Ideas proposal – sample clips
Here are sample clips to support my Ideas proposal “You just can’t say that from here“. I don’t intend to use these exact clips in the Ideas piece – they are here as examples of where I can take this and the kind of access I have.
The following three clips were recorded at the Nuu-chah-nulth Language Conference held at North Island College in Port Alberni last September. I was invited by the Nuu-chah-nulth people to attend it, and I also did a short piece for CBC Radio Victoria about it. All three of these people are enthusiastic about being interviewed for this proposed Ideas piece.
Ray Williams Koo-num-tuk-tomlth Mowachaht, fluent Nuu-chah-nulth/English speaker who lives with just a few family members on remote Nootka Island, and is raising a great-grandson to be fluent. http://jwindh.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/ray-williams-excerpt.mp3 (runs 2:55). In this brief interview he has trouble with the English words to express what he calls “the power” of his Native language – but I think that, with more time with him, Ray will be able to express more clearly just why he cannot say these things in English.
Roman Frank Klaaqwaakiila Ahousaht, very eloquent in English and knows much of his language but not as a fluent speaker. I think he will be able to speak to some of the things that cannot be said in English. http://jwindh.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/roman-frank-1-x-language.mp3 (runs 4:18). I think that what Roman is talking about in these clips as “compartmentalization” is the same as what I am calling “labelling” (and he and I both contrast that aspect of language with the Nuu-chah-nulth fundamental of “connection”). I want to follow up with him on this. His words here also tie very strongly to what we hear so often from Native elders who say “our language is our culture”. That statement does not make sense from our Euro-centric language/world view base. Language and culture are separate things, we can label with languages different aspects of our culture, and we have many examples of cultures and religions that can undertake ceremony or prayer in translation without losing meaning. However, somehow in traditional Native culture, the connections that their language is founded upon mean that creates a fundamental gap in world view and cultural understanding – their language is their culture and their culture is their language, in a way that we cannot even express in English, not to mention understand… again, ideas that I want to follow up on in my interviews. Here, also, is Roman speaking about the difficulties of translating Nuu-chah-nulth concepts to English. http://jwindh.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/roman-frank-1-x-translating.mp3 (runs 1:44).
KCK, a young Nuu-chah-nulth man who has been raised so transparently in both languages/world views that, when he speaks English to me, I get the feeling that he is the one person who inhabits both languages. His English is like dense poetry. Listening to it, I feel like I am glimpsing the Nuu-chah-nulth language as spoken in English words. http://jwindh.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/kck-1-excerpt.mp3 (runs 3:59). You will hear that this is a really bizarre clip – and I know that it may be hard to get some usable material from him. His speech is extremely non-linear – which is the classic way so many First Nations people speak, what seems to us like rambling, but then it seems to come back. He really appears to me to be speaking Nuu-chah-nulth in English (and often flowing seamlessly, almost unknowningly, between the languages) – using words as connections rather than labels, and rambling through time and space as he makes these connections. I think he is the rare person – and possibly the only person – who can give a window into what the Nuu-chah-nulth language is. This is our chance to hear Nuu-chah-nulth in English.
You can listen to the draft of my 12 minute piece The Art of the Canoe prepared for Sheryl Mackay’s show North by Northwest. This piece has not aired yet. http://jwindh.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/canoecarvers.mp3 (runs 11:27).
