Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful – Decolonizing Indigenous Language Education in the Ryukyus with a Special Reference to Sámi Language Revitalization

ACTA 277 ACTA ELECTRONICA UNIVERSITATIS LAPPONIENSIS 277 Madoka Hammine Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Decolonizing Indigenous Language Education in the Ryukyus with a Special Reference to Sámi Language Revitalization HAMMINE SPEAKING MY LANGUAGE AND BEING BEAUTIFUL Acta electronica Universitatis Lapponiensis 277 MADOKA HAMMINE Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful – Decolonizing Indigenous Language Education in the Ryukyus with a Special Reference to Sámi Language Revitalization Academic dissertation to be publicly defended with the permission of the Faculty of Education at the University of Lapland in lecture hall 2 (LS2) on 28 February 2020 at 12 noon Rovaniemi 2020 University of Lapland Faculty of Education Supervised by Professor Tuija Turunen, University of Lapland Professor Patrick Heinrich, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia Reviewed by Professor Nancy Hornberger, Pennsylvania University Professor Pirkko Pitkänen, University of Turku Opponent Professor Fred Dervin, University of Helsinki Copyright: Madoka Hammine Layout: PrintOne Cover: Communications and External Relations, University of Lapland Acta electronica Universitatis Lapponiensis 277 ISBN 978-952-337-194-1 ISSN 1796-6310 Permanent address to the publication: http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-337-194-1 3 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful To my family (past, present and future) with my love くぬ博士論文ぬなかんがー、ばーむにゆ あたらはーひーうるくとー、かくぃ だゆー。むーるめーらむにさーり、かきほーりでぃあんじょーるしんしーだー ゆん、外国んがどぅおーるゆー。やっそんが、やいまむにぬなかんがー、むつ ぃかさーるむに、学問用語や、ねーぬ。あんてー、やいまむにさーり、かくぃくと ーむつぃかさーだゆー。がまらはーそーなー。あんじきどぅ、ばーや、くぬ論文 や、アメリカむにさーりかくぃだゆー。くぬことさーり、ふかぬ国ぬぷぃとー、の ーでぃどぅ、ばーや、ばーむにゆ ならふくとーならぬかやーでぃ、かんがいる かーみしゃんでぃうむいうるゆー。けーらなり、どーでぃん、ゆみたぼーてぃね ーら1。 1 This is the only section in this thesis in Miyara Yaeyaman. This thesis is about why I cannot write this whole thesis in Yaeyaman. 4 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Declaration Unless otherwise indicated, this is my own original work. Madoka Hammine September 2019 5 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Abstract The purposes of this research were to investigate the situations of indigenous language teaching and learning and facilitate better ways to embrace multilingualism in indigenous language communities. The specific aims of the study were (1) to investigate two example cases of indigenous language groups in Japan and Finland, (2) to examine voices and experiences of indigenous language teachers and learners and (3) to create possible suggestions for indigenous language teacher education from the two case studies. Three themes were used as the main theoretical frameworks: indigenous teacher identity, language and indigenous education. This study used a participatory, community-based research methodology within a framework of an Indigenous research methodology. The data for this study were collected from two ethnographic fieldworks—conducted in indigenous language communities of both Finland and Japan—through classroom observation, field notes, video recordings, interviews (group, pair and individual), policy documents and linguistic landscape documentation. Altogether, the study involved teachers, new speakers (language learners) and traditional speakers of indigenous languages. In the first sub-study, ten teachers of Sámi languages in Finland were interviewed to find out their approaches and experiences of teaching indigenous languages. The second sub-study examined twelve teachers of the Yaeyama language in the Yaeyama community, new speakers and traditional speakers of the language. The third-sub study of this research focused on the history of indigenous language education in Japan, exploring identity negotiations of Ryukyuan people and their linguistic rights to education. The principal result of this study showed that there is a need to decolonise language education from within. This, in turn, indicated that lack of confidence and self-esteem as teachers (language attitudes), unconscious richness of indigenous language speakers (language practice) and invisible language policy (language management) were the components that needed to be addressed in order to facilitate indigenous language education. This research suggested a new model of decolonising language education from within, which could be implemented in other indigenous language contexts around the world for individuals to be able to speak their language and be “beautiful” at the same time. Keywords: indigenous languages, language teacher identity, decolonisation, indigenous education, indigenous identity, new speakers, endangered languages 6 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Čoahkkáigeassu Dutkamuša ulbmilin lea guorahallat eamiálbmotgielaid oahpahusja oahppandiliid, doarjut beaktilis máŋggagielatvuođa málliid eamiálbmot giellaservožiin. Erenomáš ulbmilin dutkamušain lea (a) ovdanbuktit guovtti eamiálbmotgiela giellaealáskahttima dáhpáhusdutkamuša Japánas ja Suomas, (b) dahkat oinnolažžan eamiálbmot oahpaheaddjiid ja -ohppiid jiena ja vásáhusaid, (c) dahkat evttohusaid eamiálbmot oahpaheaddjeskuvlejupmái guovtti dáhpáhusdutkamuša vuođul. Dutkamuša guovddáš teorehtalaš rámmat sisttisdollet identitehta, giela ja oahpahusa tematihkaid, maidda dutkama dutkanjearaldagat vuođđuduvvet. Dutkamušas atnojuvvo oassálasti searvvušlaš dutkanmetoda eamiálbmot metodologiija suorggis. Dutkamuša materiála lea čohkkejuvvon guovtti etnográfalaš dutkamuša vehkiin Suomas ja Japánas. Materiála sisttisdoallá áiccademiid, notáhtaid, videobáddejumiid ja jearahallamiid (joavku, párra, individuála), mearrádusdokumeanttaid ja gielladuovdagiid dokumenterema. Dutkanjoavkkus leat oahpaheaddjit guđet oahpahit eamiálbmotgielaid. Oahpaheaddjit leat jogo eatnigielat eamiálbmogiid gielaid hállit dahje eamiálbmotgielaid ođđahállit (guđet leat oahpahallan giela rávesolmmožin). Vuosttaš oassedutkamušas jearahallojuvvojede logi oahpaheaddji guđet oahpahit sámegielaid Suomas. Ulbmilin lei guorahallat oahpaheaddjiid vásáhusaid ja doaladumiid sámegiela oahpahusas. Nuppi oassedutkamušas Ryukyuan sullo ryukyuangiela eatnigielat ja maŋŋá giela oahppan hállit jearahallojuvvojede. Goalmmát oassedutkamušas guorahallojuvvojedje Japána eamiálbmotgielaid oahpahusa historjá, ryukyuangiela hálliid identiteahttaráđđádallamat ja gielalaš rievttit oahpahusas. Dutkamuša guovddáš boađus lea ahte giellaoahpahusa galgá dekoloniseret siskkobealde. Dan ulbmila olaheami dihtii utkamuš evttoha giddet fuomášumi (1) oahpaheaddjiid sihkkarvuhtii ja iešdovdui (gielladoaladumit), (2) eamiálbmot gielaid hálliid diđošmeahttun kapasitehttii (giellageavadagat) ja (3) oaidnemeahttun giellapolitihkkii (giellaplánen). Dutkamuš buktá ođđa vuogi jurddašit dekoloniserema siskkobealde, man sáhttá implementeret iešguđet giellakonteavsttaide birra máilmmi. Čoavddasánit: Eamiálbmotgielat, giellaoahpaheaddjit, dekoloniseren, eamiálbmotoahpahus, eamiálbmotidentiteahtta, ođđahállit, áitojuvvon gielat 7 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful 論文要旨 本研究の目的は、先住言語2の教育状況を調査し、少数言語が存在するコミ ュニティにおいて、多言語環境を大切にする方法をコミュニティの内部から 促進することである。本研究の目標としては、（1）日 本 と フ ィ ン ラ ン ド の 二 か 国 において、少数言語の状況を調査すること、（2）少数言語の教育に携わる生 徒と教師の経験とその声を言語化すること、そして（3）2 か 国 の 例 を 通して、 少数言語教育の教育養成に関するよいモデルを提案することである。これら の目的および目標を達成するために、いくつかの研究質問を設定した。本論 文では、まず、先住民アイデンティティ、言語、先住教育という３つの大きなテ ーマをこの研究質問を検証するために提示し、研究質問を検討する。本研 究では、先住性を意識した研究方法(Smith, 1999)を 用 い 、コ ミ ュ ニ テ ィ を 基盤とした参加型の研究手法を用いる。本研究のデータは、先住言語（少 数）言語を教える教師、先住言語（少数）言語を学ぶ新しい話者（学習者）、 そして、先住言語（少数）言語を話す伝統的な話者からの協力を得て、提供 されたものである。 まず第一番目の研究においては、フィンランドのラップランドでサーミ語を 教授する１０名の教師をインタビューし、先住民族の言葉を教えるという経 験と彼らの教授法について学んだ。