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A Bemidji professor is on a quest to keep the Ojibwe language alive

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Re: A Bemidji professor is on a quest to keep the Ojibwe language alive

#31

Post by lmm »

mchaver wrote: post #30
lmm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does it need to? If a language interest a community, then it's reason enough to learn it. I've nothing against people voluntarily choosing to learn a language. But most language learning is done by children who are heavily pressured if not outright forced into it by their parents (who usually, hypocritically, do not put the same time into language learning themselves). That's cruel in my book.

I think it is cruel that their language was taken away from them, but I find it inspiring they are trying to rebuild their linguistics community. Not every child will like what they are taught, but if they can create an environment where the language is used, the kids are likely to follow. I hardly see how that is cruel.

Were you ever made to learn a useless language? It feels even worse than a waste of your time because it's also taking up space in your brain. Just judging by my own experience of Welsh.

Re: A Bemidji professor is on a quest to keep the Ojibwe language alive

#32

Post by mcswell »

distantaidenn wrote: post #10
DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #4

I'm struck by how many of them have seemingly ethnic-Japanese facial features.

Not just Japanese, but East (and North) Asian in general. In fact, because of the genetic similarities, and of course lack of samples, a lot of DNA profiling lumps Indigenous Americans and East Asians in one group. I have Native American ancestry, and was doing research on our history and was shocked to see the grouping, but also not so shocked, as it makes sense.

The Athabaskan languages (Slave, Gwich'in, Navajo = Dene, Apache, Chilcotin, and a host of others) have been shown by linguists to be probably related to the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia. If this is true, it does not however mean that the other Native American languages are also related to Yeiseian, since the Athabaskan languages are not known to be related to any other languages of the Americas.

But of course it's likely that the ancestors of the other Native American groupings did come from Asia, via the Bering Strait, which at various times was above water--there are just no plausible connections between these languages and languages of Asia, which is not surprising given the time depth.

Re: A Bemidji professor is on a quest to keep the Ojibwe language alive

#33

Post by mcswell »

ivanbakel wrote: post #19
lopmotr wrote: post #11

Is there any evidence of this common claim that obscure languages "may contain some of the most critical solutions to the problems we face as humans"? What kind of problems is he talking about there? Has it ever happened before? So what that a monkey is a "lice hunter"? In English, an anteater is an anteater and a wood splitter is a wood splitter. It's not a very special way of naming things. Maybe this language has…

>Yes, and English does that job much better because you can actually communicate with the world and multiple generations. That's a misunderstanding of Treuer's point. English is able to define English nations and express the English cultural perspective. He's not arguing that language, generally, is a tool for communication - he's saying that specific languages each yield their own specific identities. To address the…

Agreed.

Re: A Bemidji professor is on a quest to keep the Ojibwe language alive

#34

Post by mcswell »

LatteLazy wrote: post #25
lopmotr wrote: post #11

Is there any evidence of this common claim that obscure languages "may contain some of the most critical solutions to the problems we face as humans"? What kind of problems is he talking about there? Has it ever happened before? So what that a monkey is a "lice hunter"? In English, an anteater is an anteater and a wood splitter is a wood splitter. It's not a very special way of naming things. Maybe this language has…

I'm with you, and frankly the other replies sort of prove your point. No one has given any example of what you asked for and everyone seems to think learning a language like that is easy and simple and won't displace more important activities...

This doesn't speak to the question, but as for language learning displacing more important activities: young children learn new languages pretty much effortlessly, and no one has found anything to indicate that second language learning as a small child gets in the way of anything else.
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