Defying Maliseet Language Death: Emergent Vitalities of Language, Culture, and Identity in Eastern Canada

by Bernard C. Perley

Published through the Recovering Languages and Literacies of the Americas initiative, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
 
Today, indigenous communities throughout North America are grappling with the dual issues of language loss and revitalization. While many communities are making efforts to bring their traditional languages back through educational programs, for some communities these efforts are not enough or have come too late to stem the tide of language death, which occurs when there are no remaining fluent speakers and the language is no longer used in regular communication. The Maliseet language, as spoken in the Tobique First Nation of New Brunswick, Canada, is one such endangered language that will either be revitalized and survive or will die off.
 
Defying Maliseet Language Death is an ethnographic study by Bernard C. Perley, a member of this First Nation, that examines the role of the Maliseet language and its survival in Maliseet identity processes. Perley examines what is being done to keep the Maliseet language alive, who is actively involved in these processes, and how these two factors combine to promote Maliseet language survival. He also explores questions of identity, asking the important “If Maliseet is no longer spoken, are we still Maliseet?” This timely volume joins the dual issues of language survival and indigenous identity to present a unique perspective on the place of language within culture.

Genres: Linguistics

256 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2011

Reviews

[York · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by a Maliseet author about his own community, this book adds a vital viewpoint on indigenous language revival to the table- that of someone who is the subject of revitalization and who can watch its effects on a personal level. And the prognosis is grim. Faced with a community that seemingly is content with letting Maliseet die, a school system that prioritizes French as a second language over Maliseet, and hundreds of years of cultural assimilation, Perley coins the word "language suicide" to describe this decision to let a language die despite efforts otherwise. At times he dips into personal narrative- as a Maliseet man who does not speak Maliseet himself, what makes him Maliseet?

An extremely important book in the field of language revitalization and First Nations identity.