Warrior's Manifesto: How To Keep Our Languages Alive No Matter The Odds

In the intricacies of human civilizations, language serves as the vibrant thread that weaves together the fabric of culture, identity, and shared heritage. Yet, in the face of globalization and the relentless march of time, numerous languages find themselves teetering on the brink of extinction. The imperative to revitalize endangered languages is not merely a linguistic pursuit, but a profound acknowledgment of the invaluable reservoir of knowledge, traditions, and unique perspectives embedded within these languages. This essay embarks on a journey to explore the multifaceted significance of language revitalization in terms of both the 2020 novel “The Language Warrior’s Manifesto: How to Keep Our Languages Alive No Matter the Odds” by Anton

Treuer’s work is both motivational as a guide to maintaining personal well-being and as a narrative of his language-learning and revitalization journey. Although there are a plethora of valuable themes within the novel, the theme I found most essential was the importance of destigmatizing language-learning itself. In terms of the Ojibwe language, as well as a majority of other Native American languages, there is a gap between generations. Treuer describes a component of this conflict as lateral oppression, using the example of “the blame game”. In this, Treuer describes how the older Ojibwe generations blame the lack of revitalization on the younger generation’s unwillingness to learn, while the younger generation accuses the older generation of being unwilling to teach. This conflict is counterintuitive in Treuer’s words because “We worry so much about being blamed for what is lost that the assignment of blame gets more energy than the work of language development.” (Treuer, 2020, p. 38). It is imperative that this shaming stop so that revitalization may

He asks us to “take everything you learn and teach it to four others.”(Treuer, 2020, p. 116). The act of doing so keeps whatever topic at hand, in this case Ojibwe, alive and in conversation. This concept also applies to the importance of immersion while learning a second language. Staying immersed in a second language while you are surrounded in the first language is incredibly difficult, even for Treuer. By teaching others what you have learned, you are increasing the scope of the second language’s reach, allowing for further immersion. A Death in the Rainforest Kulick’s novel is set in the remote village of Gapun in Papua New Guinea, where the people speak an isolated language that is slowly dying while Kullick bears witness and attempts to record all that he can about it. Kulick’s work is an accumulation of objective and subjective perspectives, which allows for a more emotional ethnographic coverage. Like Treuer’s work, there are several themes that are important for understanding language revitalization. The theme I found most imperative to understand, and applicable to several dying languages, is the necessity to understand the historical context of the