From the Bush to the Boardroom: Economic Domains in Indigenous Language Revitalization

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From the Bush to the Boardroom:

Economic Domains in Indigenous Language Revitalization

By Sean Brookfield Meades

Prepared in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the qualifying examinations

for the degree of PhD in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics

York University

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From the Bush to the Boardroom:

Economic Domains in Indigenous Language Revitalization

Language revitalization can seem like a low priority when considered in the

context of a myriad of other concerns that individuals, communities, and

governments face on a daily basis; from illness to finding and keeping a job,

crumbling infrastructure to environmental crisis (Fishman 1991, 2). Indigenous

communities with limited financial resources face the same, if not greater pressure

due to the economic and political constraints imposed on them by settler societies

(Grenoble & Whaley 2006, 44). Yet the fate of indigenous languages and indigenous

economies are connected in subtle ways in settler colonies such as Canada, New

Zealand, Australia, and most of the Americas. Donna Patrick explains that in Canada,

“language was lost through colonial practices, which included residential schooling,

the banning of particular rituals and cultural practices, land appropriation and

economic degradation” (2007, 28). Consequently she argues that language, cultural,

and spiritual revitalization movements “are linked to the need for greater autonomy

and control over lands” (2007, 28). This interconnection of language, economy, and

governance (among other things) is best understood in the context of an indigenous

ecological framework that validates indigenous epistemologies and perspectives on

language, while emphasizing the interrelationship between speakers and context,

and across disciplinary boundaries.

Stemming from analogies between the conditions facing endangered

indigenous or minority languages and the growing awareness of environmental

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destruction and its negative corollary effects, ‘ecology’ gradually became a powerful

metaphor among linguists working on, or with the speakers of ‘smaller,’ ‘threatened’

languages, influenced by the bourgeoning environmental movements of the 1970s

and 1980s (See Haugen 1972). Frequently, linguists and language activists advocate

for the protection of linguistic diversity by arguing its analogous connection to the

importance of biodiversity to the planet’s well-‐being (Heller & Duchêne 2007, 2).

Once entrenched as a dominant metaphor for understanding the dynamics of

language distribution, use, and shift, the ecology of language has developed into a

coherent body of research with its own internal variations. Alastair Pennycook

provides an overview of the dominant trends in language ecology research:

One approach to language ecology emphasizes the point that languages must

always be considered in relationship to their context […] A variation on this,

sometimes called linguistic ecology, is interested particularly in the capacity

of languages to describe their environment […] A different perspective again,

which may be termed an ecology of language, is more concerned about

relationships between languages […] Finally, there is ecolinguistics, a form of

critical discourse analysis with an interest in the environment. (2010, 90)

Ecolinguistics will be of little interest to this discussion, given it focuses on

how we use language to talk about the environment, where this section concerns how

we use language to talk about the environment to talk about language.

The growing popularity of ecological frameworks has been matched with

growing criticism. Whether, as a metaphor, the concept has been over-‐extended or

simply been taken in directions it perhaps ought not to have been, the growing

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criticism at once risks overshadowing the usefulness of the ecological metaphor,

while also providing crucial feedback for refining the concept of language ecology.

Criticism of ecological frameworks have hinged on six primary flaws in the

analogy: the inappropriate extension of the analogy that parallels endangered

languages to endangered species, and the concomitant assimilation of language into

discourses of evolutionary biology (Cameron 2007; Pennycook 2010); that the

analogy divorces languages from their speakers (Blommaert 2010; Pennycook

2010); that linguistic complexity is lost in their reification as countable, bounded

“things” (Blommaert 2010; Heller and Duchêne 2007); that the ecological metaphor

is at odds with how speakers view their own languages and language use

(Blommaert 2010; Pennycook 2010); that ecological discourses exoticize and

essentialize indigenous peoples (Muelhmann 2007); and that the understanding of

language promoted by ecological frameworks is inherently apolitical, divorcing

language from its social context (Cameron 2007).

These critiques have emphasized important facts of which anyone wishing to

employ an ecological framework must be aware. Languages are not analogous to

species, as languages are infinitely adaptable, and consequentially it is not their

inability to adapt that renders them threatened (Pennycook 2010, 98). That

adaptability, in fact, rests with the speaker, as languages are not agentive subjects,

nor do they have discrete ‘boundaries’ (Heller and Duchêne 2007, 3; Blommaert

2010, 45). Consequentially the conditions facing ‘a language’ have everything to do

with the conditions facing their speakers, whose agency must be both acknowledged

and respected (Muelhmann 2007, 27; Blommaert 2010, 44). Every time someone

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opens their mouth to speak, they are making choices about language – some people

choose to not speak a given language, even if they have the linguistic resources from

which to draw. Linguists have to accept that such people are making the decisions

that are right for their own lives. What a language ecology framework provides is a

wholistic purview from which to ask, “What are the conditions that lead people to

make the linguistic choices they do?”

