I tend to adopt an attitude towards language that it’s nearly pristine in its stipulations since I exact a nativists view on language that cannot possibly meet the standards I want. That is, I want what it is said in L1 to be exactly the same as in L2.
An impossibility by all means.
Yet this equation, L1=L2 is wrought upon the daily make up of humanity every time the sun rises.
So as I prepare myself to listen to Simon J. Ortiz: A Poetic Legacy of Indigenous Continuance a host of questions and stomach revolt seem to undermine with furious confusion the joy it would be to just listen to the darn thing.
For one, doesn’t it seem odd to you that this continuance happens in English?
Second: can English, with all its constraints that entail the language of pain for indigenous people in Norteamerica be a vessel appropriate enough to deliver the goods?
Am not the one to not allow said company. Consort at will I say. And just to open up more wounds here, look at the presenter’s name: Evelina Lucero.
Yes, its Spanish. Allow me to say it. What the tarnation are we saying here? Why do we choose to pretend that Spanish surnamed so-called indigenous people can tell us something about indigenous people’s continuance in English?
I don’t want to disrespect all the work laid before all this. By all means.
What I am saying though is how original does the L2 language allow us to be our genuine selves in the L2 milieu? Can I even though I have profound knowledge of L1 deliver that in L2?
That’s all am saying. Not just because the way the West looks upon the arts, with its Medici and Meneas paternalistic support. But because the parameters that uphold the standards are unequivocally different than the standards the local native language was once upheld.
I don’t want to diminish nothing here, because I know am stepping on some serious callitos here.