第二の研究では、日本の琉球列島での 言葉のうち、特に八重山語の教育に携わっている 12 名の教師に焦点を当 てた。 どちらの場合も、教師たちの民族的な背景はさまざまで、自分をサーミ 人という人、八重山の人という人、またそうではない人も含まれる。これらの 研究のためのデータは、学習の観察、フィールドノート、ビデオ記録、そしてイ ンタビューによって構成される。第三の研究では、日本の先住民政策につい て焦点を当て、とくに少数言語に対する日本の教育政策の歴史をまとめた。 これらの研究からの結果として、琉球では、内部からの脱植民地化のための 2 本研究では、 indigenous の日本語訳として使っているが、日本語での先住民と英語の indigenous では、含有される意味に違いがあると考える。 8 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful 言語教育が必要であるといえる。内部からの脱植民地化を目指して、本研究 では少数言語を教える教師たちの自信の欠落と、自己肯定感の低さ(言語態 度)、伝統的な話者たちの多言語性に関する無自覚(言語使用)、“ 見 え な い ” 言語政策の存在（言語政策）の 3 点を解決することを考えた言語教育のモ デルを作ることを提案する。このモデルは、世界の他の少数言語や先住民言 語の存在する場所でもそれぞれ個人が、綺麗でありながら、その言葉を話す ことができるように、応 用できるのではないか 。 キーワード: 先住民言語 言語教育 脱植民地化 先住民教育 先住民アイ デンティティ 新しい話者 危機言語 15 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Chapter 5 Research Questions ................................................................................................................................................68 Main Research Question ......................................................................................................................................................................68 Research Questions for the First Article ................................................................................................................................69 Research Questions for the Second Article .........................................................................................................................69 Research Questions for the Third Article ............................................................................................................................70 Chapter 6 Methodology .......................................................................................................................................................................71 6.1. Indigenous Research Methodology, Participatory Research, Action Research ......................71 6.2. Decolonizing Endangered Language Research .....................................................................................................73 6.3. Linguistic Ethnography ..............................................................................................................................................................75 6.3. My Positionality and Research Ethics ...........................................................................................................................75 Chapter 7 Data Collection and Analysis .......................................................................................................................77 Chapter 8 Summaries and Evaluation of the Sub-Studies ................................................................81 8.1. Sub study 1: Sámi language teachers’ professional identities explained through narratives about language acquisition .....................................................................................................81 8.2. Sub-Study 2: Educated Not to Speak Our Language -Language Attitudes and Newspeakerness in the Yaeyaman Language- ..............................................................................................83 8.3. Sub-Study 3: Indigenous in Japan? The Reluctance of the Japanese State to Acknowledge Indigenous Peoples and Their Need for Education ...............................................86 Chapter 9 General Discussion and Concluding Remarks ...................................................................89 9.1. A Note on Decolonization ......................................................................................................................................................90 9.2. Indigenous Language Learning and Teaching .......................................................................................................91 9.3. Overcoming Linguistic Self-Orientalism ...................................................................................................................94 9.4. Education Policies based on Multilingualism ........................................................................................................95 9.5. A New Model of Teacher Education for Indigenous Language Teachers ....................................96 9.5.1. Making “invisible” language policy visible ................................................................................................97 9.5.2. Unconscious Richness in Language Practice ..........................................................................................99 9.5.3. Lack of Confidence and Self-Esteem in Language Attitudes and Belief ................... 100 9.6. Limitations of the Study ........................................................................................................................................................ 103 9.7. Future Research ..............................................................................................................................................................................103 References ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................107 Article I ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 122 16 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Chapter 1 Introduction I was never “indigenous” until I studied at university and read about my home islands and my own languages in English. I was in Tokyo then, awaiting my departure to start studying for a master’s degree in Applied Linguistics with TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) in Scotland. It was at that time that my professor told me that there are several indigenous languages in the Ryukyus. I was confused, so I went back to him to ask questions about it, and I asked similar questions of several other professors. It was a shocking experience to be told for the first time in my life at the age of 22 that: “You are indigenous, and your home islands have indigenous languages.” I tried to answer several questions by myself and I still do not have answers. For example, why did I not know that I was indigenous until then? That was my first encounter with the word “indigenous.” It was higher education that gave me an indigenous identity. Other questions I have had include: why was I unaware of indigenous languages until I read about my home and my languages? Why does the term indigenous3 have negative connotation in Japanese? To begin with, what exactly does it mean to be indigenous? However, even before this encounter with the term “indigenous,” I had already experienced some uncomfortable moments in large cities such as Tokyo in mainland4 Japan. For instance, many Japanese people from mainland Japan look at me and think I am, what they call, “half (mix of Japanese and non-Japanese)” or non-Japanese. Some people even ask me “Do you have a Japanese passport?” when they first see me. Then, I reply them that I am Japanese, but if I tell them that I am from Okinawa, they look at me and say to me “Ah, that’s is why (you look like this)” or “I knew it.” I was, however, raised as a Japanese, spoke the Japanese language, and went through all the education system in Japanese. I thought I was Japanese like mainland Japanese people. I did not expect these kinds of reactions from them. If I was a Japanese, I wanted the Japanese society to accept me as a Japanese. I did not like to be always pointed at as a person from the Ryukyus. I did not like when the Japanese people told me to speak Ryukyuan or hōgen (see more in later chapters of my dissertation), which I did not learn in my childhood. 3 I note here that the term indigenous is often translated into senjūmin, which has slightly different connotation from the English term indigenous. In this dissertation, I translated indigenous into senjūmin and indigenous methodology into senjūminzoku no kenkyūhōhō (see my abstract in Japanese). 