In this very respect, the same critics of the ecological framework risk

partaking in the same dissociation from speakers that they critique. The criticism of

“boundedness,” for instance, while highlighting valuable complexity, potentially

overlook the perspectives of indigenous people(s) with respect to their own

language use. While essentializing narratives and universalizing paradigms pose

problems for acknowledging local agency, linguistic and social complexity, and

relations of power, many critics of the ecological frame overlook the work of

indigenous activists and scholars, imposing their own universalizing paradigms of

western, post-‐modern or critical applied linguistics.

Cameron raises alarm bells over the nationalist (and racist) movements

inspired by such early German philologers as Johann Gottfried Herder who

postulated a local genesis of language, stemming from people’s common (and

variant) interpretive faculties and interaction with a given local environment

(Cameron 2007, 273; Errington 2007, 164). The implicit categorical dismissal of

nationalism, however, limits indigenous peoples across the Americas and the Pacific

to continued subsumption within settler colonial polities (Lawrence and Dua 2011,

249).

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Perhaps the most interesting, if not the weakest criticism of the ecological

frame is that it disguises processes that are attributable to social injustice,

colonialism, economic coercion, and power struggles of various kinds, attributing

them instead to natural processes in the context of ecology (Muehlmann 2007, 15;

Cameron 2007, 270; Pennycook 2010, 91). Ironically, this critique is

decontextualized from the political environment in which the initial frame of

language ecology is constructed. In North America, the languages of greatest

concern are indigenous languages, spoken by peoples who have been systematically

displaced and marginalized so that the majority settler population can maintain

dominion over resource riches and land development. While there are many non-‐

Native allies to indigenous movements for sovereignty and restitution for past

wrongdoing, there are conversely a great many people who are unlikely to be

swayed to help protect indigenous languages by calls for social justice and

decolonization. This is not to suggest the ecological frame is solely strategic, but it

can be strategic, particularly when activists and scholars are seeking public and

corporate funds to support projects that are inherently decolonizing in their

ambition.

Nor is the ecological frame necessarily de-‐politicized. One need only look to

the environmental movement to see the fallaciousness of such an assertion. Indeed,

indigenous language revitalization movements are inherently political in the North

American context: Where one of the primary goals of residential school (or boarding

schools in the United States) as well as more modern iterations of Aboriginal policy

has been assimilation (see Miller 1996, Kelly 2008, Lomawaima and McCarty 2006),

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the boundary marking aspect of language becomes crucial in resistance (Cameron

1995, 160; Spolsky 2009, 154). Indigenous language revitalization, then, is partly an

effort to re-‐establish those boundaries between colonizer and the colonized, to

deconstruct the liberal myth of a settler nation or a cohesive, equitable Canadian or

American society. Indigenous language revitalization movements ask of the social

nexuses in which they are situated that cornerstone question of verbal hygiene:

“Who is to be master?” (Cameron 1995, 148).

Indigenous conceptions of language ecology

Here, indigenous scholars have much to share in articulating a political

concept of language ecology. Kanienké:ha scholar, Chris Jocks explains that “the

separation of political analysis from ‘cultural’ factors such as language and religion –

not to mention other categories such as gender or science or economy/ecology – is

markedly non-‐traditional” (1998, 222). In the Haudenosaunee Longhouse tradition,

the arbitrary disciplinary divisions of economy, politics, and science (among others)

find little currency, and instead are conceptualized as part of a wholistic system. He

elaborates:

It is not that Longhouse traditionalists make no distinction among these, or

live in some kind of primitive-‐romantic intellectual formlessness. Longhouse

practice naturally recognizes distinct areas of concern or interest among

persons, activities, and expressions, but it also persistently attends to the

interconnectedness of these nodes. (Jocks 1998, 222)

Similarly, Nuu-‐chah-‐nulth philosopher and educator, Umeek (Richard Atleo), in his

treatise on Nuu-‐chah-‐nulth world view, Tsawalk, articulates the interconnection of

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life as explained through Nuu-‐chah-‐nulth traditional stories that elaborate the

foundational theory of Heshook-‐ish tsawalk, or “everything is still one” (2004). This

interconnection extends to unite both the physical and spiritual realms, as

“biodiversity, a purely physical phenomenon, is brought about by transformations

effected by a chiha, a spirit being,” (Atleo 2004, 69). This philosophy is echoed in

