International Year of Indigenous Languages @ UChicago

Event Summaries

LANGUAGE STATUS PANEL
Saturday @ 10AM

Adam Singerman (Latin America): The proliferation of forest fires in the Amazon has drawn the world’s attention in recent weeks. This environmental destruction results in part from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s pledges to open indigenous reserves to “development” and to “integrate” Native populations into Brazilian society. In this talk I will discuss (a) the varying states of indigenous language vitality in Amazonia and (b) the ways that academics and communities have framed indigenous language revitalization as a bulwark against environmental catastrophe.

Tran Truong (Japan): In 2005, former Prime Minister Tarō Asō described Japan as having “one nation, one civilization, one language, one culture, and one race.” Indeed, multicultural and multilingual are not words that easily fit into mainstream conceptions of the Japanese archipelago. But Japan is home to a number of indigenous peoples, all of whose languages are listed within the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. This talk is an introduction to the minoritized languages of Japan, including Ainu, Ryukyuan, and the languages of Sakhalin/Karafuto.

Hannah McElgunn (North America): UNESCO measures the status of a language–its level of vitality–through numbers and profusion: How many speakers are there? Is the language used across multiple domains? Are learning resources readily available? This canonical framing of vitality leads to specific ways to tackle endangerment: increasing speakers, increasing contexts of use, increasing resources. I draw on several years of fieldwork with Hopi tribal members (in what is currently Southeastern Arizona) to discuss the way that this mode of expansion does not necessarily lead to vitality, but is, in fact, perceived as loss.


FILM: RADIO ÑONMDAA: THE WORD OF WATER (Amuzgo)
Friday @ 12PM

On December 20, 2004 the Radio Ñonmdaa, The Word of the Water, came on air, becoming the first radio station to broadcast in the indigenous Amuzgo language. Under the direction of the traditional authorities of Xochistlahuaca, Guerrero, Radio Ñonmdaa serves to communicate and disseminate the needs of this autonomous municipality. This radio station covers nearly the entire territory of Amuzgo people and can be heard in different Afro-Mexican, Mixteco, and mestizo communities in the Costa Chica regions of Guerrero and Oaxaca. Since opening, the station has received constant harassment from the Mexican Military who have threatened to shut down the station. Radio Ñonmdaa serves to strengthen the autonomy, identity and culture of the indigenous peoples of the region.


PRESENTATION ON THE POTAWATOMI LANGUAGE
Friday @ 12:15PM

This talk will focus on the history of Potawatomis with special attention paid to the history of the Potawatomi language and language learning. Master speaker Carla Collins and two of her students, Margaret Mersereau Long and Dejonay Biles Morseau, will discuss their personal journeys studying under master speakers and what it means to learn Potawatomi in the current moment.


FILM: THIS IS WHO I AM (Ojibwe)
Friday @ 3PM

Kalvin Hartwig (Ojibwe/Anishinaabe) will discuss his life journey and what inspired him to produce his short film, This Is Who I Am. This will include insights shared with him by elders and other knowledge-keepers about language, Indigeneity/identity as Indigenous peoples, and elements of our history and the way we see the world through language. Some of the topics that may come up during the presentation and during the question/answer period include boarding and residential schools, assimilation policies, decolonization, self-determination, sovereignty, Indigenous rights, the United Nations, treaties, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.


FILM: NIUGAA YUGAA ‘KEEP TALKING’ (Alutiiq)
Saturday @ 10AM

Keep Talking follows four Alaska Native women fighting to save Kodiak Alutiiq, an endangered language now spoken by less than 40 remaining fluent Native Elders. Their small community travels to remote Afognak Island to start teaching kids Alutiiq. Sadie, 13, is inspired to begin learning the language and dances of her ancestors. Instead of getting swept up in the wake of historical trauma, these women overcome personal demons and build toward a brighter future.


PRESENTATION BY RHODEL CASTILLO (Garifuna)
Saturday @ 11:30AM

Mr. Castillo will provide some background on himself and will then speak on the role of Garifuna language in the community. He will also discuss the Garifuna language and community in Chicago and how it is being preserved here. As part of his presentation, he will play a few different songs in Garifuna, touch on the different genres and how they are used to communicate with the community and how they are presented to the world. He will also explain what the songs mean in English.


PRESENTATION BY DR HILARIA CRUZ OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY (Chatino/Zapotecan)
Saturday @ 3:30PM

A language with printed books and materials is empowered with an additional dimension in which the language can exist, be promoted, and shared beyond the oral language. Printed materials for early reading enhances self-esteem, promotes intellectual growth, builds one’s reading level, and elevates the status of the language in the eye of dominant language speakers. In my talk, I will share my experiences working with university students to create and publish children’s books in indigenous languages, with no translation into a dominant language. Books have been published in the Chatino language spoken in Mexico, Ojibwe spoken in the Great Lakes, and Hupa spoken in California. In addition to adding in a rapid manner much-needed materials for reading in endangered languages, these books also open opportunities for community dialogue about language loss. Likewise, it offers non-speakers of the endangered language first-hand experience and appreciation of endangered languages.