Learning indigenous languages

Please, please, please start a thread on this. This sounds fascinating, and in order to engage with it and explore it I’ll need to know more about this; at the moment I only have suspicions and curiosities.

Granted, English has since embraced civilization with all the fervor you'd expect of a new convert

Do you really think that it belongs to a culture that crossed the line only 1500 years ago?

I'll readily grant that the tendrils of domesticated logic wind their way through the English language deeply. But they similarly wind their way through our own brains deeply.

I’d suggest that they do so in a reinforcing positive feedback loop with our language.

People who study native languages rarely have sudden epiphanies about the relationship of humans to the world, because even though the languages they study open up new horizons for those possibilities, the people studying them bring their domestication to them.

Absolutely. Studying and IMMERSING yourself in another language really mean two different things. Languages don’t die because somebody starts studying another language; they die because the speaker IMMERSES themselves in a different language, rather than learning their ancestral one. I suspect immersion holds the key; lifestyle, not dabbling or making a hobby of it. Trying on a language with full intention. In any case, I recommend this for that special class of people who rewild that can try on new worldviews, and play with letting go of their domestication. I think many of us can do this, if we choose it consciously!

Now I heartily agree that we should study native languages. But whether we use that to replace English, or to understand the language of our land and inform a project of rewilding English, I see as a somewhat more complicated problem.

Yes, I agree with you here. The problem, to me, looks like this: in order to truly learn animist worldviews, we need to immerse ourselves in them. Our very thoughts and logical systems, as English speakers, reinforce domesticating patterns. So we study animist languages, to reseed English (I also HIGHLY recommend ASL for this). But to really learn at the knee of these languages, we have a lifetime of immersion ahead of us; animist languages only open up with greater depths as even a native speaker learns more of them. If we do our jobs right, will we even remember English to come back to it?

This puts the whole idea of cultural appropriation on its head; I don’t want to become a Mohawk, Blackfoot, Navajo, Hopi; but as old-growth cultures, I have a huge amount to learn from them. In learning fully and immersively, what will I call myself when I lie on my deathbed? At that point, will it matter?

That got me thinking.

We could try to rewild English. But how readily can we recognize the shortcomings of the language as long as we continue to rely upon it as our communication tool? We already have a few ideas – E-primitive, etc. But can we ever be sure that we’ve struck an equilibrium that doesn’t put our thinking & relating at odds with the land around us? Perhaps there are parts of English that we take for granted which just won’t serve us well if we want to indigenize ourselves. And wouldn’t rewilded English take on different aspects in different rewilding cultures w/r/t their values, beliefs, and the very place they inhabit? Will we ever be able to recognize everything that needs to change about our language, or will we remain blind to many of its problems?

It seems to me that as long as English is something we could discard without losing anything too precious, we might as well throw out the bathwater. (After, of course, we have learned how to effectively communicate in the language that has traditionally belonged to our locality.)

Or is this cultural appropriation? After all, we’re not trying to re-enact the past.

wow, such good answers. one thing though, it seems it would be pointless to learn pidgins, as they aren’t indigenous languages, but bastardized (and i would assume civilized) versions of indigenous languages. toxic mimics maybe? I know Chinook Jargon has a pretty low word count as far as languages go, I would assume because it was a trade language, and not really used for much else. So, wouldn’t all (or at least some) the problems associated with english or french come along with the new pidgin?

I think we should consider the Sapir-Worf hypothesis, in which it’s shown that language effects how we can cognitively understand things. If we don’t have a word for something, we can’t imagine it very well, won’t get the subtle implications involved in certain words, etc.

One aspect of the hypothesis is that it’s a two way street. The cognitive processes just as equally influence the formation of language and how we choose our words. So, if we’re out living indigenously and learning to relate to the world in an animist way, is it necessary to so consciously change our language, or will it grow into an animist language naturally?

Well, you can learn them easily because of their ‘pidgin’-ness, and they teach you a bit about all those ghosts haunting your land. However, Chinook Wawa evolved into a creole (a full-fledged language that has grown as such because children grew up speaking the pidgin as their first language) on the Grande Ronde rez. Just FYI. The jargon/pidgin carries a lot of cultural import for Cascadians, by itself, methinks.

So, if we're out living indigenously and learning to relate to the world in an animist way, is it necessary to so consciously change our language, or will it grow into an animist language naturally?

Given enough time, I absolutely think our language will evolved to match our lifestyle. But just as you brought up the Sapir-Whorf hyp, think about how long you’ll continue to live the domesticated lifestyle, even with civ gone. I feel like many a primitivist falls prey to the unaddressed domestication borne of their cultural instincts, carried by their language and the very formulation of their thoughts and self-talk.