4 In Okinawa, people often use the term naichi to refer to mainland Japan. 17 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Being from the Ryukyus and having an “indigenous language,” which was invisible to me in my family made me ponder upon many things which I did not know when I was living there. This awareness made me pursue this research in my community. When I started teaching English in Nagoya, in mainland Japan after acquiring master’s degree at University of Edinburgh, Scotland, I met one Finnish person who told me about indigenous languages in Finland. I shared my experience of studying in Scotland. I saw how the Scottish Gaelic language was being taught in some schools there. My Finnish friend shared her experience of growing up in Northern Finland where indigenous languages were also taught in school. I came to wonder why I did not have a chance to learn any of the Ryukyuan languages while I was growing up in the Ryukyus. As a language teacher myself, I wanted to find out why I did not even know “indigenous languages” of my home island. This is why I decided to pursue this doctoral research focusing on language education. Through these previous experiences in both Europe and Japan, I learned that Sámi languages and people are the only recognized indigenous people in the EU. This awareness led me to join European Center for Minority Issues as an intern researcher. My previous experiences in Europe, both in Scotland as an MA student of Applied Linguistics and as an intern researcher at European Centre for Minority Issues in Germany, made me realize that there are groups of people who speak their own languages and who are proud of speaking their own languages in Europe. Multilingualism in Europe, although European multilingualism also entails many issues within, made it easier for me to say that I also have my language which is different from the national language of my country. Compared to my experiences with the monolingual ideology, which is strongly embedded in Japanese society, I found it easier to talk about myself and the multilingualism of my home region in Europe. Initially, for my doctoral research, I was planning to conduct a comparative case study: Ryukyus in Japan and Lapland in Finland. Having lived in both contexts, however, I realized how environments, politics, history, national policies and peoples’ attitudes interplay with the status and situation around indigenous languages (see more in section 3.5.). My first fieldwork in Lapland in Finland developed deeper understanding and connection with my community. My indigenous Sámi friends encouraged me further to search for answers to the questions I have had in my community. Sámi friends I met in Lapland also encouraged me and empowered me to continue my work. My dissertation work, therefore, has focused predominantly on my language community in the Ryukyus with a special reference to Sámi language revitalization as an example of language revitalization. By reading works by other indigenous scholars, I came to learn what it means to be an indigenous scholar and I realized that I could never escape from being indigenous once I knew about it. I thus start my thesis by citing Linda Tuhiwai Smith. 18 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful “From the vantage point of the colonized, a position from which I write, and choose to privilege, the term research is inextricably linked to imperialism and colonialism rooted in Europe” (Smith, 1991, p.1). Smith (1991) claimed that the way in which scientific research is implicated in the worst excesses of colonialism remains a powerful remembered history for many of the world’s colonized peoples. Some argued that our languages had never been “indigenous” or considered “minority” until they were labeled as such (see also Chow, 1993; Fanon, 1963; Memmi, 1967; Smith, 2008). They argued that “native” identity comes into existence with colonizer or settler identities. However, Chow (1993, p.51) argued that indigenous or native did exist before the “gaze” of the settler and before the image of “indigenous” or “native” came to be constituted by imperialism, and that “the native does have an existence outside and predating the settler/native identity”. I view that indigenous/native and imperialism constitute each other as much as they constitute themselves. According to them, research has been connected to imperialism, as Smith cites, research has not been a highly moral civilized search for knowledge; it is a set of very human activities that reproduce particular social relation of power (Smith, 2008). Research activities have been reproducing power relations, reassuring social hierarchy of majority vs. minority, or non-indigenous vs. indigenous, which is exactly why there is a need in academia to revisit the concepts of “indigenous” “native” or “minority.” The “fascination” with the native as a subject “with endangered authenticities” is common in research (Chow, 1993, p.36). As long as I have my home in a community where we are labeled as such, I realized I will never be able to escape from my indigeneity. Work by other indigenous scholars encouraged me to find a way to free from the structure which my languages or my group of people have been labelled by research. I will thus continue to write about it from my perspective. There is also a problem regarding the terms, “native” or “indigenous” and “minority.” The identity of “the native” is regarded as complicated, ambiguous, and therefore troubling even for those who live the realities and contradictions of being native and of being a member of a colonized and minority community that still remembers other ways of being, of knowing and of relating to the world. Since this term has been discussed in the Western contexts, there is a problem when we use the same term to talk about non-Western contexts. In my case, calling myself an indigenous person had never been considered as a “cool” option in Japan. It took years of experiences and thinking to be able to use the term to describe myself. Another problem is that the term itself could homogenize the local populations where different minority groups experience different relations of power that result from different history and identities (see more in my conclusion). The terms minority and indigenous cannot be used without considering the power relations behind them. For this reason, some scholars started using the term 19 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful “minoritized” languages instead of “minority” language (e.g. DePalma, 2015; Lynch, 2011). The choice signifies the need to reconsider the definition by emphasizing societal power relations. In this research, I prefer to use the term “minoritized” languages rather than “minority” language in order to demonstrate our positions in society: the position that we have never been minority until we were labelled by the majority. It is through societal power relations that our languages became a “minority.” Perhaps there is also a need to consider using the term “indigenized” language for the same reason. As an indigenous researcher, I attempt to raise issues related to power that I have faced during my studies. In this PhD thesis, I follow the stand points of many previous indigenous researchers who paved the way for indigenous research. The indigenous research framework emphasizes the importance of the researcher’s position. It is true that without outsider researchers, and without the influence of Western development in research, it would not have been possible to have the existing amount of research on indigenous languages and culture. Nevertheless, an old joke claims that a Saami family consists of a mother, a father, ten children, and an anthropologist (Magga & Skutnabb-Kangas, 2003), indigenous communities have often served as the data