Note to Reader: This essay was written for a graduate course, and intended to provide a concept for an inquiry project. There were assigned readings which shaped the project description. This is a lengthy blog post.
American journalist and author Warren Berger introduced in his book, A More Beautiful Question, the example of Van Phillips and his quest to make a more functional prosthetic foot. Berger described Phillips as exhibiting “one of the telltale signs of an innovative questioner: a refusal to accept the existing reality.” (12) Berger interviewed Phillips and learned that the prosthetics industry had been “in a time warp for decades.” (13) Berger concluded: “Since progress had been stalled for so long, it left plenty of room to question outdated approaches and status quo practices—and to inject much-needed thinking.” (13) Berger’s insightful example of Phillips’ challenge of the status quo and industry experts, and Phillips’ formulation of questions in an iterative process that refined his understanding of problems and generated actions that lead to breakthrough solutions. Phillips’ questioning and actions became a mission and developed into an entrepreneurial pursuit that revolutionized the prosthetics industry. (37)
Berger postulates that questions are “very sophisticated, high-level forms of thinking” (18) and that in times of uncertainty that “questions become more valuable than answers.” (23) As I contemplated a Learner Inquiry Project, Berger’s thesis profoundly influenced my thinking about the challenges to revitalize the Penobscot language in my home community at Indian Island, Penobscot Reservation. The Penobscot language is at the precipice of extinction, especially poignant by acknowledging the last reputed fluent speaker, Madeline Shay, passed away in 1993.
For decades, there have been considerable efforts to reclaim the threatened Penobscot language, including the establishment of a Penobscot Culture & Historic Preservation Department, video recordings of Penobscot elders, adoption of a Penobscot writing system developed by the late Dr. Frank Siebert, creating and providing access to an online Penobscot dictionary, publishing cultural materials in bilingual (Penobscot and English) format, and introduction of a Wabanaki language program at Indian Island School (K-8).
My inquiry project is about reimagining the Penobscot language revitalization program, with a set of questions. What is the status of the Penobscot language today? Who is evaluating the language revitalization efforts? What lessons were learned, and how are those lessons being applied? What is the role for Indian Island School to teach the Penobscot language? Have assessments been performed over the decades to measure progress in both community based and school language programs? If developing fluent Penobscot language speakers is the critical outcome, how many Penobscots are fluent speakers today?
Berger, W. (2019). A more beautiful question: the power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas. Langara College.
Continuum of Language Loss or Dynamic Survival
*Based on renowned sociolinguist and expert on endangered languages, Dr. Joshua Fishman’s, Eight Stages of Language Loss, Reversing Language Shift (1991). https://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/RIL_Intro.html
The first inquiry question is: “What is the status of the Penobscot language today?” The continuum developed by Joshua Fishman is an excellent framework to assess the status of Penobscot language.
Fishman’s continuum consists of eight stages of language loss with stage eight being the closest to total extinction and stage one being the closest to dynamic survival. Fishman’s eight stages and suggested interventions are summarized below.
Stage 8: Only a few elders speak the language. Languages are on the verge of extinction. Speakers need to be recorded using media that is not subject to degradation over time, and through written transcripts using phonetic alphabets that catch the nuances of the language’s sound system. Archiving of language knowledge can be tantamount to an admission of defeat, with the language becoming a museum piece.
Interventions: Implement a Master-Apprentice Language Learning Program. Model where fluent elders are teamed one-on-one with young adults who want to learn the language. Dispersed, isolated elders can be connected by phone to teach others the language. An example of a master-apprentice language program developed by the First Peoples Cultural Council in British Columbia can be found here: https://fpcc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/MAP_HANDBOOK_2012.pdf.
Stage 7: Only adults beyond child bearing age speak the language.
Interventions: Fluent elders can teach their grandchildren their language in “language nests,” or care for young children in preschool settings and immerse them in their language. Elders can also team up with certified teachers who can help control students in a classroom and suggest second language teaching methods while learning the language along with the children. A resource for second language teaching methods can be found at the link here: https://www2.nau.edu/~jar/Methods.html.
