Decolonization Through Language Revitalization: Conversations With Language Warriors on Language Rights and Policy Failures

• In Event: The Role of Critical Language Policy Analysis in the “Post”-Civil Rights Era

Abstract

This paper demonstrates how threats against the maintenance and revitalization of the Ojibwe language and culture in Minnesota represent a regionally-based example of civil rights violations against Native Americans in the United States. In the face of these challenges, the author shares how the perspectives of Ojibwe community members remain resolute, how they have exercized agency in the face of linguistic imperialism, and how they have etched out spaces to allow for language revitalization, despite centuries of human and linguistic genocide.

Ojibwe ‘language warriors’ fight to preserve their language, culture, identity, treaty rights, ceremonies, and way of life. For each warrior, the battle is for survival as a people, and also one for peace and healing between peoples, within communities, and within one’s self. Through these warriors, a reawakening of the language and culture is occurring and it is having a big impact in schools and communities on the reservations and in urban areas (Crawford, 2000; Fishman, 1997; Francis & Reyhner, 2002; Hinton & Hale, 2001; Treuer, 2001; Wilson & Yellow Bird, 2005).

The paper is framed around the ecology-of-language paradigm (Phillipson, 1996), and by extension, its application toward notions of language loss and death, and in severe cases, linguicide and linguicism (Phillipson, 1996; Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000). The case of language death is a direct consequence of linguicism (the unequal division of power between linguistic groups) and linguicide (the killing or murder of languages). In cases of linguicide and linguicism, the agents involved in violating language rights are the powerful economic, social, educational, political, and techno-military systems of the world (Nicholas, 2005).

Research sought to better understand the Ojibwe language revitalization movement and its leaders. Twenty-one language warriors participated in the study and were interviewed twice for about an hour each. They described perspectives that are held by Ojibwes and non-Ojibwes regarding the Ojibwe language and identified what conditions have inspired the Ojibwe language revitalization movement and the impact that it has had and is having on reservation communities and urban areas, including their backgrounds and educational pathways; sources of inspiration; resources and strategies; and finally, opportunities, barriers, sacrifices, and future hopes. In terms of their roles as leaders, they spoke about what knowledge, success, and power mean to them; differences between Ojibwe and non-Native leadership; leadership strategies, challenges, and their future tasks. In particular, a key theme that emerged as a central element to their leadership involved self-determination.

Author

• Rick Gresczyk