In the end, I do experience the Land teaching me all of it anyway; I see these “mentorship via animist languages” as more of a way of addressing the short-term bottleneck facing us right now. Folks who have gone this way before can help me live lifetimes of animist learning in one short life. Not as a rushing, hurry-up kinda thing, but in the same old way Grandparents have passed on all their summed up lifetimes behind them on to the Grandchildren. This seems pretty natural to me; not ‘going back’, but learning from Grandpa and Grandma, in the form of speakers of animist languages.

Really, good luck finding such a mentor anyway; it takes a lot of work to receive this kind of gift and mentoring. Most of us will probably not have a choice but to focus on English for now. I put my energy where my inspiration leads me; yours will lead you to its own unique place.

I’m not sure if this really relates to this thread or not. But several people I know (myself included) have “heard” songs at different places that are definitely not in English. From my own specific experience of this phenomenon, the song seems to be intimately connected to a specific land or feature. Usually these songs are combinations of what most folks would call vocables. By incorporating this kind of language and using these songs more, might we rewild our language and minds?

I’ll assume you meant that question rhetorically - it feels good to flesh out what it means for the Land to teach us to speak. Thanks for the story from your own life!

I don’t think it is a rhetorical question. I think I’ve had the same experience as Pathfinder. These aren’t songs that we made up or composed. These are songs that come to us, seemingly out of nowhere so to speak, already fully developed, complete, ready to do their thing. They live. They work through us and we help them accomplish the work they have to do. We have a relationship with them.
I’m definitely not speaking metaphorically here, this is real. I’ve experienced it.
Can’t say much more about it than that.

Just to clarify, I didn’t mean “metaphorical”, in the sense that Pathfinder had meant it in some symbolic fashion; I meant “rhetorical”, in the sense of, the subject of his question had such power, that just to raise it made the answer obvious: of course the land rewilds us with the songs that it gives us, the language it speaks to us, in a very real and non-metaphorical way.

thanks billy for talking about it some more!

Yes , I understand you now Willem. I’m so used to people looking at me like I’m on acid when I talk about this way of relating to entities like songs, I automatically thought you meant something else.

I should have known you would not be coming from that place.

Yeah, the songs definitely feel alive. “Entities” is actually a good way of describing them. It goes along with the same idea that languages also are truly alive and change over time…

On a different note, there hasn’t been much discussion about written languages here, partially because most written languages tend to go with civilization. But, some indigenous societies had written languages in different forms. Most of them are heavily pictographic (the “letters” of the language actually represent an object not just a sound-there usually a drawing of something). What does the lack of pictographic meaning in English say about our language and minds? Also, in a lot of pictographic languages a single character may have only one sound, but many meanings. This surely would shape ones perceptions around things like certainty and definition.

The Alphabet Vs. The Goddess is a great book that addresses those very issues.

But back to the thread, Willem, would you consider the new form of Chinuk Wawa to be an “indigenous” language, and I guess by that, I mean, does it have the trappings of a civilized language or not?

Do a search on rewild.info for Chinuk Wawa - a year or so ago I wrote a bunch of examples of why Chinuk Wawa expresses a common indigenous structure.

Does it have trappings of civilized language? Well, even many modern indigenous languages (christianized and/or urbanized) have adapted some civilized trappings, like names for the “days of the week”, and so on. I love Chinuk Wawa because it marks a highly european-impacted native trade language that has gone back to its native roots while at Grande Ronde. I wouldn’t say it has no modern characteristics, but it certainly has the heart of a native language, speaking from my own small survey of indigenous languages. The Wawa existed before Europeans, and still exists after Europeans stopped using it for trade.

Remember: the trade pidgin, differs from Chinuk Wawa as stewarded by folks like Tony Johnson at Grande Ronde.

Hey Willem,

I’m wondering what your thoughts are on this topic now that we both speak chinuk wawa more fluently. Or rather…

Nsayka munk +ush wawa alta. Pus cagwa nayka tiki kemdex ikta mayka tumtum kapa chinuk wawa alta. Mayka tumtum kagwa mayka dumdum ankity pi mayka tumtum +oima dumdum alta?

