Who speaks Shoshone, and when?

A comment on last Sunday's Weekend Edition radio program inspired me to think about two questions. A participant in the Shoshone/Goshute Youth Language Apprenticeship Program (SYLAP) commented:

Someone will step in. You can even bring in a white man to [run a business]. But there isn't going to be a white man who can speak your language.

I wrote about the first of my two questions on Sunday. (What is a "white man"?) Today I'd like to think more about questions of identity and language, particularly in terms of language preservation and revitalization.

Let me preface this by saying that I applaud SYLAP and programs like it. Native American languages are disappearing at an alarming rate. Even those that are not already disappearing because they are not being acquired by young children are shrinking year after year. I in no way mean to downplay the value of the work being done by apprenticeship programs or other projects that help get more young people interested in learning and using Native American languages.

Furthermore, I applaud the young woman who made the comment I quoted above. I am happy and excited to see intelligent young people seeking out ways to serve their communities and the world around them. And every smart and dedicated person coming into a linguistics program is a cause for celebration in my book.

Still, I would like to unpack the notion that "there isn't going to be a white man who can speak your language." I'm going to suggest that such ideas might do as much harm as good to the cause of language preservation. And a good portion of the blame for such thinking may be due to linguistic anthropology, though other fields and practices share in the culpability.

From its earliest days, linguistic anthropology explored the links between the cultural practices of various groups of people and the forms of language that they use. Let me note the differences between early twentieth century views of language and culture in anthropology and those of nineteenth century philosophers such as Herder and von Humboldt. Where the philosophers saw language and culture as essentially and indissolubly linked, the anthropologists suggested merely that, "In the main they [language and culture] have grown up together, constantly influencing each other" (Whorf 1941). In terms of their effect on contemporary thought, this may be a distinction without a difference. The idea that each language reflects a unique worldview, which in turn effects culture, is probably associated more with the linguists Sapir and Whorf than with any other individuals.

A problem for languages like Shoshone, Mohawk, or Lakota - not to mention Corsican, Ainu, Paiwan or literally thousand of others around the world - is that they are not associated with a nation-state. Shoshone is a nationality, but most Shoshone people are citizens of the United States. The idea that it is "natural" for all Americans to speak English (often only English), as well as efforts by the US government during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to suppress indigenous languages, have pushed the language to endangered status. It is estimated that perhaps no more than 3,000 people in the entire world speak Shoshone today.

In this marginalized state, many endangered languages continue to exist in specialized "culture" realms. I know very little about contemporary Shoshone cultural practices (Don't let my confident writing style fool you), but in ethnic and linguistic minority communities I do know, people often talk about "our culture" as something distinct from everyday life. In these cases "our language" is too often thought of as something separate from our lives.

Language is an important part of the culture of any community. It is not mistaken or wrong to think of the language practices shared within the group as a special, or in some sense even a sacred part of culture and community life. But by treating language as distinct from other aspects of daily life, don't we promote the idea that it is a specialized activity to be pursued by those with the leisure and the inclination to do so?

I don't have a solution. I don't know how we can come to think of communication in many languages, vitally including Native American languages, as an everyday part of life. But I can't help but think that if somehow we could get all Americans to think of multilingualism as an ordinary part of life, and of Shoshone as an everyday language in Shoshone communities, then preserving the language might be a little easier. And we might even find it unremarkable if a white man who moved in, say to run a business, would learn Shoshone, too.

What is a "white man"?

This morning Weekend Edition Sunday featured an interesting story on the Shoshone Youth Language Apprenticeship Program being held at the University of Utah campus this summer. Toward the end of piece one learner, a young Shoshone woman, described why she decided to forget about business school and instead study linguistics.

Someone will step in. You can even bring in a white man to [run a business]. But there isn't going to be a white man who can speak your language.

This observation suggests to me two questions: What is a "white man"? And why can't one speak the Shoshone language? This posting features my reflections on the first of these questions. I'll treat the second one in a future post.