Stage 6: Some intergenerational use of language.
Interventions: Encourage parents to use the language and make places in the community (community centers, churches, schools, etc.) where children can use the language. Give the language prestige so that children will keep learning and speaking the language through their teenage years until they become parents and can pass it on to their children. Create published written literature of poems, plays, and stories to give language prestige. Encourage government officials, athletes, and well-known community members to use the language.
Stage 5: Language is still very much alive and used in community.
Interventions: Offer literacy in Indigenous or minority language. Promote voluntary programs in schools and other community institutions to improve the prestige and use of the language. Use language in local government functions. Give recognition to special local efforts.
Stage 4: Language is required in elementary schools.
Interventions: Improve instructional methods utilizing immersion teaching techniques, such as TPR (Total Physical Response) and TPR-Storytelling. (More information at this link: https://jan.ucc.nau.edu/jar/RIL_5.html). Teach reading and writing and higher level language skills. Develop two-way bilingual programs where appropriate when non-speaking elementary students learn the Indigenous language and speakers learn a national or international language. Need to develop Indigenous textbooks to teach literacy and academic subject matter content.
Stage 3: Language is used in places of business and by employees in less specialized work areas.
Interventions: Promote language by making it the language of work used throughout the community. Develop vocabulary so that workers in an office could do their day-to-day work using their Indigenous language.
Stage 2: Language is used by local government in the mass media in the Indigenous community.
Interventions: Promote use of written form of language for government and business dealings/records. Promote Indigenous language newsletters, newspapers, radio stations, and television stations.
Stage 1: Some language use by higher levels of government and in higher education.
Interventions: Teach tribal college subject matter classes in the language. Develop an Indigenous language oral and written literature through dramatic presentations and publications. Give tribal/national awards for Indigenous language publications and other notable efforts to promote Indigenous languages.
Penobscot Language Status
My somber conclusion is that the status of the Penobscot language is at Stage 8.
Despite many years of revitalization efforts, the Penobscot language is on the brink of extinction. Who is concerned about this very real probability? Who is evaluating the effectiveness of the revitalization efforts? I do not know the answers to these questions because I am not directly involved in the Penobscot culture and heritage department, and I am also not associated with the Wabanaki language program at Indian Island School. I live in New Mexico, approximately 2,500 miles away from Indian Island, and therefore, my direct interaction is limited. Nevertheless, I am seriously concerned about the loss of fluent speakers of the Penobscot language, and the challenges to even produce a single moderately proficient Penobscot language speaker.
Time is of the essence: What can be done?
An inventory and assessment of the various Penobscot language revitalization efforts should be completed immediately. The field of professional evaluation of Indigenous language programs is specialized and there are few practitioners. One such reputable entity is the Indigenous Language Institute (ILI, https://ilinative.org/).
This Institute provides consultation services that assist Tribal Councils, Language Program Staff, Language Teachers/Instructors, and Families and Communities with implementing a successful language program. The Institute’s services include: Strategic Planning for a Successful Language Program; Role of Tribal Leadership in a Successful Language Program; Ways to Engage Community in Language Revitalization; Evaluation of Language Programs; Developing Culturally Relevant Assessment Tools; and Technology Tools that Support Language Learning and Acquisition. The ILI consultation services appear to be fee-based.
Indigenous language activists and educators need to set realistic goals for their language revitalization efforts.
Professor Jon Reyhner who teaches bilingual multicultural education courses at Northern Arizona University, provided insightful remarks in his introduction, Some Basics of Indigenous Language Revitalization. He asserted that once goals are established, language activists need to concentrate on the three “M’s.”
- Methods deal with what teaching techniques will be used at what age levels and stages of language loss.
- Materials deal with what things will be available for teachers and learners to use, including audiotapes, videotapes, storybooks, dictionaries, grammars, textbooks, and computer software.
- Motivation deals with increasing the prestige (including giving recognition and awards to individuals and groups who make special efforts) and usefulness of the Indigenous language in the community and using teaching methods that learners enjoy so they come back for more Indigenous language instruction.
