My sister and I accidentally received an email forward from our racist relatives, saying how awful it was that people were singing the Canadian national anthem in Hindi. It ended with “The national anthem should be sung in ENGLISH the language in which it was written”. This email is especially stupid in a Canadian context, where of course the national anthem was written in FRENCH. But it ties in to the common mythology that a nation must have one language, which as we see in this example is deeply connected with racism, in this case against South Asian immigrants to Canada.
The idea of tying language and nation together was especially promulgated by Woodrow Wilson at the 1918 peace conference that ended world war 1. This was deeply tied in with his racist ideology: Woodrow Wilson hated blacks and refused to recognize Japan's demands for an anti-racisim clause in the league of nations (the precursor to the UN). The project of tying languages to nations has contributed to huge problems of nationalism, especially in eastern europe, which prior to world war 2 was characterized by linguistic diversity, where yiddish, russian, ukranian, lithuanian and german coexisting in many different nations, making it impossible to draw distinct borders.
The myth of monolingual homeland nations, speaking only one language, is common to racist discourse in North America. But monoligual nations generally only exist where empire and oppression have erased linguistic diversity through a concerted plan. Even in these countries diversity continues to exist. Great Britain, for example (which racists consider the 'white anglo homeland') is still home to many distinct languages , including not just English, but Irish Gaelic, Welsh, Scots Gaelic, Scots English, Cornish and Manx. This doesn't include the many languages the originated in other parts of the world that are now spoken in Great Britain. The project of empire tried to erase these other languages, but it was not successful, even after hundreds of years. Other countries that we think of as homogeneous have similar histories, including France, Spain and Germany (and of course, Canada, where French and English are not the only languages!) Next week we look at linguistic diversity and the development of Castellano, what we know as standard spanish.
Assignment: how did you end up speaking english? What are the imperial histories that made it necessary for you and /or your ancestors to adapt english as their language. For some of you, this might have happened recently. Other people might have to go back to the roots of the middle english language, or the beginnings of english useage in north america instaed of french, or spanish, or hodenosaunee or cree. What your personal colonial histories that lead to your speaking of English? Think about this, and if you like post your thoughts here. We will talk about it in class as well.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Class this sunday, July 12th
Hope to see everyone in class on Sunday July 12th! As usual 7 PM, Skydragon. (Class also possible monday at noon by request)
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Spanish and Empire
Why decolonizing language? Partially because I want this course to be about deconstructing the ideas we have about language and language learning, ideas that come out of empire. Spanish is an interesting language in this regard, as it is both a language of prestige and a subaltern language, depending on the context. (subaltern means, 'oppressed people')
Many people consider Latin American spanish to be less 'pure', and some people go to Spain to study the spanish that they consider 'correct'. This is similar to the situation of Canadian French, where we are taught parisian french in school even though it's Quebequois or Franco-Ontariene french that we might actually need in our lives. Spanish language speakers (hispanohablantes) in anglo-america are told that their spanish is 'bad' ,are continually discriminated against, and receive little support in maintaining their language from society a large. A judge in the united states threatened to remove a small child from her mother because she spoke spanish to her at home, calling it 'child abuse' not to use the majority language, english.
But at the same time, spanish is a language of oppression, brought to this hemisphere through conquest and war: a conquest that continues to this day. Throughout the Americas, native languages are denigrated , not recognized and called 'primitive'. They continue to be lost in favour of spanish, portuguese and english. The process of erasing language goes hand in hand with the oppression and erasure of people. Yet millions of people continue to resist imperialism, in part by maintaining thier languages, and Quiché-Maya, Mam-Maya, Quechua and Aymara, Yanomamo, and many others, continue to be vibrant and living languages with large populations.
The video I wanted you to watch for last week is about the n/u language in South Africa, and I'd like you to take a look at it again. This language, once widely spoken, now has only 15 speakers. It's loss was due to apartied and racisim. With it goes thousands of year of cultural adaption and knowledge. The whites said that n/u was not even a language, and made the young people feel ashamed for speaking it. They wanted the people to speak Affricans so they would be able to understand what they were saying to facilitate oppression.
n/u clip, again
If you have time, and enough internet access, it would be cool if you could watch the whole movie, which is about endangered languages worldwide, efforts at collection and language revitalization movements. Or there are also some other clips at babelgum that are cool. Anyway, check out whatever you can and comment on them.
whole movie
Many people consider Latin American spanish to be less 'pure', and some people go to Spain to study the spanish that they consider 'correct'. This is similar to the situation of Canadian French, where we are taught parisian french in school even though it's Quebequois or Franco-Ontariene french that we might actually need in our lives. Spanish language speakers (hispanohablantes) in anglo-america are told that their spanish is 'bad' ,are continually discriminated against, and receive little support in maintaining their language from society a large. A judge in the united states threatened to remove a small child from her mother because she spoke spanish to her at home, calling it 'child abuse' not to use the majority language, english.
