If I concentrate, really focus down, I can remember with clarity and confidence exactly six words of the Cherokee language. Yeah, that’s right baby. Just another few thousand hours of dedicated study and I’ll be totally fluent! Okay, it may not be as bad as that, but the Cherokee language truly is difficult for English speakers to learn, about the same level as Mandarin or Japanese. And since I’ve done one of those others1 already, why try another? And, if I’m going to try another, why pick the one that is spoken by a few thousands of people and not the one spoken by millions?
I grew up in Yuma, Arizona, a city that was first built as one of the few places the lower Colorado river could be forded by settlers crossing the United States to the verdant land of California2.
But here’s the thing. The town is called Yuma after one of the tribes of Native Americans who inhabited the area when the European settlers arrived. Yuma is actually not really a tribe. It’s a family of tribes. It’s a family of languages. And I didn’t know any of that until I was already an adult and had moved away from the city. And that is a crime of U.S. language education.
See, the Yuman family of languages is critically endangered. Preservation efforts are centered around creating dictionaries, using technology to study and preserve original artifacts, and, of course, bilingual education. This is an approach not unlike that of many other tribes across the U.S. While not formalized as such, it could be thought of as a doctrine: preserve, revitalize, expand.
Only, some tribes, like the Cherokee, actually have formalized it. So, what does it mean when we say that a nation has formalized a doctrine?
Doctrine comes to English from Latin, from the church to the law to academia, and means, literally, “collection of teachings.” And the word collection is doing a lot of heavy lifting there because doctrine most explicitly does not mean law. Instead, doctrine often informs the creation of laws, rules, and other strictures.
And what’s truly disturbing is the impact one doctrine can have on the entire world. In this case, we start about 500 years ago with a set of ideas gathered under the umbrella of the Doctrine of Discovery. I’m shorthanding here, obviously, trying to cram 500 years of very thorny geopolitical history into a few hundred words, but, for our purposes, the DoD stated that European (read: white) peoples were inherently better than other peoples.
As such, these European leaders (both secular and ecclesiastical) had the divine, inalienable right to, well, take over the world3. This doctrine led to inhabited lands all over the world being ‘discovered’ and claimed by European peoples. And, when it came to the Americas, it contributed directly to the degradation of so many native peoples around the world that the word itself needs to be examined to see if it is still worthwhile as a term of art in academic circles.
But we’re talking about how doctrine becomes law. In the U.S., during the 19th century, a series of Supreme Court rulings4 that basically said the U.S. government had the right to act as a steward to the various Native American tribes5. The resultant laws gave the U.S. the power to bend tribal doings to its will.
One of the biggest tools the government had in controlling the native peoples was in getting them to forego their own, independent languages in favor of English. If the tribes wanted money, if they wanted help, they needed to show that they were trying to assimilate with the United States as a whole (even as sovereign nations) and that meant teaching their children English. Over time, as these kinds of policies were formalized and codified into laws, languages were lost.
Of course, today, the Doctrine of Discovery has been thoroughly repudiated and no nations would dream of colonizing anyone or anywhere. Right? Right? Sigh.
But back to the Cherokee Nation. The Nation has embraced a new doctrine these days, enshrining in law its efforts to preserve, revitalize, and expand its language and thus its cultural footprint; over the past twenty-five years, the Nation has established Cherokee as its official language, built a permanent funding mechanism for the teaching of the language, and now has several schools creating a new generation of native speakers.
By formalizing this doctrine into law, the Nation has made it possible to expand Cherokee language instruction past the borders of the Nation itself. Now, schools elsewhere in the United States have begun offering Cherokee as a second language, a massive step forward for revitalizing the language.
I truly wish Yuma had had the same opportunities available when I was a child. I wish Yuma and every other town built on Native ground in the U.S. had the same opportunities. Doctrine turned into law can create them.
And that, right there, is both the beauty and terror of a word like doctrine. Seemingly banal, formal, staid, possibly even static, when encoded into law, doctrine has the potential to change things for better or worse.
A few months ago, I wrote about the word pedagogy and how it is increasingly being claimed as a personal philosophy, younger teachers are gathering concepts under the umbrella of “my pedagogy” which may be different from another teachers and even their institution’s doctrine. I don’t think doctrine has the same vibe. There’s no push to claim an entire set of broad lessons and apply them across the board; no one is lining up to claim that the set of rules they have come up with applies to them and them only6. And that’s a good thing.
Doctrine is a blunt-edged tool. In academia it should be wielded slowly and deliberately in service of those who have put their education and careers into the hands of academic review boards. You know, like the Cherokee Nation is doing, not as has been done to them.
So. Where do we go from here?
For myself, there are two points to be made. The first is that everyone should be learning a minority language. Maybe one you have a personal connection to, maybe one you just like the sound of. Either way, we, as privileged language speakers7 ought to embrace the doctrine of language preservation whenever and however possible.
Second, I’ve got to get back to my Cherokee practice. I’m sure that if I really work at it, I can learn a seventh word by bedtime. Maybe even ᏄᏍᏛ ᏓᏕᏲᎲᏍᎬ8.
Stay curious,
Joel
Japanese. Which I can speak slightly more than six words of.
Where all one’s dreams can come true!
If only they were as good hearted as Pinky and the Brain.
The Marshall Trilogy is the umbrella term for the decisions.
That this was couched in terms designed to make it seem like the U.S. was doing this for the protection and benefit of the tribes only adds to its villainy.
Unfortunately, rather the opposite seems to be true. There’s seemingly no end to the number of people who try to proclaim their opinions to be universal truths we must all adhere to.
Because English is the dominant global language, if you speak it fluently, especially as a first language, you have an enormous amount of privilege when it comes to education and opportunities. Sorry, but it’s true. Damn it.
Doctrine.
So well said in a few words. Inspiring.