I think the farming the article does of languages that win the linguistic sweepstakes” makes the fact that a language can disappear more understandable but sad reality. In the case of Siletz Dee-ni I found the story of how it survived to be fascinating, but also very sad. The fact that only five people speak a tribal language when more than five people belong to the tribe to me speaks to the realities of assimilation. Even in my own experiences with language I don’t speak the community language that my father does. I think this is in part because it makes it easier for adults to speak freely but also my father may not have seen a point in teaching my brother and I. We were born in America, went to catholic schools and outside of our family patois would not have been spoken. It was part of my Dad’s culture but in us not being immersed did not become the part that he brought with him to give to us when he moved. I see the same thing to some degree in the story of Siletz Dee-ni. Many people do not grow up with it being their first language and with the rise of the digital age it seemed to fade into the past which is quite sad when you consider the fact that it was once one of the most widely spoken native languages and that it was even adopted but other tribes as their own cultures began to fade. The article also made me think about the role that other countries, entities have in language production. The reason that Siletz Dee-ni became integrated into other native dances is because the U.S government forced a collection of different tribal communities to live together when they often shared nothing culturally. In this there is a forced reckoning the U.S. government grouped them all together so they then began to bleed into each other. They had a role in its erasure and I wish they would take a more active role in its preservation.
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