The Power of Reclaiming Native American Languages

From the introduction: 'When I talk to the Spirits, they don’t understand English,” laments Andrew Windy Boy (Chippewa/Cree), a former student at Wahpeton & Flandreau Indian School, with tears and pain in his eyes (1). The Bureau of Indian Affairs and many Christian missionaries outlawed Native tongues at their boarding schools, and some languages died out due to these concerted efforts to eliminate them.​ ​However, many Indigenous communities today are revitalizing their mother tongues. This is an example of survivance, a term coined by Native Studies scholar Gerald Vizenor (White Earth Band of Ojibwe). Vizenor defines survivance as “an active sense of presence over absence, deracination, and oblivion . . . ​Survivance stories are renunciations of dominance, detractions, obtrusions, the unbearable sentiments of tragedy, and the legacy of victimr​y” (2). Revitalizing Indigenous languages allows Native people to reclaim their identity and tell their narrative (to both Native and non-Native people) in their own words, something they were punished for doing in the past. Using one’s Native language – in a variety of situations and art forms – is an act of survivance, and the power of using once-forbidden words demonstrates to Native and non-Native people alike the persistence of Indigenous communities.'