9780816540969-0816540969-Talking Indian: Identity and Language Revitalization in the Chickasaw Renaissance

Talking Indian: Identity and Language Revitalization in the Chickasaw Renaissance

ISBN-13: 9780816540969
ISBN-10: 0816540969
Edition: Reprint
Author: Jenny L. Davis
Publication date: 2019
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Format: Paperback 184 pages
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Book details

ISBN-13: 9780816540969
ISBN-10: 0816540969
Edition: Reprint
Author: Jenny L. Davis
Publication date: 2019
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Format: Paperback 184 pages

Summary

Talking Indian: Identity and Language Revitalization in the Chickasaw Renaissance (ISBN-13: 9780816540969 and ISBN-10: 0816540969), written by authors Jenny L. Davis, was published by University of Arizona Press in 2019. With an overall rating of 3.5 stars, it's a notable title among other Native American (Americas History) books. You can easily purchase or rent Talking Indian: Identity and Language Revitalization in the Chickasaw Renaissance (Paperback) from BooksRun, along with many other new and used Native American books and textbooks. And, if you're looking to sell your copy, our current buyback offer is $8.83.

Description

Winner of the Beatrice Medicine Award

In south-central Oklahoma and much of “Indian Country,” using an Indigenous language is colloquially referred to as “talking Indian.” Among older Chickasaw community members, the phrase is used more often than the name of the specific language, Chikashshanompa’ or Chickasaw. As author Jenny L. Davis explains, this colloquialism reflects the strong connections between languages and both individual and communal identities when talking as an Indian is intimately tied up with the heritage language(s) of the community, even as the number of speakers declines.

Today a tribe of more than sixty thousand members, the Chickasaw Nation was one of the Native nations removed from their homelands to Oklahoma between 1837 and 1838. According to Davis, the Chickasaw’s dispersion from their lands contributed to their disconnection from their language over time: by 2010 the number of Chickasaw speakers had radically declined to fewer than seventy-five speakers.

In Talking Indian, Davis—a member of the Chickasaw Nation—offers the first book-length ethnography of language revitalization in a U.S. tribe removed from its homelands. She shows how in the case of the Chickasaw Nation, language programs are intertwined with economic growth that dramatically reshape the social realities within the tribe. She explains how this economic expansion allows the tribe to fund various language-learning forums, with the additional benefit of creating well-paid and socially significant roles for Chickasaw speakers. Davis also illustrates how language revitalization efforts are impacted by the growing trend of tribal citizens relocating back to the Nation.

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