Posted on 07/09/2008 10:11:17 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
"We're talking about an emergency situation," said Richard Grounds, a speaker of the Euchee language and co-organizer of the meeting, held at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology.
The youngest person to grow up speaking Euchee as a first language is now 78, said Grounds, a professor at the University of Tulsa. The rest are in their 80s...
Languages seem to be going extinct like species of plants and animals. That comparison holds up pretty well, except that languages can occasionally be brought back to life.
Growing up in Ohio, Daryl Baldwin said he was told that the language of his Miami tribe was extinct, but he did not accept that. As an adult, he set about digging up all available records and teaching himself...
While the academics see these languages as windows into the human mind, the American Indians see them as a way to reconnect to their heritage and to the ancestors who used them.
"In the next few years, my tribal community will either see our language restored to a new generation, or we will bury it forever in the grave of our last few elderly speakers," Jacob Manatowa-Bailey said of the Oklahoma-based Sauk language.
(Excerpt) Read more at indiancountry.com ...
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If they are willing to make the effort on their own, then I say more power to them.
However, I have read that well-meaning efforts at “bilingual” education in the bush villages of Alaska has raised a generation of Alaskan natives who cannot speak properly in either English or their tribal tongues.
Government has to stay out of it, either way.
Agreed.
I certainly don’t care to contribute tax dollars to “save” a language that apparently has no useful purpose.
Just because something exists doesn’t make it “worthy” of heroic and expensive efforts to save it.
Except for a motivated single academic or so that can persuade a graduate student There will be no speakers, there will be no such language. The people and the language were absorbed and are extinct
Languages as well as plant and animal species go extinct all the time. It’s only recently that we’ve got our panties in a bunch over it.
I don’t see any problem with that. Those people all speak English already. It’s not like immigrants who don’t want to have to learn English or be part of American society. More like just learning Latin or something.
Wycliffe Bible Translators does a great job in this area...........
According to Wiki; the island nation of New Guinea has 12% of the world’s languages—about 850 languages for 12 million people, many more a hundred years ago.
Because of it’s isolated, jungled, mountainous interior, each valley evolved its own distinctive language and culture, in all honesty, does anyone think THAT’S worth preserving?
Yes, and I am sending money on a regular basis to Wycliffe to do just that.
One of my best friends is working there on a Bible translation project.
If it doesn’t interfere with them having a productive life, why not. I think everyone should learn to speak the language of their country but if they already speak that, then it’s no skin off my nose if they also speak other ones. I don’t have a problem with anybody who speaks English and then also wants to go learn some Indian language or something. If they were refusing to learn English and trying to make us pay to translate drivers licenses for them, then I’d have the problem, but I don’t see anything wrong with English-speaking Americans wanting to learn how to say something in their ancestors language during their spare time, whether that’s Polish or some Indian language or anything else.
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“In the next few years, my tribal community will either see our language restored to a new generation, or we will bury it forever in the grave of our last few elderly speakers,” Jacob Manatowa-Bailey said of the Oklahoma-based Sauk language.”
So what’s the gripe? It’s your language heritage, teach it. It’s your responsibility, not society or the government. No one is stopping anyone from speaking another language. But if you claim the rights of an American, you better speak English as well or just shut up.
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