The Last Speakers

by K. David Harrison

  Even this modest effort to reclaim and propagate Lenape was not without controversy. Scholars who insist that Lenape is extinct have criticized the effort, saying that the Pennsylvania Lenape are not the “real” Lenape, pointing out that the Pennsylvania branch of the tribe is not federally recognized, or suggesting that it is a mixed or impure form of the language. These critiques aside, I believe this bold effort is exactly what is needed to bring languages back from the brink of extinction. What better place than a room full of young, bright, enthusiastic minds to extend the life span of the Lenape language? The fact that college students want to learn it will also have a positive effect on the tribe itself, as tribe members struggle to gain federal recognition and to reconcile their everyday lives in modern America with their ancestral traditions.

  HOCKEY SPOKEN HERE

  Even for languages that are not yet down to single digits of “last speakers,” the role of key individuals who promote and nurture the language is crucial. I have met many such individuals over the years, some in places you might not expect.

  A Tim Horton’s restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was where I heard Anishinaabemowin (also called Ojibwe) spoken for the first time. Howard Kimewon, a genial Anishinaabemowin elder of 60 or so, kindly arrived a full hour early for our scheduled meeting, then waited an extra 30 minutes as I struggled to find the right Tim Horton’s (a local fast-food franchise). He showed no impatience whatsoever at my tardiness, greeting me warmly in Ojibwe. I glanced around at the most banal of modern American landscapes: doughnuts, weak coffee, plastic furniture. Anishinaabemowin could not have been more out of place here, yet it seemed utterly natural when Howard answered his cell phone and began chatting in it. I listened as the sibilants of the language tickled my ear.

  Howard is a true linguistic survivor. He has made great efforts to keep up his knowledge over the years, going out of his way to seek out elders for conversation, to be corrected by them, to learn. He has overcome the shame he felt as a youth, maturing into dignity and pride as an elder and teacher of the language. His teaching methods include such activities as demonstrating traditional Anishinaabemowin woodworking (making a corn grinder out of a log) while exploring all the Anishinaabemowin words related to that activity.

  Later, I received a text message I could not read, but it began with Boozhoo, which means “hello.” Who would have thought Anishinaabemowin—with its long, complex words, requiring a lot of typing—suitable for messaging! All that effort to send me a message I couldn’t fully read! And yet this powerful gesture introduced me to the language in a gentle way, as I was forced to contemplate the beauty and complexity of the words on my iPhone. The lowly text message, and Howard’s willingness to put his language out through all possible channels, may indeed be a key to saving it.

  Dr. Margaret Noori, a linguist and promoter of the Anishinaabemowin language, frames the question this way: “What would it truly mean for our society to have people speak these languages as part of their personal and professional lives, right now, in the midst of our history?” She reports that a panel of Anishinaabemowin elders convened recently in Michigan to talk about what it means to them. Many of them approved of new, creative uses like translating the lyrics of popular music, comic books, social networking, or sports terms, as ways to inspire young people to participate. Keeping the language alive “gives all young people the opportunity to think differently,” she notes. “Native and nonnative students can understand one another better by learning the language of the land they now share.” A heritage language is part of the glue that helps keep the native identity intact, and may even help in preventing suicides or other social problems.

  Margaret is busy populating the Internet with her language. She regularly posts Facebook notes in Anishinaabemowin, such as “Aapchigwa n’gii bishigendaan pii Gwiigwaa’agag gii maamwizhoozhooshkwaadwewaad Bkejwanong KchiAnongoog!” which she translated as “I really liked it when t he Wolverines played hockey with the Bkejwanong All Stars!” The “Noongwa e-Anishinaabemjig: People Who Speak Anishinaabemowin Today” Facebook page she created with Howard Kimewon and Stacie Sheldon now has nearly 1,000 members who visit to chat, ask questions, or hear new songs and stories.

