The Language Warrior's Manifesto: How to Keep Our Languages Alive No Matter the Odds

A clarion call to action, incorporating powerful stories of struggles and successes, that points the way for all who seek to preserve indigenous languages.

Across North America, dedicated language warriors are powering an upswell, a resurgence, a revitalization of indigenous languages and cultures. Through deliberate suppression and cultural destruction, the five hundred languages spoken on the continent before contact have dwindled to about 150. Their ongoing survival depends on immediate, energetic interventions.

Anton Treuer has been at the forefront of the battle to revitalize Ojibwe for many years. In this impassioned argument, he discusses the interrelationship between language and culture, the problems of language loss, strategies and tactics for resisting, and the inspiring stories of successful language warriors. He recounts his own sometimes hilarious struggle to learn Ojibwe as an adult, and he depicts the astonishing success of the language program at Lac Courte Oreilles, where a hundred children now speak Ojibwe as their first language.

This is a manifesto, a rumination, and a rallying cry for the preservation of priceless languages and cultures.

Author: Anton Treuer
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
Published: 01/28/2020
Pages: 192
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.65lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.98w x 0.55d
ISBN13: 9781681341545
ISBN10: 1681341549
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | American | Native American Studies

About the Author
Anton Treuer, professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, is the author of Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians but Were Afraid to Ask and fourteen other books on Indigenous history and language.