3 ms·

Blaming people contributes to this discussion how?

• XaspR8d 11y ago
  Well I'm not sure of iagooar's intent, but there is an important distinction here that only community members have the actually power to save a language. It isn't their 'fault' by any means because they have to balance the conformative expectations of the larger (usually oppressive) society with the desire to keep their culture alive, and none of us can really say which is the 'right' choice. The important battleground here is misinformation. A lot of people think teaching their children a native language will impede them from learning the matrix language, but tons of evidence shows that this is not the case. Bilinguals might think slightly differently than monolinguals, but on most tests they actually perform above average. If we could make sure they know that, and provide resources to record media and train educators directly in the communities, a lot more languages would survive.
• iagooar 11y ago
  I don't want to blame anyone, that wasn't my intent. But how do I express my opinion, that passing a language from parents to children is the best way of preserving an endagered language? I ask myself how is your "grumpy" post contributing to this discussion?