LG 474: Language Rights
The Ainu People and The Navajo People
Louisa Griffiths
Laimay Luong
Yukari Yamaoka
The Un definition:
– Indigenous communities, people and nations which
have historical continuity with pre-invasion and precolonial societies which have settled and developed in
their territories.
-They form non – dominant sectors of society and are
determined to preserve, develop and transmit to the
future generations their ancestral and ethnic identity.
-- There is no doubt that many indigenous languages
are dying out, partly because of the speakers dying out
and partly because of language shift.
• Northern Japan, ‘Ainu’ means ‘human’. They live by
hunting, fishing, farming, and selling hand made crafts to
tourists.
•Ainu Moshiri, now known as Hokkaido, has been the
home of the Ainu people for the last 7000 years.
•The Japanese first arrived in the 16th century, where they
set up a penal colony and then took the land for farming.
The Ainu people resisted and their rebellions like countless
others throughout the pacific were put down.
•The Japanese renamed Ainu Moshrir to ‘Hokkaido’ in
1889.
•However the Ainu have survived, and in 1991 Japan
acknowledged to the UN that the Ainu were indigenous to
the land.
•However in 1996 there was a set back with the
Japanese government refusing to acknowledge the
Ainu as indigenous people for fear of them trying to
claim back their land, claim compensation, and take
the opportunity to reassert their sovereignty.
•In a recent interview the director of Ainu Association
of Hokkaido says that the Ainu have resisted the
Japanese and if you want to know why ask them.
The Ainu
 23, 782 people (Hokkaido Kankyou Seikatsubu, 2006)
 Language isolate
 No written form
(Picture: http://www.frpac.or.jp/kodomo/flash/hito/genzai/genzai.html)
 The speakers of Ainu
15 people
(Ethnologue: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=JP)
http://www.geographyiq.com/countries/ja/Japan
_map_flag_geography.htm
Main historical events
 Before Meiji period


‘barbarian’
Forbidden to speak or write Japanese
“to minimize the danger of Ainu’s destabilizing the status
quo”(Taira, 1996, cited in Gottlieb, 2005)
 Meiji period



Nation building, ‘Hokkaido is a part of Japan’
Forbidden to speak the Ainu language (Nakagawa, 1999, ‘the
Colonization commission in 1871’)
Education in Japanese
 1899 Aboriginal People Protection Act
(Gottilieb, 2005; Nakagawa, 1999; Neary, 2003)
 1979 International Covenant on Civil and




Political Rights (ICCPR)
1980(1981?) the first report to HRC
‘there is no minority group in japan’
1997 Ainu Cultural Promotion Law
2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous people
2008 Ainu minzoku wo senjyuminzoku to
surukoto wo kimeru ketsugi
(Resolution that recognizes Ainu as
indigenous people)
(Gottilieb, 2005; Nakagawa, 1999; Neary, 2003)
Denial of identity
 Until the mid 20c they spoke the language at home
 Hiding their identity and ability to speak the language
 Parents did not speak a word in Ainu
 The number of speakers has been underestimated
(Nakagawa, 1999)
Ainu Cultural Promotion Law
Article 2 (definition)
"The Ainu Culture" in this law means the Ainu
language and cultural properties such as music, dance,
crafts, and other cultural properties which have been
inherited by the Ainu people, and other cultural
properties developed from these.
Ainu and the Ainu language
Report from Oct. 2006
What do you know about Ainu
culture?
Folk dance (51.3%), Language (49.0%), Embroidery
(46.5%, Musical instruments (43.4%), Wooden carving
(40.5%), Festival (37.4%),…Traditional fishing
techniques (16.0%), Knitting (15.2%) Poem (11.9%)
What kind of cultural activities are
you engaged in?
Festival (48.6%), Dance (38.6%), Language (21.7%),…
How well can you speak Ainu? (712
people)
I can have conversation
0.7%
I can speak a little
3.9%
I cannot speak but I know some
32.4%
I cannot speak or listen
61.2%
Which cultural activities do you
think should be promoted more?
Language (49.6%), Festival (34.4%), Dance (27.6%),…
(Hokkaido Kankyou Seikatsubu, 2006, P. 40-43)
Article 13
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to
future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies,
writing systems and literatures, and to designate and retain their own names
for communities, places and persons.
Article 14
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational
systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a
manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning.
3. States shall, in conjunction with indigenous peoples, take effective measures,
in order for indigenous individuals, particularly children, including those living
outside their communities, to have access, when possible, to an education in
their own culture and provided in their own language.
(United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples)
Discrimination against Ainu
In which situation
did you face
discrimination?
6-7 years ago
Recently
At school (72.1%)
For marriage
(21.6%)
At work (39.1%)
At school (21.7%)
What kind of
Insults for being
discrimination did Ainu (66.7%)
Refusal of marriage
you come across?
(17.6%)
Insults for being
Ainu (30.4%)
About the
appearance (26.1%)
(Hokkaido Kankyou Seikatsubu, 2006, P. 44-46)
References

Ainu bunka no shinkou narabini ainu no dentoutou ni kansuru chishiki no fukyuu oyobi keihatsu ni kansuru houritsu.
Available from: e-Gov, Web site: http://law.e-gov.go.jp/htmldata/H09/H09HO052.html [Accessed: February 27, 2011].

Gottlieb, N. (2005), Language and society in Japan, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.


Hokkaido Kankyou Seikatsubu (2006), Heisei 18 nen hokkaido ainu seikatsu jittai chousa houkokusho
Nakagawa, H. (1999), ‘Ainu Language: Present and Future,’ in Fitzhugh , W. & Dubreuil, C. (eds), Ainu: Spirit of a
Northern People, Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 369-371.

