|
 |
Indigenous lang - cultural appropriation | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 9 of 25 26 April 2015 at 1:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
I wanted to use that bloody quote. You took the words from my mouth.
As for the language, the community that speaks it has the right to decide what to do with it. If they don't want it spread, they don't - but of course that will have consequences. If that is their choice, so be it. We don't have to understand it. We may feel more morally enlightened, maybe we even are right in our considerations; but it is not up to us to decide. 5 persons have 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 10 of 25 26 April 2015 at 2:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
But who are they to say that only so and so people can learn it? If there are learning materials available for it, obviously at least one of their own people disagreed with that ideology when they helped write a course for said language. It's no one's fault from this era how they were treated in the past. Most white Americans' ancestors immigrated here in the 18/1900s. For them to be so xenophobic and short sighted that they can say only certain people should learn their language is incredibly backwards thinking. What about other minorities for example? Are they "allowed" to learn it? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4846 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 11 of 25 26 April 2015 at 4:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Remember that your language is an important part of your identity, in this case as a Native American. I think it's undisputed that Native American culture has been endangered by white culture since the first settlers arrived. A lot of things which were unique to the way of living of many Native American peoples have been lost and so has a big part of their identity.
Their language, being completely different from English or even Spanish, is one of the few things they still perceive as "their own", as the one thing that gives them their identity. Some white guys trying to learn their language might be perceived as unwelcome intrusion in their community, taking away from them the one thing which makes them feel Comanche, Ojibwe, Sioux or whatever. Telling them they have no right to decide with whom they want to share their identity is patronising and obnoxious. Not wanting to share one's cultural identity with other people might be narrow-minded, but it's absolutely understandable given the history of Native American people and European settlers. For my part, I'm starting to learn Hebrew right now and although I hope I would be welcome in Israel and that my efforts to understand Israeli culture and language would be appreciated, I nevertheless wouldn't be surprised if some Israelis would react irritatedly and maybe even cautious to a German learning their language. Germans and Jews have a more than complicated history and although we all want to leave the past behind us, we can't do so by decree. A person's or a people's experiences are their experiences and they can't simply forget and ignore them. Telling them they have no right to feel the way they feel is, once again, patronizing and hurtful. You might convince them of your pure intentions slowly and carefully, but you can't tell them they have no right to keep their culture to themselves when their experience tells them otherwise. In other words, everything they had has been taken from them, so why should they want to share the one thing that belongs genuinely to them without fearing it might be taken from them as well? Edited by Josquin on 26 April 2015 at 4:41pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| chaotic_thought Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 3544 days ago 129 posts - 274 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, French | Message 12 of 25 26 April 2015 at 5:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes, language can be part of your identity. But what you're saying is that if you have a particular skin colour X, then you're not allowed to learn language Y. But who decided this rule? For example, suppose some people saw me speaking Spanish, and they sincerely felt in their heart that my ability to speak Spanish was intruding on their identity (since my skin colour is different from theirs). Does that mean that I am not allowed to learn Spanish anymore? Does it mean that my interest in the language and ability to understand it is somehow insensitive to them or something? Obviously that's ridiculous. Anyone is allowed to learn Spanish if he or she wants to. The only difference between Spanish and tribal languages is the population count of the language communities. Is there a particular number of speakers that a language community must have before it becomes "permitted" for non-native speakers to also study that language!?? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4846 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 13 of 25 26 April 2015 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Have you even bothered to read my post before commenting? If not, please do so. It's not about skin colour or number of speakers, but about the history two language communities share. Obviously, some Native Americans don't trust Whites because of the experiences their people made with them. That has nothing to do with anything you asked.
Also, I didn't say learning the language was intrusive per se. I said telling a community that they have no right to keep their language to themselves was patronizing. Once again, please read my post before randomly commenting! Thank you. EDIT: By the way, the obvious difference between Spanish and a tribal language is that the first is a major world language spoken by billions of people, while the latter are minority languages spoken within a country that has a different official language. These minorities may have been oppressed by the majority, as is the case with Native Americans. That's the real problem here. Ignoring their feelings is simply insensitive. Edited by Josquin on 26 April 2015 at 5:23pm 8 persons have 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 14 of 25 26 April 2015 at 5:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
But that brings me back to my other point. Would they think it's ok for non-whites to learn their languages and be accepted into their culture? People have to get over the imperialistic past and move on. Sure, in a perfect world everyone would've stayed in their own continents centuries ago and maybe there would be a bit more peace in the world but that's not the case. If we want to make the best of what we have today and everyone wants to claim to be "tolerant" and "multicultural", that's what we need to be. No exceptions.
In that article, they expressed straight up racism and xenophobia against at least one whole race with at least a billion people spread across different continents with different backgrounds and that's extremely backwards behavior. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5264 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 15 of 25 26 April 2015 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
This is an interesting discussion. I am not Jewish nor Hispanic, yet I am learning Ladino (Djudeo Espanyol). There are, according to estimates, about 100,000 people left in the world who can speak the language and none of them are monolingual.
