Chinuk Wawa a solution to promote indigenous languages and cultures?
I remember reading a number of studies conducted in Europe and elsewhere over the last few decades involving the propaedeutic benefits of Esperanto in the learning of subsequent languages, especially though not exclusively Indo-European ones. Few links are available in English, but here is one as a taster:
http://www.springboard2languages.org/documents/springboard_rationale.pdf
I was wondering though why we could not apply the same research to Canada's indigenous languages. According to the research based on Esperanto, the main benefit of Esperanto is its ease of learning, which helps raise the child's self-confidence and motivation in the learning of any subsequent language. An added benefit for European languages is that many of its roots are European too.
From the little I've read of Chinuk Wawa, it has similar properties. It's among the easiest indigenous languages to learn, which could certainly raise a child'd motivation and self-confidence in the learning of any other second language. Additionally, like Esperanto, it contains words from many languages, the difference in this case though being that many of those words come from various North American languages, a large percentage from the now extinct original Chinook language, along with many words from Salish and other West Coast languages, Algonquian languages, Inuit languages, French, Michi, English, and Hawaiian.
This combination of a relatively logical grammatical structure along with such a varied vocabulary would seem to me, at least based on the limited information I have on the language thus far, to make it an ideal propaedeutic language to be taught in elementary schools in Canada just as Esperanto is increasingly taught in elementary schools in Europe so as to prepare pupils for the learning of subsequent languages later. With Chinuk Wawa being based more on North American than European languages though, could raise pupils' interest in these languages for later language study in high school.
Does anyone here know more about Chinuk Wawa or Kamloops Wawa who could confirm if either of these languages could serve such a purpose?
Thanks.
Actually, once I'd read of how easy it supposedly was to learn, I even wanted to buy some books to learn it, but it seems that like with most other indigenous languages, such books are either non-existent or too rudimentary to allow one to reach any kind of decent fluency in them. But of course none of this would prevent a concerted effort to produce quality resources in the language in future along with a dictionary covering all the vocabulary one would need to discuss literature, politics, science, technology, geography, religion, philosophy, etc.
Actually, now that I think about it, it could also serve an additional benefit. Just as Esperanto is useful not only as a pedagogical tool to accelerate the learning of subsequent languages, but as a language in its own right, so Chinuk Wawa could also serve that role. Since it's supposedly much easier to learn than many other languages, and it contains words from English, French and Michi too, it's reasonable to suppose that native English and French speakers could learn it relatively quickly, possibly even more so than they could each others' languages, with Chnuk Wawa serving as an interlanguage in its own right as it had on the West Coast in the 18th and 19th centuries, with its propaedeutic benefits for the learning of other indigenous languages serving as an added bonus.
Sorry, I just realized that seeing that this involves pedagogical science, that maybe I should have put this in the humanities and science forums. But since language belongs to culture too, I suppose we can leave it here now that it's here already. Mods can decide whether to transfer it. Thanks.
http://wawachinukwawa.wordpress.com/links/
The Web Site is new and will be at 100% soon. It offers all the information about chinuk you could want as well as the location of classes. Unfortunatly classes are held only in the Willamette Valley of Oregon! E-mail Me with Questions.
Thanks, CW. I'd scanned though the site, and it had some interesting links.
I remember coming across this book awhile back too:
www.archive.org/details/internationalidi00haleuoft
Though there has been plenty of research on how Esperanto can accelerate the learning of other European languages considerably, I'm sure there is no similar research on the possible propadeutic benefits of Chinuk Wawa on non-native speakers of indigenous languages in how it helps them learn subsequent indigenous languages. Such a study would undoubtedly be interesting though. But seeing that we'll see that in a long time unfortunately.