Re: bilingualism

[John Cowan <cowan@locke.ccil.org>]

Andrew Sieber wrote:
 
> John Cowan wrote:
> > Most Federal public schools for Indians banned the speaking of the
> > children's native language for decades.

> But there was no restriction on the language
> spoken in the home, only the one spoken at school.  Yes, this is bad,
> but not nearly as bad as prohibiting children from even learning their
> parents' native tongue.

I forgot to mention that these were boarding schools, often located
hundreds of miles from the reservations, so in effect the
native languages *were* completely banned.  The result is that many
Indian children lost their native languages, and therefore so have their
children --- a very few of whom are trying to relearn their "own"
languages either from surviving elders or even from books.

-- 
John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan		cowan@ccil.org
			e'osai ko sarji la lojban