My interactions with Ladino speakers have been exclusively via the written word. The ones I have corresponded with are pleased to see someone from outside their community taking an interest in their language and culture. They have nothing to fear from me "usurping" their culture. I won't be writing songs, starting a blog or writing a book in Ladino. I just want to learn more about a people and culture I admire. Ladino is on its last legs with a primarily elderly population left as the last speakers. There are efforts underway to maintain the language as a living means of communication within the community. There are online magazines, a forum- ladinokomunita and rising academic interest. As a non-heritage speaker, I don't feel the need to participate in the Ladinokomunita forum as actively as I do here. For me, I think that would be inappropriate. If I knew or met someone in person who spoke Ladino, I would love to have the opportunity to engage with them in their language and to learn from them. In a culture where a language is tied as closely to identity as to religion, I can only go so far, even sharing a skin color. Not being Jewish, there is only so much I can understand on a deep level. Ladino was born out of the Jewish diaspora expelled from Iberia in the 15th and 16th centuries. It was influenced to a large extent by a multilingual society in the Ottoman Empire- Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Greek, Italian and French to some extent. I speak none of those languages and know none of the nuances, nor do I have a deep enough understanding of Judaism to fully play with Ladino in the way a native-speaker can. If the language were listed here on the forum, I would move it to basic fluency, but I will never be as advanced in Ladino as I am in my other languages. I am content with learning about a bygone culture that kept itself together after a horrible injustice and maintained (and maintaining) their traditions and language by taking what they liked from the cultures and languages around them. Does appreciation make me a usurper? I don't think so. If I tried to be high-profile and claim to be on an equal level to them (as I cannot), most likely it would. Most of the Native American languages in the US do not have the literary history that Ladino has nor speakers numbering in the low six figure range. Those interested in reviving Native American languages are trying to reintroduce a language that has already truly died as an actively spoken one or may have a native speaker range in single or double digits left at most. In this situation, a learner from outside the culture and one from within, start out at the same level. It could perhaps be possible that the outside learners/speakers could be close to equal or, conceivably, outnumber those from within the language's own culture, given the low numbers of people in th pool of those interested in learning. Then, in that case, whose language is it? I think that's where the rub is. I don't believe that should stop an outsider from learning or studying a Native American language because of intellectual curiosity. I do believe that those who do so should not try to claim equality with those who want to make their ancestors languages live again amongst their own people in a way that is most meaningful to them. So, do the "owners" get to choose who learns their language? Obviously, if materials are freely available, no. They do get to choose with whom they wish to interact. So while I may be free to download a Comanche course and learning materials, I may not be welcome to go to the reservation and attend classes and interact. At least not while the language revitalization is nascent. I recently posted here about the revival of an 'extinct' language-Manx. I wouldn't feel any qualms about learning Manx. My daughter was born on the Isle of Man and she and her brother have Manx heritage from their mother who is half Manx. It would extend my horizons in the same way my other languages have done. The Manx schools that are teaching in the language are open to anyone of any heritage. So, I don't think that my speaking Manx would be an issue on the IOM. It is also, like Ladino part of a Western culture. The Native American fears come from a long history of usurpation. Remember, the indigenous population of the Americas started out with the whole continent of America (North and South) and are now left only with small pockets of territory remaining. Still, that being said, I don't think Native American tribes have too much to worry about when it comes to outsiders usurping their languages. The track record of beginners is that most people fail at language-learning even with all the resources in the world at their fingertips. The odds of outsiders without a huge motivation surpassing those within the culture who do have the motivation to honor their own people and learn a language that is part of their history and their own identity are pretty slim, indeed. Edited by iguanamon on 27 April 2015 at 1:52am 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4846 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 16 of 25 26 April 2015 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm quite sure they wouldn't.
As I said, we all strive to forget the past, but we can't tell anybody to do so. Moving on is the one thing, but that doesn't mean that the past can be forgotten and is over once and for all. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Of course, it would be positive if Native Americans and WASPs could forgive each other, but Native Americans are disadvantaged till this very day. As I said, it's patronizing to tell an underprivileged person to forgive all the harm that was done to them when you are in a priviledged position yourself. This brings me to the next point:
The problem with racism, sexism, and every other -ism is that it's not racism if you have prejudices against the privileged group that oppresses the minority. The Native Americans are not discriminating against WASPs, they are trying to protect themselves (and their language and identity) against them. Also, you need to understand traditional cultures, which may not share the same values you have. That's the whole point of intercultural contact and diplomacy and crucial when dealing with non-Western cultures. You can't expect everybody to share your own world view and values. Expecting them to act according to your mindset is, once again, patronizing. That was the whole point of the article the OP linked to. You might simply want to dabble in a language, because you think it's exotic and you somehow like it. But what you don't understand is what it means to the people whose native language it is. We as Westerners tend to forget that there are very different cultures with very different mindsets on this planet, so simply learning a language, even in order to document it, might be intrusive or patronizing if you don't really care for the culture it belongs to. 8 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