  What better use of this ancient Great Lakes–centered language could there be than to promote hockey? In fact, hockey has long been a favorite of the Anishinaabeg (people) and is one of many keys to the language’s newfound vitality. Recently, several members of the University of Michigan hockey team have taken Margaret’s Anishinaabemowin class. All players leave the class with respect for the language and culture, and some with a renewed sense of cultural pride. National Hockey League player Travis Turnbull, now with the Buffalo Sabres, is an example of an athlete who has embraced his heritage. Recently, Travis and several teammates spent a day with the youth of the Bkejwanong First Nation. For native kids, hearing an NHL player promote Anishinaabemowin was a much more powerful inspiration than anything a teacher will tell them. If hockey players think it’s important, it is! Recently, another teammate, Brandon Nurato, now with the Toledo Wall-eye, texted to let Dr. Noori know he’d been teaching teammates to count in Anishinaabemowin.

  Margaret has a foot in two worlds: she is a professional academic who holds a Ph.D. and teaches at a university, and she is a tribal member and cultural activist with a deep sense of responsibility. As a scientist, she advocates documentation of languages as they disappear. But she believes this work has to be speaker-centered, not scientist-centered, and putting language into archives should be much more than just “building a graveyard.” “How does this work impact communities,” she asks, “native and nonnative, in ways that support global diversity in a next-generation way?”7

  COLLATERAL EXTINCTIONS

  In my book When Languages Die, I wrote: “When ideas go extinct, we all grow poorer,” to introduce the notion of the “human knowledge base.” In that same book I explored many different systems of knowledge, such as animal and plant taxonomies, calendars, mathematics, and geography, that are uniquely encoded in languages. This may seem to be objectifying language as merely a vessel to convey ideas. But I want to emphasize that ideas and knowledge are not just facts floating around in people’s minds. They represent an exchange of thoughts and experiences between intimates and strangers.

  An accretion of knowledge, like a giant midden of shells, is what French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin referred to as the “noosphere”—the sum of all human beliefs. It is living, in the sense that any complex system has a life, an existence beyond one temporal moment or one mortal mind. It grows and emanates from a speech community over long stretches of richly lived lives, deeply felt experiences, midnight musings, and daytime ponderings. This entity of interwoven ideas outlasts any single speaker. It cannot be disconnected, shut down, or silenced, except by the extinction of the language itself.

  Some do try to fetishize language as a thing to be placed under a microscope and examined or on a shelf in an archive to be observed. The crucial work of language revitalization reimagines language in all its situational humor, glory, and banality. How were people cussed out, scolded, admonished, admired, inspired? What were the last words of good night, the first greetings of the day? Language mediates all human interactions, and all facets of knowing, whether making love or feuding bitterly, invoking the gods, cursing enemies, or asking someone to “pass the salt.”

  The loss of a language both foretells and causes the loss of a distinct culture and identity. As elderly speakers pass, the language is disconnected from daily lives. Fewer and fewer of the everyday social interactions are conducted in it, and the elders experience a creeping silence. They know the particular loneliness that only linguistic survivors—or perhaps the mute—can feel, as they are silenced and invisibilized. This can happen at both ends of the age spectrum and everywhere in between.

  Anthropologist Bernie Perley, a member of the Maliseet First Nation in Canada, writes eloquently of the bitter childhood experience of lingui
stic alienation, of coerced muteness:

  Why don’t I understand Maliseet? My first language is Maliseet…. When I started first grade, I did not speak English. The one memory I have of first grade is sitting in the front seat of the school bus. The bus driver, sitting in his seat, was twisting around to talk to me. His mouth was moving and sounds were coming out of his mouth. I did not understand anything he said. It was a shock to realize that everything I experienced in my life up to that point was rendered meaningless and irrelevant. Being a solitary Maliseet child in a largely white elementary school was alien enough. But to have my entire worldview muted and rendered meaningless made me feel silent and vulnerable. My mother made the decision that day that I would learn English because, and I quote, “If my son is to survive out there, he’ll have to master English.” 8

  Bernie and his mother were not alone in making this entirely rational calculation. Yet he would come to regret it years later, as a prominent Maliseet intellectual and activist, finding himself unable to understand the elders. The choice made by young children and their well-intentioned parents, as Professor Perley describes it, is not merely to “master English,” but simultaneously to renounce Maliseet.

