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Diversity in Local Language Maintenance and Restoration: a Reason for Optimism

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Diversity in Local Language Maintenance and Restoration: a Reason for Optimism CHAPTER I 2 I Diversity in Local Language Maintenance and Restoration: A Reason for Optimism ANNA ASH JESSIE LITTLE DOE FERMINO KEN HALE School ofLAnguages Department ofLinguistics Deparrmet!l ofLinguisrics Cultures & Linguistics and Philosophy and Philosophy University ofNew England Massachuseus lnstilute of Technology Massaclwseus lnsrirute ofTechnology Amzidale, Australia Cambridge, Massachuseus Cambridge, Massachuseus Before explaining our optimism, we should perhaps men­ pansion of agricultural and pastoralist societies created large tion the factors which have led many to be pessimistic about regions occupied by a single linguistic family, those same re­ the possibility of local and minority language maintenance. gions subsequently became linguistically diverse through the As Michael Krauss has pointed out repeatedly, we stand to natural processes of language differentiation, giving rise to Jose half of the world's 6000 languages during the 21st cen­ large, internally diverse families. That is not the case in the tury, and at the end of that century, most of the remaining modern period, the period spanning the last 500 years. With languages will be endangered, to be lost in the subsequent certain exceptions, the situation now is that linguistic diver­ century (Krauss 1992). sity is simply being lost without languages being replaced. This is not the only time in history when massive loss The forces at work in this period belong, we suppose, to the of language has occurred. From studies of linguistic diver­ process Renfrew terms "eJi·:e dominance," or, more bluntly, sity in modern hunting and gathering societies, it is reason­ "military, political, and ecOnomic dominance." For us now, able to suppose that between 100,000 and l 0,000 years these forces are inherent in the patterns of political and eco­ ago, the inhabitable world came to be fully occupied by nomic domination which have their origins in the European small, linguistically distinct communities speaking well over invasion and exploitation of the western and southern hemi­ 15,000 languages. The modern distribution of language fam­ spheres. While we justly bemoan the loss of linguistic diver­ ilies is strongly at odds with this picture, however. In the sity over the last 500 years, we must realize that the situation modern period, large regions are now occupied by language of local languages is no less ominous now than at any other families whose time-depth is as little as 5000 years or less. point in history. It is in fact more desperate now than before. This means that hundreds, even thousands, of languages We do not exist in a condition of economic justice in which were replaced in the course of the expansion of a few people who choose to do so can speak a local language and languages which subsequently differentiated to form the pass it on to their children entirely without regard for any established modem families, including Indo-European, economic consequences. To be sure, individuals and com­ Elamo-Dravidian, Afro-Asiatic, Austronesian, Sino-Tibetan, munities do accomplish this, but it is typically at a cost. The Uto-Aztecan, Chibchan, and Oto-Manguean, among others. pressure to use the dominant language, and even to abandon Archaeologists have provided much evidence that this pat­ one's own local language, is quite generally overwhelming tern of replacement is due primarily to the development and virtually irresistible. Many reports of language shift at­ and expansion of agricultural societies, fueling the process test to this (cf. Ladefoged 1992). Language shift is often per­ of "farming dispersal," in the terminology of Colin Ren­ ceived as the only rational choice for the economic well­ frew (1994). being of oneself and one's family. The factors at work in our own waning half millennium How can there be rea~on for optimism about such a are of a different and more drastic sort. Whereas the early ex- situation? The Green Book of Language Revitaliz.aaion in Practice 19 All rights of reproduclion in a.ny form reserved. 20 Anna Ash, jessie little doe fermino, and Ken Hale There is reason for optimism because local language THE LARDIL LANGUAGE PROJEG communities all over the world are taking it upon themselves to act on behalf of their imperiled linguistic traditions in full Lardil is the traditional language of the Lardil people of understanding of, and in spite of, the realistic perception that Mornington Island, which is the largest island of the Welles­ the cards are stacked against them. There is, in effect, an ley group in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria (see Map 2.1). international movement in which local communities work in It is roughly 65 kilometers long and varies in width from 10 defiance of the forces pitted against their embattled lan­ to 26 kilometers. Other Aboriginal peoples of this area that guages. It has something of the character of a modem mir­ speak languages closely related to Lardil are the Yangkaal acle, if you think about it-while they share the goal of from Forsyth and Denham Islands and the Kayardild from promoting a local language, these groups are essentially in­ Bentinck and Sweers Islands. Since around the 1940s, most dependent of one another, coming together sometimes to of these people have been based on Mornington Island, to­ compare notes, but operating in effective separation. gether with some Yukulda people (also known as Kangkarl­ Two factors in our optimism are the very existence of the ida) from nearby areas of mainland Australia. 