Anishinaabe teachings, as social work scholar Minogiizhigokwe (Kathy Absolon),

articulates “Indigenous worldviews teach people to see themselves humbly within a

larger web or circle of life” (2011, 31). She echoes the spiritual extension of this

interconnection, noting, “Spirituality is inherent in Indigenous epistemology, which

sees everything in relation to Creation and recognizes that all life has Spirit and is

sacred” (2011, 61). Likewise, Mide Anishinaabe scholar Jim Dumont relates

maintaining balance to conceptualizations of indigenous intelligence, stating “if our

use of our knowledge and our approach disturbs or disrupts the balance and

harmony of the life around us, it cannot be considered an intelligent act” (2002a,

n.p.). Mi’kmaq scholar Marie Battiste and her partner, Chickasaw legal scholar Sákéj

(James Youngblood Henderson), explicitly reject situating indigenous epistemology

within the confines of ‘culture’, explaining “we reject the concept of culture for

Indigenous knowledge, heritage, and consciousness, and instead connect each

Indigenous manifestation as part of a particular ecological order” (2000, 35).

Battiste draws explicitly on ecology to underscore the interconnection of

indigenous thought to land and spirit, and extends it in articulating her knowledge

of Mi’kmaw philosophies of language (Battiste and Youngblood Henderson 2000).

She explains that the Mi’kmaq language derived from the interplay of perception, as

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experienced through all of the human senses, and the natural environment. In the

interplay, “[p]erceptions of the sensory world unfold as affective sounds and

rhythm,“ local ecologies produce language, as these sounds and rhythms are refined

to words (2000, 25-‐26). Battiste also places special emphasis on what she calls the

distinction between “noun-‐based” Eurocentric languages and “verb-‐based”

Algonquian languages (2000, 75-‐76). While it is tempting to draw analogies to

Herderian formulations of language stemming from interaction with the natural

environment, it is important not to make the fallacious assumption, all too common

among non-‐Native researchers and academics, that the similarity of an indigenous

idea to one with European origins means the former is necessarily derived from the

latter.1 Battiste also offers unique explanations for her theory not seen in the work

of Herder, noting “The Mi’kmaw language has always been made up of forces

(mntu’k) that underlie the perceived world – these forces give rise to the perceived

world” (2000, 76). Fred Kelly, a Mide Anishinaabe, described as a “custodian of

Sacred Law,” underscores this interplay between the spiritual and the physical

1 Similarly, I must acknowledge the obvious criticism of distinguishing “verb-‐based” and “noun-‐based” languages. This explanation, I have found from personal experience, is also common in Anishinaabemowin speech communities. The argument doesn’t seem to hold up given the number of nominalising suffixes available to speakers, the most productive in terms of creating “nouns of ‘action, product, place, and instrument’” being /-‐win/ (as seen in /Anishinaabemowin/, the Anishinaabe language, derived from the compound verb /Anishinaabemo/, to speak Anishinaabe), which can be added freely to animate intransitive verb stems (Valentine 2001, 505). Consequently, one can have about as many nouns as one wants. The difference, however, lies in the speaker’s inclination to draw on this resource, potentially rendering indigenous morphosyntax (relatively) more analogous to its Indo-‐European counterparts. Marianne Mithun has demonstrated in investigating language shift with Cayuga, another polysynthetic (though Iroquoian) language, that this is not a common pattern, even in contexts of bilingualism (1992). In fact, she found just the opposite; the effect of shift on language use was to make the speaker more reticent to employ complex forms of verbal morphology altogether (Mithun 1992, 243). She maintains, “languages do not contain perfectly translatable vocabularies […] languages differ in their repertoires of grammatical categories” (1998, 189).

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realm, asserting “the language is an inviolable gift to the Indigenous peoples from

the Creator and their ancestors” (2008, 37).

Jeanette Armstrong also describes how the environment shaped her

N’silxchn (Okanagan) language:

“My own father told me that it was the land that changed the language

because there is a special knowledge in each different place. All my elders say

that it is land that holds all knowledge of life and earth and is a constant

teacher. […] In this sense, all Indigenous peoples’ languages are generated by

a precise geography and arise from it.” (Armstrong cited in Lawrence & Dua

2011, 243)

Far from ‘fixing’ indigenous languages in space, as Blommaert would critique (2010,

45), the explanations elaborated by Armstrong and Battiste offer snapshots of

genesis, change, and variation in linguistic systems. A deeper investigation of these

philosophies is unfortunately simply beyond the scope of this paper.