to develop science. As Hountondji (2002) wrote: “We have been serving as informants... for a theory-building activity located overseas and entirely controlled by people there... And when we happened to write such books ourselves, we did everything to have them read and appreciated by them first, and only secondarily by our own people... These trends should be reversed. (pp. 36–37).” These scholars argue that the decolonization process in research engages multiple struggles in multiple sites, since discourses surrounding research traditions have their roots in imperialism and colonialism. In recent research of endangered languages, it is often envisaged that outsiders do most of the research needed not only for documenting but also for maintaining the languages (Leonard, 2017). However, when sbaltern group, as Spivak claims, have scholars of their own, academic imperialism and Western scholarly neocolonialism still have ways of marginalizing them while appropriating their knowledge (Spivak, 1988). This has been an constant sruggle for me. I bring this idea to my community and languages in Japan and to Asia where the idea of indigenous, colonialism or imperialism have lesser degrees of understanding. Smith (1991, p.1) stated that when the word “research” is mentioned in many indigenous contexts, “it stirs science, it conjures up bad memories, it raises a smile that is knowing and distrustful.” This is not completely true in my community. I also note here that I have seen that research also gives hope to some indigenous peoples who wish to be made “famous” through the research. In some indigenous contexts, 20 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful such as my own, where there are no strong traditions of indigenous research, the indigenous people themselves have not yet realized the danger or harm of being researched. Possible harm includes situations where linguistic “data” is detached from the speakers for the development of linguistic science (see more in my conclusion). In such situation where the ideology or system they were put in does not let them think critically about the danger of being researched. So, why do we, people from my home islands, want to be researched by outsiders? It is perhaps different from Europe or North American contexts where an indigenous research framework was developed, introduced and accepted by indigenous peoples much earlier than in Asia. I suffered from the reactions of my community in which people were happy to be researched because I went there with the mind of traditional indigenous studies of Europe. My dissertation hopefully would pose critical analysis of indigenous research framework in relation to my community. I noticed that it is easier to be “indigenous” in Europe than in Japan. After studying at a European university which has a strong tradition of indigenous research, I experienced frustrations in my own community. There is a gap between the understanding of indigeneity inside and outside Europe, which is why it was difficult for me to conduct fieldwork in my own community. This experience made me think more deeply about the concept of indigeneity. I often had to revisit the concept of indigeneity from my perspective. Through writing this dissertation in the framework of indigenous research, the scars and tears I had during my fieldwork have been healed. Therefore, I consider the research as healing. Many professors and my colleagues at the faculty of Education at University of Lapland encouraged me to make my position clearer, and I noticed that for the first time in my life, being identified as indigenous could be an advantage. It was ok to be indigenous. I learned the rights of languages, and the rights for education for indigenous peoples. I can finally be proud of being indigenous for the first time in my life! Education is powerful. Education made me an indigenous scholar. Yet, it is ironic that it is through the same system of education that I critically write my voices about indigeneity. If I had not attended higher education, I might never have known about my community and how it is viewed internationally. Indigenous research framework developed by previous scholars allows me to heal myself and express myself. I cried while writing this dissertation. I now see that research could be a healing process for me, and probably for many indigenous scholars. While education opened my eyes more and more, it also hurt me by giving me a name that I never knew about (see more in my conclusion). I do not write this dissertation out of curiosity. Some people tell me that I am so passionate about my PhD dissertation but that is also wrong. I am neither passionate to succeed nor am I chasing my dream. Rather, I write this dissertation because it is the right thing for me. I used this research to heal, discover and redefine myself. Since I was only able to accept the label of indigenous after studying the subject of indigenous studies, I discuss 21 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful the complicated issues of indigenous identities and the discourse of indigeneity throughout this dissertation. Three important themes I explore in this thesis are (1) indigenous identity (especially indigenous teacher identity), (2) language, and (3) indigenous education (see Figure 1). Indigeneity Minority/Majority Indigeneity in Context Identity Negotiation Multilingualism Language Right Language Policy Endangerment Language Attitudes Revitalization Language Reclamation Teacher Identity Indigenous Teachers New Speakers My background Symbolic Power Indigenous Identity Languages My background My background My background My background Indigenous Education Figure 1. Three themes of this research and sub-themes I use Figure 1 as a map to guide the readers through the thesis, and I refer to this Figure in later chapters of this thesis. This figure is complicated and all three concepts and sub-themes are interrelated. First, I put my background as an indigenous researcher in the background of each theme in this thesis since my indigeneity has always played a role in how I view and write about these concepts. As the backbone of this dissertation, my background influences on my position, perspectives, research method, data analysis and conclusion. I draw on previous research by indigenous scholars to support my arguments throughout my thesis. For the sake of theorization, I divide the sub-themes into three umbrella themes: (1) indigenous identity (especially indigenous teacher identity), (2) language and (3) indigenous education. (1) Indigenous identity includes sub-concepts such as indigeneity, 22 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful indigeneity in each context, negotiation of identities, and teacher identity. (2) Language includes such sub-concepts as multilingualism, language policy, language right, language endangerment and language attitudes. (3) Education includes language revitalization, new speakers and indigenous teachers’ identities. I use the concept of symbolic power by Bourdieu (1991) as a core theory behind these three concepts since symbolic power exists in all of these aspects. The remainder of thesis is organized as follows: Chapter 2 presents the aims of each sub-study and the purposes of this research. Chapter 3 presents the demographic, sociolinguistic and educational situations of two contexts and I will summarize the situations of the two contexts by overviewing earlier studies. Thereafter, Chapter 4 presents the core conceptual framework of the study and the central concepts. It is organized around the three themes related to this study, namely, indigenous identity, language, and indigenous education (see Figure 1). I describe each theme in detail by presenting different sub-themes in each theme (see Figure 1). Chapter 5 presents the research questions of each sub-study (see Figure 2). Chapters 6 and 7 describe the methodology, data collection and analysis employed in this study. In Chapter 8, I summarise each article and present the results and discussions for each study (see Figure 2). Finally, in chapter 9, I present the results and conclusion of this research. Sub-Study Aims.Research Questions 1: Sámi language teachers’ professional identities explained through narratives about language acquisition. 