Assignment 3

-Over the past two centuries, and largely as a direct or indirect result of colonization, indigenous languages have been undergoing shift in communities around the world. Yet these languages continue to matter in the lives of these communities, even as people generally speak them less fluently, or even barely speak them at all. What are some of the life ways and some of the social practices* ​that indigenous languages support and make possible and meaningful today? What difference does it make that specifically indigenous languages are used in and for these practices?

*​ Social practices: any activities that people in a community routinely perform as part of their lives, including both simple everyday actions (ex. eating, going to work, caring for one’s kin, hanging out, cleaning, etc.), more elaborated,ritualized actions (ex. graduating, marrying, etc.). These activities are performed in very similar, homogeneous ways by members of a community (indeed, sharing the same ways of doing things is what makes them belong to one community!) and carry very similar meanings and values for members of a community.

Over time, these activities maintain and reproduce the institutions (ex. family and kinship, economy) that structure the community.Please write a response to these questions based on what you learned about the lives of indigenous people in Hawai’i (in the movie ​Kumu Hina​) and the postcolonial Solomon Islands (int he article “Linguistic Paths to Urban Self in Postcolonial Solomon Islands”) today.As usual, as long as your response is thoughtful, exhaustive, and well-argued, there are no minor max length requirements.