Dear ELP,

I want to learn this rare dying language, but none of the people who speak it will teach me!! It’s not fair - I’m trying to HELP by learning their language and keep it alive. How do I make them share their language?

-Polyglot Paul

Dear Paul,

Thank you for reaching out with your question. Many people have asked us similar questions in the past so I hope that my answer is helpful not only to you, but to many others who may be thinking along the same lines.

In short, you don’t.

But to make things clearer, we need to unpack the question a little. You have decided to learn a language that you seemingly have no connection to other than a whim to learn it. You have reached out to people who do have a connection to this language and they, with their knowledge of what is best for their community, have decided not to teach you. You are now feeling affronted. You want to know not how you can convince them (which would be problematic enough), but how you can MAKE them teach you their language.

Firstly, it is important that you educate yourself on the reasons a community of people with an Indigenous, endangered or minoritised-language background would not want to teach somebody their language. You are not the first outsider to approach a community saying that you want to help. In many communities, offers of help have come with exploitation. For example, researchers have entered communities with the promise of helping to support their languages, but ultimately have taken what they learned and used it only to build their own careers. Outsider linguists have used knowledge and information shared with them by community members to create resources and then have blocked community access to those resources by demanding payment. People have the right to live freely of this exploitative interference.

You are saying you want to help, but what is showing that you would? All you have said is that you want to learn the language and keep it alive. It is the community who will use the language and help it to thrive. Languages are deeply meaningful to their communities, and you cannot make anyone share their language with you. It does not seem that any members of the community have expressed an interest in speaking the language with you or you speaking the language. Respect their wishes. Have you consulted with the speakers as to whether there are other ways you could help them? They may have ideas about how you could contribute to their community in ways that are not directly related to language. My colleague Pius Akumbu has written about the importance of taking a community approach in the context of language documentation in Africa. Really working with the community to see what they may need from you could show you that learning the language may not be the best way you can help.

From the tone of your question, it sounds like you feel like the community owes you – their language and their approval. I’d ask you to reflect on what exactly about your background has made you feel like you are automatically owed that from a vulnerable community. What is your position in all of this? This question might help you reflect on the continuance of colonial logic that is involved. You refer to the language as “rare” and “dying”. That reveals a lot about your position too. Rare according to whom? And I’d invite you to learn more about the issues with referring to languages as dead or dying. Such negative framing suggests that language loss is an irreversible process and it takes away from the fantastic work happening to revitalise minoritised languages. 

It’s very possible that your education up to now has encouraged you to think like this. Many of us have gone through education systems that do not question the social hierarchies and inequalities that stem from colonialism, and perpetuate them. Even when we have been pushed to “do good”, we may have been positioned as “saviours” in relation to other communities. If we are to play a role in language revitalisation, we need to make a concerted effort to combat such biases. It requires thinking structurally and reflexively; thinking deeply about our positions and our relationships with other people. It also requires being humble and open to learning, rather than feeling offended or affronted. I too have needed to critically examine my own biases as an educated white, middle-class European involved in language revitalisation. It is a process, and the (un)learning never stops. 

Luckily, there are resources out there that can help you in this process. I’d recommend starting with A Linguist’s Code of Conduct, prepared by my colleagues Anna Belew and Amanda Holmes. It is intended for researchers but I think you could gain a lot from their insights as a language learner. You can also reach out to me for a mentoring session and we can think about where you can go from here. Perhaps you do have something to bring to the global movement against language endangerment, but you have a lot of learning to do first. 

- Alexandra