2: Educated not to speak our language -Language Attitudes and Newspeakerness in the Yaeyaman Language3: Indigenous in Japan? -the reluctance of the Japanese state to acknowledge Indigenous peoples and their need for educationTo examine voices and experiences of indigenous language teachers in Sápmi -How do Sámi language teachers narrate their experience of Sámi language acquisition? -How do these teachers construct their professional identities in various educational settings? To examine voices and experiences of indigenous language teachers in the Ryukyus -How do schoolteachers face the language endangerment situation in Miyara village on Ishigaki island? -What kind of language attitudes do people have toward the Yaeyaman language? To examine how indigenous groups, pursue their indigenous identities in the current Japanese educational system -How the educational policies of Japan have dealt with the education for its Indigenous population historically and today? -How do Indigenous groups pursue their Indigenous identities in the current Japanese society? Figure 2. Summary of each case-study and its aims 23 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Chapter 2 Aims of the Study In this thesis, I investigate the complexities related to teaching and learning experiences of indigenous language teachers, learners and speakers in two contexts. I am interested in the voices and experiences of individuals who are involved in the language education for indigenous languages. My research partners (participants) live in the central regions of Sápmi in Finland and in the Yaeyama islands and on Okinawa island in the Ryukyus. To emphasize the importance of agency of the participants, in my research, I use the term research partners when referring to the people I was working with in this research. The purposes of this research are twofold: (1) investigate the situations of indigenous language teaching and learning, (2) facilitate better ways to embrace multilingualism in indigenous language communities. Based on these two main purposes of this study, I formulated the following five aims for each sub-study for this thesis: (a) Examine voices and experiences of indigenous language teachers in Sápmi (Sub-Study 1) (b) Examine voices and experiences of indigenous language teachers in the Ryukyus (Sub-Study 2) (c) Investigate how the educational policies of Japan have dealt with education for its indigenous population historically and today (Sub-Study 3) (d) Examine how indigenous groups, pursue their indigenous identities in the current Japanese educational system (Sub-Study 3) (e) Identify indigenous language teacher education based on this research (Conclusion) This dissertation first presents the two contexts of this research and the theoretical background of the research. Thereafter, I present the research questions and methodological choices. Towards the end of the study, I summarize and evaluate the original publications which form the basis for the construction of the theory. Finally, I discuss the outcomes of the research and their limitations and practical implications by suggesting a new model for teacher education in general, providing some suggestions for future research. 24 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Chapter 3 Two Contexts of this Research In this chapter, I explain the two contexts of this research. During my four-year PhD journey, I conducted two ethnographic fieldwork studies in two different parts of the world, where two groups of indigenous languages exist: Ryukyuan languages in Japan and Sámi languages in Finland. The reason why I chose these two indigenous language communities for my PhD studies is personal and relates to my life journey. After my experiences presented in Chapter 1, I became interested in how indigenous Sámi languages are taught in Finland and how it is possible to implement indigenous language education in our communities in the Ryukyus. I became interested in the reason why our languages are so invisible in Japanese society and why I have had to struggle to “find out” about the existence of indigenous languages in the Ryukyus. The following section briefly introduces the readers to two groups of languages and their historical, sociolinguistic and educational situations. 3.1. Ryukyuan languages Ryukyuan is a group of languages belonging to the Japonic Family, spoken in the southern extreme of Japan archipelago, Ryukyu Islands (see Figure 3, adapted from Shimoji & Pellard5, 2008). The Ryukyuan language family consists of at least five distinct languages 6 (Amamian, Kunigami, Uchinaaguchi/Okinawan, Miyakoan, Yaeyaman, Dunan), traditionally spoken in the Ryukyu Islands, a chain of islands in the southwest region of Japan (see Figure 3). The Ryukyuan languages are the only language family that has proven to be cognate to the Japanese language. All Ryukyuan languages are mutually unintelligible from each other (Shimoji, 2018; Takubo, 2015) and there are different varieties within Ryukyuan (see Figure 4). These islands were formerly part of the Ryukyu Kingdom (1429– 1879) until Japan incorporated them into its territory as Okinawa prefecture and a part of Kagoshima prefecture. Although often people refer to Shuri dialect of Okinawan as a language of the former royals, no standard variety of any of the Ryukyuan languages exists, and ideas to develop standard varieties are controversial (Ishihara, 2016). 5 The author would like to thank Dr Thomas Pellard and Dr Michinori Shimoji for providing me with the map. 6 It is considered as 5 to 6 languages depending on sources and definition. Please find further information on Ryukyuan languages on Pellard (2013) Heinrich, Shimoji, & Miyara (2015) among others. 31 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Japanese. Generally speaking, native speakers of Ryukyuan languages tend to be aged over 60 or 70 years or older (Anderson, 2009). Smaller Ryukyuan languages such as Yonaguni or Yaeyaman tend to have native speakers aged over 80s or 90s. As with many other indigenous languages across the world, the language decline in the Ryukyus is not only about language. Although attitudes towards Ryukyuan languages have shifted from unfavourable to more favourable in Okinawa Prefecture in general (Ishihara, 2016; Santalahti, 2018). However, there is no previous research on language attitudes or beliefs towards smaller Ryukyuan languages such as Yaeyaman, or Amami. 3.2. The Yaeyaman Language For this dissertation, I focus on one of the five to six Ryukyuan languages: Yaeyaman. Yaeyaman is spoken by local communities on the Yaeyama Islands, which lie more than 250 miles southwest of Okinawa Island (see Figure 2 and Figure 3). Although internationally this linguistic variety is defined as the Yaeyaman language, it comprises many varieties (also see Pellard, 2013). Some varieties are mutually understandable from each other, but some are not. Yaeyaman speakers are aware that they cannot always understand each other’s variety, depending on the geographical areas15. After the Ryukyu Kingdom (1429-1879) was annexed in 1872 by Japan, the Yaeyama Islands (see Figure 4) were integrated into Okinawa Prefecture in 1879. The Yaeyama Islands have their own history, language, culture, and identity, which differs from the rest of the Ryukyu Islands (Matsuda, 2008; Miki, 2003). 