Manifeste (13 décembre 2003) Manifesto (December 13, 2003)

“Just a linguist” is my professional self-definition. Linguists must lead in recognizing the absolute value of all languages: not only as objects of study for themselves, but also as treasuries of knowledge, culture and identity, of nationhood itself. I am a linguist at that sense, inheriting a distinctly Hebraic tradition of preservation and empowerment of language by writing—then the latest technology—that is, documentation or permanent record of the consonants of e.g., Jehovah’s speech to Moses—now the vowels too, and even the tones. Beyond that and the Boasian stance, in absolutely essential combination of both academic and indigenous values, I believe anthropologists and linguists now must work actively with the language communities. Together we must nationalize the codex, make a national Scroll of it, and of its messages, as the instrument of minority cultural survival—a secure treasure, be it what Jehovah spoke unto Moses about plantings, or Sivuqaq elders’ knowledge of sea ice. We must recognize, legalize, institutionalize and not just enshrine it, but actively cultivate and practice it. This has been widely opposed by the recent past, which has severely threatened northern languages to favour the imperial expansion of nation states, strictly taxonomic and monolingual/monolingue, by definition. Yet conflict between those states and other nationhoods is not essential, but false, since the normal human brain has plenty of room for more than one language. If God’s punishment for us at Babel is to make us wiser, different nationhoods must learn to coexist instead of excluding one another. When we started in the early 1960s, academic support for active cultivation of “primitive” (or subversive) minority languages under the nation-state was almost unthinkable, or revolutionary—though gentlemanly documentation was OK. By 1972 we were able to legalize the use of Alaskan languages in public schools and to found the Alaska Native Language Center. Though even in 1991 at UNESCO I was warned not to mention such activism, in 2002, at the same place, that was passionately the main theme. For us the “international”(!) Saami Parliament and ICC are well on the way to making the North a model for the rest of the globe. The time has come for the likes of us to work together to keep up with the times, and to redefine our fields as needed to serve best our future generations. «Juste un linguiste». Voilà comment je me définis professionnellement. Les linguistes doivent mener le combat pour la reconnaissance de la valeur absolue de chaque langue, et ce non seulement comme objets d’étude, mais aussi comme trésors de savoirs, de culture et d’identité, et même comme sources d’esprit national. Je suis un linguiste dans ce sens, héritier d’une tradition typiquement hébraïque de préservation et de prise de pouvoir du langage par l’écriture — la technologie de pointe de l’époque — c’est-à-dire de documentation ou de notation permanente des consonnes prononcées, par exemple, par Jéhovah dans son discours à Moïse — et aussi, aujourd’hui, des voyelles et même des tons. Au-delà de tout ceci, et de la position de Boas, dans une union absolument essentielle des valeurs académiques et autochtones, je crois que les anthropologues et les linguistes doivent maintenant travailler de concert avec les communautés linguistiques. Ensemble, nous devons nationaliser le codex de la langue, en faire, et faire de ses messages, une Écriture nationale, un instrument de survie culturelle en contexte minoritaire — un trésor mis en lieu sûr, qu’il s’agisse de ce que Jéhovah a révélé à Moïse au sujet des techniques de plantation, ou de ce que les aînés de Sivuqaq savent à propos des glaces marines. Nous devons reconnaître, légaliser, institutionnaliser, et …