LING55AC Lecture 18 - Indigenous Languages (Hinton 2022, Chp. 16)

The “Indian Problem” & Federal Assimilation

Because Native Americans were considered "in the way" of westward expansion, federally funded boarding schools were established as an assimilation solution to stamp out native languages, cultures, religions, and family structures

Key Historical Benchmarks in Native Education

Major milestones include the 1868 Navajo treaty mandating boarding school attendance, the 1887 Dawes Act enforcing reservations, the 1968 Indian Civil Rights Act, the peak in 1973 with 60,000 students, and the 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Act enabling tribally owned schools

Major Historical Boarding Schools

• Carlisle Industrial Indian School (1879-1918)

• United States Indian industrial Training School / Haskell’s (Kansas, 1884-Present)

• Perris Indian School / Sherman Institute (Riverside, 1892-Present)

Ute Language & Terminology

A Colorado River Numic language spoken on reservations in Utah and Colorado. Ute is an exonym from Spanish explorers, while speakers refer to their language as núu-'apaghapi ("the people's speech") or núuchi ("of the people").

Breakdown of Intergenerational Transmission

Language suppression in boarding schools caused parents to fear teaching their native languages, breaking the chain of intergenerational transmission and making it extremely difficult (though not impossible) for languages to survive.

The Evolution of Boarding Schools (360 Shift)

Transitioned historically from a racist project of forced cultural/linguistic suppression to a space of Native nurturing, self-determination, and anti-racist institutional development (e.g., Haskell evolving into a university).

Linguistic Human Rights (Hinton 2022)

The foundational principle that people ought to have a choice in whether they speak their heritage language.