I finally finished watching this over breakfast this morning. Something interesting from a linguistic perspective is that they don’t seem to use any English words in their Cherokee despite heavy contact, perhaps because they go to lengths to create new words for new things (see 35:00). This is not the strategy taken elsewhere, such as in Louisiana and the Maritimes (although Quebec tries to do this at least officially).

First Language, The Race to Save Cherokee by Neal Hutcheson on Vimeo.

Also, I think the quote at the end is particular fitting given the current social and political climate throughout the West. He positions the idea of a strong local culture within a broader context that doesn’t necessarily need to reject larger over-arching cultures or even global interconnectedness:

“If we consider what it actually means to be a pluralistic society, then that means we’re gonna have to make space for people who speak different languages, who think different ways, who have different cultures, inside of a national culture or a global culture, and so all the movement has been in the opposite direction towards globalization, towards homogenization, you know? What does it mean to change the process and open up space for a plurality of different small cultures working together? How can we truly accept and respect those people and allow them some measure of autonomy with their educational system and the language that they speak?” –Hartwelll Francis de West Carolina University, ma traduction