But at the same time, spanish is a language of oppression, brought to this hemisphere through conquest and war: a conquest that continues to this day. Throughout the Americas, native languages are denigrated , not recognized and called 'primitive'. They continue to be lost in favour of spanish, portuguese and english. The process of erasing language goes hand in hand with the oppression and erasure of people. Yet millions of people continue to resist imperialism, in part by maintaining thier languages, and Quiché-Maya, Mam-Maya, Quechua and Aymara, Yanomamo, and many others, continue to be vibrant and living languages with large populations.
The video I wanted you to watch for last week is about the n/u language in South Africa, and I'd like you to take a look at it again. This language, once widely spoken, now has only 15 speakers. It's loss was due to apartied and racisim. With it goes thousands of year of cultural adaption and knowledge. The whites said that n/u was not even a language, and made the young people feel ashamed for speaking it. They wanted the people to speak Affricans so they would be able to understand what they were saying to facilitate oppression.
n/u clip, again
If you have time, and enough internet access, it would be cool if you could watch the whole movie, which is about endangered languages worldwide, efforts at collection and language revitalization movements. Or there are also some other clips at babelgum that are cool. Anyway, check out whatever you can and comment on them.
whole movie
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Sunday Class Report and Info for Monday class
Buenas noches comapñeros!
There will be an (optional, just like all these classes) class tommorow at noon at the corner of Bay and Strachan, where the big sign that says Bayfront park is? (Near Hutch's restaurant). If you can make it, great.
It was so nice to meet some of you in our class today! I thought I'd post some notes about some of the things we talked about today, so you can refresh your memories.
Lo mas importante es..[the most important is]
¿Como se dice ____ ? (how do you say ____)
¿ Que significa _____? (what does ____ mean)
These are language tools we use to get more language.
Other things we said were (I'm not gonna say learned, because this idea that you learn a language thing after 1 exposure to it is total crap)
como te llamas? (what is your name?)
Me llama Megan. (my name is Megan. Useful if your name is Megan)
y tu? (and you?)
Como estas? (how are you?)
bien. y tu? (good, and you
mucho gusto (nice to meet you)
Soy anthropologia. (I'm an anthropologist. Useful if you happen to be an anthropologist :).)
Soy trabajadora. Soy estudiante. Soy anarchista. (I'm a worker. I'm a student. I'm an anarchist)
Soy de Toronto. (I'm from Toronto)
Hablo español una poco. (I speak a little spanish)
Entiendo español. (I understand spanish)
yo no sé = i don't know
como?= (What? as in, what did you say?)
mas despacio por favor = more slowly please
mas o menos = more or less
If you particularly liked or disliked some aspects of the class, or would like to look at something in specific next time, please comment below or email me. Also, if you have any cool language resources/tips/tricks you want to share post it in the comment section as well.
There will be an (optional, just like all these classes) class tommorow at noon at the corner of Bay and Strachan, where the big sign that says Bayfront park is? (Near Hutch's restaurant). If you can make it, great.
It was so nice to meet some of you in our class today! I thought I'd post some notes about some of the things we talked about today, so you can refresh your memories.
Lo mas importante es..[the most important is]
¿Como se dice ____ ? (how do you say ____)
¿ Que significa _____? (what does ____ mean)
These are language tools we use to get more language.
Other things we said were (I'm not gonna say learned, because this idea that you learn a language thing after 1 exposure to it is total crap)
como te llamas? (what is your name?)
Me llama Megan. (my name is Megan. Useful if your name is Megan)
y tu? (and you?)
Como estas? (how are you?)
bien. y tu? (good, and you
mucho gusto (nice to meet you)
Soy anthropologia. (I'm an anthropologist. Useful if you happen to be an anthropologist :).)
Soy trabajadora. Soy estudiante. Soy anarchista. (I'm a worker. I'm a student. I'm an anarchist)
Soy de Toronto. (I'm from Toronto)
Hablo español una poco. (I speak a little spanish)
Entiendo español. (I understand spanish)
yo no sé = i don't know
como?= (What? as in, what did you say?)
mas despacio por favor = more slowly please
mas o menos = more or less
If you particularly liked or disliked some aspects of the class, or would like to look at something in specific next time, please comment below or email me. Also, if you have any cool language resources/tips/tricks you want to share post it in the comment section as well.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
¡ Bienvenido Compañeros!
Welcome to the blog for the Practical Spanish and Decolonizing language at the Hamilton Freeskool. Hopefully, this blog will be a forum for sharing information about languages, language learning and Spanish resources.
