

•  In order to modernize the language, borrowing from European languages, Palestinian Arabic, and more recently American English occurred.

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Micro language Planning: Revival as a Grassroots Effort (Nahir, 1998)

•  Settlement schoolteachers developed total immersion programs for pre-school children

•  Gradually through reinforcement and social reward, Hebrew became a peer language and child-to-adult transmission began to occur

•  Within one or two decades, this generation began raising their children with Hebrew as a first language

A “Success Story”… •  In 1922, Hebrew became an official language in

British-ruled Palestine along with English and Arabic

•  In 1948, Hebrew became the official language of the newly declared state of Israel --along with Arabic

•  Hebrew is the only language known to be fully and successfully revived. It has been called “unique, unprecedented, and even ‘miraculous.’” (Nahir, 1998)

To understand the challenge of language revitalization

•How far gone is the language? What do you have to work with?

•What does it mean to revitalize it? What are you trying to accomplish?

• Why are you trying to do this?

• Who are you? Who’s in this effort with you?

A third case: K’ichee’ Maya  

One of 30 Mayan languages spoken in Central America for over 1000 years

•  Mayan language family comprised of around 30 languages spoken in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras •  Some languages are quite robust while

others are highly endangered – K’ichee’, Yucatec ~ 1,000,000 speakers –  Itzaj ~ 30 fluent speakers

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Language Ideologies: The Case of Mayan Languages

•  Many children are not learning the languages, even in more robust language communities

•  Seen to be a hindrance to the modernization of Guatemalan society

•  Mayan worldview and spiritual practices were equated with a type of witchcraft

The Maya ‘Movement’

•  A movement in Guatemala started around the mid-1980s to promote Mayan culture and language

•  Several organizations formed to study and and publish resources in Mayan languages

•  Promotion of bilingual education and creation of private ‘Maya schools’

Ajb’atz’ Enlace Quiché

•  NGO partnering with the Ministry of Education to bring technology to rural Guatemala, facilitate training of bilingual teachers, and create teaching materials in Mayan languages

Mayan Language Ideology

•  Many Mayas believe that speaking the language is a defining characteristic of ‘being Maya’ –Strong culture-language connection helps in language preservation during times of oppression

–Defining the Maya movement in terms of ‘culture’ made it less threatening to government officials

Mayan Language Ideology (cont.)

•  A strong cultural connection to language also creates very deep pride for individuality in language identity – Pride in dialect differences

•  This can be difficult when trying to ‘standardize’ a variety of a language – Promoting cross-dialectal ‘synonyms’

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Mayan Language Ideology (cont.)

•  Even more difficult when creating an orthography

– How to decide on a form if two different dialects are equally valid?

– Choosing the more ‘conservative’ form –More complete form –Older form –Form most easily interpreted by the majority of speakers

Mayan  Language  Ideology  (cont.)  

•  Ex.  Use  of  long  vowels  in  K’ichee’  

(1)        you  plant  the  cornfield  the  cornfield  is  planted  

Dialect  1    kaaEk  ri  ab’iix        kaEk  ri  ab’iix  Dialect  2    kaEk  ri  ab’iix        katiik  ri  ab’iix  

(adapted  from  England  (2003)  ,  p.  736)  

A fourth case: Medumba  

One of Cameroon’s 230 mother tongues…

•  There  are  currently  around  210,000  speakers  of  Medumba,  a  Grassfields  Bantoid  language  

• Many  young  people  are  not  learning  to  speak  the  

language  as  French  becomes  more  widely  spoken  NaEonal  RecogniEon  of  Indigenous  

Languages  of  Cameroon  

•  Rewrite  of  ConsEtuEon  in  1996  to  reflect  an  ‘endeavor  to  promote  and  protect  naEonal  languages’  

•  Parliamentary  bill  for  teaching  of  naEonal  languages  in  schools  in  1998  (Anchimbe,  2006)  

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NaEonal  RecogniEon  of  Indigenous  Languages  of  Cameroon  

•  Previous  to  this,  children  were  not  allowed  to  speak  their  languages  in  school,  and  would  be  punished  if  they  a[empted  to  do  so    

•  Comité  de  Langue  pour  l'Etude  et  la  ProducEon  des  oeuvres  Bamiléké  Medumba  (CEPOM)  

•  l'AssociaEon  NaEonale  des  Commissions  de  Langues  Camerounaises  

Challenges  at  the  Local  Level  for  Medumba  

•  Again,  mulEple  dialects  to  consider  in  developing  a  ‘standard’  form  of  Medumba  

General Challenges to Language Promotion in Cameroon

•  Lack of resources allocated for language development

•  Many more languages in competition for these resources

•  Very little external support for teaching of languages in school; efforts are still at the level of ‘grassroots’

General Challenges to Language Promotion in Cameroon

•  Communication and networking is difficult at this stage due to limits on internet availability

•  Language development is not a high priority among aid organizations, particularly given the enormous amount of linguistic diversity in Cameroon and in Africa in general

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Sources  

 Anchimbe,  E.  (2006).  FuncEonal  seclusion  and  the  future  of  indigenous  languages  in  Africa:  The  case  of  Cameroon.  Selected  Proceedings  of  the  35th  Annual  Conference  on  African  LinguisEcs,  ed.  John  Mugane  et  al.,  94-­‐103.  Somerville,  MA:  Cascadilla  Proceedings  Project.  

 England,  N.  (2003).  Mayan  language  revival  and  revitalizaEon  poliEcs:  Linguists  and  linguisEc  ideologies.    American  Anthropologist,  105(4):733-­‐743.  

A first case: Northern Pomo

Questions?