How to revive the lost language

decades ago, when David Costa first unveiled the mystery of Miami's tribal language "Myaamia", it felt like he was looking for an invisible iceberg. There is no recording, no speaker of this language, and no linguist colleague is doing the same research. In short, nothing can attract his attention in an obvious way like a towering ice tower sticking out of the water. But after some hunting, he found the amazing remains hidden under the surface of the earth: thousands of pages of written documents and hundreds of years.

For Daryl Baldwin, this language is not an elusive iceberg, but a huge blank. Baldwin knew his cultural heritage and the names of some ancestors since he was a child, but he didn't have much substantive knowledge in language. Baldwin said: "I feel that knowing my language will deepen my experience and understanding of this tradition I claim, my Amia." . Therefore, in the early 199s, Baldwin returned to linguistics school to better understand the challenges he faced. Costa's doctoral thesis was published in 1994.

Combining their research on the disappearing language, Costa and Baldwin are now working to revive the language. Up to now, Costa, a linguist and project director of the Language Research Office of the Miami Center, has spent 3 years on this. He predicted that in thirty or forty years, the puzzle would be completed, and all the historical records of languages would be translated and assembled digitally.

The work of Costa and Baldwin is part of a larger mystery: 9% of the 175 native American languages that survived the European invasion have no children's languages. Globally, linguists estimate that 9% of the 6 languages on earth will be extinct or seriously endangered within a century.

"Most language work is still field work with speakers," Costa said. "When I first started, projects like mine (using only written materials) were very rare. Sadly, as languages begin to lose their speakers, they will live more and more on Mondays.

David Costa is a linguist and the project director of the Language Research Office of the Mia Center. He spent 3 years to complete the task of reviving Mia. (Mimia Center)

Despite the threat of language extinction and the brutal history of genocide and forced migration, this is a hopeful story. It's about reversing time and making things that sink to the surface visible again. This is a story about how a disappearing language is revived and how it is revived with other lost languages.

Miami people have traditionally lived in parts of Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. In the mid-16th century, when French Jesuit missionaries first came to this area and recorded it, the language they spoke was one of several dialects belonging to Miami-Illinois (the language itself is called Myaamia, which is also the name of Miami tribe, and the plural form is Myaamiaki). Miami, Illinois belongs to a large group of native languages called Algonquian in North America. Algonquian includes all languages from Ojbu to Cheyenne to Nara Guincestre.

It is believed that language is the spoken equivalent of classification system. Just as all living things have ancestors of the Mon nationality, and migrate from one domain to another, languages will evolve with each other. Algonquian is a genus, and Miami-Illinois is a species. It has been spoken by members of many tribes who have their own dialects, just like a subspecies of Miami-Illinois. Today, only one dialect is studied, which is usually called Miami, or Maya.

Like cognates between English and Spanish (partly because their Mon family is descended from Indo-European family), Miami has similarities with other Algonquian languages. These lIkeneses are priceless to Baldwin and Costa's reconstruction work. Baldwin started with a list of words found in Oklahoma tribes and his family's personal collections, but he struggled with pronunciation and grammar. This is Costa's job. (John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

, but before we begin, let's briefly review how Miami people finally can't speak their own language. This is a familiar story, but its existence should not reduce the pain felt by those who have experienced it.

Miami tribes signed 13 treaties with the United States, which led to the loss of most of their homes. In 184, the Wabash Bifurcation Treaty stipulated that they gave up 5, acres (nearly 8 square miles) of land in north-central Indiana in exchange for keeping the same size of land in unorganized Indian territory, which will soon become a piece of land in Kansas. In 1846, eight years before the Kansas-Nebraska Act sent white settlers to the area, the last members of the tribe were forcibly expelled. In 1867, Miami people were forced to emigrate to Oklahoma, where other small tribes were relocated and their members spoke different languages. With each new immigrant, the tribe turned to English, and their language was gradually abandoned. By the 196s, among the 1, people who could apply for Miami Heritage, no one spoke any more (members were all over the country, but the main population centers were Oklahoma, Kansas and Indiana). When Costa first visited the tribes in Oklahoma in 1989, this discovery was shocking.

"The languages of most tribes who migrated to Oklahoma still had some users in the late 198s," Costa said. "Now is the epidemic disease. The native language of Oklahoma was seriously threatened all over the world, but at that time, the situation in Miami was worse than most places.

when Baldwin decided to learn more Miami languages to share with his children, he had little to learn from. Most of them are word lists he found in the personal collections of tribes and his family in Oklahoma. Baldwin's interest coincides with the growing interest in language among members of Miami tribe in Oklahoma. Miami tribe in Oklahoma published the first unpublished Mia phrase book in 1997. Baldwin posted a list at home to help children learn the language and teach them the names of animals and basic greetings, but he struggled with pronunciation and grammar. This is where Costa works.

"David can really be considered to have discovered a lot of materials for our work," Baldwin said. "I began to realize that there are other community members who want to learn from them."

With the help of tribal leaders in Oklahoma and the University of Miami in southern Ohio, these people gathered resources for other Miami people to learn their language. In 21, the university (named after the tribe) cooperated with the tribe and started the Myamia project. In 213, the project hired more employees and won a new title (Myamia Center). When Baldwin started to be the director of Myaamia Center in 21, he got a master's degree in linguistics, and < P > he had an office big enough for a table and two chairs. "I found myself thinking on campus, well, what now? "But it wasn't long before he understood. Soon, he organized a summer youth program, and the specific courses could be taught in Oklahoma and Indiana. He implemented a program at the University of Miami to let tribal students take classes together, focusing on language, cultural history and the problems of Native Americans in the modern world. All the children in Baldwin can speak this language and teach it in summer camp. He even heard them talking in Mimic in their sleep. Baldwin organized a summer youth program, and specific courses could be taught in Oklahoma and Indiana. Karl revived their lost or disappeared languages. This initiative is based on the "Restoring Sound" project, which is a cooperative project between the National Museum of Natural History, the Center for Folk Life and Cultural Heritage and the National Museum of American Indians. Researchers in each institution are committed to establishing contacts with indigenous communities around the world to maintain and celebrate linguistic diversity. This initiative resulted in the Institute of Life Breath Archives in Indigenous Language Countries. The seminar was held in 211, 213 and 215, and will be held again in 217.

According to Gabriela Pérez Báez, a linguist and researcher engaged in Zapotec language research in Mexico, the seminar has received community members from 6 different languages.

"When I started learning languages in 21, one of my professors said,' If you face it, these languages will disappear, and there is almost nothing we can do,'" Bates said. "I remember the feeling at that time. As a linguist, is this what I want to do? Because everything looks dark around.

But the more she knows about the work of Baldwin and Costa, and the more she knows about the work of other tribes whose languages are losing, the more she is encouraged. She recently conducted a survey of indigenous language communities, and the preliminary results showed that 2% of the respondents belonged to communities whose languages were undergoing a process of re-awakening. In other words, their indigenous languages have either disappeared or are highly endangered, but efforts are being made to reverse this situation. Even the terminology used to describe these languages has changed: languages that were once called "death" or "extinction" are now called "dormancy" or "sleep".

"Suddenly, all these language communities are trying to awaken their languages and do something that is considered impossible," Bates said. More importantly, these groups are realistic about their goals. No one expects to speak English fluently or speak their mother tongue fluently soon. They just want to have a group of novices, or have the ability to pray or sing in their language. Then, they hope that this effort will continue to grow for generations.

"Surprisingly, people are working on a process that can outlive them," Bates said. "That's why Darryl (Baldwin) is so concerned about young people. The work done by the Maya Center for tribal youth is incredible. It has multiplied people's interest and commitment.

It doesn't mean that the breath of life can help every language community in America. Some languages are just not fully recorded, such as Esselen in Northern California. However, any resources available through the Smithsonian National Archives of Anthropology, the Library of Congress and other places can be provided to all groups attending the seminar. Bates said that these efforts did not end in the United States and Canada. Researchers from New Zealand, Australia, Latin America and other places are returning to archives to dig up records of indigenous languages, hoping to help them resist the dangerous tide. I want to see the evidence, I want to see the concrete facts. "But seeing that [these communities] are so determined, you are blown away."

For Baldwin and Costa, their own experience in the Maimia project has always been humbling and comforting. Now there are some living people who speak Mia together. Although Costa doesn't know whether they speak the same language as they did 2 years ago, it is still a language. Baldwin even won MacArthur's "Genius Award" in his language research work in 216. < P > They don't want to predict the future of language or its people. We live in a world where 96% of the population speaks 4% of languages. But both of them hope that the project they started is like a spring garden, and it will gradually grow into a huge garden.