I’m curious about it now too Peter. And about some of the details as well, like, does the Wawa have “to be”? What about genderfied pronouns? Other aspects that are inherent/endemic to civilized languages? Does it still feel more important to folks to learn pidgins than to try to rewild English?

the nature of creole languages, as newly formed languages, creates opportunities for linguists to study language formation - potentially giving clues about the formation of the first languages. Creoles always have a limited number of morphemes (meaningful units, similar to words, but not quite) but derive unlimited meaning from them. this can be seen analogically to correspond to early language development in humans, as all other primates have a limited number of meaningful units in their communication systems. In addition, creoles’ grammatical structure consistently follows the same patterns of construction, leading some like Noam Chomsky to hypothesize a “universal grammar” that is hardwired into our brains. Im skeptical that it holds up to the evidence from all languages, but nevertheless gives insight into early language. Another good source for this sort of info is looking at the real-time formation of new sign languages, which form when various deaf kids, who had rudimentary sign systems at home (see - pidgin languages) got together and mixed it all together.
Im currently in the process of learning two southern california languages - tongva, which is a “dead” language (no native speakers) and Cahuilla, which has VERy few native speakers left. Despite being only a two hour drive from each other geographically, they are more distantly related than are Norwegian and English. Perhaps we can learn that its ok to not be doing the same thing linguistically as another group? Long live diversity

Interesting bit about pidgin languages. I didn’t realize they gave clues to the rise of (or creation of) more full languages.

Perhaps we can learn that its ok to not be doing the same thing linguistically as another group? Long live diversity

Yes, this is awesome. Here in the NW, the Chinookan villages had up to 10 different languages. Each village was practically indistinguishable from the next. We’re talking villages on the same river! It’s amazing to think of the range of languages, even within a language family (like Dutch and German?).

I'm curious about it now too Peter. And about some of the details as well, like, does the Wawa have "to be"? What about genderfied pronouns? Other aspects that are inherent/endemic to civilized languages? Does it still feel more important to folks to learn pidgins than to try to rewild English?

Funny, that post above I made 4 years ago before I was Chinuk Wawa literate. My spelling is way off. And my grammar is kind of funny. Very English sounding. It’s nice to see I’ve improved a bit in that regard. Yes, I still think Chinuk Wawa does not have a “To Be” verb. It has a verb that functions as the to-be verb, but without the baggage of to-be (as described by the general semantics movement and B-English). There are no gender specific pronouns. One of the best and most used words is “kakwa.” This word can simply mean “in this way”. But it is so much deeper than that. It’s hard to even put it into words in english. One of my teachers translated the word early on to me as, “in this way that has been done since the beginning of time…” which always kind of tripped me out. It isn’t really used in that way, but if you interpret it that way it makes a lot more sense for its usage in the language.

This last winter (you can only tell chinookan myths in winter) we did translations of chinookan myths. I chose “The Raccoon and His Grandmother”. This tale is about a raccoon who doesn’t listen to his grandmother and eats all their acorns. Translating the old myths, along side Chinookan people, gave me more insight into the culture (pre-contact) here than I have ever received from anywhere else. It was a real treasure. I’m so thankful to the friends and community in the language group. It’s hard sometimes accepting that Native people who don’t know you and your intentions will dislike you as a white person interested in their culture, but it is worth it and necessary if we are to show more Native people that we are not there to appropriate, but learn, help, share, and create something new together.

Another thing about language in general and the 'Sapir-Whorf" hypothesis: the way I understand it, the main idea is not that different languages change how we think, but that languages have idiosyncratic ways of categorizing the world and our experiences, just as newspapers and other media frame world events. Its not to say that you cant think outside the ways that are being given to you, but it makes it difficult to see shades of gray when there are no names for the shades (literally and figuratively. like seriously - people distinguish colors better when they know more color terms). So, if we run with the media outlet metaphor, we can say that Modern Industrial English is like the Fox News of languages. Someone smart enough to figure out what they are REALLy saying on Fox can MOStLy tell whats really going on, but not all the time, unless more sources are available for comparison. Chinook wawa may be the Daily Show of languages. Not detailed, but at least its honest.

I love this thread, and I want to see it keep growing and building.

I’ve finally narrowed my long list of ancestral languages down to two I would like to learn. Old English/Old Saxon, and Scottish Gaelic.

Old English for two reasons:

  1. Because I speak modern English and I want to understand the changes the language (and therefore the people) went through as England succumbed to civilization.
  2. Because my maternal ancestors are Low Saxon-speaking Dutch, which does not have accessible learning materials. Also there is no language community nearby to learn or speak with. But Low Saxon originates from Old Saxon, so Old English/Old Saxon is still a way to connect to that ancestry, and there are plenty of language materials, old literature, and groups of people studying the language everywhere.

And Gaelic for two reasons:

  1. Because my paternal grandfather grew up scorning his mother’s native Gaelic, and I want to face that and try to heal that family trauma.
  2. Because the Goidelic language family is the most ancient branch of the Indo-European language tree I can lay claim to–that still has a living language–and of all my ancestry, my Goidelic-language speaking ancestors were the least affected by civilization, (at least until modern times). I want to know how they formed their world from words.

Interested to hear from others about your language choices, and the insights you have found as you pursue them.