  Many people all around the world do manage to master English without abandoning their own Mandarin or Hindi or Inuktitut. The world is full of bilinguals—so why do children in this case irretrievably shift from heritage to global tongue, never glancing back or bringing along the ancestral wisdom? The answer may lie in Bernie’s statement about being a “solitary Maliseet in a largely white elementary school.” The pressure to conform and assimilate can be so intense that there is no quarter for the old ways.

  Children are coerced out of their heritage, their religion, their identity. These are what Perley refers to as the “collateral extinctions” of language loss: “We have already lost Maliseet place-names. We have lost evidence of landscape transformations described in our oral traditions. We have already lost much of the esoteric knowledge of medicines. Now we are losing the ability to conduct everyday social relations in the Maliseet languages.” Sounding a note of cautious hope, however, he continues: “These collateral extinctions need not be forever…. We need to reintegrate all these facets of Maliseet experience so that we can continue to experience Maliseet worlds.”

  HOW TO SAVE A LANGUAGE

  How are globalization and technology affecting the viability of small languages? How can hip-hop, text messaging, and YouTube help save languages? What are the technological barriers and conduits for small languages, and how are clever speakers leveraging these? What is the global future of the smallest tongues? Is there reason for optimism?

  There are many leaders and pioneers in the domain of language revitalization. And there are probably as many different notions about how to save a language as there are last speakers and their descendants. I’ve devoted over a decade to talking personally with hundreds of last speakers and their descendants, as well as other interested observers of language death. I make no judgments about what works; all I am sure of is that a language cannot be “saved” by outsiders. Scientists and other outsiders can assist or enable, but the decision to keep a language alive, and most of the hard work required to implement that decision, must be undertaken by the communities that own and cherish the languages.

  The following list gives some tactics that I have seen being employed by actual last speakers of languages I have met. I simply present them here, without making any judgment as to their effectiveness. Every situation is different, involving a subtle interplay of attitudes, politics, and practices. We have far too few success models to draw firm generalizations about what works. But in some cases, these strategies can lead to a dramatic revitalization. In other cases, they help to sustain a language or arrest its decline. In yet other cases, they have no effect or may even hasten the disappearance.

  These first two strategies reflect a tension between two processes I call “visibilization” and “invisibilization.”

  Keep it secret, private, and restricted. This practice protects the language as a type of intellectual property that is proprietary, owned, and not to be shared or taught to anyone who is not entitled to learn it. This seems odd to many of us, but small groups do have a much clearer vested interest in owning their own knowledge and, by extension, their language. The extreme version of this strategy has been used by some groups, most notably the Hopi, who, as we saw earlier, reportedly shut down a planned immersion kindergarten program because it was discovered that a few non-Hopi children were enrolled. This is an unusual strategy, though given the strong ideology of ownership, it may help to perpetuate the language. On the other hand, it may ensure its rapid demise. Many communities enforce secrecy by protecting their language from outsiders to a lesser degree. The Kallawaya of Bolivia enforce language secrecy in their own community by teaching the language only to men, and they share it with outsiders only under special circumstances and with limitations on what knowledge can be made available.

  Make it public, visible, and freely shared. As intellectual property in the public domain or creative commons, teach it to anyone who is interested. This strategy is typically how large languages behave. You don’t need anyone’s permission to learn English, and there is no sense that anyone owns it. But many small and endangered language communities also practice this idea. The Welsh put Welsh names on local street signs. The Lenape of Pennsylvania, as we just saw, want everybody to learn the language, and they delight in the fact that people have to learn Lenape words when they read or utter the names of local rivers. The Lenape do have some knowledge they consider sacred or secret, but in general they want to put their language to public use. They have made a strategic decision to increase its visibility, since for so long it was hidden from sight.

