Disengagement From Schools: Possible Solutions

This article investigated possible solutions to disengagement from schools by ethnic minority learners in Botswana. Disengagement is a concern for educationists and researchers. The study used qualitative approach to investigate the problem. The reason for disengagement include cultural misfit. The theory of social integration was used to understand the problem under study. The findings indicated that there must be consultation with farm owners and they use local languages for teaching. The article concludes that there is a need to liaise with stakeholders to review certain practices to encourage retainment in schools such as mobile schools and the use of indigenous languages.

Indigenous Languages Learning Through Serious Games Based on Second Language Acquisition Theories

When new educational games are developed for teaching languages, a set of ideas or intuitions about how students can gain more knowledge are used; however, few of them are based on a solid theory or substantiated with linguistic research. This chapter presents a brief review about second language acquisition theories; describes the importance of recovering, maintaining, and transmitting indigenous languages; and analyzes efforts made for enhancing bilingual education. Serious games are presented as an alternative for learning indigenous languages, and guidelines to develop serious games implementing second language acquisition theories are proposed. Finally, a discussion about challenges and future trends in recovering, maintaining, and transmitting indigenous languages is presented.

Implications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) on the Development of Indigenous Languages of South Africa

Indigenous languages are the carriers of the communication, culture, and identity. It is through language that one expresses one's thoughts, emotions, and feelings. Unfortunately, colonialism created serious problems and obstacles in the development of African indigenous languages. European languages are used in Africa, rated as official languages of African countries while indigenous languages are sidelined and marginalized. Africa's own vision of decolonization, self-realization, and African Renaissance will always be a dream if African languages don't reclaim their rightful position in Africa. Intellectual decolonization is prudent for the realization of emancipation of the indigenous languages.

Ìgbélárugẹ Èdè: Akinwumi Isola’s Model for Promoting African Languages

The ever-popular discussion in African literary circles is critically about language choices that African writers make in their creative endeavors. This is part of this write-up’s focus plus the plight of African languages with attention to the benefit and challenges for their empowerment. We set out to achieve two goals in this essay; first contributing to the ongoing discussions on African mother tongues, their vital roles in African literatures while characterizing pointers on proficiency and performance. Second, considering the use of Yoruba language in creative works of late Akínwùmí Oròjídé Iṣọ̀lá. Expectedly, the latter goal will exemplify the importance of indigenous languages to African writers. In pursuance of these dual goals, it is critical to highlight areas in which African writers, especially those writing in their native African languages, have endured to play crucial roles in promotion of African languages. These highlighted areas go beyond now fashionable and expressed goal of focusing on literature in African languages (splendor in African languages) onto push for fairness for languages and their speakers (linguistic justice).

Decoding the Impact of the Srirama Panchali on Baranagar Temples Facades: The Driving Force behind Terracotta Artisans’ Narrativization of Ramayana Events

Valmiki Ramayana is one of the most popular, universally read, and widely circulated literary works. The poets of different languages in India ornamented Valmiki’s Sanskrit Ramayana with the vibrancy of their own indigenous languages and cultures. A significant number of such versions trace their roots to Bengal. The epic was first translated into the Bengali language by the great poet Krittibas Ojha. Its influences and popularity have been such as to justify it being called the Bible of the people of Bengal. Its intense undiminished popularity among the populace has also left an indelible impression on the artisans of Bengal and their creations in different eras. The study primarily aims to investigate the Ramayana narratives that have been found on the facades of the temples of Baranagar in Murshidabad, West Bengal, India. The intention is to trace the impact of Krittibas’s Srirama Panchali on the portrayals of the Ramayana episodes. The formal method of Art History has been employed to provide an in-depth description of the formal elements that have been incorporated by the artisans. Besides, a detailed critical inspection of the concerned portrayals has been complemented with literary references to get a lucid understanding of the intended issues.

Analysis of a Brazilian Indigenous corpus using machine learning methods

In Brazil, several minority languages suffer a serious risk of extinction. The appropriate documentation of such languages is a fundamental step to avoid that. However, for some of those languages, only a small amount of text corpora is digitally accessible. Meanwhile there are many issues related to the identification of indigenous languages, which may help to identify key similarities among them, as well as to connect related languages and dialects. Therefore, this paper proposes to study and automatically classify 26 neglected Brazilian native languages, considering a small amount of training data, under a supervised and unsupervised setting. Our findings indicate that the use of machine learning models to the analysis of Brazilian Indigenous corpora is very promising, and we hope this work encourage more research on this topic in the next years.

WHERE SHOULD WE LEARN OUR NATIVE LANGUAGE? FOUR CASES OF INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES IN LATIN AMERICA

Хотя усвоение языка в раннем детстве в семье является важнейшим условием сохранения языка, многие автохтонные языки мира сегодня уже перестали передаваться внутри семьи. Многие родители считают, что их этнический язык для детей бесполезен, и предпочитают воспитывать детей на официальном языке страны. В статье я сравню ситуации четырех автохтонных языков Латинской Америки, с которыми я работаю: юго-восточный хуастекский (майя, Мексика), цоциль де Сан Исидро де ля Либертад (майя, Мексика), виличе/цесунгун (мапудунган, Чили) и михе (михе-зокеанский, Мексика). Эти миноритарные языки находятся в разных регионах и в разных социальных контекстах. В некоторых сообществах естественная передача языка от родителей детям уже давно прервана, а в других, напротив, внутрисемейная передача языка поддерживается. Из этих четырех языков под серьезной угрозой исчезновения находятся, прежде всего, виличе/цесунгун (мапудунган, Чили) и юго-восточный хуастекский (майя, Мексика), поскольку родители перестали передавать эти языки новым поколениям, лишая таким образом собственных детей их языкового наследства. Первым языком детей в этих двух сообществах является испанский. С другой стороны, ситуация с цоцилем де Сан Исидро де ля Либертад (майя, Мексика) и михе (михе-зокеанский, Мексика) гораздо лучше, так как подавляющее большинство детей в этих сообществах говорят на своем этническом языке и усваивают испанский только в начальной школе. Можно добавить, что в Сан Исидро де ля Либертад, как и в некоторых удаленных деревнях михе, в начальной школе преподавание ведется на их этническом языке. This research was presented at the colloquium “The fate of linguistic heritage: transmitted to the younger generations or lost?” held at the RAS Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in May 2021. My presentation was a short overview of the language acquisition patterns within four indigenous communities in Latin America, speakers of the following indigenous languages: South Eastern Huastec (Mayan, Mexico), Tsotsil of San Isidro de la Libertad (Mayan, Mexico), Huilliche/Tsesungun (Mapudungan, Chile) and Mixe (Mixe-Zoquean, Mexico). I carried out extensive fieldwork and research with these communities (more details can be found in Kondic 2021, Kondic 2021 (forthcoming), Kondic 2015b, Kondic 2014a, Kondic 2014b, Kondic 2011b, Kondic 2010). At the moment my research concentrates on the sociolinguistic situation with the language Mixe (Mixe-Zoquean, Mexico), namely, on their language attitudes. During each of these four projects I produced learning materials to facilitate language teaching and revitalization (Kondic 2009b, Kodic 2016, Kondic 2015a, Kondic 2013b, Kondic 2015c, Kondic 2018b). The materials I produced and left in the communities are now being used for language teaching and maintenance. In this article I am going to present my insight into the patterns of native language learning within the above four communities. Many of Mexican indigenous languages are at present in decline and falling into disuse. Language endangerment often causes interruption in the process of language transmission, and it will be interesting to see what the situation is like within these different languages of Latin America that I had an opportunity to work with.