1 The total pop­ movement itself and what is sometimes decried as a flaw in ulation of Mornington Island is around 1000 Aboriginal and the movement: the feature of independence, the fact that lo­ 100 non-Aboriginal people. cal language projects operate separately from one another. Yangkaal, Kayardild, and Yukulta are technically dialects But this is a strength, in fact, a true reason for optimism. It is of a single language, while the closely related Lardil is clearly the natural consequence of the fact that local conditions are a separate language within the small family to which the very particular and, in the final analysis, unique. Programs in group as a whole belongs.2 The family is called Tangkic, support of local languages necessarily address local condi­ after the shared term tangka 'person', following a common tions. The sharing of materials and ideas among language practice in language-group nomenclature. It was first classi­ projects and the use of consultants in relevant fields (e.g.,lin­ fied as belonging to the large Pama-Nyungan superfamily, guistics, education, and computers) are good and often ab­ or phylum, which predorninatesjn Australia. On the face solutely necessary, of course, but the structure of a local lan­ of it, Tangkic belongs typologically to that group, being a guage program is determined by local considerations. We suffixing and head-marking language with rather standard have seen no exceptions to this, neither in places we have Pama-Nyungan features. But evidence has since been brought worked-Australia, Central America, and North America­ forward in favor of the view that it is a separate family be­ nor in places we have visited or read about, including Eu­ longing instead to the diverse non-Pama-Nyungan collection rope, China, Northern Ireland, North Africa, and Polynesia. of language families extending from the Wellesley Island Realism is no less essential in this regard than in relation to area westward across northern Australia to the northwest the challenges confronting the movement as a whole. coast in the state of Western Australia (Evans 1995, 30-39). To emphasize this point, we wiU briefly describe four Tangkic is therefore twice distinguished: it is the eastern­ cases of local language support projects. They represent most non-Parna-Nyungan family, and it is a non-Pama­ a tiny sample of the diversity of conditions and responses Nyungan family boasting primarily Pama-Nyungan typo­ which characterize the local language maintenance move­ logical characteristics. ment. Despite differences among them, they have one feature in common: they do not attempt to tackle the grand problem The Present Condition of the Language of global language loss. Rather, they function to secure a po­ sition of dignity for their local languages in terms of local No children are now learning Lardil as their first lan­ exigencies. They also agree in recognizing that knowledge of guage. This has certainly been the case since the 1950s (and a local language is in no way incompatible with full mastery may have been true even earlier) and is a result of assirnila­ of a dominant national or regional language. The four cases tionist policies and practices affecting Mornington Island, as are we examine are Lardil of Mornington Island, North well as most of Aboriginal Australia, throughout most of Queensland, Australia; Tuahka (Sumu) of Eastern Nicara­ Australian history. At the present time, English is effectively gua; Wampanoag (Massachusett) of southern New England, the language of the island. Hence, this situation may be de­ United States; and Irish in Belfast, Northern Ireland. They scribed as one calling for language revitalization-adults will be discussed in relation to five factors: (1) the present and children alike need to learn more Lardil if the language condition of the language; (2) projects initiated: their history, is to be maintained. results, and prospects; (3) resources available to the commu­ Most people who speak Lardil are in their 50s or older nity; (4) sociopolitical and economic factors bearing on the and divide into two groups. The first is a small group (6 or 7) effectiveness of the projects; and (5) decisions and agree­ of people 70 years old or older who speak "Old Lardil," ments which required discussion in the community. We be­ with the full Wellesley Island case and concord systems gin with Lardil of North Queensland.
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