Spilyqy Tymoo, VVrro Springs, Oregon November 15, 2001
THE CONFEDERATED TRIBES LANGUAGE LESSON
Effective solutions for reversing the loss of American Indian
and Alaska Native languages must be found and imple
mented soon. Both indecision and ineffective action will not
reverse the current rapid loss of surviving indigenous lan
guages. This rationale and needs statement documents the importance
of indigenous languages as an irreplaceable cultural knowl
edge and as a cornerstone of indigenous community and
family values. It gives an overview of past government
policies to eradicate indigenous languages and then describes
the reversal of those policies with the new policy of Indian
self-determination over the last quarter century. Tribal
, language policies arc cited as evidence of the desire of
American Indians and Alaska Natives to preserve and renew
their languages. (
The rationale and needs working group was in agreement
with the Roundtable's keynoter Joshua Fishman that efforts
to save languages must ultimately deal with the
intcrgcnerational transmission of mother-tongues. This is, to
a large extent, a family and community issue. Exclusive
focus on education and schools can compound, rather than
solve, the problem of language shift. Groups who are suc
ceeding in saving their language have found ways to revital
ize and stabilize their speech community. In these cases,
schools play a role, but the community is the primary focus
of action.
Stabilizing an endangered language touches all aspects of a
community from child-rearing practices and
intergenerational communication to economic and political
development. Helping indigenous Americans develop the
effective right to save their languages would likely produce
important benefits, not only for the various tribes on the
brink of destruction but for all societies. An investment in
Indian languages that would be large enough, come fast
enough, and be well-enough planned to make a difference
would likely prove to be an extremely effective investment in
terms of addressing pressing national and international
problems.
Language as Irreplaceable Cultural Knowledge
Many of the keys to the psychological, social, and physical
survival of humankind may well be held by the smaller
speech communities of the world. These keys will be lost as
languages and cultures die. Our languages are joint creative
productions that each generation adds to. Languages contain
generations of wisdom, going back into antiquity. Our
languages contain a significant part of the world's knowledge
and wisdom. When a language is lost, much of the knowl
edge that language represents is also gone. Our words, our
ways of saying things are different ways of being, thinking,
Jjeeing, and acting. In the words of anthropologist Russell
Bernard;':' 'W'pf?:'' f .. .5
Linguistic diversity ... is at least the corre
late of (though not the cause of) diversity of
. adaptational ideas ideas about transfer
ring property (or even the idea of property
itself), curing illness, acquiring food, raising
; children, distributing power, or settling
I disputes. By this reasoning, any reduction of
; language diversity diminishes the adapta
; tional strength of our species because it
i lowers the pool of knowledge from which
! we can draw. We know that the reduction of
i biodiversity today threatens all of us. I think
we are conducting an experiment to see what
J will happen to humanity if we eliminate
i "cultural species" in the world. This is a
! reckless experiment. If we don't like the way
J it turns out, there's no going back. (1992, p.
! 82)
! Where American Indians are concerned, for
' example, tremendous contributions have
I been made to the mainstream society in
many areas including agriculture, gover
nance, art, and philosophy (Weatherford,
1988 & 1991). If the natural world survives
the next few centuries, much will be owed to
, the insights and perspectives of American
Indians and other indigenous groups. Unfor
tunately, the Indian communities that have
survived until now may be extinct by then.
A vicious cycle persists that is very difficult to break. Lack
of community infrastructure and many social problems
contribute to language shift; language shift fosters dysfunc
tional behavior, and so it goes. So much damage has been
inflicted on the local cultures that some people seem rather
fatalistic about language loss, not to mention solving the
many social problems associated with the accompanying
cultural unraveling.
Family Values and Native Language Survival
American Indian and Alaska Native languages are threatened
as fewer and fewer children are learning them in the home.
Many non-Indians and some Indians see no tragedy in the
loss of these languages, but as this country becomes more
and more dominated by concern about crime and the break
down of traditional families, many American Indians and
Alaska Natives see the perpetuation of native languages as
vital to their cultural integrity.
