It's not like indigenous languages are real or anything.

selchieproductions:

apihtawikosisan:

Small blessings, this is a self-published book, so it’s not going to be out there as a real language resource.  From the scarily out-there quotes from this lady, I suspect there are deeper problems involved in spending this much time and effort on a language she does not seem to know much about.  Why are these ‘spiritual’ people drawn to native culture like this?  Creepy.

This might be one of the most baffling things I’ve read in a while; to try to compile a dictionary without speaking the language is just silly but the rationale behind it ‘a spiritual’ connection is a clear example of the way in which indigenous peoples across the globe are perceived by the West.

In short, to the western mind anyway, we’re little more than mythical but ultimately now non-existing cultures to use as inspiration for faux-religious practices, wannabe-linguistics and cultural appropriation fashion and this despite the fact that we actually still exist and thrive as peoples today.

What upsets me is the fact that her book could have been a welcome contribution to the study of a critically endangered language, but instead it does the opposite by making a complete and utter mockery of the struggle to keep the very source of Tlingit culture alive. 

People like her are the reason why native learners of endangered languages don’t bother; when our languages are turned into something little more than an exotic ‘authentic’ alternative to Quënya or something equally constructed, there’s just nothing left that could convince people that they should learn the languages of their ancestors.

If she’d done this with South Saami I would have been outraged and having briefly studied Tlingit I cannot imagine what went through her head - we’re talking about a tonal, agglutinative highly complex language that she, in the name of ‘spiritual peace’ is butchering half to death.

Let me just say that the Tlingit scholars I know who have seen this book are far from happy about it.

To say the least.

As a speaker of Gaelic, I can only await her next book on ‘Celtic’ with horror and as a student of Mäori I wonder how completely useless her Mäori dictionary is.

Anyway, here are some quotes from her homepage;

For the Hlingit language learner, the book offers a much easier way to learn the grammar.  Observe the grammar in the story, see the breakdown of complex word parts made clear and sensible according to a native perspective.  I am an outsider, but I have the wisdom to know this.  Partly because I’m coming at it from a more ancient viewpoint than anyone else.  That’s my mode of operation. 

In short, what she’s saying is, because she’s white, she’s naturally more qualified teaching this language than actual native speakers of Tlingit.

Take the Native American people to your heart, and move forward into the new millennium!  They are your people.  People of differing Native American nations will find it much easier to connect with one another through this knowledge, like a kind of spirit medicine.

I am not even going to comment on the fucked-up-ness of this.

You can learn how Hlingit relates to different Native American languages.  On a chart of the words for ‘water’ in many different Native American languages (of North, South and Central America), you can see how, although they are different from one another, they all hold some similarity to various Scottish Gàidhlig words for ‘water’.  Scottish Gàidhlig must be very ancient, holding the key to linguistics for some language famlies.

What the fuck was this woman smoking while writing this book? For starters, the comment is ridiculous as it has no foundation in real linguistics whatsoever, but do tell how the Scottish Gaelic uisge is any-fucking-where near e.g. the Tlingit héen or the Lakota mní or the Cherokee ᎠᎹor the Cree nîpîy to name but some Native languages from the Americas.

Not to mention that Scottish Gaelic is the descendant of Old Irish and only roughly 1000 years old.

If you’re Hlingit, it’s your language, you can save it by understanding it well.  Let it heal your heart.  Lighten the heart of some dear elders with the sweet sound of their spoken language.

The nerve of this white fucking woman. This book needs to be destroyed and she needs to take an entire intergalactic football stadium full of seats. We left the Celtic Twilight a century ago, now really.

As a medicine woman, I intuited the spiritual gifts of the different Native American nations.  I wanted to bring these together. 

I discovered that although I had a special insight into the origin of Native American language, I still had to go through the whole learning process for each language. 

I repeat, sit the fuck down, get your New Age ignorance away from real scholars and get a fucking life.