2004
Volume 71 Number 2
  • ISSN: 0039-8691
  • E-ISSN: 2215-1214

Abstract

Abstract

Not only can monolingual histories mask multilingual practices, but writing languages out of history happens very differently even in the same time and place. We examine two cases in one historical setting, an Indigenous language and an immigrant language in Wisconsin (U.S.), Menominee and German. The widespread view of the United States today as an English monolingual state reflects an ongoing process of writing other languages out of history, or invisibilization. Menominee and German present sharply contrasting cases of this process and reactions to it from the late 19th century to the present. German, once widely taught, written and read in a standard variety, has lost that status as one piece of a broader political struggle and exists today basically as a ‘post-vernacular’ language. In contrast, Menominee faced ongoing, violent efforts to extirpate it, but is being revitalized by a new generation of speakers today.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.5117/TET2019.2.MACA
2020-03-01
2024-11-09
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/00398691/71/2/05_TET2019_2_MACA.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.5117/TET2019.2.MACA&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Baran, Dominika.2017.Language in Immigrant America.Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Beck, David R.M.2005.The Struggle for Self-Determination: History of the Menominee Indians since 1854.Lincoln:University of Nebraska Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Bloomfield, Leonard.1928.Menomini Texts.New York: Publications of the American Ethnological Society,vol. 12.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Bloomfield, Leonard.1962.The Menomini Language.CharlesF. Hockett (ed.). New Haven:Yale University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Bloomfield, Leonard.1975.Menominee Lexicon, ed. by CharlesF. Hockett. Milwaukee Public Museum Publications in Anthropology and History,Vol. 3. Milwaukee, WI.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Bridgman, Alfred F.1874-1879.Menominee Word List (Powell Schedule). Manuscript.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Brown, Joshua, ed. Forthcoming.Verticalization: A model for language shift. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Crawford, James.2000.At war with diversity: U.S. language policy in an age of anxiety.Clevedon:Multilingual Matters.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Díez deVelasco, Francisco. 2010.The visibilization of religious minorities in Spain.Social Compass.57(2). 235-252.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Dobrowolsky, Alexandra.2008.Interrogating ‘invisibilization’ and ‘instrumentalization’: Women and current citizenship trends in Canada.Citizenship Studies12.5. 465-479.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Eichhoff, Jürgen.1985.The German Language in America. America and the Germans: An assessment of a three-hundred year history: Vol. 1. Immigration, language, ethnicity, ed. TrommlerFrank &McVeighJoseph, 223-240. Philadelphia:University of Pennsylvania Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Evans, Christine &SamanthaLitty.2091.Not the real German: Folk perspectives on language and identity in Wisconsin Heritage German communities. Paper presented at the 24th Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference. Penn State University,May.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Finkelman, Paul.1993.The War on German Language and German Culture, 1917-1925.Confrontation and Cooperation: Germany and the United States in the Era of World War I, 1900-1924, ed. SchröderHans-Jürgen. Providence, RI:Berg.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Frey, Benjamin E.2013.Towards a general theory of language shift: A case study in Wisconsin German and North Carolina Cherokee. PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Frizzell, R.W.2003.German-American history as written decades ago. Review of Tolzmann, Don Heinrich, The German-American Experience. H-Ethnic, H-Net Reviews. December. www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=8550
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Goddard, Ives.1987.Leonard Bloomfield’s Descriptive and Comparative Studies of Algonquian.Historiographia LinguisticaXIV(1/2): 179-217.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Halwachs, Dieter W., SimoneKlinge, &BarbaraSchrammel-Leber.2013.Romani: Education, Segregation and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Treffpunkt Sprachen, Forschungsbereich Pluralingualismus. RomIdent Working Papers, 3. romani.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/virtuallibrary/librarydb/web/files/pdfs/356/Paper3.pdf
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Hammond, Laura.2008.Strategies of invisibilization: How Ethiopia's resettlement programme hides the poorest of the poor.Journal of Refugee Studies.21.4. 517-536.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Havinga, Anna &NilsLanger, eds. 2015.Invisible languages in the 19th century.Oxford:Peter Lang.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Hoffman, Walter James.1896.The Menomini Indians. 14th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Washington, DC:Government Printing Office.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Irvine, Judith T. &SusanGal.2000.Language ideology and linguistic differentiation.Regimes of language: Ideologies, policies, and identities,ed.PaulV. Kroskrity.Santa Fe:School of American Research Press,35-84.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Keesing, Felix M.1987[1939].The Menomini Indians of Wisconsin: A Study of Three Centuries of Cultural Contact and Change.Madison, WI:University of Wisconsin Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Kellogg, Louise Phelps. 1918.The Bennett Law in Wisconsin.Wisconsin Magazine of History.2. 3-25.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Litty, Samantha.2017.We talk German now yet: The sociolinguistic development of Voice Onset Time & Final Obstruent Devoicing in Wisconsin German & English varieties, 1863-2013.PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin – Madison.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Litty, Samantha &JosephSalmons.2019. Trajectories and heritage.Multilingualism and (Im)mobilities: Language, Power, Agency, ed. by HornerKristine &JenniferDailey-O’Cain, 165-174. Bristol:Multilingual Matters.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Lowery, Malinda Maynor.2018.We are the original Southerners. Editorial, New York Times, May 22. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/opinion/confederate-monuments-indians-original-southerners.html
