When Lucille Watahomigie began to work as an elementary school teacher in Peach Springs in northwestern Arizona, the principal forbade the use of her native Hualapai language in the schoolroom. But moved by the struggles of children who spoke Hualapai and were having a hard time learning English, she defied the ban, translating words and ideas between the two languages. (New York Times, 1-08-91)
Seventeen years ago, a variety of tribal languages were taught in schools around the country.
Mohawk is taught at a school in upstate New York, Lakota at elementary schools and a community college on the Oglala Sioux reservation in South Dakota, Kickapoo at a preschool in Oklahoma, Choctaw in Mississippi, Oneida in Wisconsin, Ute in Utah. Suzan Shown Harjo, president of the Morningstar Foundation, a Washington-based organization promoting Indian causes, says 14 radio stations offer Indian-language broadcasts -- Navajo in Arizona, Zuni in New Mexico and Lakota in South Dakota. (Ibid)
In the face of dying languages, other languages are evolving, replicating and transforming themselves. Unfortunately, many of us do not believe that the evolution of language is a good thing. We’re uncomfortable with the idea and dig our heels in at the very idea that language changes, broadens its horizons, and evolves—or dies.
While other languages are slowly fading out of existence, American English remains strong and vibrant—so vibrant that its evolution threatens many of its hidebound speakers—so vibrant that its complexity masks a dangerous potential for social engineering.
We pick at accents, make fun of colloquialisms and assume that our version of the language is the proper one. In the process, we have created a nasty scenario for using language to disguise social engineering, propaganda and mind control.
An educator noted language manipulation and clichés have long been used by governments to promulgate dangerous polices. Under the cover of euphemisms, homespun colloquialisms and nuance, language has long been used as a weapon.
Orwell warns us that clichéd and pretentious language is more than a stylistic nuisance -- it also obscures the truth. Such language is potentially dangerous. It has been used by governments to manipulate public opinion in support of destructive policies. (Jeffrey H. Morgan, “The Rhetoric of Hate”)
As a multi-lingual person myself, I have always been interested in languages, their characteristics and differences, and questions such as what it means for a world view to be reflected in a language, and even whether "philosophical theses are relative to language". There are differences even amongst European languages, possible reflecting differences in national character. Think of France; to my mind it's a "static" nation, reflected in French lacking propositions of motion and emphasising the (abstract) noun and often taking it as the basis for constructing the agent and the action (don't quote me on this, and no disrespect for the French: I personally love their language). English is perfectly suited to computers, business, anything that moves across the world, and is a very adaptive language (strangely it has also become the language of New Age, personal development, etc., and, significantly, it's the language of pop songs - some of these points were remarked on in a recent article in, I believe, Time Magazine). My native Holland is in many respect a wonderful country, but it's a small nation in size, and the Dutch concisouness of small is never far away. There isn't a language that I know that so readily uses the diminutive of words. The Dutch will say: I have a little house ("huisje") and a little job ("baantje") somewhere - English hardly knows the diminutive of words ("startlet", and "piglet" come to mind, but in words like "laundrette" the meaning is changed.) Certainly the interests of a people are reflected in their language - think of the many words for rice in Asian languages, and for snow in Eskimo. Apparently native American Indian languages are very different from European language in that their conception of time is different and reflected in their language: instead of talking about a new dawn breaking/a new day arriving, they talk about the same day reappearing, and therefore, instead of our preoccupation with record-keeping of events in the past, they are interested in preparing, presumably to go through the day in a better way than they did last time. Apparently native Americans are also much more aware of the rhythms of nature, and therefore have verbal forms, endings and particles, which denote slow rhythms, sharp rhythms, sudden one-off events, etc. The person who wrote about this was Benjamin Lee Whorf, in the first part of last century. I agree, the disappearance of languages, and the world view and approaches to life in the minds of the speakers of these languages, is something that should cause regret.
Sydney, Australia
by
Robert Hoogenboom (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 165 comments)
on Sunday, January 27, 2008 at 3:12:39 AM
Thass Otay--I'm not planning a sex transplant in the near future. Monica
All joking aside though, in the many years that I have been frying minds and confusing people on the internet, I have noticed that many of us do not communicate as well as we should with the written word and that others do not comprehend what they are reading. Many times my own work has not hit the point I thought I was making, and, just for the heck of it, just to make sure I said what i thought I said--using standard english, I've often reread my pieces. I dunno if it is an education thang, a perception thing, or what, but there are a lot of folk out there who are not fluent in their alleged mother tongue.
by
M. Davis (39 articles, 2 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 137 comments)
on Monday, January 28, 2008 at 2:22:07 PM