The reason for this is, that in addition to speech, each lan
guage carries with it an unspoken network of cultural values.
Although these values generally operate on a subliminal
level, they are, nonetheless, a major force in the shaping of
each person's self-awareness, identity, and interpersonal
relationships (Scollon & Scollon, 1981). These values are
psychological imperatives that help generate and maintain an
individual's level of comfort and self-assurance, and, conse
quently, success in life. In the normal course of events these
values are absorbed along with one's mother tongue in the
first years of life. For that reason, cultural values and mother
tongue are so closely intertwined in public consciousness
that they are often, but mistakenly, seen as inseparable. For
the majority of young Natives today, culture and language
have, in fact, been separated. As a result, most of these young
people are trying "to walk in two worlds" with only one
language. This is a far more complex and stressful undertak
ing than the "two worlds" metaphor would suggest (Henze &
Vanctt, 1993).
Across two cultures the preferred etiquette for behaving or
communicating in a particular situation may be starkly
different. Using the same language across the two cultures
often poses a challenge to both sense and sensitivity (Piatt,
1989). Giving young Natives the opportunity to keep or learn
their tribal language offers them a strong antidote to the
culture clash many of them are experiencing but cannot
verbalize. If along with the language, they learn to recognize
the hidden network of cultural values that permeates the
language, they will add to the knowledge and skills required
to "walk in two worlds." They will learn to recognize and
cope with cross-cultural values that are often at odds with
each other, and they will begin to adopt more comfortably
the cultural value that is appropriate for a particular cultural
situation (Tennant, 1993).
The revival and preservation of minority languages is not a
hopeless cause. Successful efforts towards indigenous
language renewal and maintenance are to be found around
the world. Examples are to be found in the revival of Hebrew
in Israel, French in Quebec, and Catalan in Spain (Fishman,
1991). Even in the United States with its emphasis on
conformity, small groups such as the Hutterites and Hasidic
Jews have been able to maintain their languages and cultures.
Native Language Can Help English Proficiency
In seeking to preserve their cultural heritage, tribes are not
rejecting the importance of English language instruction for
their children. The results of the latest U.S. Department of
Education study of bilingual education programs show that
native-language use in schools does not hold children back
(Ramirez, 1992). Such research tends to use English-language
standardized test scores as a measure of success. If
such research also focused on objectives such as strengthen
ing American Indian families, there can be little doubt that
bilingual programs utilizing and developing native-language
fluency produce superior results. This is supported by the
findings in the aforementioned study that parents were most
satisfied with having their students learn both English and
their home language and wanted their children to stay in
bilingual programs longer.
Internationally, researchers have found that bilingualism is
an asset rather than a handicap (Baker, 1988; Cummins,
1989). It is not necessary to forget a home language to learn
a second "school" language and be academically successful
in that second language. It takes time, around six years on
average, to become fully that is academically compe
tent in a second language, but through proper instruction
such as has been carried out at Rock Point Community
School in the Navajo Nation students can learn English
and the academic subjects math, science, and so forth
and still learn to read and write their tribal language (Collier,
1 989; Cummins, 1 989; Reyhner, 1 990).
Former National Association for Bilingual Education
(NABE) Treasurer Dr. Richard Littlebear sees "our native
languages nurturing our spirits and hearts and the English
language as sustenance for our bodies" (1990, p. 8). Ameri
can Indians and Alaska Natives are seeking to follow a
bilingual "English Plus" philosophy that will preserve their
heritages and will allow their children access to jobs in the
non-Indian world.
Results of Past Government Policies
From the very beginning of the invasion of the Americas that
began in 1492, Europeans overwhelmingly failed to recog
nize the strengths of American Indian cultures, globally
evaluating them as "savage," when in fact they were differ
ent. Europeans commented on but did not fully appreciate
American Indian and Alaska Native cultural strengths such
as their kindness towards and love of children, the important
role women played in many tribes, and their respect for and
appreciation of the natural world. Efforts to Europeanize and
Christianize Indians alternated with efforts at genocide or
removal.
