Recovering Lost Native Voices
Written by: Claudia Mohr
Human language is one of the most diverse and
distinguishing characteristics of our species. According to The Language
Conservancy, there are more than 7,000 languages spoken today, with 41% facing
endangerment. Over the next 100 years, we can expect to see the loss of about
90% of languages if present rates of decline continue. Extinction or dormancy
occurs when “the latest generation of children no longer speak the language”
and the last elders who speak their community’s language die. Of the languages that
once were spoken as a first language in 1795, over 61% are now extinct.
Preservation and continuation of language are integral to cultural identity and
holds immense value both for speakers and for human diversity at large.
Specifically for indigenous groups, knowledge of their language can help in the
fight to reestablish autonomy and unity, allowing them to stand proudly and
strongly in their cultural integrity. Most Native people have faced a loss of
language in conjunction with loss of life and independence due to various
colonial interactions and persisting suppressions. From the American Indian
Magazine, “for those outside these communities, sustaining this cultural
diversity enriches all of us and helps greater cross-cultural understanding”.
In recent years, many forms of legislation have
been passed in order to bolster the preservation and restoration of Native
American languages. One such decision, the Native American Languages Act of
1990, recognized the unique status of Native American cultures and languages,
claiming responsibility mutually with Tribes to promote their survival. In
addition to legal resolutions, many programs and institutions work to encourage
the conservation and re-introduction of Native American languages.
One such program, Recovering Voices (RV),
established in 2009 and run by the Smithsonian Institution, works “to
revitalize and sustain endangered languages and knowledge” in partnership with
global communities. Utilizing a combination of multidisciplinary research,
local cooperation, and public outreach, this program offers several avenues to
endorse language revitalization. Each part of this program is essential and
synergetic. Very interdisciplinary, RV research focuses on three ideas:
-
“Designing and implementing
interdisciplinary research that links collections and communities through
fieldwork”
-
“Conducting multi-sited and
comparative studies to understand the differences between institutional and
informal approaches to revitalizing traditional knowledge”
-
“Studying the dynamics of
intergenerational knowledge transmission”
Remarkable significance can be found in this focus on
both formal, scholastic data as well as anecdotal, informal, and more intimate
approaches of research employed by the Recording Voices Program. Engagement of
such synthesized research allows for an immensely well-rounded analysis, which
proves to be imperative in the conservation of Native American culture and
language.
The Community Research Program (CRP) component of
RV includes group archival research, allowing access to most of the databases
and collections present at all Smithsonian museums. Group visits are recorded
and publicly posted to the Recovering Voices blog uphold the principle of
collaboration and shared information. Also, access to up to $10,000 of funding
is available for “any
community whose linguistic and/or cultural traditions are represented in the
Smithsonian’s collections or archives”.
Established in
2011, the biennial National Breath of Life Archival Institute for Indigenous
Languages unites professional linguists with Native American language community
researchers in order to aid the latter in “[learning] the fundamentals of
linguistics and the use of archival documentation”.
In terms of
public outreach, RV hosts a seminar series, an ethnographic film series, as
well as the Mother Tongue Film Festival. The former two are annually free to
the public. Centered on “language and knowledge studies in a variety of fields
including linguistics, biology, anthropology, and social geography”, the RV
Seminar Series frequently is shared on the internet as well. Presented with
“resident and local experts who can help contextualize the [films] for
viewers”, the RV Ethnographic Film Series highlights footage from the Human
Studies Film Archives. Hosted on International Mother Language Day (February
21st) since 2016, the Mother Tongue Film Festival aims to “[amplify] the work
of diverse practitioners who explore the power of language to connect the past,
present, and future… through digital storytelling”. This festival incorporates
both full-length feature films and short films. This year, due to the COVID-19
pandemic, the festival offers free, online, public access to various films
beginning February 21st, 2021, and lasting until May 31st, 2021. A statement of
land acknowledgment can be found on the festival’s webpage:
“We
acknowledge with respect the Piscataway people on whose traditional territory
the Smithsonian stands and whose relationship with the land west of the
Chesapeake Bay continues today.”
While
matured into a well-developed language revitalization program, Recovering
Voices stands rather solitarily in this category. Other revitalization programs
exist, yet regularly not as fully rounded as RV. As a result of increasing
agency and upgraded legislative support, language revitalization programs are
responsively extending both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Those
who may not be permitted to partake in programs such as Recovering Voices can
aid in preserving and revitalizing remaining Native American languages through
the list of options found on the “Join The Cause” section of The Language
Conservancy’s website. Examples of realistic and feasible actions include
assorted advocacy and education campaigns as well as routes of financial activism.
Every human individual communicates through language in one form or another,
and therefore can and should defend conservation and re-implementation of
indigenous languages within and outside of indigenous communities. By
maintaining humanity’s incredible language diversity, higher levels of
inter-cultural tolerance and appreciation can endure.
Haworth, J. (2017). Reading, Writing and Preserving: Native Languages Sustain Native Communities.https://www.americanindianmagazine.org/story/reading-writing-and-preserving-native-languages-sustain-native-communities
(2021). Native American Language Revitalization Legislation in the U.S. Congress. https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/native-american-language-revitalization-legislation
Recovering Voices. https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/anthropology/programs/recovering-voices
Mother Tongue Film Festival. https://mothertongue.si.edu/
(2020, January 09). Join The Cause. https://languageconservancy.org/join-the-cause/
(2020, January 13). The Loss of Our Languages: The Swelling Wave of Extinctions across the Globe. https://languageconservancy.org/language-loss/#:~:text=Since%201950%2C%20the%20number%20of,in%20the%20next%20100%20years.
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