It is in this broad context that I wish to situate the concept of ecology: In the

interconnection of life, spirit, and all aspects of the material world. A change in one

domain (to use the terminology of language management), will result in changes in

its other corresponding interconnected domains. Thus, the political is ecological, as

is the social, the economic, the cultural, and so on. In articulating these

interconnections between various indigenous epistemologies, however, there is a

grave risk of extrapolating them from their appropriate context. Absolon provides a

partial roadmap in minding this difficult balance:

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“Indigenous worldviews have commonalities across Indigenous nations, but

there are also variations. For example, Creation stories vary from nation to

nation; […] our methodologies are relevant to our geography and land base.

The animals we revere are different, and our languages are different.

However, across the nations, we do share commonalities in that our world-‐

views are earth-‐centred philosophies, express strong ties to the land and

hold reverence for Spirit and ancestors.” (2011, 57)

Absolon also underscores the importance of accepting indigenous epistemology on

its own terms (2011, 146). While a number of scholars have sought to accept

indigenous linguistic theories as “strategic essentialism,” borrowing a term from

Gayatri Spivak (See Patrick 2007; Jaffe 2007), this characterization decontextualizes

indigenous epistemologies from their wholistic nexus, fixing them in a western,

Herderian-‐nationalist tradition; Ironically, again, committing what Spivak would

term an act of epistemic violence (Spivak 1994[1988], 76). Where modernist, Euro-‐

centred knowledge privileged itself as the sole source of truth, the appropriation of

indigenous voices into western discourses reflects the post-‐modern scholar’s

unwillingness to break from their own local knowledge, maintaining the

marginalization of local indigenous knowledge (Canagarajah 2005, 7). Canagarajah

explains “This strategy of accommodating local knowledge is necessitated partly

because of the consequences of modernity […] the resistance generated against

modernism by different localities has to be managed strategically with a different

modus operandi if the status quo is to be maintained” (2005, 7). While advocating

that we “break the available hermeneutic molds [sic] to empower local knowledge”

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Canagarajah provides a caveat when he explains, “Although local knowledge has not

completely died, it is also not pure. Local knowledge has not been waiting

undistorted and whole for scholars to come and discover it” (2005, 11, 9). While we

must recognize that indigenous peoples across the Americas do not live in isolation

and have access to dominant western discourses, Canagarajah’s framing implies a

sort of hopelessness in the inseparability of indigenous knowledge from western

discourse, though he is careful in alluding to the potential offered by “interpretive

effort from a foundational source” (2005, 11).

Underlying Canagarajah’s assertion, however, is a framing of local knowledge

as typically informal (2005, 3-‐4). The association of western schooling as the

prototype of “formal education” has resulted in all forms of non-‐western (especially

indigenous) education being erroneously perceived as informal and porous

(Lomawaima and McCarty 2006, 28). However, Anishinaabe, Mi’kmaq, Cree, and

Nuu-‐chah-‐nulth civilizations (and likely many others) employed systematic forms of

education based on mentorship/apprenticeship models that contextualized

knowledge (especially in the form of stories and songs) in lineage (Lomawaima and

McCarty 2006, 28; Dumont 2002b, n.p.; Long and Hollander 2009, 99; Atleo 2004,

107). This context, frequently missing from discussions of local/indigenous

knowledge, emphasizes the importance of rooting one’s work in a given community.

While I have taken the liberties of generalization in this paper for the sake of

articulating those features that are common indigenous perspectives on language,

ultimately any application of this framework must be rooted locally. Part of my

articulating this framework is to identify the foundations of an indigenous ecological

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approach to language policy and planning activism and research; the specifics of this

framework must be adapted to each civilization in which it is being implemented,

while its wholistic character is necessarily consistent (Absolon 2011, 59).

Absolon notes that indigenous research methodologies, frequently involving

ceremony, are the exclusive purview of indigenous peoples, however she highlights

the importance of “allied methodologies” (2011, 20, 148). While much of the earlier

work cited by non-‐indigenous scholars is not without its problems, much of it also

provides useful “allied” frames. Not all researchers will have access to the

indigenous knowledge required to properly contextualize an indigenous language

ecology framework; still others may be non-‐Native and without access to indigenous

partners, yet may have been contracted by indigenous agencies to engage in some

form of language planning or policy work.

