Podcast: Language Keepers

Marie’s Dictionary – Photo Emergence Magazine

By Sara Bellini

“I left my Indian language behind when my grandma died. So that was it. Since 1991 I’ve started remembering words: lake, ocean, sea... I wrote them down on pieces of paper [...] I would wake up [around] 1 o’clock and write down a word. I guess I dreamt about it or something, maybe my grandma was trying to tell me: remember, remember.” 

Marie Wilcox is 85 years old and she’s the last fluent speaker of Wukchumni, one of the Indigenous languages of North America. She gathered all the words she could remember and compiled the first and only Wukchumni dictionary, typing on a computer until late at night. Her daughter started helping her and picked up the language herself, taught it to her own daughter and grandson, and is now  teaching it to anyone interested in Indigenous cultures. The story of this family’s efforts to save their language from extinction, and that of three other Indigenous communities across California, is told in the mini-series Language Keepers.

In 2018/19 Emergence Magazine documented the process of revitalisation of the endangered Tolowa Dee-ni’, Karuk, Wukchumni, and Kawaiisu languages, which culminated in a multimedia story and film. This autumn they have released additional material in a six-episode podcast, to dig deeper into the reality of cultural extinction. Many languages solely exist in an oral tradition passed on from one generation to the next, which means that the only sources are the people who speak it, and in some cases, some notes written by foreign anthropologists. 

In terms of language loss, California is one of the most endangered places in the world: 200 years ago over 90 languages and 300 dialects were spoken, and today only half of them remain. This is the result of centuries of colonisation, Christianisation, forced assimilation, relocation, rape, enslavement, repression and genocide. The collective intergenerational trauma and the linguistic imperialism that allows participation in the political, economical and cultural life of a country only through a dominant language, are key factors that lead to language extinction. Language connects us to our ancestors, our traditions and the place we live in. Language loss is not just an individual identity crisis, it’s the loss of a worldview and the loss of diversity for society at large.  

Indigenous Languages in California – Image Emergence Magazine

Loren Bommelyn is the last fluent speaker of Tolowa Dee-ni’ and contributed to finalising the alphabet in 1997. He explains that, in his native language, to express where you are from you say that “you are actually from that ground. [...] There’s a bond to that place, almost as if you were a sibling, so everything in that environment becomes intimate to you: the shape of the bark of a tree, the way a tree forks [...] We’re all interconnected, we’re all interrelated, it’s all interlaced into one gigantic entity. [...] This understanding of the universe and how we relate to our universe is bound within your language. If you don’t learn your language you miss out on that understanding of how the world fits together.”

Indigenous languages foster a connection with the environment by expressing and shaping a mindset where humans are not separate from nature. By passing on traditional ecological knowledge, Indigenous people have been able to maintain and value a sustainable relationship with their ecosystems - a relationship endangered everywhere by urbanisation, industrialisation and capitalism. In a time of climate emergency and a related pandemic, this resonates more than ever. 

Language Keepers takes us on a linguistic journey that explores the legacy of colonialism within Indigenous communities in North America, and the complex and transformative dynamic of language revitalisation. It is a reminder of the multiplicity of identities and lack of equality in our multi-ethnic societies and, most of all, an invitation to heal.

You can listen to the Language Keepers Podcast on the Emergence Magazine website, and find out more about Indigenous languages in California.