I said "Welcome compañeros" in the title, because we are fellow students, learning together about language, and about Spanish in particular. Compañero can be translated to 'comrade', but it has a broader range of meanings: coworker, fellow student, brother (in the general sense). "Amigos" meaning friends, has a stronger meaning in spanish, and is generally reserved for close friends, not facebook friends or acquaintances.(at least in Guatemala)
Hopefully this course will demystify some of the common misconceptions about languages: that they are impossible to learn, that it is natural to speak only one, and that some languages are 'better' than others. We will look at work on second languages acquisition and maintenance, at endangered languages, and the relationship between language and empire. And hopefully we will together acquire a toolkit to learn another language, specifically spanish.
Ideally, we learn like a baby learns the language. Here are some examples of how this process happens (don't worry about memorizing the spanish or anything, it's just an example:
First we listen and are not expected to speak, but are making sense of the sounds of a language and learning words, and structure, even before we say a word.
[Baby says "eeeeh" and makes grasping gesture towards glass of water.]
Then we speak single words:
¡Agua!
water
Then short phrases:
Quiero Agua!
i want water
Then ungrammatical but understandable sentences
Me quiero agua
i want myself water
and then more correct phrases:
Quiero una vaso de agua
i want a glass of water
then maybe polite/complicated phrases
Quisiero una vaso de agua pura, por favor.
Would it be possible to have a glass of plain water?
We can't skip any of these steps. It's not how our brains work. So we shouldn't feel bad if what we say is not perfect: it's never going to be. I myself make mistakes in english sometimes, I forget a word that I know perfectly well, or I'll say "i seen". It's going to happen, especially when you are learning.
The most important thing with learning another language is to feel comfortable, not to feel judged. Making mistakes is part of the process of language learning: it's impossible to open you mouth and spout grammatically perfect sentences. There is some research that suggests that older people learn language less easily than children not because of a difference in innate ability, but because people are comfortable with the lower language competence of children, where they are impatient with adults and expect too much too quickly. So hopefully we can create an nice atmosphere in the class, where people feel free to talk in their spanish, even if it is bad, or to listen to spanish and respond or ask questions in english, or just listen! My spanish is not perfect either.
I'd like everyone who is taking the course to introduce themselves here in the comment section below, and talk a little about their exposure, or lack thereof, to spanish and to learning any language, whether formally or informally.
The other thing to do is to watch this 4 min clip, it's on the n/u language in South Africa, and it's decline, related to racism and colonialism.
n/u language
I said "Welcome compañeros" in the title, because we are fellow students, learning together about language, and about Spanish in particular. Compañero can be translated to 'comrade', but it has a broader range of meanings: coworker, fellow student, brother (in the general sense). "Amigos" meaning friends, has a stronger meaning in spanish, and is generally reserved for close friends, not facebook friends or acquaintances.(at least in Guatemala)
Hopefully this course will demystify some of the common misconceptions about languages: that they are impossible to learn, that it is natural to speak only one, and that some languages are 'better' than others. We will look at work on second languages acquisition and maintenance, at endangered languages, and the relationship between language and empire. And hopefully we will together acquire a toolkit to learn another language, specifically spanish.
Ideally, we learn like a baby learns the language. Here are some examples of how this process happens (don't worry about memorizing the spanish or anything, it's just an example:
First we listen and are not expected to speak, but are making sense of the sounds of a language and learning words, and structure, even before we say a word.
[Baby says "eeeeh" and makes grasping gesture towards glass of water.]
Then we speak single words:
¡Agua!
water
Then short phrases:
Quiero Agua!
i want water
Then ungrammatical but understandable sentences
Me quiero agua
i want myself water
and then more correct phrases:
Quiero una vaso de agua
i want a glass of water
then maybe polite/complicated phrases
Quisiero una vaso de agua pura, por favor.
Would it be possible to have a glass of plain water?
We can't skip any of these steps. It's not how our brains work. So we shouldn't feel bad if what we say is not perfect: it's never going to be. I myself make mistakes in english sometimes, I forget a word that I know perfectly well, or I'll say "i seen". It's going to happen, especially when you are learning.
The most important thing with learning another language is to feel comfortable, not to feel judged. Making mistakes is part of the process of language learning: it's impossible to open you mouth and spout grammatically perfect sentences. There is some research that suggests that older people learn language less easily than children not because of a difference in innate ability, but because people are comfortable with the lower language competence of children, where they are impatient with adults and expect too much too quickly. So hopefully we can create an nice atmosphere in the class, where people feel free to talk in their spanish, even if it is bad, or to listen to spanish and respond or ask questions in english, or just listen! My spanish is not perfect either.
I'd like everyone who is taking the course to introduce themselves here in the comment section below, and talk a little about their exposure, or lack thereof, to spanish and to learning any language, whether formally or informally.
The other thing to do is to watch this 4 min clip, it's on the n/u language in South Africa, and it's decline, related to racism and colonialism.
n/u language
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