The Development of “New” Languages in Native American Communities

Abstract

I’ve been attending the annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Conference (SILC) since 1999, and have presented papers there every year. SILC is a unique conference that brings together educators and researchers of indigenous languages (mostly Native American ones), most of whom work in and for programs at the primary and secondary levels. The conference program focuses on what’s being done in various communities to reintroduce, revitalize, or stabilize indigenous languages. A great deal of effort is going into Native American language programming. Dictionaries and grammar books, although still sometimes used, have been replaced in many schools with immersion-type programs and interactive computer software. The sheer volume of available materials and the commitment of those who dedicate themselves to keeping Native American languages alive are impressive. Invariably though, when asked about the level of fluency of students coming out of these programs, presenters claim that the languages are not very strong, that almost everywhere they’re “dying out” and being replaced by English. This is disturbing, especially when there is widespread sentiment that one’s language is intimately related to one’s cultural identity. Why aren’t these programs working when so much is at stake and so much tireless devotion is put into the goal of keeping these languages alive?\nVarious reasons have been proposed. Most have to do with the experiences of Native American children in government-operated residential and boarding schools, where Native languages were forbidden, and Euro-American society infiltrated almost every aspect of Native American life (through such media as television). In most Native American communities, the ancestral language has not been learned by anyone as a mother tongue for many years, and the responsibility for teaching the language to children has been placed on schools.\nSo when children are taught their ancestral language at school, they’re already speaking another language, usually English. Learning the structures of their ancestral language is difficult for them because these structures will be quite different from those of English; however, learning vocabulary is easier for them.

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