Anumpa Achukma/Good News

Language Loss Can Be Reversed

2005.03

This is a newsletter dedicated to reporting the successes in revitalizing endangered languages worldwide. Share your good news with us by sending us an article about your program or current activity in revitalizing an endangered language.

Please forward this newsletter to anyone who might be interested.

                                                                                                                                               

A remark by a colleague about the lack of relevance of the Maori experience to the Native American experience—“they have only one language”—reminds me of the importance of sharing experiences. In actuality, there are about 45 iwi or Maori tribes. They do not all have identical dialects or cultures. The dialect of the Ngai (pronounced Kai) Tahu on the South Island is strikingly different from those on the North Island. Moreover, knowing the successful actions of another acts as a catalyst for to do something similar. We can learn and adapt to our own particular circumstances.

 

One sense that I did get from my visit to New Zealand is that communities did not wait on someone to bring them a way to revitalize the language. They did not wait on permission or on someone else’s expertise. They just jumped in and started revitalizing the language.

 

                                                                                                                                               

The Third P: Planning

 

One thing that impressed me the most was the amount of planning. I consider good planning a major part of successful language revitalization.

 

Both the Ngāi Tahu and Te Wānanga-o-Raukawa began with 25 year plans. As I mentioned previously, the group at Otaki (TWOR) began in 1975. Their original purpose was to prepare the 40,000 members of the iwi (tribes) and hapu (subtribes) located approximately between the Rangitikei River and Cook Strait for the 21st Century. One of the results is Te Wānanga-o-Raukawa (incorporated 1984), an educational institution where a person can receive an education primarily via Maori from pre-school (kohunga reo) to a Ph.D. Even the computer classes incorporate as much Maori language as possible by teaching the key terms in Maori (they write the materials themselves). Their web address is http://www.twor-otaki.ac.nz

 

One thing I really liked about this institution was the expressed curricular emphasis on promoting the survival of Maori, particularly the 40,000 Maori it represents. That’s what drives the curriculum--not current government funding.

 

The Ngāi Tahu have a different 25 year plan, one that has started fairly recently. You may remember that their language is virtually gone. Their Kotah Mano Kaika is a program intended to have at least 1000 Ngāi Tahu homes involved in speaking Maori and passing the language from one generation to the next. For more information about this program, contact info@ngaitahu.iwi.org.

 

I really like this approach because it is creative. This plan better fits their situation: While numerous, they are generally out-numbered in most communities by non-Maori. Also, they are having to revive their dialect from scratch since there are only a handful of speakers left.

 

The Hualapai (mentioned in previous articles) too had to do planning to move their language from an oral medium of older individuals to an award winning bilingual program in a short period of time. Planning is just as critical for individuals--how are you going to work in learning and using that language in your busy life.

 

Raglan is known as the “surfing capital of the New Zealand” and, therefore, seems an unlikely spot to find a Maori language program. Nevertheless, there is a Maori community there, and one with an important history. This is where Eva Rickard took a stand against the confiscation of Maori land and helped to back down the New Zealand government.

 

At the same time, many non-Maori live in the area. To address the educational needs of both communities and to offer more choices to the community, the Raglan Area School has created an immersion school within the regular school. In the “regular” school, students also have the option of taking classes to learn te reo Maori, and all classes include lessons in Maori culture.

 

This approach takes considerable planning and working with the community, and community participates regularly as individuals drop in to visit classes or participate in specific activities. One of the local elders attended my powhiri (formal welcome) done at the school the day I came to visit.

 

This planning fits the educational needs of this small community that includes both Maori and non-Maori.

 

Planning is an area that I can help with. If you are interested in exploring this with me, contact me at hoanumpoli@yahoo.com.

 

Share your stories with planning with us. Email us at holabitubbe@gmail.com>.

 

                                                                                                                                               

 

Success Stories

 

I received this message from Pilar Valenzuela, whose purpose is to assist a small group in the Amazon rain forest to revitalize their language.

 

I visited the town of Jeberos, where only some people over 60 speak the Shiwilu language. However, there are younger people who are trying to carry out initiatives in order to learn Shiwilu.  I will try to get funding to help them with documentation and also support their initiatives. But even in case we get the funding, we really need to learn from other experiences.

 

Here is another story from New Zealand.

 

Making it personal.

Just like the first contributor, George Ann Gregory, I have been taken to task with a challenge to my professorial approach to teaching and learning. Frenquently my students will exclaim: “but you have it so easy. Your know the language.You don’t have a problem with the receiption we get when we try to use the language.”

 

Then what follows are the sad stories of those learners who are making brave efforts in actively preserving the language. My reply is that they may never be able to completly change other’s attitudes of derision but we all need to stick to our guns with our own determination to make the language survive.

There are so many out there who (pity them) just don’t get a desire to learn another language.

 

They might accept something continental, something c’est la vie, so you can one day navigate your way around the Paris Metro. But when you are found out to be learning another language from your own country you get the strange looks and tones from those still stuck in the establishment. Perhaps it’s even worse when it’s someone from your own family. They just don’t seem to care.

 

There are all sorts of reasons why people choose to learn a second language, especially an indigenous language. For some it is the language of their ancestors, for others it is the language of their friends, family, partner, the street, or maybe even the odd boss who, learns the language quietly, so he can understand the cheeky vibes of his hard-case employees.

 

Start small, think big. Just saying one word is powerful. Then you add another. And another. Before long you have many words to say, just as you learnt your first words as a child. Saying the hello’s are usually the first and easiest to learn but are also the most important, especially if you initiate the greeting. Don’t wait for someone else to start. If you are first to use the language then you have suceeded in your own mind both to learn and use, and of course you have set the pattern for the good byes and future meetings. You have determined who you are.

 

You are now on the way of a journey for the rest of your life. Don’t get all worried because you don’t know this or that word or can’t yet string a sentence together. Never mind because I know that you have an enquiring mind, full of questions for this and that (back to your second childhood?). It is important because you have determined and dared to think that the world is not flat. You will definitely not fall off into the abiss but into an exiting discovery of another land, language and culture. The journey is not easy, it’s definitely a long one, but untold riches will fill your mind.

 

Contributed by Dr A G (Oneroa) Stewart

Manager of Maori Education, Research and Development

Bay of Plenty Polytechnic

Tauranga, New Zealand.

 

Send your success stories to us. We will publish them.

                                                                                                                                               

Creative Writing in Endangered Languages

Send us one of your creative writings to put up on a new blogspot—Voices from the Earth.

Send it along with your name, the language, and a translation/explanation in one of these languages—English, Spanish, or French—so that people get the meaning.

You can send it in an email, as a MS Word document attachment, or a Rich Text Format document attachment. (Please note that some orthographies may not copy exactly, but I will try my best.)

                                                                                                                                               

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Ho Anumpoli! is a New Mexico non-profit organization. For more information about us, go to http://www.oocities.org/hoanumpoli

Send your success story to us at holabitubbe@gmail.com

                                                                                                                                               

For previous issues of Anumpa Achukma, go to http://www.oocities.org/hoanumpoli/anumpa.html

 

George Ann Gregory, Ph.D.

Choctaw/Cherokee

Fulbright Scholar