Running Head: LANGUAGE DIES
How
Languages Die:
A
Case Study of the Wampanoag
Ana
Benderas
Linguistics
145
Dr.
Devney
4
April 2012
LANGUAGE DIES 2
At
the time of the film, Jessie’s daughter May was the only native speaker of Wampanoag. This situation points to a historic problem
as well as serves as a glimpse of hope for the Wampanoag language and
tribe. This situation reveals that,
since May was the only native speaker, the language was in serious danger of
extinction at the time. It means that at
that point, nobody else was speaking it and the Wampanoag traditions and
dialect were unknown to its own people. The hope that this situation provides
is that if a language is alive in one person, it can be revived in others. May
represents this hope for the continuation of the Wampanoag dialect. Knowing the process of the loss of a language
can help linguists revive endangered or “dead” languages. In the case of the Wampanoag tongue,
understanding the factors that contributed to its death was vital in the
process of its resurrection.
When
most of the native speakers of a language die or are killed, it is in danger of
extinction. Some remaining Wampanoag texts revealed that many of the tribe
members were massively killed by colonialists.
The Europeans had brought yellow fever, for example, that killed many;
and of course there was also the massive deaths that occurred as Europeans
invaded the Wampanoag land. The
extinction process is made complete when, after many native speakers have died,
no children learn the language. If May
was the first native speaker of Wampanoag at the time of the film, that means
that May’s ancestors had not taught their sons and daughters their language,
and neither had May’s peers’ ancestors.
In past generations, the children grew up speaking only English, so that
when their parents and grandparents died, the language died with them. With native speakers dead and no
LANGUAGE DIES 3
new speakers, the language cannot
continue. Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams (2011)
explain: “In each generation, fewer and fewer children learn the language until
there are no new learners. The language is said to be dead when the last
generation of speakers dies out.” This
particular language of Wampanoag was able to be saved because a group of people
began to reverse these processes. A
group of non-native speakers began to learn and “revive” the language and the
traditions that were lost with it. The
film showed young children speaking Wampanoag and participating in the
traditions. If children as young as four
or five begin to learn and use this language at home, they would be considered
almost native speakers. If these children marry when they grow up and teach
their spouses the language, they would be giving life to the language by
replacing all the native speakers who had died; and if these couples have
children and they raise them speaking Wampanoag, then the language can been
“resurrected.” This is exactly what the Wampanoag community in the film hoped
to accomplish.
Acculturation
is another reason that languages die. It
is especially true in the history of Native Americans that speaking the
dominant language was used so as not to appear as natives and to blend better
with the oppressive majority. This often meant better treatment and avoiding
trouble. Though the movie does not
mention this specifically, there is a strong possibility that the Wampanoag people,
like many other Native American tribes, lost much of their language and culture
this way- through acculturation. Many
Native American children were coerced into attending white, missionary schools
in which they were forced to assimilate to white culture by cutting their hair,
for example, taking a new white name, and speaking only English. In fact, even as late as the 1960’s many
schools in
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America prohibited the use of
non-English languages. The Chicano experience, for example, is very similar to
the Native American in that both groups were coerced into assimilation. Their schools, not only demeaned their
culture and language, but prohibited their expressions of it. Though the actual Spanish language itself was
not lost (this would be difficult, seeing how Spanish at one point was a
conquering language that is now spread throughout the world), many Latin-Americans
lost their use of it, and as a result, many generations of Latin Americans
would not know Spanish. Right before the
Civil Rights wave many Latinos were scared to teach or even allow their
children to speak Spanish because, in their experience, English meant
opportunities and less discrimination and punishment. Wampanoag was similarly lost because “Languages
[become extinct] when they are in contact with a dominant language, much as
American Indian languages are in contact with English” (Fromkin, et al. 2011). The modern Wampanoag community in the film was
working to reverse this process of acculturation. The same way their ancestors
had been submerged into assimilation, so was this group hoping to expose their children
and peers to explore the ancient language and traditions of the Wampanoag
tribe. They were involved in their own
process of acculturation and if it continued, the language would have a good
chance of revival.
With
immigration, languages change and dialects are born. In the film, the Native Americans had lost
their Wampanoag language, but many words and expressions had stuck around so
that they grew up speaking a dialect different from the Standard English, unheard
in other parts of the United States. The
film did not comment on how much immigration had affected the loss of this
tribe’s language, but many Native American
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languages have been lost this way, such
as the Ocracokers. “[The dialect] is in
danger of extinction because so many young Ocracokers leave the island and
raise their children elsewhere, a case of gradual dialect death” (Fromkin, et
al. 2011). With the dispersion of people
of the same language, the dispersion of that language also follows. The modern
Wampanoag group was working to reverse this process, not by dispersing and
being far from each other, but by creating a close-knit community. They met often and shared their lives with
each other. They made music, they ate together, they danced and worshipped, and
they spoke Wampanoag to one another. In this case, the dispersion of these
people would actually reverse the process of the death of their language
because, provided they each had gained a strong foundation and knowledge of the
Wampanoag ways, they could go out and teach it to the other regions and revive
the language.
The
Wampanoag people were able to revive a language considered “dead” because they
reversed the processes which had caused it to die in the first place. They
reclaimed their language that got lost with the death of many Wampanoag people
and the fact that no children were learning it. They did this by teaching new
people and young children the dialect- through acculturation, keeping a close
community, and finally dispersion. In this movement, they were able to find a
part of their identity that had been lost and in this movement is a hope that
the Wampanoag language will continue in the next generations.
References
Fromkin, V. & Rodman R. & Hyams
N. (Ed. 9th). (2011). An Introduction to
Language. New
York:
Wadsworth. (pp. 518-520).
Makepeace, A. We Still Live Here (As Nutayunean). [Film]. Boston:Makepeace
Productions.
Copyright Benderas (2013)
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