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Ludanyi, Renate.2013.Can German remain a vital heritage language in the United States?Heritage Language Journal10(3). 305-315.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Miner, Kenneth L.1974.Modern Menominee. Handout, Wisconsin Native American Languages Project. (digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=wiarchives;view=reslist;subview=standard;didno=uw-mil-uwmmss0020)
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Miner, Kenneth L.1979.Through the Years with a Small Language: More Trouble with Data in Linguistic Theory.International Journal of American Linguistics 45(1). 75-78.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Nollendorfs, Cora Lee.1988.The First World War and the survival of German Studies.Teaching German in America, ed. DavidP. Benseleret al. Madison:University of Wisconsin,176-196.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Petty, Antje.2013.Immigrant Languages and Education: Wisconsin’s German Schools.In Wisconsin Talk: Linguistic Diversity in the Badger State, ed. by PurnellThomas, RaimyEric, and SalmonsJoseph, 37-57. Madison, WI:University of Wisconsin Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Putnam, Michael T. &JosephSalmons.2015.Multilingualism in the Midwest: How German shaped (and continues to shape) the Midwest.Middle West Review1. 29-52.
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Reershemius, Gertrud.2009.Post-vernacular language use in a Low German linguistic community.Journal of Germanic Linguistics21.2. 131-147.
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Ricento, Thomas2003.The discursive construction of Americanism.Discourse & Society14.611-637.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Roediger, David R.1999.The wages of whiteness: Race and the making of the American working class.New York:Verso.
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Salmons, Joseph.2002.The Shift from German to English, World War I and the German-language Press in Wisconsin.In Menschen zwischen zwei Welten: Auswanderung, Ansiedlung, Akkulturation, edited by WalterG. Rödel and SchmahlHelmut, 178-193. Trier:Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Salmons, Joseph.2005a.Community, region and language shift in German-speaking Wisconsin.Regionalism in the age of globalism,vol. 1: Concepts of regionalism, ed. By HönnighausenLothar, Marc Frey, PeacockJames, & SteinerNiklaus, 129-138. Madison, WI:Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures.
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Salmons, Joseph.2005b.The role of community and regional structure in language shift.Regionalism in the age of globalism,vol. 2: Forms of regionalism, ed. By HönnighausenLothar, OrtleppAnke, PeacockJames, SteinerNiklaus, & MatthewsCarrie (consulting editor), 133-144. Madison, WI:Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures.
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Salmons, Joseph.2017.‘Keineswegs Feinde der englischen Sprache’: Deutsch, Englisch und Schulpolitik in Wisconsin.Muttersprache, special issue, “Zur Soziolinguistik regionaler Mehrsprachigkeit im deutschsprachigen Raum”, ed. by LangerNils. 2017(4). 310-323.
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Salmons, Joseph &Felecia A. Lucht.2006.Standard German in Texas.Studies in Contact Linguistics: Essays in Honor of Glenn G. Gilbert, ed. ThornburgLinda &FullerJanet. New York: Peter Lang, 165-186.
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Shandler, Jeffrey.2006.Adventures in Yiddishland: Postvernacular Language and Culture.Berkeley:University of California Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Shillinger, Sarah.2008.A Case Study of the American Indian Boarding School Movement: An Oral History of Saint Joseph’s Indian Industrial School.Lewiston, NY:Edwin Mellen Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  43. Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove.2000.Linguistic Genocide in Education – or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights?Mahwah:Erlbaum.
    [Google Scholar]
  44. Stafford, Catherine.2013.Spanish in Wisconsin: Advantages of maintenance and prospects for sustained vitality. In PurnellThomas, RaimyEric and SalmonsJoseph (eds.), Wisconsin Talk: Linguistic Diversity in the Badger State,123-141. Madison, Wi:The University of Wisconsin Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Tolzmann, Don Heinrich.2000.The German-American Experience.Westminster, MD:Prometheus Books.
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Trawalé, Damien, &ChristianPoiret.2017.Black gay Paris: from invisibilization to the difficult alliance of Black and gay politics.African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal10(1). 47-58.
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Truth and Reconciliation Commission. 2015.Canada’s Residential Schools: Missing Children and Unmarked Burials. The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Vol. 4. Montreal & Kingston:McGill-Queen’s University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  48. Warner, Sam L.No’eau. 2001.The movement to revitalize Hawaiian language and culture.The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice, ed. by HintonLeanne and HaleKen, pp. 133-144. New York:Academic Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Wilkerson, Miranda &JosephSalmons.2008.‘Good old immigrants of yesteryear’ who didn’t learn English: Germans in Wisconsin.American Speech83. 259-283.
    [Google Scholar]
  50. Wilkerson, Miranda &JosephSalmons.2012.Linguistic Marginalities: Becoming American without Learning English.Journal of Transnational American Studies 4.2. acgcc_jtas_7115. www.escholarship.org/uc/item/5vn092kk.
    [Google Scholar]
  51. Wilkerson, Miranda &JosephSalmons.2019. Leaving their mark: How Wisconsin came to sound German.English in the German-speaking World, ed. by Hickey,Raymond pp. 362-384Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  52. Wilson, William H.1998.I ka ‘ōlelo Hawai’i ke ola, ‘Life is found in the Hawaiian language’.International Journal of the Sociology of Language132:123-137.
    [Google Scholar]
  53. Wittke, Carl.1936.German Americans and the World War.Columbus, OH:Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society. (Reprinted 1974.)
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.5117/TET2019.2.MACA
Loading
/content/journals/10.5117/TET2019.2.MACA
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error