The Language Ghost: Linguistic Heritage and Collective Identity Among the Monacan Indians of Central Virginia.

Abstract

This study investigates indigenous language ideologies that have emerged in the Monacan Indian Nation, a tribe of about 2500 people located near the Blue Ridge Mountains in central Virginia. It also presents, from a tribal member's perspective, the history and ethnography of the people, whose ancestral language was Siouan. That language was closely related to Tutelo, a language documented by Horatio Hale that is no longer spoken. The study involved interviews and observation at public Monacansponsored cultural events and in private settings to investigate whether cultural particularities apply to the language ideologies that were discovered. Of the three positions identified as separate language ideologies, one could be said to fit within Western frameworks of assumptions, one is culturally specific, and the third falls somewhere in between. The study uses a table presented in Susan Gal's (1979) model of language shift in Oberwart, Austria, to demonstrate the existence of the "language ghost" through categories of interlocutors that disappeared when the speakers shifted from their ancestral language to English. In cases of indigenous language reclamation projects around the world, the community's level of commitment and participation have emerged as the single most important factor necessary to achieve the project's goals, regardless of the group's population or level of fluency. The study questions whether, at this point, a Monacan language reclamation project would be likely to succeed, given the points of disjuncture (Meek 2010) evident in competing language ideologies within the community.

The Expanding Boundaries of Linguistic Anthropology: 2010 in Perspective

“…linguistic anthropologists) and Native American communities in regard to the following: “(1) preserving the language through documentation, (2) literacy, (3) new speakers, (4) use of the language, and (5) community control of the language” (Hinton 2010:37). Those interviewed in the article about their languages echoed the sense of loss described by Wood (2010) in her paper.…”

“…Two Wyo LCHC papers on forgetting and loss highlighted the deep emotions connected to language forms. From her insider's perspective, Karenne Wood (2010) focused on the loss of the Monacan language of Central Virginia among these now‐monolingual English speakers. She proposed the term language ghost to describe “a sense of sacred relationships lost along with the ancestral language, which continues to influence Monacan identity” (Wyo LCHC 2010).…”

“…He saw the construction of language within much language‐heritage work as bound to “notions of some sort of golden age” before colonization or geographic displacement (AAA 2010a:379). Wood (2010) showed the power and centrality of such ideas within communities. However, given creole languages’ short tumultuous histories and emergence out of often‐traumatic pasts, language socialization practices in home and schools settings can be problematic in places like St. Lucia.…”