The distinction between indigenous and allied methodologies and

frameworks is important for acknowledging community-‐based stewardship of

certain knowledge, as well as part of a critical awareness of how our situatedness

impacts our perspectives and work. The collaborative nature of language policy and

planning practice, however, necessitates a framework where the two strands work

in concert, as indigenous communities can draw on resources and people from

outside their communities for assistance (Hinton 2001, 55; Grenoble and Whaley

2006, 41).

Based on a refinement of the ecological metaphor, the indigenous/allied

language ecology framework I propose:

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• takes indigenous knowledge and perspectives about language as its

foundation, acknowledging the multiplicity and commonalities in these

perspectives;

• recognizes the interconnection of all domains, including between

material and spiritual realms;

• is rooted in the practices of a given community and validates local

knowledge;

• recognizes the interconnection between language and its speakers;

• pursues the self-‐identified best interests of a community;

• emphasizes personal and community agency;

• recognizes languages as variable; and

• allows for the drawing on other frameworks in so far as they complement

a sense of interconnection within a coherent whole.

Ecologies of language and economic practice

In exploring the interconnection of economy and language, we must

recognize that within the context of economies there exist many specific domains of

use for language, but like ‘politics,’ ‘the environment,’ and ‘society,’ it is not one

definable space. Economy as a whole cannot be considered “just another domain”

which can be left to English in the demarcation of the boundaries of a stable

diglossia. Economy is at its roots about survival. I take for granted that the interplay

between various economic domains may pattern together in very specific ways

because of their histories and interdependent relationship with one another, while

acknowledging that this idea requires greater future refinement. I draw a distinction

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between “traditional economies” and “western/capitalist/settler economies” based

on the origin of these respective conglomerations of domains, while acknowledging

there are gray zones because of contact, trade, technological exchange, co-‐

development, and the possibility for any given individual to cross the metaphorical

boundary between the two (this distinction is echoed by many others, frequently

with reference to indigenous ‘land-‐based’ practices, see Patrick 2007, 28; Lawrence

and Dua 2011; Lawrence 2002; Kroskrity 2009) Through this distinction I will

illustrate that different economies and different domains have a tendency to elicit

different choices in language use. Consequentially these patterns of language use

can impact the perception of the economic utility of a given language, which has

further ramifications for language choice. Furthermore, when indigenous economies

are made untenable through land expropriation, resource depletion, and other

processes of colonization, indigenous peoples are coerced into assimilation into

settler economies; combined with the political and social marginalization and

discrimination they may face in these spheres and the established hierarchies

therein, economic adaptation and survival encourages increasing shift away from

the indigenous language to that used most widely in the colonial society. Ultimately,

however, I hope to illustrate that these processes are part of a coherent ecology of

language use, interconnected with the political, social, and environmental (etc.)

spheres, and spiritual world.

In Spolsky’s sketch of the sociolinguistic ecology of domains, it is not

“economy” that stands out as a separate category, but “workplace” (the workplaces

that he posits being fixed in private enterprise within a globalized capitalist

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economy) and he demonstrates the prevalence of inertia – particularly in English

dominant societies – when it comes to these operations accommodating

multilingual societies or clientele (2009, 64). This can be seen in Phillips Valentine’s

study of the Anihshinini ( a.k.a. Severn Ojibwe/Oji-‐Cree) community of Lynx Lake,

where interaction at the store, elementary school, and band office are the only

locations in the community where English is commonly used in interaction (1996,

30). Phillips Valentine attribute’s the community’s isolation to language retention,

but it’s worth noting most of the speakers – partly attributable to isolation and

distance from the exploitative interests of the Province – survive by their

engagement in traditional economies, in which Anihshininiimowin continues to

thrive, and indeed, has historically been the dominant means of communication.

It’s of little surprise that the use of English predominates in institutions

(private business, band office, school) that function on some level as a connection to

the settler colonial society outside of the community (global market, federal

government, provincial or federal standard curriculum), necessitating

communication in English. This is not a criticism of the use of English in these

domains, as certainly each provides some material benefit to the community,

however double edged a sword they may be. In this respect, the employment of

English skills can be read in terms of local plurilingual practice deployed for

strategic benefit. However the differential deployment of English and Anihshinini

linguistic resources, and how that deployment patterns across different domains,

illustrates that these resources serve different purposes and carry differential

capital in unique economic environments.

