Native Languages
Written by: Tiffini Davis
In
this blog I will be going over a few Native American tribes and their native
languages. This will be the second part or continuation to my first blog. My
blog is about Native American Languages. Many native Languages are going
extinct and disappearing. A lot of people don’t realize that this is even an
issue. This is a big issue not just for native tribes. This is a piece of a
culture that is going to be lost to all of us. The loss of native languages is
also a loss for future generations as well. The purpose of this blog is to
bring this issue to light and to more people's attention. I will be taking a
closer look at a few tribes native languages.
First let’s take a look at the Hopi Tribe.
The Hopi Tribe is one native tribe that lives in the Southwest region of
America. The Hopi Tribe’s native language is Uto-Aztecan. There is some
research that suggests that the Uto-Aztecan language originated in the Southern
part of Central America. Slowly the language made its way to present day
Arizona where the Hopi tribe are from. In some places the Uto-Aztecan language
made it as far North as Idaho. The following video from the American Museum of
Natural History will give a little bit more of an in-depth research description
of what I just said. Here is the link to their video: https://youtu.be/92IvcuQF9cg (Uto-Aztecan Language Research / AMNH)
The American Museum of Natural History also has an article on
their website that goes more in detail about the Hopi Language. Here is the
link: https://www.amnh.org/research/anthropology/curatorial-research/north-american-ethnology/uto-aztecan-research (Uto-Aztecan Language Research / AMNH)
The Uto-Aztecan Language is very interesting. From the research
it sounds like the Uto-Aztecan language was kind of similar to how English is
today. Today English is spoken in most countries around the world. The
Uto-Aztecan language was spoken in several countries.
The Second Tribe I will be looking at is
the Cherokee Tribe. Their native language is also called Cherokee. If you wanted to get more
technical Cherokee or Tsalagi is the name of the language. To the left is a
picture of the Cherokree alphabet. This is one of the most famous and well
known paintings that shows a native language's alphabet. The Cherokee live in
the East/ central region of American. This would include Virginia, West
Virginia Kentucky, and the Carolinas.
Unfortunately, it is very sad that the
Cherokee language is in decline as well as the Hopi Language. What does in
decline mean? In decline means that there are studies that show that there are
less fluent native speakers of the language.With every year that passes less
people are speaking their native languages. One reason is because a lot of the
elderly are fluent in their native language. When they die there are less and
less people who speak their native language when you look at the different
generations. Some learn to speak English and never speak their native language
again. I found it very interesting that Lake Forest college had a page on their
website about the decline in the Hopi Language. “In 1998 a language survey of
200 Hopi people showed that 100% of Hopi Elders 60 years and older were fluent.
Fluency in adults, ages 40 - 59 was only 84%, young adults, ages 20 - 39 was
50% fluent, and children ages 2 - 19 only 5% fluent.”(Hopi: The Peaceful
People) First, Yes this survey is 22 years old. However, the information is
still relevant to my point. The 2 year old in the study is now 24 years old in
today’s time. There are greater odds that the 2 year old grew up speaking
English than Uto-Aztecan. This would also mean that this person is Fluent in
English. Second, there was a concern about the decline in fluency in the
Uto-Aztecan language in 1998. Today there are hundreds of Languages that are on
the brink of extinction. Lastly, I would like to note that if a College is pointing
out and educating its own students about the decline or extinction of
languages; then yes this is a big issue. Just for reference Lake Forest College
is a private College in Illinois. The reason I had the picture was that if a
person can see something then they realize it is an issue. Whereas if a person
does not see something they do not know that there is even a problem in the
first place. Same thing with the video. The video you actually heard of the
Uto-Aztecan language. For someone who has never heard the language before they
may not even know what it is.
The Big question: what is the next step?
Ultimately the next step is to go and learn about Native Languages. Study and
write them down. This way we can preserve the language for future Generations.
Normally a language is passed down unto one from one's parents. Sometimes even
grandparents have an influence on the language that a child is taught. However,
where you live can also influence the language you learn to speak. There are
some steps that are being taken to revitalize native languages. This is a slow
but steady process. If the revitalization continues then hopefully none of
these Native Languages will go extinct any time soon.
Sources:
Uto-Aztecan
Language Research /AMNH website
Hopi:The
Peaceful People, website
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