15 To my knowledge, and from my experiences, people from Miyara often understand or Ishigaki varieties but it is hard for them to understand Shiraho variety or a variety spoken on Hateruma island of Yaeyama. 32 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Figure 4. Ryukyuan languages (Heinrich & Ishihara, 2017) I chose the Yaeyaman language as the focus of this research since it is one of the heritage languages spoken on Ishigaki Island where I am from. Growing up in the Ryukyus, people often look at one’s surname and face to guess where someone is from. My surname, Hammine, is a typical surname from the village of Miyara on Ishigaki island (see Figure 5). This name is not common in Okinawa main island at all. Therefore, even on Okinawa island, people often ask me where I am from. However, when I meet people from Yaeyama, they immediately know I am from there because of my name. Whenever I go back to Ishigaki island with my family, people in my community tell me that I have “a face of Hammine.18” People in Ishigaki often tell me “hammine mari,” when they look at my face. “Hammine mari” implies that I have a face of the Hammine family. I have often been asked if I am “half” Japanese in mainland Japan due to my look and partly due to my name. For me, this kind of social acceptance from Yaeyaman people meant a lot when I was growing up. Perhaps, that is why I strongly identify myself not only as Okinawan but also as Yaeyaman16. These kinds of reactions to my face and surname have been significant to me because on Okinawa main island, people often viewed me as not completely Okinawan due to my Yaeyaman surname. I often wished I had been given a typical Okinawan name when I was growing up so that people around me did not point me out and say that I was different17. 16 This is an example of identity negotiation (see more in section 4.1.4). 17 People from Yaeyama often considered as people with less economic or political power by the people on Okinawa island due to its history. 33 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Because of these experiences, I have always had a Yaeyaman identity as well as Okinawan and Japanese identities. There are internal relations of power within the Ryukyus, and even within the Yaeyaman communities, as in any society, that exclude, marginalize, and silence some while empowering others (e.g. Todal, 1998; Leonard, 2012). I have experienced diversity within the periphery of the periphery (see also Pietikäinen & Kelly-Holmes, 2013). Contemporary indigenous communities, including the Ryukyus, also struggle with issues of gender, economic class, age, language, and religion (see also Katsukata-Inafuku, 2006; Leonard, 2012). The Yaeyaman identity was, perhaps, for me, the most silenced identity, both linguistically and culturally. I used to found Yaeyaman music boring because my father played it every night at home until I went to university and discovered many literatures on Yaeyaman music or Ryukyuan cultures in general. These experiences of myself are one of the many reasons why I focus on the Yaeyaman language in this research. In Yaeyama, the Yaeyaman language18 is sometimes - or I could probably say - often referred to hōgen. After her historical analysis of Miyakoan the language spoken on Miyako island, Jarosz (2015) stated that it is difficult to determine the actual implications of the term hōgen (after observing how people use the term, when they use the term and what implications they have when they use the term). Agreeing with Jarosz’s (2015) analysis, the term hōgen does not completely suggest that Ryukyuan languages are a regional variety of Japanese or that it is intelligible with Japanese – Yaeyaman people, who also those refer to Yaeyaman as hōgen, are aware of this fact more than anyone else and they often admit explicitly not only the unintelligibility of Yaeyaman with Japanese but also with other Ryukyuan varieties, and they even note the limited intelligibility among some sub-varieties of Yaeyaman. Yaeyaman people often use the term “muni” (language, linguistic variety of land or community) (e.g. meeramuni, kumōmuni) to refer to their linguistic variety, and often each village of Yaeyama tends has its own way of referring to its linguistic variety. Yaeyama has been studied by some important outsider scholars and by insider scholars, which include Tashiro Antei, Sasamori Gisuke, Iha Fuyū, Iwasaki Takuji, Kishaba Eijun and Torii Ryūzō (see more in Miki, 2003). Miyara Tōsō (1893-1964), or Miyanaga Masanori (his Japanese name19), was a linguist from Ishigaki city of Ishigaki island. He studied different dialects of Japan. Miyara Tōsō was the first scholar from Yaeyama who criticized Tanabe Hisao’s claim that Yaeyama people have cultural and racial similarities with Malay in 1923 (as cited in Matsuda, 2008). This claim denying similarities with cultures and ethnicities of Malay implies Miyara 18 While hōgen is a Japanese term, people in Yaeyama call it sumamuni or yaemamuni. (see more in Hammine, 2019). 19 Many people in the Ryukyus changed their names into more Japanese sounding names. 34 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful self-identified more with Japanese and considered the Yaeyaman language a dialect of Japanese. His classification of the Yaeyaman language as a dialect of Japanese could also be interpreted as a result of his complicated identity. Being a minority within the Ryukyus, in the discourse of Yaeyaman history, there are aspects of double colonization by both Japan and Okinawa. Those include jintōzei20 (taxation imposed by the Ryukyuan Kingdom on Yaeyama and Miyako), the legend of Oyake Akahachi,21 who labeled against the Ryukyu Kingdom in 1500, and forced relocation by the Ryukyu Kingdom (see also Matsuda, 2008). Having grown up during the period of assimilation of Ryukyuan languages on Yaeyama, Miyara Tōsō belongs to the generation who were punished by a dialect tag when the children used Ryukyuan languages in school (see more in Murakami, 1994, 2008). According to international standard set by the UNESCO atlas of languages in danger, the Yaeyaman and Yonaguni languages are categorized as “severely endangered” compared to that of the Okinawan language, which is “definitely endangered.” The grammar of several varieties of the Yaeyaman language has been described by scholars both in Japanese and in English (e.g. Aso & Ogawa, 2016; Davis, 2014a, 2014b; Davis & Lau, 2015; Izuyama, 2003; Lawrence, 2019; Nakahara, 2003, 2013; Urabe, 2019). Some varieties23 have already lost the last speaker and linguistic vitality of each variety depending on each area and village of the islands22. During my fieldwork, for instance, I met the last full-speaker of the Funauki variety of the Yaeyaman language on Iriomote Island (see Figure 5). She was 95 years old in 2017. Many dialects in Yaeyama have only few speakers left. The research on these smaller varieties of Yaeyaman is scarce and to my knowledge there are some varieties only one or two speakers left. 20 Jintōzei is a taxation system of the Ryukyu Kingdom. Under this system, people in Yaeyama and Miyako. This system was harsh on people in Yaeyama, and many traditional music and stories are themed under the harsh reality of the people due to this taxation from the central kingdom of the Ryukyus (see also Gillan, 2013). 21 Oyake Akahachi is known as a hero in Yaeyama who rebelled against the Ryukyu Kingdom in 1500. The legend of Oyaka Akahachi is still one of the most famous stories in Yaeyama. The play based on this legend is played every year by local school children in Ishigaki city. 22 One variety, sïka variety is sometimes considered as a variety of high status due to the fact that in this area, there used to live officials of the Kingdom. 