After the American Civil War, President Ulysses S. Grant
appointed Peace Commissioners in an attempt to bring an
end to the Indian wars on the frontier. The commission
concluded that language differences led to misunderstand
ings and that:
Now, by educating the children of these
tribes in the English language these differ
ences would have disappeared, and civiliza
tion would have followed at once. . . .
Through sameness of language is produced
sameness of sentiment, and thought; customs
and habits are molded and assimilated in the
same way, and thus in process of time the
differences producing trouble would have
been gradually obliterated. ... In the differ
ence of language to-day lies two-thirds of
our trouble. . . . Schools should be estab
lished, which children should be required to
attend; their barbarous dialect should be
blotted out and the English language substi
tuted. (Report of the Indian Peace Commis
sioners, 1868, pp. 16-17)
Government supported education became the means to
accomplish the eradication of Indian languages. Indian
children were taken away from their families and put in
government funded boarding schools. Once there, they were
kept away from their families for years at a time and pun
ished in a variety of ways if they used their mother-tongue.
Harsh punishments such as whipping were used that would
never have been considered by the supposedly "savage"
Indians. Under Secretary of the Interior Schurz, the Indian
Bureau issued regulations in 1880 that "all instruction must
be in English" in both mission and government schools under
threat of loss of government funding (Prucha, 1973, p. 199).
In 1885, the Indian school superintendent for the BIA
optimistically predicted,
if there were a sufficient number of reserva
tion boarding-school-buildings to accommo
date all the Indian children of school age,
and these building could be filled and kept
filled with Indian pupils, the Indian problem
would be solved within the school age of the
Indian child now six years old. (Oberly,
1885, cxiii)
It was felt by J.D.C. Atkins, Commissioner of Indian Affairs
from 1885 to 1888, that "to teach Indian school children their
native tongue is practically to exclude English, and to
prevent them from acquiring it" (1887, p. xxiii). The ethno
centric attitude prevalent in the late Nineteenth Century is
evident in Atkins' 1887 report,
Every nation is jealous of its own language,
and no nation ought to be more so than ours,
which approaches nearer than any other
nationality to the perfect protection of its
people. True Americans all feel that the
Constitution, laws, and institutions of the
United States, in their adaptation to the
wants and requirements of man, are superior
to those of any other country; and they
should understand that by the spread of the
English language will these laws and institu
tions be more firmly established and widely
disseminated. Nothing so surely and per
fectly stamps upon an individual a national . . -charac-teristic
as language. . . . As the
Indians are in an English-speaking country,
they must be taught the language which they
must use in transacting business with the
people of this country. No unity or commu
nity of feeling can be established among
different peoples unless they are brought to
speak the same language, and thus become
imbued with like ideas of duty. . . .
The instruction of the Indians in the vernacu
lar is not only of no use to them, but is
detrimental to the cause of their education
and civilization, and no school will be
permitted on the reservation in which the
English language is not exclusively taught.
(Atkins, 1887, pp. xxi-xxiii)
This government sponsored suppression of Indian languages
and cultures continues to this day, though without the harsher
forms of punishment, in government supported boarding
schools that concentrate on an English-language curriculum.
An unintended side effect of the government boarding school
has been generations of Indian youth that failed to learn
loving child rearing skills because of their removal from their
homes.
Coincident with the loss of language has been the breakdown
of extended families. In traditional American Indian and
Alaska Native cultures, the extended family was a central
way of life. Parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles were all
in the household living as a family. Beyond the debilitating
effects of the white man's education and the boarding school
experience has been the destructive effects of other govern
ment programs such as the construction of single family
housing units that isolate extended family members from
each other and help prevent grandparents and other relatives
passing down their language and culture to the children.
Generally, the results of government sponsored suppression
of indigenous languages and cultures in the United States has
been catastrophic for American Indian and Alaska Native
peoples. Prior to the turn of the century this suppression was
coupled with genocidal activities such as forced removal,
now called "ethnic cleansing," which helped sharply reduced
the American Indian population in the United States from an
estimated ten million in 1492 to just over two hundred
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