Boarding school language bans nearly erased three hundred and fifty Indigenous American tongues

Evidence

Had history been different, I would likely speak Bodewadmimwin, or Potawatomi, an Anishinaabe language. But, like many of the three hundred and fifty indigenous languages of the Americas, Potawatomi is threatened, and I speak the language you read. The powers of assimilation did their work as my chance of hearing that language, and yours too, was washed from the mouths of Indian children in government boarding schools where speaking your native tongue was forbidden. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 178

Categorization

• XREF: Direct connection to the eco-justice settler-colonial critique thread and to ch8’s boarding school history — assimilationist violence operated through language erasure. — connects to: Most North American Indigenous languages will be extinct by 2050 — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 679; Boarding schools severed whole generations from their ceremonial language and songs — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 125; Boarding school coercion directly caused an entire language’s near extinction — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 181

Broader Connections

• Boarding school coercion directly caused an entire language’s near extinction #corroborates (0.90) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 181