Professor Reyhner concluded that: “…revitalizing Indigenous languages will not come easily. No one person, community, school, university, tribe, or government program has all the answers to keeping an Indigenous language alive. It is only through sharing successes and learning from failures that the extinction…can be prevented. Languages need special love, care, and protection by the communities that want to keep them alive.” https://www2.nau.edu/~jar/index.html
Indigenous Voices for Revitalizing Languages
There are passionate voices among Wabanaki peoples who speak about the importance of revitalizing languages. Dr. Imelda Perley is a fluent Wolastoqey speaker and educator who is joined by other Wolastoqewiyik language teachers and activists who make compelling statements for revitalizing our languages:
Quick Reference to Select Language Resource Tools
Disclaimer: I have a preference for the Peskotomuhkati-Wolastoqey language, even though I am a Penobscot citizen. My family has Penobscot and Wolastoq lineages, and both dialects or languages were spoken by my grandparents. When my immediate family resettled at Indian Island in the mid-1970s, there seemed to be more Peskotomuhkati and Wolastoqewi speakers than Penobscot speakers, and consequently, I had more immersive experiences with elders who spoke to me in the Peskotomuhkati-Wolastoq language. I am an Indigenous language speaker who sometimes intermingles the Wabanaki dialects which reflects my heritage and exposure to spoken dialects in my formative years. I have also obtained a certificate in Wabanaki languages from the University of Southern Maine.
Penobscot Language
Language Resources, Penobscot Nation Cultural & Heritage Department.
https://www.penobscotnation.org/departments/cultural-historic-preservation/language-resources/This website provides a Penobscot dictionary and information for interested users to download a Penobscot keyboard layout. The dictionary is rudimentary and organized according to the Siebert writing system which contains an alphabet of 25 letters. Penobscot literacy is assumed by the dictionary creators. There is no search function for Penobscot or English content. A user would have to know the Siebert writing system and correct Penobscot word spelling, in order to navigate in the dictionary to an intended word to obtain an English translation. The best feature of this resource is that it provides a menu of several options or topics that include pronunciation guides for vowels and consonants, vocabulary that includes calendar references, situational conversation examples, greetings and introductions, family relationships, colors, and a limited number of other language terms.
Penobscot Primer
http://www.penobscotprimer.org/about/This primer was created by Richard Garrett and Margaret Young, in collaboration with Madeline Shay, Barry Dana, and Carol Dana. It is is a computerized audio-visual resource, featuring the voice of Madeline Shay, the last reputed fluent speaker of Penobscot. The recordings captured Madeline responding to visual prompts of people, places, and things. The conversations were field recording sessions from 1991 to 1996, organized in 17 Field Sessions:
http://www.penobscotprimer.org/sessions/Peskotomuhkati-Wolastoq Latuwewakon (Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Language)
Peskomuhkati – Wolastoqey Language Portal (formerly Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Portal)
https://pmportal.orgThis language resource provides dictionary entries for Passamaquoddy-Maliseet words with English translations, and search capability for all content. This resource provides a User’s Guide and a video tutorial on how to use the portal. This portal uses the Newell-Hale writing system that contains 17 letters, which correlate to the English alphabet. Using this writing system is compatible with a standard QWERTY keyboard. The resource also provides video recordings that document natural group conversation and activity, along with subtitles in English and transcripts in both Passamaquoddy-Maliseet and English. This is one of my primary resources. I also have a hardcopy of this dictionary.
Live Streamed Language Lessons, Ron Tremblay. Videos.
https://www.ofnb.com/content/language-cultureThis language resource is accessed through the Welamukutok (Oromocto First Nation) website. A series of short videos of Grand Chief Ron Tremblay sharing short phrases and vocabulary with written transcriptions can be found by scrolling past cultural information at the top of the webpage. This resource provides good content for visual and auditory learners. From this resource, a user can learn about and access an extensive set of additional language videos.
Nibezun Language Program
The Nibezun organization sponsors a synchronous virtual Passamaquoddy Language class that is open to the public. This class is taught by Dr. Dwayne Tomah who is a fluent Passamaquoddy speaker. For registration information, please click on the link below.
https://www.nibezun.org/passamaquoddy-language-classNote: There is a growing number of language resources for Wabanaki language revitalization. This is a short list for someone who might be starting their language acquisition journey.
What are the Roles and Responsibilities of Schools?
Legacy of Federal and State of Maine “Indian” Education Policies
Professor Jon Rehyner articulates a deep understanding of Indian education policies in his article, “The Self-Determined Curriculum: Indian Teachers as Cultural Translators.”
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24397362“Normally, the purpose of education is to communicate the knowledge people have accumulated through the ages from one generation to the next. It is a process for socializing the young into their parents’ culture which begins at home and continues in school.” (19) “Historically, federal policy towards Indian education has been directed at ‘civilizing’ and assimilating Native Americans into the mainstream of American culture.” (19) “…(S)ince the initial founding of mission and government schools, Indian education has been an attempt to convey the knowledge of the dominant culture, usually by members of that culture, to Indian youth.” (19) The “transit from tribal belonging to modern alienation” has produced traumatic changes and profound losses. “(T)he loss of Indian culture has resulted (in) breakdown in family life…” and destructive social issues. “Rapid cultural change produces cultural disintegration and often produces the opposite of the desired effect, xenophobia against whites, a reinforcement of the already existing ethnocentrism,” and painful lessons that “…schools that try to get children to leap the gap from tribal to white society can be counterproductive.” (20)
“The answer to the dilemma is for a group of educated people with a foot in each world, specifically the relatively recent group of Native Americans who have successfully completed university teacher education programs, to work out a viable cultural compromise”…”(o)nce Indian teachers are able to incorporate the best of tribal and non-Indian values in their schools…” (21, 22) “The innovator, the person who actually effects the recommended change,…is always an insider.” (21)
“Cultural adaptation and change can take place if it is not forced and if there is a free interplay of ideas between cultures.” (22) “The only kind of cross-cultural education that will work is education that recognizes the values of the native cultures and trusts those values to come forth in locally controlled schools.” (22) “Indian education must be a process of enculturation using a large percentage of Native American teachers and curriculum based on a synthesis of the congruent strengths of the dominant and tribal cultures rather than a process of erasure of the Indian culture and the transferance [sic] of American culture…” (22)
Colonial and American language policies were aimed at “pacifying” Native peoples in the quest for Native lands. (McCarty, Nicholas, 115)
http://www.jstor.org/stable/43284064“…(I)n 1819 the U.S. Congress passed the Civilization Fund Act to support missionary schooling, with the goal of exterminating Indigenous languages and lifeways so as to literally clear the path for the takeover of Native lands. By the end of the 19th century, punitive, segregated schooling in English-only boarding schools became a primary mechanism for linguistic pacification. This medium of instruction was also “accompanied by a derogation of, and often severe punishment for even the minimal use of indigenous languages.” (115)
“The residential school system had one highly significant if officially unanticipated effect: It provided fertile ground for uniting the survivors. Amid late–20th-century civil rights and progressive movements in the United States, these key alliances helped secure passage of the 1972 Indian Education Act, which funded Native language and culture programs, and the 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDEAA), which enabled Native American communities and tribes to operate their own schools. Together with the 1968 Bilingual Education Act, ISDEAA laid a legal and financial framework for placing Native American education under community control.” (115)
“Indigenous community-controlled school movement” has been a “powerful force for Indigenous self-determination,” but Indigenous school programs “have not been sufficient to turn back the pressures of language shift.” (116) “This situation has given rise to a widespread language reclamation movement” by the enactment of the “1990/1992 Native American Languages Act and the 2006 Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act…” (116) This is a federal level of accountability and reconciliation, but “the same challenges and complexities exist at the level of tribal government and local schools.” (116)
In Maine, tribal communities faced historical barriers to education decision making and had little influence in shaping the school’s curricula. Tribal schools at Indian Island, Indian Township, and Pleasant Point were structured strangely to comply with Maine public education requirements, and each of the schools was staffed primarily with a principal and teachers from a Catholic order of nuns, the Sisters of Mercy. State education policies and quasi-parochial school administrations were coordinated to erase Indigenous cultures and languages. These were the policy frameworks and agents of linguicide at Indian Island. That was the educational landscape for generations of Wabanaki peoples that still reverberate today.
