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Lydia Leftcoast

(48,221 posts)
6. What resurrecting a language does for the emotional well-being of the ethnic group is
Sun Feb 3, 2013, 12:33 PM
Feb 2013

priceless, though.

Many of these languages, especially the Native American ones, were wiped out by force, as children as young as six were taken out of their communities at an early age and placed in English-only environments, where their language and culture were constantly treated as inferior, for years on end year-round. (Pre-pubescent children can forget their native language if they're not exposed to it.) Studying their ancestral language after generations of being told that they are nothing is deeply meaningful to tribal members

Lakota and Ojibwe still have more than a few speakers and are taught at the University of Minnesota and a few other state colleges in the Upper Midwest and Plains states.

Hawaiian actually has an active community of native speakers on the island of Niihau, and it has always been used in music and dance.

If Ainu are reclaiming their language and culture, that is amazing. Back in the 1970s, when I lived in Japan, I heard people talking about how they would never approve of their children marrying someone from Hokkaido, because there were too many Ainu up there trying to pass as Japanese. A National Geographic article about the Ainu, written about that time, showed mostly old people, because so many younger people refused to be photographed in any way that would identify them as Ainu.

Aboriginal groups overwhelmed by outside settlers, no matter where--North America, northern Europe and Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Japan--are plagued with more than their share of depression, substance abuse, and suicide. Reviving their languages, even just for ceremonial purposes or as an in-group secret language, does no harm and may go a long way toward reestablishing people's knowledge of and pride in their heritage.

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