What is a white man? To most people living in US society, this seems like such a simple question that it is not even worth asking. A white person is a person who is a member of the majority white race or ethnic group. But what counts as a race or ethnic group, and who gets to decide which individuals are in one? In order to reflect on the question of who is a white man, let's think for a moment about two related questions that have come up in public discourse recently: Is Barack Obama a Black man? And, on the assumption that Sonia Sotomayor is a Latina woman, does that affect her qualifications for the Supreme Court of the United States?

Before he ever announced his intention to run for the presidency, Barack Obama had been the subject of debates over race (examples here or here). Especially during the primary campaign in Illinois in which he ran against Bobby Rush to be the Democratic Party's candidate for the US House of Representatives, numerous commentators argued over whether Obama is sufficiently Black to represent Black constituents. Various arguments centered on whether different qualities or experiences are sufficient to claiming a Black identity. These included having dark skin, having ancestors from Africa, speaking in styles associated with African American communities, or facing discrimination within US society. Some commentators suggested that even if Obama meets these criteria, he does not share a Black identity since his family was not part of the slavery experience in America.

These arguments resonate with the notions of authentication and denaturalization discussed by Bucholtz and Hall (2004) as part of the tactics of intersubjectivity. The tactics of intersubjectivity explore ways in which identity is constructed within a society. Authentication lets individuals claim an identity in part by emphasizing the "naturalness" of qualities that they share with some group. By a similar token, denaturalization denies the authenticity of such identities by suggesting that qualities are either artificial or non-essential. Identity is achieved in part through such debates.

In contrast to arguments about then-candidate Obama, no one is denying that Sonia Sotomayor has a Latina identity. What is striking in this case is the lack of argument – indeed, the lack of any notice of the identity that eight of the nine current Supreme Court justices (PDF) and all 19 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee share. This identity doesn't even have a commonly used name, though in bureaucratic contexts it is sometimes called "non-Hispanic White."

I have been somewhat bemused, but at the same time unquestionably irritated by questions from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and others that either suggest or presuppose that Judge Sotomayor's decision making may be affected by her Latina identity. These questions are especially called to mind by the judge's now infamous suggestion, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." Of course Judge Sotomayor's ways of thinking are affected by her life experiences. What is irritating, though, is the assumption that such effects in the context of a Latina identity comprise bias, but that no such effects exist, or at least they are not problematic, for non-Hispanic white men.

This assumption relates to the notion of markedness, originally described by Prague Circle linguists. It is also discussed by many anthropologists under the heading of transparency. To simplify a bit, the idea of markedness is that some notions are 'ordinary,' and that more particular, specific related notions get marked with more words or with other speech elements. So, for example, a male nurse is a particular, out-of-the-ordinary sort of nurse.

The assumption is that a Latina justice might have prejudices. But in contemporary US society, "non-Hispanic white male" is not a marked position. A "non-Hispanic white male justice" is, in common parlance, called a "justice." No marker, no special identity, no assumption of bias. This identity is "transparent" in the sense that it is looked right through and not seen. If one thinks logically about it, the life experiences of, say Stephen Breyer, must affect his thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors in the same way that any other human being's would. But as an unmarked "justice" those effects on him are not thought of as bias.

So, to return to my original question, what is a white man?

For most of my life, I have been a white man. I have light skin, people rarely ask me about my family history, and I don't usually face discrimination in US society. I generally thought of myself as "just white" until a few years ago, when I saw photographs of my great grandparents and my great-great grandmother. Now, I had always known that I had some Mohawk ancestry, but I had never really felt much about it. I had likewise been told that I had ancestors from Germany, England, Scotland, Switzerland and other parts of Europe, but I had never felt any particular affinity to any European nationality as a result. Yet somehow, despite a career of thinking about race, ethnicity, and identity as positionings achieved via discourse, when I saw the serious faces, the dark skin, and the long black hair of my grandparents staring out from those photographs, I felt some connection to an Indian identity. Mostly, though, what I felt was a sense of disconnection from my own grandparents. I am not an Indian. I grew up around white people, who I more or less identified with, and Lakota people, who I did not. My life experiences, the things I have done and thought, and the ways that other people have treated me have made me a white man. I know that this is not an essential fact about my being; it was not predestined to be so. Still, my own actions, the actions of people around me, and the social structure within which I live establish it: I am a white man.