Alleviating Authenticity Concerns in Tunica Language Reclamation

Abstract

Though often used in a revitalization context, language ideology concerns are just as important for languages with no native speakers. In order for a language reclamation project to achieve language ideological clarification, it must work to mitigate possible concerns around language attitudes and language ideology. Community concerns about the authenticity of a revived language—that the language is only valid if it is spoken as it was spoken in the past—may be assuaged through a quantitative analysis of language variation and change over time periods where there is documentation of the language when it was spoken natively. Tunica is a linguistic isolate whose last known native speaker died in 1948, and which has had a formal language revival program since 2010. This paper presents preliminary results of a frequency analysis of verbal inflection in documented Tunica showing its change over time and variation within different tellings of the same story by a single speaker. Using frequency analysis, the reality of variation and change of the documented language, spoken natively, can be presented clearly, helping communities feel confident about their language and how it is being revived.

Publication
Proceedings of the 39th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics