Hello Martin O. in Wales!
I'm working hard at understanding this paragraph:
>Appeals to autocratic colonial (or Soviet)
>power, at a simple analysis,
>do not seem sufficient. The use of force or
>legislation to obliterate a language (other than
>through mass genocide) seems to be an inadequate
>answer. Articulation between people and the state
>(in modern times) and the monarchy/nobility in pre
>polity times and autochthonous regeneration
>of languages seems immensely complicated.
How about taking pity on a tired soul and elaborating?
I'll add that the first thought that flashed through
my mind was how brillinatly the Bureau of Indian
Affairs
managed to find just the right solution--just disrupt
inter-generational continuity/transfer, et voila,
pesky minority language problem solved. I was
surprised
to see the L.A. Times actually copping to what
happened.
The damage runs so deep.
Then again, Joyce the Irishman stole the language in
return.
Don't get me wrong. I prefer to have the 50 or so
languages of California revive rather than to have
a brilliant California English poet emerge among, say,
the Chemehuevi. But I'll take the brillian California
English Chemehuevi poet if that's what it comes down
to.
Genevieve
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