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| | From:  Annie-LL (Original Message) | Sent: 4/1/2007 12:42 AM |
Q: What was Native American culture like in the past? What is it like now?
A: There are hundreds of indigenous American cultures, from California to Maine, from the Yukon to Argentina. These cultures can be as different from each other as Chinese culture is from French. If you want to learn about Native American culture, the best idea is to pick a specific Native American tribe to learn about. Then, if you are very interested, you can learn about a second tribe and compare their societies and traditions. |
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Q: What did Native Americans look like in the past? What were their clothes and hairstyles like?
A: They didn't all look the same. For one thing, different tribes had different typical clothing styles. As you can imagine, Gwich'in people in Alaska didn't dress the same as Calusa Indians in southern Florida! For another thing, individual Native American people in the same tribe often looked quite different from each other. All their clothes were made by hand, and they were usually decorated with designs, beadwork, and other art, so no two people in the tribe had the same dress. But here are some pictures of Indian clothes and moccasins to give you a general idea of what traditional Native American clothing looked like. And here is a page showing several different Native American hair styles |
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Q: How many Native Americans are there today?
A: According to the census reports, there are about 2 million Native Americans in the United States and 1 million in Canada.
Q: How many Native American languages are there, and how many people speak them?
A: There are about 150 Native American languages in Canada and the United States, and another 600-700 languages in Central and South America. We don't know exactly how many languages there are because not everyone agrees on which languages are unique. If two languages are similar enough that speakers can usually understand each other, they are called dialects of the same language. For example, American English and British English are dialects. On the other hand, English and German are different languages, because even though they are related, an English speaker can't necessarily understand a German speaker. However, sometimes there are borderline cases. For example, Spanish and Italian speakers can often understand each other. And sometimes speakers of two dialects of English can hardly understand each other at all (especially when they're talking quickly!) So although most linguists consider East Cree and Plains Cree to be dialects of the same Cree language, some people believe they should count as two languages because Cree speakers can't always understand each other. So depending on how you count them, there are between 750-850 indigenous languages spoken in North, Central, and South America. There are about half a million speakers of indigenous languages in Canada and the US, and as many as 25 million speakers in Central and South America.
Q: What does it mean when you say Native American languages are endangered?
A: If children stop learning their native language, the languages can die out just like endangered species. Some Native American communities are bilingual, but in most places parents have stopped teaching children their native language. In the past, the United States and Canadian governments used to take Indian children away from non-English-speaking homes, without their parents' permission, and put them into boarding schools. This was extremely traumatic for the children, so many parents stopped using their native languages to try and protect them. This bad policy was eliminated, but now many Native Americans have grown up without their language, and it is difficult to try to learn a new language as an adult. Some communities are trying to recruit elders to teach the youngest generation the language before it is too late.
Q: Is there anything I can do to help preserve Native American languages?
A: If you are Indian, learn your language! More than anything else, this is in the hands of the kids. Young people can learn a language more quickly and easily than older people. Visit older relatives and record them talking. You can make a difference.
If you are not Indian, or if you have distant Native American relatives but nobody you could learn the language from, you can still learn some words the same way you learn any other foreign language. You could even study linguistics when you grow up, and help Native American communities preserve their languages first-hand! |
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