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Indigenous lang - cultural appropriation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6127 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 1 of 25 26 April 2015 at 4:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Is learning indigenous language cultural appropriation? I can guess how this crowd is going to come down on this issue, but I thought I'd post here anyway, just to stimulate a little thought on this.
Honestly, myself, I can kind of see the issue, though I don't want to be absolutist about it. Around the world, these communities are hugely threatened and denied resources, and I'm sure it's quite frustrating to run into someone coming in with a missionary type attitude. If you're going to learn these languages, that means seeking these communities and coming to some kind of agreement about the nature of the relationship. http://www.thelanguagedocumentationcrowd.org/blog/2014/8/14/ is-learning-a-minorityindigenous-language-of-another-culture -a-form-of-cultural-appropriation Edited by cathrynm on 26 April 2015 at 4:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4638 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 2 of 25 26 April 2015 at 4:43am | IP Logged | ||
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Cultural appropriation? Isn't the beauty of having different cultures that they can be shared and lived by others?
In fact, if the views of the majority of the indigenous people are accurately described in that article, then in my opinion those cultures and languages deserve to die out. Next, all of the Latino immigrants in America will speak out against people learning Spanish. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6127 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 3 of 25 26 April 2015 at 4:58am | IP Logged | ||
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We might think all languages and cultures should be shared, but that's for us to decide. That's the thing.
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| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5061 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 4 of 25 26 April 2015 at 5:54am | IP Logged | ||
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Learning something is not an act of cultural appropriation. Surely it is a complete absurdity to say that we are
wrong to learn about other cultures out of genuine interest. Typically we are chided for being ignorant and indifferent about how other cultures work! However, knowledge is power, and it seems that some people are conflating the act of learning with the act of learning and then doing something. There are many things you can do with a language once you've learned it, some of which are not problematic (thinking about how human language works in general, writing about the origins of words in your own language which has some loanwords from the indigenous language), some of which are cultural appropriation (using it to construct catchphrases and slogans used in commercial or other self- interest, and that caricature the culture), and some of which are worth discussing (teaching it to other people, writing books in it).
It's not for individuals to decide whether other individuals who speak the same language may or may not share that language with outsiders. People have the right not to cooperate with the documentation of their language, but they don't have the right to prevent others from doing so. They certainly don't have the right to suppress the study of the language after it has been documented. Similarly, each individual has the right to participate or not in academic research on their language. But if other speakers choose to participate in such research, those individuals have no reasonable claim that their own rights are being violated. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4446 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 5 of 25 26 April 2015 at 6:22am | IP Logged | ||
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In the past, people in certain place had policies of assimilation. People are supposed to blend into the
mainstream culture. There was a documentary last week on the Hispanics in Texas on PBS. In the past, students were forbidden to speak Spanish in school. They were discouraged to use their language at home. Nowadays people have a different perception about being bilingual and multilingual as something that will keep your mind active and slow the onset of dementia. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5558 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 6 of 25 26 April 2015 at 6:42am | IP Logged | ||
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Wow, I feel personally saddened when I hear this type of attitude (as quoted in url:http://m.chronicle.com/article/Comanche-Nation-College-T ries/139631, "Comanche Nation College Tries to Rescue a Lost Tribal Language", Katherine Mangan, June 09, 2013):
