Mark Turin, Claire Wheeler and Eleanor Wilkinson

“ Kumeyaay tribes on the US side of the border are often hesitant to share language materials, even with each other, let alone academics or non-Kumeyaay people. In contrast, on the Mexican side of the border, community language ideologies are typically more variationist (Kroskrity 2002; Kroskrity and Field 2009) , such that everyone acknowledges dialect variation, yet insists that all dialects are mutually intelligible and therefore one language, shared by all. ”

“ For example, if materials from only one dialect are published to a greater extent than another, this may result in de facto promotion of that one dialect to the status of “standard”, and may privilege that variety over others for use in future language revitalisation efforts (Muhlhauser 1996; Hale 2001; Eisenlohr 2004; Hill 2002) . In Native North America, there is today not a single speech community that is not endangered at some level. ”

“ The protagonist in the genre of trickster tales need not always be a coyote, but is always a trickster who displays various kinds of culturally dispreferred behaviors, such as insincerity, gluttony, and above all egotistical narcissism. The Tiipay story of Rabbit and Frog does not feature a coyote, but instead a frog that displays trickster-like characteristics. ”

“ Although geographically connected communities may share very similar, if not identical, versions of traditional stories, storytellers from specific communities inject their own community’s idiom into them, marking them as symbols of local community identity and making them not only very different from each other but clearly indexical of the local community the storyteller is from. These facts lead to a couple of important language-related considerations for researchers of oral literature: firstly, the effects this research may have on language revitalisation efforts ”

“ Like any good trickster, Frog also displays several negative behavioral characteristics, including laziness, insincerity and greed. Children learn cultural values from trickster tales by learning how not to behave; in this case, from the actions of both the trickster and Rabbit. Stories like this are classic examples of traditional indigenous pedagogy. The story of Rabbit and Frog was collected as part of a larger project documenting the Kumeyaay dialects spoken in Baja California. ”

“ Language ideologies in indigenous communities may also reflect beliefs concerning the relationship between local varieties and community identity, but are not necessarily homogeneous across related speech communities. For example, members of US Kumeyaay communities frequently express the belief that their dialects are each different enough to be considered distinct languages. ”

“ If the indigenous language requires special characters not found on an English keyboard, it is especially important to employ a non-proprietary font in Unicode, so that a decade from now transcribed texts will still be legible.
Rabbit and Frog: a Kumeyaay trickster tale The Tiipay trickster tale of Rabbit and Frog begins with a formulaic opening that immediately indexes the fact that this story is an ancient example of a cultural resource [3] This is seen in the archaic language, which cannot be entirely glossed (personal communication Amy Miller) [4] . ”

“ Ethical research systems and practices should enable indigenous nations, people, and communities to exercise control over information related to their knowledge and heritage and to themselves. [...] To act otherwise is to repeat that familiar pattern of decisions being made for Indigenous people by those who presume to know what is best for them. ”

“ It will eventually be archived at the Archive of Indigenous Languages of Latin America at the University of Texas, Austin (AILLA) , [6] so that it will be available via the Internet in both Spanish and English to members of the Kumeyaay community on both sides of the border as well as researchers. The decision to make all language files available via the Internet was made by members of the Baja Kumeyaay community, who came together with project staff repeatedly in community language workshops held every three months over the duration of the project. ”

“ Ironically, this situation continues to worsen even as indigenous communities improve their economic conditions, because dominant languages and cultures increasingly penetrate even the most remote communities, along with roads, electricity, and greater access to various forms of media in dominant languages. ”

“ University of California Press, 2002) , 171–192. —, and Margaret Field, Native American Language Ideologies: Language Beliefs, Practices, and Struggles in Indian Country (Tucson: University Arizona Press, 2009) . Meza Cuero, Jon, Amy Miller and Margaret Field, Inside Dazzling Mountains, ed. ”