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Northern Ontario provides another illustration of this process, particularly as

resource developers and colonial governments become increasingly interested in

the region’s mineral resources. In the early 2000s, the Ojibway and Cree Cultural

Centre [OCCC] in Timmins began the production of a series of terminology

glossaries. Tellingly, the first of these were the Mining and Environmental

Terminology Glossary (OCCC 2003), and the Political Terminology Glossary (OCCC

2005). Glossaries for educational and electrical terminology would follow later

(OCCC 2008; OCCC 2007). The process was initiated by outside mining interests, as

the forward to the Mining guide states “The community consultation process

between the De Beers Victor Project team and the Attawapiskat First Nation

identified, very early on, that there was a huge challenge in describing mineral

exploration, evaluation and mining processes, and terminology in the Cree language”

(2003, ii). The guide went on to explain, “The community also expressed concern

about a general lack of knowledge and understanding of the exploration and mining

industry” (2003, ii). Consequently, De Beers partnered with the OCCC on a series of

workshops to develop the glossary in order to provide members of the Attawapiskat

First Nation translations and explanations in “simple language” (2003, ii).

Similarly, the Political Terminology Glossary was initiated by a request from

the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, the regional political organization serving communities

in Treaty 9 territory in Northern Ontario (2005, iii). The document’s forward

explains “translators/interpreters expressed concerns about their lack of

knowledge and understanding of the political words used at chiefs’ meetings and

other political gatherings” (OCCC 2005, iii). Following a consultation process with

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translators and interpreters, the guide was produced and made available free of

charge to local communities. Notably, among the goals of the project was to create “a

more receptive environment for the involvement of Aboriginal people in issues

related to local governance, resource development, education, justice, social

development, and other related issues” (OCCC 2005, iv).

Without doubt, the production of these glossaries signals an emergent and

growing space for the use of indigenous languages in the domains of resource

development and political organizations throughout NAN territory. That

translations are needed, however, underscores the novelty of these domains to the

communities for whom the glossaries are intended. The glossaries offer a one-‐way

translation from English to Cree, Anihshininiimowin, and Anishinaabemowin,

charting the path of their contents from an Anglophone western economy into

indigenous communities. What they also subtly reveal is that the dominant means of

communication in each of these fields is English. Conversely, they demonstrate that

prior to the introduction of these institutions (extractive mining practices, western

democratic structures, settler-‐colonial schooling) that the traditional economies

existed in a complex of largely indigenous linguistic resources.

When individuals choose to partake in the settler market and political sphere,

or indigenous communities transition into these economies, there is a perceived

‘pressure’ to shift to English (May 2006, 263). This ‘pressure’ extends out of

workplace domain of cross-‐cultural interaction and into the home and community

when parents make choices for their children about education, and must evaluate

what resources they will need to succeed in life. Kroskrity describes how “early in

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the twentieth century, many parents felt it was inappropriate to teach their native

language to their children when it appeared that economic change was necessitating

increasingly more use of English” (2009, 193). Several of the older Mono

community members with whom Kroskrity worked believed their children “would

no longer need a language associated with hunting and gathering and acorn-‐

processing activities (like Mono) but would instead require English as the language

of the emerging cash economy” (2009, 193). Likewise, McCarty (et al.), in their study

of the linguistic perceptions of Navajo youth, noted that both parents and their

children perceived English to be necessary for participation in the market economy,

“describing it as universal, a ‘business language,’ the language of the ‘outside world’

and of opportunity and survival” (2011, 40). Conversely, there is a utilitarian value

to learning the indigenous language in its fostering the intergenerational

transmission of traditional practices (McCarty et al. 2011, 40). When parents or

individuals buy into a monolingual ideology that one can only learn one language at

a time, or that multilingualism impairs cognitive development, they limit the

resources that are open to them and their families, and consequently the domains

that they may access. This is illustrative of what Grin describes as failure in the

‘linguistic market,’ as “future generations cannot bid for the preservation of

endangered languages” (2006, 84).

When major lifestyle shifts occur (such as transitioning economic practices),

one of the first effects on a language is that vocabulary for items that are no longer

used or processes that are no longer observed are forgotten (Mithun 1992, 248).

Consequently, some of the distinctions and framing that occurs in a given language

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is lost. This would not necessarily be a problem, provided individuals and

communities engaged in this shift by choice, adapting to changing circumstances.

The colonial context in which many indigenous peoples have been removed from

their lands and confined by a changing environment, however, suggests the

environment is more coercive. In the settler colonies that have made up Canada,

language shift has paralleled well-‐documented assimilative practices, such as

residential schools (see Miller 1996; Kelly 2008), as well as policies that made pre-‐

contact ways of life impracticable. Donna Patrick explains:

non-‐Western, non-‐capitalist Indigenous economies have often been

subjugated by the aggressive, expanding, market-‐oriented colonial settlers.