Neary, I. (2003), Human rights in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan,Routledge, London.

Ohtake, H. (2010), "nihon seihu no ainu minzoku seisaku ni tsuite: kokusai jinken kanshi kikan kara kangaeru", nihon
fukushi daigaku kenkyuu kiyou: gendai to bunka, vol. 121, pp. 135-155.

Taira, K. (1996), “The Ainu in Japan”, International Education e-j,1(1). Available from: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/npharch/O1998-Jul-22/http://www.canberra.edu.au/uc/educ/crie/ie_ej_1/Ainu_ieej1.html [Accessed: March 8, 2011].

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Available from: United Nations, Web site:
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/drip.htm [Accessed: February 27, 2011].

Law for the Promotion of the Ainu Culture and for the Dissemination and Advocacy for the Traditions of the Ainu and
the Ainu Culture. Available from: The Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture, Web site:
http://www.frpac.or.jp/eng/e_prf/profile06.html [Accessed: February 27, 2011].
•The Navajo nation, also ‘Dineh’ meaning ‘the people’ is the
largest reservation in North America, covering an area of about
27,000 square miles. This include a large part of northeastern
Arizona, northwestern New Mexico and a small part of Utah.
•The Navajo people have a population of over 200,000, making
their tribe the largest Native Americans in the United States.
•The Navajo are natives of the Four Corners region (Arizona, New
Mexico, Utah, and Colorado) and they live in homes called hogans,
which are made from wooden poles, tree bark, and mud.
•The Navajo People strives to continue speaking their
challenging Navajo Language, although many now speak
English.
•Long ago their ancestors lived in northwestern Canada, Alaska.
Over 1,000 years ago the people began to move south and settle
near a tribe in southwestern USA known as the ‘Pueblo Indians’.
Where they learned from them skills needed.
•The latest public education campaign drawn up by the
Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission is labeled
as “Inebriates have rights”
•On June 10, 2006, the fatal shooting of a Navajo man
in a wal-mart parking lot by a non-Navajo Farmington
Police officer caused people to question the state –ofaffairs between Navajos and non-Navajos in and
around the nation.
Navajo Nation
Navajo (Dine), is the largest tribe of North American Indians and
the people are known as Navajo Indians. It was found in a census
conducted in 2000, that there were nearly 200,000 living Navajo
Indians.
The Navajo Nation has more freedom compared to some other
indigenous tribes, as it is not fully controlled by the United States, as
they have their own governmental body, “which manages the Navajo
Indian reservation in the Four Corners area of the United States.”
But the United States requires the Navajo Nation to submit all proposed
laws to the United States Secretary of the Interior for Secretarial Review.
Also “most conflicts and controversies between the federal government
and the Nation are settled by negotiation and by political agreements.
Laws of the Navajo Nation are currently codified in the Navajo Nation
Code” (wikipedia.org).
Navajo language shift
Despite this freedom and relative large indigenous population, this has
not stopped a language shift from occurring. A language shift has been
occurring in the Navajo nation as many children and young people
today are speaking to one another in English rather than their native
language.
There are many reasons the language shift occurring:
• Explicit federal policies to eradicate Indigenous Languages.
• Freedom: Youths have a right to choose what language they want to
speak
• Strong perception: that there are better opportunities for people who
can speak English- they can get good jobs in the US and other
places.
• Students were often laughed at if they had a low English proficiency
level and speaking Navajo would stigmatize one as being
uneducated.
The importance of language…
• Major role in history: Navajo Code Workers
"Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never
have taken Iwo Jima." (Navajo.org)
Navajo code workers: In May 1942, several Navajo speakers were
recruited to work around the clock during “every assault the U.S.
Marines conducted in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945”. They learnt a
special Navajo code which they used to transcribe and decode English
messages. They “sent and received over 800 messages, all without
error”. For this they were honoured in Washington for their efforts.
The importance of language...
The Navajo president Joe Shirley Jr has expressed:
“I consider Native American nations as endangered,” he said. “I want
to continue to be a Navajo person. I’d like my Nation to continue to be
Navajo in culture and language. Once we lose the language, I think
that’s it. I don’t really know what we’re going to do, to tell you the truth.
Once we lose the language, we lose the sacred stories. We lose the
sacred songs. We lose the ceremonies, which is what makes us
Navajo, which is what makes us Native...” (Navajo.org)
This shows how language is very important to the Navajo Indians, as
is part of their identity and culture. They feel that not enough is being
done to prevent the language from shifting, which puts the Navajo
Nation at risk of becoming endangered.
Navajo
Sovereignty in Education Act (2005)
To help prevent the language shift, the Navajo Sovereignty in
Education Act was approved in 2005. This act was carried out in order
to establish a “Navajo Nation Department of Diné Education, to confirm
the commitment of the Navajo Nation to the education of the Navajo
People, to repeal obsolete language and to update and reorganize the
existing language.” (Navajo courts, 2011)
Other strategies…
• In public schools and most community controlled schools,
the students are taught in Navajo
• Some tribal and local government activities are
conducted using Navajo rather than English.
• There is a modern Navajo Museum which introduces,
promotes and preserves the “unique culture of the
Navajo Nation”. (Navajo.org)
• Navajo nation library (2001), has a collection of over
61,000 books and resources. So people can improve
their language and knowledge.
• Also, there are various Navajo language radio programs
broadcast regularly.
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_Nation
http://www.navajo.org/
http://www.navajocourts.org/Resolutions/CJY-37-05.pdf