35 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Figure 5. Map of Yaeyama islands23 (adapted from Hammine, 2019)24 In the Miyara village on Ishigaki island25, Miyara Yaeyaman (referred as Miyaran in this dissertation), a variety of the Yaeyaman language, is spoken (see Figure 3). Among the different varieties of the Yaeyaman language, Miyara Yaeyaman (henceforth, Miyaran) is my heritage language (see Figure 5). The village has the population of around 1800 people with about 763 households (Ishigaki, 2013). In Miyara, community members are aware that there used to be an older variety of Miyaran: what they call, “mutu-meeramuni (original Miyaran).” The last full speaker of mutu-meeramuni has already passed away. The village sustained a considerable damage by a large tsunami in 1771, resulting in over half of its population being killed. After the tsunami, people on Kohama island were forced to move to Miyara by the Ryukyu kingdom. People from Kohama island and people who were originally from Miyara started using the linguistic variety known as “meeramuni26” [referred as Miyaran in this thesis]. Miyaran people consider Kohama island as a brother or father island and people still have a strong emotional connection with Kohama island. Miyaran is estimated as endangered with approximately 350 native speakers (Davis, 2016). This number represents the population who are bilingual in Miyaran and Japanese, since there are no longer 23 Yonaguni island is sometimes classified as one of the Yaeyama islands. 24 The author wants to thank Dr Glenn Summerhayes for providing me with this map. 25 Ishigaki island is one of the Yaeyama islands (see Figure 5). 26 Meeramuni literally means the language of Miyara. Community members consider this variety as a combination of the older Miyaran language, mutu-meeramuni, and the one from Kohama. Here, I use Miyaran as a translation to differentiate it from different varieties of the Yaeyaman language. 36 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful any monolingual speakers of Miyaran left. Currently, the population of the village includes some people who moved from mainland Japan, some people from other islands of the Ryukyus and some people from other villages on Ishigaki island27 (i.e. women who are married to Miyaran men, or some families who moved to the village). Thus, there are not only bilingual speakers of Miyaran and Japanese and monolingual speakers of Japanese, but also few speakers 28 of other Ryukyuan languages (e.g. Miyakoan, Okinawan/Uchinaaguchi), and few speakers of other varieties of the Yaeyaman language in the village. Although it is my heritage language, as in the case for most individuals in the Ryukyus, I did not have the chance to learn this language in my childhood like most of younger generations in the Ryukyus. My grandparents and some relatives are full speakers of Miyaran. A part of decolonizing work is to take back our language through the research process (e.g. Smith, 1999). I have been learning the language as an adult and speak it with people in the village. This attempt is to become a new speaker of Yaeyaman has brought myself an experience of “muda” (see more in the section of new speakers, 4.3.2. of this thesis). Therefore, this work is aimed not only at scholarship but also as a means of decolonization of my community and myself. There have been an increasing number of language revitalization efforts in Ryukyuan languages and in Yaeyaman, though the question of whether these efforts are effective in reality remains unanswered. For example, in 2008, the local women’s association in Miyara village (see Figure 5 and Picture 1), Miyara Fujinkai, started to deliver Miyaran language lessons at Miyara Elementary School and two kindergartens voluntarily. The same association published a book in Miyaran, which introduces basic vocabulary, greetings and a Miyaran version of peach boy [momotarō], a well-known Japanese children’s story (see Picture 1). Additionally, two people in the village wrote two community-based books on Miyaran. More recently, in 2018, the community members published a bilingual book called “The legend of red horse [akanma monogatari]” which targets mainly Miyaran children. In Miyara, there is a charter of a public hall of Miyara village [miyara kōminkan kenshō] made by the local people, which serves as a constitution for the village (see Picture 2). This charter is also written in the Miyaran variety of Yaeyaman. In other areas of the Ishigaki island, there is a Yaeyaman language learning lesson held every two weeks. Additionally, a Non-Profit-Organisation (NPO) called Yuntaku Garden [a communication garden] is located in Hirae village on Ishigaki island, where Tsuyoshi Higashiōhama29, a 27 Some people in Yaeyama call Yaeyam “United States of the Ryukyus” since there are populations from other parts of the Ryukyus since long time due to its history (fieldwork note). 28 Those speakers tend to be not the native speakers but semi-speakers of other Ryukyuan languages, since younger generations in the Ryukyus do not speak completely their languages. 29 He allowed me to include his name on this thesis. He always encourages me to learn Yaeyaman and to speak the language. Even though speakers of the Sïka variety of Yaeyaman tend to be in their 80s or 90s, he speaks it fluently and he is in his 70s. 37 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful native speaker of the Sïka variety of Yaeyaman, teaches the Yaeyaman language to people who come from outside the island to learn Yaeyaman. On Taketomi island, local elders conduct language lessons at elementary school every week. In the village of Ohama on Ishigaki island, there is a lesson on every Wednesday evening to teach the language to children at school in 2018 (fieldwork note). These activities are initiated by local individuals who act as teachers and grassroots policy makers for the Yaeyaman language. Picture 1. Three books written by community members of Miyara village30 30 From the left, “takara nu sïmamuni” by the Miyara women`s association, “meeramuni yōgo binranshū” by Saneyoshi Ishigaki and “Miyara mura hōgen shu” by Shūkichi Matsubara. All of them have been teaching me Miyaran throughout my fieldwork. These are the books written by teachers of my language. 38 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Picture 2. a charter of a public hall of Miyara village31 (miyara kōminkan kenshō) 3.3. Sámi languages The Sámi languages are Finno-Ugric languages (a group that also includes Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian, Kven Mienkieli) spoken in the Sámi region (Sápmi) in northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and in the Kola Peninsula of Russia (see Figure 4). Sámi languages are spoken in the entire area of Sápmi in four different countries as seen on Figure 6. Sámi languages can also be further divided to the western and eastern Sámi languages, or southern, central and eastern language groups (Sammallahti, 1998). The group of Sámi languages comprises several varieties, of which nine are still spoken (Aikio-Puoskari, 1998; Sarivaara, 31 This is written both in Miyaran and Japanese. Miyara seems to be one particular village in Yaeyama where the Yaeyaman language is still spoken by fairly younger speakers compared to other villages in Yaeyama, which speakers themselves often agree with. People from other villages of Yaeyama refer to Miyara as a village of tradition, hence, people often see it as a place where Yaeyaman is still spoken, compared to other villages in Yaeyama (fieldwork note). 