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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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