Harvesting practices have not only been grounded in different forms of land

tenure, but also in different cosmologies governing social and cultural

meanings and human relationships to the natural world. (2007, 37)

Consequently land-‐theft, encroachment, and over-‐extraction of animal and other

natural resources by settlers have in many places forced indigenous peoples to

assimilate into western capitalist economic practices (Fishman 1991, 57). The most

extreme circumstances of this assimilation have resulted in corresponding language

shift, as can be illustrated by the experiences of Mi’kmaq in Newfoundland.

Mi’kmaq in Newfoundland traditionally subsisted from the abundant caribou

herds and freshwater salmon stocks, and while Mi’kmaq in the seven mainland

provinces of Mi’kma’ki experienced early European contact, the comparative late

settlement of the Newfoundland interior provided a reprieve for subsistence

hunters well into the 19th century (Jackson 1993, 65-‐6, 102).

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By the late 1800s, however, a proliferation of forest fires set by developers

clearing land disrupted traditional hunting, trapping, and gathering; the growing

logging industry levelled forests while clogging the rivers, destroying many of the

salmon runs; and an increasingly hostile settler presence along the shore forced

Mi’kmaq out of habitual campsites (1993, 102). The completion of the

Newfoundland Railway in the latter quarter of the 19th century revealed to settlers

the massive herd of Caribou, numbering between 100,000-‐250,000 (1993, 65). The

colonial administration seized the opportunity for the development of sports

tourism, culminating in the systematic massacre that lasted long into the 20th

century (1993, 104). The combination of economic and environmental pressures

forced most Mi’kmaq out of now untenable practices, into the wage-‐labour economy

as loggers or guides (1993, 107).

The exception to this pattern, however, was the community of Miawpukek,

whose location on the hostile, less settled south shore and proximity to a separate

southern Caribou herd that was untouched by the slaughter allowed the community

to persist, becoming the oldest continuous Mi’kmaq settlement in Newfoundland

(1993, 107).

The distinguishing history of Miawpukek from the rest of the Newfoundland

Mi’kmaq parallels contemporary difference between those in Miawpukek and those

on the rest of the island. Where the indigeneity of the remaining Mi’kmaq continues

to be contested by the federal government, Miawpukek was finally recognized in

1985 (1993, 171). Of the few remaining speakers of Mi’kmaq left in Newfoundland,

all reside in Miawpukek (Statistics Canada 2006; Statistics Canada 2007).

22

While the co-‐occurrence of the destruction of the indigenous economy in

Newfoundland and the categorical shift away from the Mi’kmaw language does not

mean the two are necessarily correlated, Atleo explains that within a wholistic,

ecological framework, “because the theory of Tsawalk assumes reality to be one

network of relationships, it may also be assumed that even if a variable does not

show a strong statistical relationship to other variables in one study, this same

variable must, by definition, reveal a set of variables to which it does have a strong

relationship in another study” (2004, 118). Consequently, I don’t seek to prove that

the attacks on Mi’kmaw subsistence caused language shift, I simply seek to show

that the two processes exist in relationship to one another. Bonita Lawrence

highlights similar processes of economic encroachment during the colonization of

Anishinaabe territory in the consolidation of political control for Ontario, while

Wammack and Duarte note the expropriation of Mayan lands for tourism purposes

are part of “a new wave of assimilationist policies designed to steer Mayan children

and young people away from the autonomies of their elders and [to] harness their

labor [sic]” (2002, 39-‐42; 2012, 195).

An important cautionary comparison, however, can be seen in Labrador.

While Inuit have experienced massive language shift, they have experienced

comparatively favourable economic conditions to those of other groups in the

region (20009, 86-‐87). Barbara Burnaby attributes some of this to the role of

Moravian missionaries in providing a bridge from the nomadic subsistence economy

to contemporary settlements and markets (2009, 86). Innu, conversely, have a

substantial retention of the indigenous Innu-‐aimun language, yet face economically

23

dismal conditions following abrupt resettlement (2009, 79). Burnaby explains,

“Their traditional skills have been devalued in a money-‐based economy, so many are

left with access neither to the new economy nor the previous ways of making a

living” (2009, 82).

