Author Archives: dahutchings

Entry 10: Fight to Save Endangered Languages

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This article, Native Americans Fight to Save Endangered Languages. was found in LiveScience , February 2012.  The author, Clara Moskowitz, discusses the possible disappearnace of many Native languages, and the methods used to try to revive the languages before they become extinct.  Moskowitz introduces Alfred Lane, the sole fluent speaker of the Native American language Siletz Dee-ni.  In response to the decline of this language, a group started teaching it in school twice a week.  It may yet survive, but the future is uncertain.

Molowitz also talks of a online talking dictionary sponsored by National Geographic’s Enduring Voices project and the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages,  This dictionary is a collection of the many endangered languages.

“As native peoples assimilate more and more into the dominant cultures around them, and as younger generations grow up speaking dominant languages like English in school and with their peers, fewer and fewer people are becoming fluent in native tongues.” With the loss of the native language, follows a loss of culture and a knowledge base of animals and plants.

Margaret Noori, a professor at the University of Michigan offers a suggestion to keep a language alive. She says that we must create in it . She teaches Ashininaabemowin language through the use of technology. She has websites about the language, and she uses social media, like Facebook, and Twitter, to spread the word.  The survival of the language is dependent on the younger generation taking up the cause, following the language and the culture.

 

Entry 9: Ancient tongues fade away

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Marie Smith knows that her language – the Alaskan tongue of Eyak – will die with her. And she mourns its passing.

On June 13, 2004 Dennis O’Brien , for the Baltimore Sun, wrote  Ancient tongues fade away: Languages: As roads, technology and the global economy reach once-isolated areas, old ways of communicating are dying off.   This article explores the disappearance of languages and possible reasons.  “Krauss and other linguists blame the losses on economic and social trends, politics, improved transportation and the global reach of telecommunications.”  Global economics pull people from the smaller isolated areas. And for those who don’t leave, the internet and WWW reach into their homes.  O’Brien relates that over half the world’s population  communicate using only 15 languages.  Thus many other languages are only spoken by handfuls (or less) of people.

“Krauss says that about half of the 200 languages native to North America will probably die out over the next century because so few children are picking up them up”  As the language dies , so too does part of the culture. “The fight to save other dying languages is more of an uphill battle. Critics argue that it’s a waste of time and money if cultural trends dictate their eventual demise.”  Yet some languages are being saved.  With great, effort people are recording and transcribing. While others are passing along the sounds and nuances to younger generations.

“Linguists say that a society’s culture and history die out when its language expires”  After all,  language is connected to culture.

Speaking of saving languages, here is a new article dated Sept, 2013.  It tells of  “Dr. Marguerite MacKenzie and her team are finalists for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Award in recognition of their groundbreaking work on the preservation of the Innu language.” The group created an online dictionary to translate from English to the Innu language.  All is not lost.

 

Entry 8: Language and Culture

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“The world loses a language every two weeks” – Wade Davis

The IRCA (Indigenious Remote Communications Association) “is the peak body that represents and advocates for the media and communications interests of remote and very remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia.”  This site discusses the importance of maintaining and strengthening the languages of aboriginal groups. Languages hold a key to the tranmission of culture, ideas, values, etc and often some information can not be translated into nother language, say English, wihout losing the importance of the information.  Therefore, it is imperative that the languages of aboriginal peoples be maintained.

IRCA “believes that strong language and culture are fundamental to strengthening Indigenous identity and culture.”

Languages contain complex understandings of a person’s culture, their identity and their connection with their land. Language enables the transference of culture and cultural knowledge across generations. Languages are a source of pride and strength.