  Keep it strictly oral, only spoken. Do not export it into any other media such as writing, computers, text messages, or street signs. All languages were once oral, and some have adopted other media such as writing, typing, and messaging. But others are aware that meaning is lost in this technological transition and have made a strategic decision that the language should not be written. Even when languages do adopt literacy, they may have only one book (typically a Bible translation) available and may choose not to produce much other written material, thus keeping the oral character of the language primary.

  Make it literate, write it down. Push it out in written form through all possible new domains and technologies. Expand its footprint by adopting it for Facebook, text messaging, and road signs, regardless if anyone takes it up or not. By achieving a permanent presence, a language extends its usefulness and its longevity.

  Elevate it, promote it, express pride in it. A positive attitude toward a language is the single most powerful force that will keep it alive, especially when that attitude is transmitted to the youngest members of the community. Whenever I meet Richard Grounds, who is a linguist and a speaker and promoter of the Yuchi language, he grasps my hands and greets me warmly in his tongue. Similarly, when he calls me on the phone, even if he only talks to my answering machine, he speaks first in Yuchee, then English. He does so with such warmth and conviction that even though I don’t understand a word, I feel I have been truly blessed. Richard, like my Ojibwe colleague Margaret Noori, who puts her language on Facebook, leads by example. They show what it truly means to embrace, promote, and elevate a language, putting it out into the public ear regardless of whether it is understood by the hearers. Though I don’t understand what they are saying, the message is loud and clear: “We love and value our languages, and we respect both them and you by sharing it publicly.”

  The opposite of this would be to put it down, to disparage it. Many consider small languages backward, obsolete, old-fashioned, and unsuitable for modern life. They may call it “just a dialect” or a “patois.” Negative attitudes toward a language emanate from many sources—often official educational or political establishments, amplified by the press and popular culture. Regardless of th
e source, these attitudes quickly become internalized, and speakers will disparage their own languages. Many speakers feel their language is not suited to the modern world or not compatible with computer and Internet technologies. But at the same time, others insist that they are suitable and make great efforts to bring their languages across the digital divide.

  Replenish the language with new words. If speakers are not overly concerned with keeping the language “pure,” they may borrow words freely, adopting loanwords and useful expressions from other languages. Some languages eschew loanwords but readily coin new native terms for new objects. As one Mohawk speaker proudly told me, “We call it ‘lightning brain box’ in our language, not ‘computer.’” Languages that readily coin new words can enjoy a wonderful source of renewal and keep pace with technology. On the flip side, if this is done artificially or imposed from above by a language purity committee, it can have negative effects on the perceived adaptability of the language. A first step is to recognize the need for new words. Nazareth Alfred, a speaker of Australia’s Kulkalgowya tongue, told me, “Our language is standing still. We need to make it relevant to today’s society. We need to create new words, because right now we can’t say ‘computer.’”

  Embrace new technologies. New modes of communication like texting, chat, SMS, or Skype can be deployed to save endangered languages. Can the lowly text message lift a language to new levels of importance and prestige? My answer is yes, and I’ve seen some wonderful examples. It’s done at the micro level, by individual users, but also by large corporations. Microsoft’s new Local Language Program, for example, allows users to customize software to their preferences in nearly 100 languages. Some are very large, emerging ones, like Tamil and Kiswahili; others are small and regional, such as Macedonian. Some were once or are still endangered and undergoing active revitalization: examples include Irish, Maori, and Welsh. Similarly, Wikipedia offers content in about 50 languages, most large but a few small or endangered (Navajo, Hawaiian). I can imagine a time when software and Web content of all types will be readily available in the full spectrum of languages, and how the world of ideas will be enriched. I predict that language localization will be one of the most dynamic trends of the next decades, and I urge corporations of all kinds—but especially those in the information technology industry—to get on board.