Costa and Baldwin combined their research on the disappearing language and are now working to revive it. So far, Costa, a linguist and project director of the Language Research Office of Miami Center, has spent 30 years in this field. He predicted that in 30 or 40 years, this problem will be solved, and the historical records of all languages will be translated and digitally combined.
The work of Costa and Baldwin is itself part of a larger mystery: 90% of the 175 native American languages that survived the European invasion have no children's languages. Globally, linguists estimate that 90% of the 6000 languages on earth will be extinct or seriously endangered within a century.
Costa said: "Most language work is still field work with speakers." . "When I first started, projects like mine (only written materials) were very rare. Sadly, as languages begin to lose users, they will live more and more on Mondays.
David Costa, a linguist and project director of the Language Research Office of Mia Center, spent 30 years to complete the task of reviving Mia. Despite the threat of language extinction and the cruel history of genocide and forced migration, this is a hopeful story. It's about turning back time and making what sank 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. /kloc-In the middle of the 6th 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 (this 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 indigenous language family called Algonquin in North America. Algonquin includes all languages from Ojbu to Cheyenne to Nara Guincestre.
People think that language is the spoken equivalent of classification system. Just as all living things have ancestors of the Meng nationality who migrated from one domain to another, languages will evolve with each other. Algonquin is a genus and Miami-Illinois is a species. It is used by many tribal members 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.
Just like cognates between English and Spanish (partly because their Mon people are descended from Indo-European languages), Miami is similar to other Algonquin languages. These metaphors are priceless to Baldwin and Costa's reconstruction work.
Baldwin started with a list of words found in the personal collections of the Oklahoma tribe and his family, 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 the 13 treaty with the United States, which caused them to lose most of their homes. 1840, the Wabash Bifurcation Treaty stipulated that they gave up 500,000 acres (nearly 800 square miles) of land in north-central Indiana in exchange for keeping the same size of land in unorganized Indian territory, which would soon become a piece of land in Kansas. 1846, eight years before kansas-nebraska act sent white settlers to the area, the last members of the tribe were forcibly expelled. 1867, Miami people were forced to immigrate to Oklahoma, and other small tribes also moved here. Their members spoke different languages. With the arrival of every new immigrant, the tribes turned to English, and their language was gradually abandoned. By the 1960s, among the 654.38+00,000 people who could apply for Miami Heritage, no one spoke (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, the discovery was shocking.
"The languages of most tribes who migrated to Oklahoma still had some users in the late 1980s," Costa said. "Now is an epidemic. Oklahoma's mother tongue 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. Most of them are word lists he found in the personal collections of tribes and families in Oklahoma. Baldwin's interest coincides with the growing interest in language among Miami tribe members in Oklahoma. Miami tribe in Oklahoma published the first unpublished book of Mia phrases in 1997. Baldwin posted a list at home to help children learn languages and teach them animal names and basic greetings, but he struggled with pronunciation and grammar. This is where Costa works.
"David can really be considered to have found 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 collect resources for other Miami people to learn their language. In 200 1 year, the university (named after the tribe) cooperated with the tribe and started the Myamia project. In 200 13, the project hired more employees and won a new title (Myanmar Center). When Baldwin 200 1 started as the director of Myaamia center, after obtaining a master's degree in linguistics,
His office is big enough for a table and two chairs. "I found myself thinking on campus, well, what now?" But it didn't take him long to understand. Soon, he organized a summer youth program, and specific courses could be taught in Oklahoma and Indiana. He implemented a project at the University of Miami, where tribal students took classes together, focusing on language, cultural history and 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 imitate talking in their sleep.
Baldwin organized a summer youth program, and specific courses can be taught in Oklahoma and Indiana. Carl revived their lost or disappeared language. 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 led to the establishment of the Institute of Life and Breath Archives in Indigenous Language Countries. The seminar was held on 20 1 1, 20 13, 20 15, and will be held again on 20 17. According to Gabriela Pérez Báez, a linguist and researcher who studies the Zapotec language in Mexico, the seminar received community members from 60 different languages.
"When I started learning languages at 200 1, one of my professors said,' As long as 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 around looks dark.
But the more she knows about the work of Baldwin and Costa, and the more she knows about the work of tribes whose other languages are disappearing, the more she is encouraged. She recently conducted a survey of indigenous language communities, and the preliminary results show that 20% of the respondents belong to communities whose languages are undergoing a process of re-awakening. In other words, their indigenous languages have either disappeared or are on the verge of extinction, 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 wake up 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 a group of novices, or the ability to pray or sing in their language. Then, they hope that this effort will continue to grow for generations.
Bates said: "Surprisingly, people are studying a craft that can live longer than them." . "That's why Darryl (Baldwin) is so concerned about young people. The work done by the Maya Tribe Youth Center is incredible. It increases people's interest and commitment.
It is not that the breath of life can help every language community in the United States. Some languages are just not fully recorded, such as Ethiopia 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 the archives to dig up records of indigenous languages, hoping to help them resist dangerous trends. I want to see the evidence, I want to see the concrete facts. "But you will be surprised to see (these communities) so determined."
For Baldwin and Costa, their own experience in the Maimia project has always been humbling and gratifying. Now there are some living people talking about Mia together. Although Costa doesn't know whether the language they speak is the same as it was 200 years ago, it is still a language. Baldwin even won MacArthur's "Genius Award" in the language research work of 20 16.
They don't want to predict the future of language or their people; We live in a world where 96% of the population speaks 4% of the languages. But both of them hope that the project they started will grow into a huge garden like a spring garden.