The site goes on to list several key reasons for languages. These include 1) Culture    2) Health, Education, Employment  3) Heritage  4) Economics  5) Science and Sustainability  6) Reconciliation.  IRCA also offers many documents and reports that  support indigenious languages.

http://www.irca.net.au/about-irca/friends/sector/language-and-culture

Entry 7: Canadians increasingly reporting aboriginal identity

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Gloria Galloway and Travis Grant published this article in 2013 in The Globe and Mail  The authors report on the phenomenon where many Canadians are now claiming to be aboriginal.   Galloway and Grant cite Wayne Smith of Staistics Canada, who discovered “an unexpectedly high number… who claimed to be aboriginal”  in the 2011 data from the National Household Survey. Yet, many of these Canadians did not report aboriginal identity in the census of 2006.

I find this article worrisome on the basis of comparing data from 2006 and 2011. Having worked with Staistics Canada for the 2002 census, I was told, and in turn relayed, that nams on the census were simply for keeping track of households completed.

The authors comment that aboriginal leaders believe the trend to be partly a result of social media and a new sense of pride.  Betty Ann Lavallee, National Chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples states that young people ” are no longer afraid. They know they have the basis of law behind them and they’re becoming extremely vocal.”

Wilf falk, Manitoba’s top statistician,  indicated that ‘the number of  people who self-identified as Metis at both the national and provincial level went up about 60 percent… He attributes the shift to increased awareness of identity.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/native-people-boldly-standing-up-to-be-counted/article12912056/

 

 

 

Entry 6 : Who are the Indengious peoples?

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One of the pages under The International Work Group for Indigenious Affairs  (IWGIA)  is entitled Identification of Indigenious People  offers a fairly clear definition of the concept of Indigenious people.  This site offers definitions by the International Labour Organization (ILO) as well  as Martinez Cobo(report to the UN Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination of Minorities(1986)) and Mme Erica-Irene Daes (chairperson of the united Nations’s Working group on indigenious People).

A commonality of the definitions focuses on the ancestry of indigenious people of having inhabited a territory or area prior to colonization.  Also, the definitons indicate that indigenious peoples  have maintained an unique social, cultural, religious, linguistic and political aspects differing from the mainstream society.

Likewise several important challenges of indigenious peoples include:

Collective Rights:  rights for the collective groups not just rights for the individual.

Self- determination:  the preservation, development, and tansmission of their unique identity

Self-Identity;  identified and accepted as a group with an unique culture, language, etc.

Land and Natural resources’ rights : rights for the lands and resources that the ancestors have inhabited before colonization

Martinez Cobo states that “They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity…”

Technology and loss of identity

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The benefits of technology are easily noticed.  The Web and other technological devices do allow indigenious people an opportunity to explore and investigate their culture.  People can often find traditional skills that may have otherwise been lost. However there has been a much research done on the overuse of technology.

Therefore, I wish to explore the drawbacks or negative side-effects of this over technological use on indigenious people.  This topic may seem broad in scope. How do we judge what is overuse of technology?  Which negative aspects of techuse do I wish to explore:  the medical, the environmental, or the social?  I will focus my research on the personal impact of technological use as it affects or alters one’s life.  I wish to explore if technology is taking away the self-identity, or cultural identity of indigenious people, – an identity that, without technology, would remain.

I will explore articles and sites on technology versus self-identity and cultural identity.  I will also examine data on technological use for indigenious and non-indigenious groups.

Below is a list of some sites, articles, and research that may be used along with the information from my modules.

Entry 5: Is technology ruining children?

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John Cornwell relates his interview with Professor Susan Greenfield, a specialist in neural degeneration and researcher for Alzhemier’s.  Dr Greenfield predicts “that our teen generation is headed for a sort of mass loss of personal identity.” p.1 which she alludes to as the Nobody Scenerio. Dr Greenfield feels that the brains of our youth are being altered as a result of the amount of time they spend in the virtual, 2D world of cyberspace.