Burnaby’s illustrative comparison indicates that while a cohesive integration

– or at least the carving out of a special place – within the dominant economy co-‐

occurs with drastic language shift, language maintenance for the Innu has been

made possible by their economic and social marginalization (2009, 79). Analogies

can be drawn to the marginalization and segregation that maintains African

American Vernacular English (Labov 2008, 235). Labov reflects that while AAVE has

intrinsic worth, its likely levelling following a hypothetical end to the economic

segregation of northern American cities would be warranted if it followed the

greater well being of its speakers (2008, 235). The parallel I draw here is that it is

segregation and degradation that has produced stability for Innu-‐aimun, and that if

indigenous languages are to be maintained, they ought to be maintained by choice,

and not by economic coercion. That choice is tied to the need for real, viable

economic options both inside the settler colonial body politic, and outside of it as

well. In this sense, maintaining the viability of traditional indigenous economies is a

necessary component of wholistic community economic development in indigenous

nations.

Articulating the connection between economic circumstances and language

shift in a complex ecology requires acknowledging that language is not only a tool

for communication, but also has intrinsic value with respect to identity formation,

24

maintenance of indigenous knowledge and cultural practices, and the resistance to

colonization and assimilation (Grin 2006, 81; Fishman 1991, 19-‐20; Bear Nicholas

2008, 19). It requires acknowledging that maintaining plurilingual practices is not

only possible, but indeed has been the norm for many indigenous communities (see

Blommaert 2010; Phillips Valentine 1996).

Similarly, the interconnection with other factors must be drawn, including

the political environment in which choices about economic (or linguistic) practices

are constrained or supported. Far from being ‘depoliticized’, indigenous language

revitalization efforts are implicitly a critique of wider colonial society (Fishman

1991, 29). In Canada, these struggles are taking place in the context of ongoing

discourses of ‘reconciliation’ that have the potential to extend beyond the legacy of

residential schooling, interweaving with struggles for political sovereignty (Mussell

2008, 324; Rice and Snyder 2008, 49; Coulthard 2011, 50). Spolsky illustrates that

the renowned Māori language revitalization movement was part of a larger

movement whose “more central focus […] was on land resources” (2009, 200). The

dispossession of indigenous people from their land is major underlying problem for

both economic and linguistic choice, as is the unjust exploitation of animal, plant,

and mineral resources by non-‐indigenous enterprises and people (Lawrence and

Dua 2011, 242; Bear Nicholas 2008, 20). For indigenous economies to be a viable

choice, the land and resources that make them possible must be available and

accessible. This prerequisite then calls attention to the environmental crisis visible

in the symptomatic destruction of habitat, declining species’ populations, and

climate change (Atleo 2004, 69).

25

At the same time, as the transitional period in the political economy of

Labrador Inuit illustrates, economic practices are not necessarily either/or choices;

one can participate in both an indigenous traditional economy as well as the western

capitalist market, as indeed, many indigenous people across the Americas do (see

Burnaby 2009; Phillips Valentine 1996). Likewise, as Fishman explains, language

revitalization “appeals to many because it is part of the process of re-‐establishing

local option, local control, local hope and local meaning to life” (1991, 35).

Integrating wholistic language planning in community economic development

To pursue viable choice, both with respect to economic choice and language

choice, requires the integration of language and economic planning. As has been

demonstrated, economic options play a major role in the viability of indigenous

language use, while the cultural value and traditional knowledge indigenous

languages offer are interconnected with community efforts for political (and thus

economic) sovereignty. Hinton highlights that community-‐based language planning

“is a way of making sure that the community, rather than outside agencies […] stays

in charge of its own language policies” while noting its positive influence in directing

energy to a “big picture” (2001, 51). In an ecological framework, that big picture

should consider how we achieve the social, economic, cultural, environmental,

political, linguistic, and spiritual equilibrium we want for our communities.

None of this should be taken to mean that economic conditions – let alone the

economic choices individuals make – will determine whether individuals or

communities continue to learn, use, and pass on their language. Western Mono, with

little use in the cash economy, remains the preferred language in religious activities,

26

festivals, and funerals (Kroskrity 2009, 194). Fishman emphasizes that the success

or failure of language revitalization lies in intergenerational transmission that

necessarily begins in the “family-‐neighborhood-‐community complex” (1991, 375).

Likewise, the visibility of older speakers in Navajo communities has contributed to

youth identifying a unique utility for their indigenous language in developing

relationships and being mentored by elders (McCarty et al. 2011, 41). “Even the

prospect of material well-‐being,” Dorian explains, “does not invariably lure a

population away from its traditional culture and traditional language” (1998, 14).

Economic domains, from the bush to the boardroom, are part of an intricate ecology

of interactions between humans, the natural world, and the spiritual realm.

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From the Bush to the Boardroom: Economic Domains in Indigenous Language Revitalization

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