Acceso usuarios
Teresa L. McCarty
Only 20 of the 175 extant indigenous languages in the USA are being transmitted to children. What can be done to turn this Situation around? Some suggest that schools can rescue imperiled indigenous languages; others charge that reliance on schools only transfers responsibility for mothertongue transmission from the necessary domain ofthefamily to secondary or tertiary institutions. Here it is argued that while schools cannot "save" threatened indigenous languages, recent developments have positioned schools at the center of the arena in which the politics of language are negotiated. This has had profound impacts on local, tribal, and national initiatives in support of indigenous language rights. These issues are examined in light of the history that has shaped the present reality, and in the context of the Navajo Community of Rough Rock, Arizona. Rough Rock illustrates more widespread processes in which schools have come to form a key social structural and organizational nexus for promoting indigenous languages and cultures. If these school-based resources are not used, the remaining negative forces at work will speed the rate of language loss. The implications of this Situation for language planning are considered.