Nobody Scenerio “individuality could be obliterated in favour of a passive state …  one where personalized brain connectivity is either not functional or absent altogether.” p6

Repercussions to this brain alterations include:

1) a substitution of virtual and real encounters;

2) spoon-fed menu options versus free-ranging inquiry

3) decline in linguistic and visual imagination

4) atrophy of creativity

5) contracted, brutalized text messaging lacking verbs and conditional structures

Dr Greenfield emphasizes a concern that youth  understand ‘process’ (the method) over ‘content’ (the meaning).  and ” the more time we play games, the less time there is for learning specific facts and working out how the facts relate ….  this results in a failure to build highly personalized individual conceptual frameworks… [which is ] the basis of individual identity.” p4

She continues to explain how the process becomes addictive and , in turn, alters the mind.  Dr Greenfield further elaborates on the process, using scientific jargon, referencing dopamine, nucleus accumbers, and the prefrontal cortex.  She makes the connection between youth playing a video game (ex: Kill Bill) and a recent teenage beating and murder of a goth girl.

Dr Greenfield believes slaughtering endless hordes of villains in a game seperates the process of the action to the meaning and consequences.  When teens brutally kicked  the girl to death, they acted on a process like in a video game, with no thought of the girl’s feelings or the family or consequence to themselves (the content).

Dr Greenfield asserts that ” unique and enriched identities [are attained] through the world of focused conversation, nursery rhyme repetition, recitation and rote learning, of reading and writing interspersed with bouts of physical activity in the real world, where there are first-hand and unique adventures to provide a personal narrative, personalised neuronal connections.  This is education as we have known it.” p5

http://rense.com/general81/techh.htm

Entry 4: Videos on identity

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The titles below offer links to two Youtube videos on identity.

The first  video, Recognizing Aboriginal Language & Identity,  is developed by the Human Early Learning Partnership Aboriginal Steering Committee in 2013.  Speakers from various Indegenious groups promote the importance of language, culture and self identity among the youth.  There is a certain respect, honour, pride and identity that comes with knowing who you are and where you come from.

 

The second video, The Threat of a Loss of Cultural Identity, is developed by Discovery Education in 2010.  Dr. David Suzuki narrates a brief documentary on the loss of an Inuit culture . Alienation, suicide, drinking and confusion over identity are all threats to the way of life in Pangnirtung.

 

 

Entry 3: Culture and Closing the gap

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The Australian Governemnet offers programs that  help to foster a “strong cultural identity [which] is fundamental to Indigenous health and social and emotional wellbeing.”  This article highlights the initatives “strengthen Indigenous culture and languages.”

” Closing the Gap, which is a commitment by all Australian governments to work together to improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and in particular, to provide a better future for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.”

By strengthening the Indegenious culture and language, the government is woking towards reducing the disadvantage of the Indegenious people.  Targeted areas include early childhood, health, schooling, economics, self governance and community.

This article indicates the many positive benefits that are associated with Indegenious people who know and are involved with their language and culture.

http://arts.gov.au/culture-and-closing-the-gap

Entry 2: Technology and Identity

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In  Technology & Identity : Is rapidly accelerating technology eroding our sense of who we are?, Barbara Molony  of Santa Clara University reports on a disucssion by three panelists about our identity and culture in relation to our use and dependence on technology. Questions such as,, “Is our identity as a society eroding because we are unclear about the survival of our cultural legacy?,” help clarify the impact of technology on our individual identity and community identity.   The potential of the Internet’s influence on our identities can have both a positive and negative impact.

The globalization of information allows for an openness of ideas, and a feeling of being connected. Yet, the internet can also lead “American ethnic communities to vanish and that online communities often result in a narrowing of focus,” as people are less connected emotionally.  Although the internet can “help us forge old-fashioned connectedness in a seemingly disconnected, modernizing world,”

One panelist, John Staudenmaier  (Professor of History, University of Detroit, Mercy), “felt that we all need “offline time” to find our identity, and suggested we consider fasting from the Internet one night per week.”

http://www.scu.edu/sts/nexus/summer2001/MolonyArticle.cfm