Speaking of Endangered Languages: Issues in Revitalization provides an overview of the current state of various indigenous languages around the world, describes some local responses to maintaining them, and in some cases suggests a re-examination of the goals and content of indigenous language retention programs. Each chapter presents a case study of a threatened language and possibilities for continued vitality through a description of the history of culture contact in a particular language community, early attempts at assimilationist-style education, the current language situation in the community, and recent local grassroots efforts at language revival and maintenance. Some also include examples of differences between past and present spoken forms of the language, and the implications of these for present and future generations of indigenous language learners. The authors are all actively engaged in research on the maintenance of indigenous languages, and many of them do applied work in communities as well. It is hoped that the ideas and approaches presented in this book will encourage others working in the field of indigenous language revitalization and maintenance to keep up their efforts, and in so doing consider approaches to indigenous language education that operate at the local level and involve various members of the community.
About the Author: Christina Abreo is currently working as a Research Associate in the School of Human and Environmental Sciences at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. She is completing her doctorate in Latin American Studies at the Stone Center of Latin American Studies at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her research focuses on linguistics, cultural anthropology, and Mayan literature in translation. Her dissertation, Community Based Education in San Juan la Laguna, Solola, Guatemala, is about the indigenous (Maya Tz'tujiil) led education system that is serving as an alternative to higher education in San Juan la Laguna. She has published a paper presented at the 2007 Institute of Latin American Studies Student Association (ILASSA) 27 Student Conference on Latin America, titled Translating Shakespeare into K'iche': The Pan-Mayan Movement and Re-Writing Indigenous Participation in Guatemala. Barbara Burnaby has taught English as a foreign language in Japan and English as a second language to adult immigrants in Toronto, pre-service teacher training courses in English as a second language, language in Native education, and adult literacy for immigrants. In the 1970s and early 1980s, she was involved in the development of the Native Language Instructors Training Program for Ontario as well as provincial policy on the teaching of Native languages in provincial schools. From 1979 to 2000 at the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) she did research on language arts for Native children, teacher training in English as a second language, benchmarks for adult immigrants learning English, and oral fluency and literacy in Native languages in various parts of Canada. In 2000 she moved to Memorial University of Newfoundland. Currently she is semi-retired and holds the position of Honorary Research Professor at Memorial University. Some of her recent publications include Language across the Community: Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Conference, co-edited with Jon Reyhner (2002); Cree decision making concerning language: A case study, co-authored with Marguerite MacKenzie (2001); and Literacy in Dene languages in the Northwest Territories, Canada: For what purpose? (1998). George Ann Gregory directs Ho Anumpoli!, a private non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the survival of Native American languages, and teaches Cultural Studies and Linguistics at Central New Mexico Community College. Her current research projects include the use of metaphors by Maori and revitalizing threatened languages in urban areas. She has written and published in a variety of areas. Her publications include Holocaust of Native America; American English Composition for Anyone: A Grammar and Composition Workbook (part of the For Anyone series); and various articles about composition, cross-cultural rhetoric, and language revitalization. Jim Hollander currently works for the Ojibway and Cree Cultural Centre as a curriculum coordinator and writer, and has published many teacher curriculum and resource materials. He has been involved in First Nations education for over twenty-five years in a variety of capacities-as a parent, teacher, principal, and education services provider. Fourteen of those years were spent living and working on reserves in northern Ontario. In 1999, he completed his Master in Education degree at Queen's University on Cree pre-service teacher instructional preferences and values. This program provided some interesting learning experiences; however, his most important experiences came from the Cree people and elders of the James Bay area. From them he has come to understand the importance of developing and implementing culturally relevant curriculum as one means of improving the quality of education for students. Anne Marie Goodfellow's research interests include early relations between colonists and indigenous people, and the history and consequences of language contact. She is the author of a Native language immersion program, Gangananamasa Kwakwaka'wakw (Children of All Kwakwala-speaking People) (1991). She also wrote the elementary