“Language reclamation is intimately tied to decolonization, cultural autonomy, and identity.” (McCarty, Nicholas, 116) “It is a passionate movement that is also “political, and deeply personal…particularly for many Native people who are acutely aware that the…attempted genocide was the direct cause of Indigenous language loss.” (116)
“Given what we know from three decades of research and practice in Native American language revitalization, do schools and their personnel have a responsibility to act as agents of language reclamation?” (129)
“We are witness to the devastating impacts of the language and culture exclusionary policies of the past. All children have the right to develop competence in the national language and the broader culture, but not at the cost of the disintegration of their heritage-language relationships and identities. This either/or, subtractive approach is not simply bad pedagogy and bad public policy, it is also racially and linguistically discriminatory and a violation of Indigenous people’s educational and linguistic human rights.” (129)
Educational anthropologist Teresa McCarty and Professor Sheilah Nicholas answer the question with a “resounding of course!” They further acknowledge: “School-based programs are not the only means to reclaim a threatened language, nor are they necessarily the most efficacious.” Those “programs represent one important means–‘strategic tools’ for language reclamation–ideally employed in concert with family, community, and other governmental and non-governmental supports. Where they are desired and Indigenous community members exercise authority over their development and implementation, such programs can be highly effective in promoting heritage-language revitalization simultaneously with children’s academic success. Equally important, these efforts are transforming hegemonic expectations about Indigenous languages and cultures, from loss and extinction to resilience and self-empowerment.” (130)
Concluding Thoughts
When I was initially thinking about a learner inquiry project focused on Wabanaki language revitalization, my focus was about language pedagogy and creating content based lesson plans. In thought experiments, I processed sets of questions and came to an uncomfortable realization that decades of reclamation work had already been implemented but had not stopped the loss of Penobscot language in my home community at Indian Island.
I am familiar with school-based language educational methods. I have obtained a certificate in Wabanaki languages from the University of Southern Maine. I have also received immersive language education from fluent elders. I am a Wabanaki language speaker.
I anguished over the decision to focus my inquiry project on the Penobscot language reclamation program rather than an approach to develop language teaching materials with innovative technology tools. (Actually, I have working drafts of those teaching materials). My preliminary assessment of the Penobscot language reclamation program was that it (or the staff) has not produced a fluent Penobscot speaker in its three decade existence, let alone facilitate a growing community of Penobscot speakers. The exact opposite is the somber reality: the Penobscot language is on the precipice of extinction. This status is supported by criteria in Joshua Fishman’s continuum of language loss.
There are daunting challenges to reverse the loss of Indigenous languages. I feel the weight and responsibility of those challenges. How might we revitalize the Penobscot language? I believe revitalizing the Penobscot language and more broadly Indigenous languages can be achieved. There are success stories emerging from Indigenous peoples across North America and there are tribally-governed institutions that can assist with building successful language reclamation programs. Professor Jon Reynor who has devoted much of his academic career to bilingual multicultural education urges language activists to set realistic goals and to apply the three M’s: Methods, Materials, and Motivation. He also emphasized the vital role that “Indian” teachers must play in cross-cultural education in building curricula based on a synthesis of the congruent strengths of the dominant and tribal cultures. This makes sense to me. I also recognize the role that tribal schools can play in language reclamation under tribal community control. I agree with Dr. Joshua Fishman’s belief: “that the intergenerational transmission of language in the home from parents to young children is the key to keeping Indigenous languages alive,” and that “schools can play either a positive or negative role in supporting the efforts of Indigenous parents and communities.”
At this juncture, I have gathered information based on my set of inquiry questions; and have memorialized what I have learned to date. This has been a major effort to organize and express what I have learned, and to also discern the next steps. I am hopeful that this will lead to more engagement with my tribal community, leaders, educators, and community members to address Penobscot language issues.
Leave a Reply