"People here are protective of the Comanche language...They [the tribeʻs elders] aren't too crazy about white people coming in and learning it." (Todd McDaniels) “I don’t think it’s important for more people to speak the language. It’s important for our people to speak it.” (Sandra Karty) I truly sympathize with the victims of cultural and linguistic oppression, especially when it spans generations of pain and loss, but I have no time at all for genuine racial hatred and xenophobia. Returning hatred for hatred is an ugly and unprogressive thing that leads to nothing but dead ends, and I don't feel it has any rightful place in this day and age. We need to move beyond this. For example, I'm half-Irish myself by birth, and I'm currently trying to learn Irish as a second language as an adult. I wasn't born in Ireland, therefore I'm not strictly indigenous, and my mother and grandparents certainly didn't grow up speaking Irish at home as native speakers, so I'm not sure if I even qualify as a heritage speaker either. However I was raised by a very Irish mother, lived in Ireland as a child for a time, have lots of Irish family, and have acquired a big bagful of Irish mannerisms and ways of thinking or talking along the way - and all that's part of my identity. Furthermore, I love Irish culture and language, and want to not only keep it alive, but see it grow, thrive, and blossom for years to come (it would be terribly sad to let such a unique and amazing perspective of the world fade away after two millennia). But do I have a right to learn Irish as a non-indigenous learner according to this article? Here's another example...I've lived in Hawai'i for almost 3 years, and am currently studying Hawaiian at the local university. I do this, not simply on a white "haole's" whim, but out of the deepest respect for Hawaiian people, culture, and tradition. I get involved as much in the local community as I can, learn about and pay respect to the ancient history and cultural roots of the language, and seek to better understand the Hawaiian perspective of the world both around and within a living community of speakers. I don't see anyone playing the part of the oppressive colonial missionary in any of my classes or these Hawaiian events; just a bunch of friendly kānaka (people) bound together as one big ʻohana (family), trying to keep the language alive and relevant, as well as vibrant and adaptive to the times, and yet true to its roots and the values and beliefs of the kūpuna (ancestors). If it weren't for the wonderful efforts that originated from partnerships between a number of non-native preservationists and native speakers in the 1970s, I don't know what might be left of the Hawaiian language by now. Yet should I now stop learning Hawaiian, simply because I have white skin? Yes, languages change over time, just as communities and even the very landscapes that nurture them change over time. Just take a look at how English has developed through the 11th to 15th century, or how the volcanic islands of Hawaiʻi are still changing and growing, a living ʻāina (land). Look how English is changing within the context of a diverse and rich variety of Englishes around the world, and the way technology, in hand with new and social media, transforms so many aspects of it further. What should we do? Resist all change and let everything that went before die out? And who should be the privileged shareholders of a language? Just people with a certain percentage of "pure blood" or a certain shade of skin colour - what is this, the House of Slytherine? Sorry to vent, but I'm right on the same page as sillygoose1 in the post above, "Isn't the beauty of having different cultures that they can be shared and lived by others?" Edited by Teango on 26 April 2015 at 9:20am 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5132 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 7 of 25 26 April 2015 at 8:38am | IP Logged | ||
As someone who's been studying Ojibwe for a few years now, I can say that I've run into this attitude a couple of times. But I've also run into Ojibwe people that are fine with it too. The bigger problem is actually finding people that can speak the language. Most of the Ojibwe people around these parts don't really know the language themselves, except for a few words and language related to ceremonial things (and there are many - I live between two Ojibwe reservations). I have a good friend that is half Ojibwe from her father's side, and she will readily tell you that her father actively shielded her from the language and a lot of the culture, due to his own upbringing (sent to boarding school where kids were harshly punished for speaking Ojibwe.) She now has some mild interest in the language herself, but not really enough to actually learn it. I do think there is good news as far as a new generation of kids learning the language though. There are several immersion schools for kids that teach solely in Ojibwe, and if you go a bit further north of me, there are even bilingual signs in a couple of the towns. These kids are being taught that the language can and should be used for communication, not just ceremonial gatherings. While I don't think the language will ever reach the usage seen in the 1800s between Ojibwe and whites (it was sort of a lingua franca around the great lakes), it's encouraging that these immersion schools are admitting kids of all races. R. == 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 8 of 25 26 April 2015 at 1:38pm | IP Logged | ||
Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I'd say it's a case of oppression giving you some minor perks. Like benevolent sexism for example. The upside of speaking a "weird and incomprehensible" language is that it can become secret and/or sacred. If the people had been treated respectfully from the beginning, the language simply wouldn't have developed such a status. 8 persons have voted this message useful |
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