curriculum First Nations Journeys of Justice (1994) which won a Justice Achievement Award from the US National Association for Court Management in 1995. She has published a book based on her dissertation Talking in Context: Language and Identity in Kwakwaka'wakw Society (2005), and a book of archival materials titled Textual Evidence for the Life of Simon Girty, American Revolutionary Turncoat: An Historian's Guide to the Draper Manuscript Collection of the Wisconsin Historical Society (2007). She has also produced a documentary film Simon Girty: Crossing Over (2008) and is working on other film projects related to indigenous peoples' cultures and languages. She currently is the manager of the History Education Network at the University of British Columbia. Gary Holton is a documentary linguist specializing in Athabascan languages of Alaska and non-Austronesian languages of eastern Indonesia. He has conducted community language documentation and archiving workshops in many regions of Alaska and helped to found the Dena'ina Language Institute. His publications include a sketch grammar of Tobelo; a dictionary of Western Pantar; and a pedagogical dictionary of Tanacross Athabascan. He is currently Associate Professor of Linguistics at the Alaska Native Language Center and Director of the Alaska Native Language Archive. John S. Long is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Nipissing University. His research focuses on indigenous control of education and the history of the western James Bay Cree. He currently has three articles in press: Review of Graham: The mush hole: life at two Indian residential schools, Canadian Journal of Native Studies; How Treaty No. 9 was explained to the Ojibway and Cree of Northern Ontario in 1905, Ontario History; and Making Native language policy in Ontario in the 1980s, Historical Studies in Education. Mindy J. Morgan is Associate Professor of Anthropology and an affiliated faculty member of the American Indian Studies Program at Michigan State University. She is the author of The Bearer of This Letter: Language Ideologies, Literacy Practices, and the Fort Belknap Indian Community (University of Nebraska Press 2009). Her research centers on how Indigenous communities both view and use language as a symbol of cultural persistence and tribal identity within the United States. Hana O'Regan has been engaged in Maori education in the tertiary sector for the past 17 years. Specialising mainly in the areas of Te Reo Maori, identity development and Kai Tahu language and culture regeneration, Hana has played an active role in the language revitalisation strategy of her people. A board member of the Maori Language Commission Te Taura Whiri i Te Reo Maori since 2003, she is currently the Director of Maori and the Dean of the Maori Faculty at Christchurch Polytechnic, Institute of Technology. Jon Reyhner is Professor of Bilingual Multicultural Education at Northern Arizona University. He taught and was a school administrator in Indian schools for over a decade. He has written extensively on American Indian education and Indigenous language revitalization and served as a commissioned author for the Indian Nations at Risk Task Force. His most recent books are Indigenous Language Revitalization, Education and Language Restoration, and American Indian Education: A History. He has edited seven books on Indian education, written over forty book chapters and articles and has given over a hundred workshops, presentations, and speeches at regional, national, and international conferences. Michael A. Shepard is currently pursuing his doctorate in anthropology at the University of British Columbia. His academic interests include Northern Straits Coast Salish language education, Participatory Action Research (PAR), and academic uses of technology. He coordinates online education and faculty development at Whatcom Community College and teaches for Western Washington University, both in Washington State. Marta Hotus Tuki is the executive director of He Rapa Nui, an indigenous language organization devoted to the maintenance of Rapa Nui language and cultural heritage on Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean. She has published a Rapa Nui - Spanish dictionary, and is very involved in the island's politics, having been elected as a municipal councillor in 2008. She also participates in various organizations that promote indigenous language and cultural rights worldwide. Evangeline Parsons Yazzie is Professor of Navajo at Northern Arizona University where she teaches her native language. As a means of acknowledging and honoring her parents for their gift of language, culture-knowledge, and Navajo teachings, she teaches and writes on the behalf of elders, encouraging others to honor their elders. Her children's book, Little Woman Warrior Who Came Home A Story of the Navajo Long Walk (2005), has won several awards: The International Reading Association's Children's Choices Book (2006), Notable Children's Social Studies Trade Book (2006), Independent Publisher Book Award in the area of Non-fiction (2006) (Multicultural Juvenile-Young Adult category), Storytelling World Award (2007), and Michael Lacapa Honorable Mention Award (2007). She is the primary author of a Navajo language textbook, Rediscovering the Navajo Language, co-authored with Dr. Margaret Speas, which was adopted in 2008 by the New Mexico State Department of Education, the first state in the United States to adopt an American Indian language textbook.