39 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Uusiautti, & Määttä, 2013). All Sámi languages are endangered due to centurieslong assimilation policies, and the degree of legal protection for the languages varies depending on the country (Keskitalo, Määttä, & Uusiautti, 2013; Pietikäinen, Huss, Laihiala-Kankainen, Aikio-Puoskari, & Lane, 2010). Of these nine languages, at least one southern language (Ume Sámi) and one eastern language (Ter Sámi) are severely endangered as only a handful of speakers remain. A little less than half of the Sámi people speak one of the Sámi languages (see Kulonen, Seurujärvi-Kari, & Pulkkinen, 2005). Owing to the century-long assimilation policies, there are people who belong to the “lost generation.” These people did not have a chance to learn Sámi languages in childhood (see Sarivaara et al., 2013). Among those people who belong to the lost generation, some started learning the Sámi languages as adults (Pasanen, 2018; Sarivaara et al., 2013). People who speak different varieties of Sámi do not necessarily understand each other and there are different dialects depending on the area. Figure 6. Map of Sámi Languages Three Sámi languages are spoken in Finland: North Sámi, Inari Sámi and Skolt Sámi, all of which are considered to be seriously endangered (see Moseley, 2010; Svonni, 2008). Sámi languages have different positions in each Sámi speaker’s multilingual linguistic repertoire, varying from fluent speakers of the language to 40 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful speakers with knowledge of a few words (Pietikäinen, 2014), with assimilation having produced many Sámi people with a passive or inability to speak Sámi (Sarivaara, 2012). As an indigenous minority population, the Sámi have a right to learn their language, granted that linguistic rights, particularly the right to learn one’s own language, are one component of human rights (Skutnabb-Kangas, Phillipson, & Rannut, 1994). Since joining the EU, Finland has ratified two important instruments of the EU with regard to protecting minorities: The Framework Convention for Protection of National and Regional Minorities and The European Charter of Minority and Regional Languages (see more in Hammine, 2016). Finland also signed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in 2007 (United Nations, 2007). The Constitution of Finland specifies that the Sámi people have the right to maintain and develop their languages and cultures. Sámi language teaching started in the village of Utsjoki in the 1970s, and school classes have been taught in Sámi with special permission of the Finnish Education Ministers. The Sámi language was mentioned in the Finnish Primary School Act for the first time in 1983 (Aikio-Puoskari, 2014). The Finnish government gives special funding both inside and outside the Sámi homeland area (municipalities of Enontekiö, Inari, Utsjoki and a part of the municipality of Sodankylä) for teaching in Sámi. The Finnish Sámi Parliament produces learning materials for all three Sámi languages spoken in Finland. The Sámi language can be studied either as a language of instruction, as a subject of mother tongue and literature, or as a subject of foreign language (Aikio-Puoskari, 2007). According to the Basic Education Act (1998), four municipalities in the Sámi homeland area are obliged to give instruction primarily in Sámi for pupils with Sámi language ability. This obligation applies only to municipalities within the Sámi home area, and not to the municipalities outside it. Outside this area, it is possible to give complementary Sámi language classes for two hours per week, but it is sometimes difficult due to the small number of teachers who can teach Sámi (see more in Rahko-ravantti, 2016; Hammine, 2016). Most teachers in the four municipalities of the Sámi home area teach in Finnish: the number of Sámi speaking teachers is usually smaller than the number of Finnish speaking teachers. Sámi speaking teachers are often indigenous themselves, but some are non-indigenous. Although research conducted in other indigenous contexts emphasizes the importance of understanding how one becomes an indigenous language teacher (Hornberger, 2014), research about the background and experiences of Sámi language teachers and how individual language teachers negotiate and construct their professional identities is lacking. 47 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful (2008) defined indigenous people as those who have experienced the imperialism and colonialism of the modern historical period beginning with the Enlightenment. They remain culturally distinct, some with their native languages and belief systems still alive. They are minorities in territories and states over which they once held sovereignty. Some indigenous peoples hold sovereignty over land, rights to language and culture but of such small states that they wield little power over their lives because they are subject to the whims and anxieties of large and powerful states. Since there are different definitions both from inside and outside the indigenous communities, they carry many names and labels, being referred to as natives, indigenous, autochthonous, tribal peoples, or ethnic minorities. Many indigenous peoples come together at regional and international levels to argue for their rights and recognition (Clifford, 2013; Minde, 1996). 4.1.2. Indigeneity and the Ryukyus According to the definition of the UNDRIP, 34United Nations Declaration on the Rights of indigenous Peoples, there are two groups in Japan which could be identified as indigenous. In Japan, the Ainu are the only nationally recognized indigenous people of the Ainu territories (Hokkaido, the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin), located in, what is now, the Northern part of Japan and North Eastern part of Russia. Okinawans or Ryukyuans2 are on the Ryukyu Islands, which make up the current Okinawa Prefecture and a part of Kagoshima prefecture are not officially recognized by the Japanese government as an indigenous people of Japan due to the complicated history and complicated self-definitions of Ryukuan people, as described briefly in the previous chapter (see e.g. Uemura & Gayman, 2018; Yokota, 2015). Since there is a complexity amongst identities of Ryukyuan people, some people deny their indigeneity, while others identify themselves as indigenous people35. Although Ryukyuan often consider themselves as a separate people or nation or at the very least, an ethnic minority, on the other hand, others maintain the pride in their cultural and historic legacy within a sense of belonging to a larger Japanese community (Siddle, 2002; Tanji, 2006). Although the indigeneity of Ryukyuan people has not been an issue for the Japanese government to officially confirm, so called, Okinawa problem has been an issue since the annexation of the Ryukyu Kingdom (see Tanji, 2006; Yokota, 2017; also see my third article). Such complexity related to self-definition of Ryukyuan people is partially related to the history of indigenous policies and indigenous peoples in Japan (McCormack, 2018). The idea of indigenous peoples was introduced to Japan and other Asian 34 The United Nations human rights bodies have dealt with the Ainu people as an indigenous people since 1987 and have accepted Okinawan delegations as members of the community of indigenous peoples since 1996. 35 This issue will be discussed later throughout this thesis. 48 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful countries in the late 1970s mainly from North America or Europe where there had been recognition and international movement of indigenous peoples since 1970s (e.g. Minde, 1996; Lee, 2006). However, the recognition of Indigenous peoples of Japan only emerged as a topic of discussion after 1980s. Until then, Indigenous peoples were not an issue for the government, as the Japanese government told the UN in 1980, such minorities did “not exist in Japan” (Emori, 2015; Siddle, 1996, 2003). Majewicz (2011), for instance, notes as the following: “In Japan, persistent fear of the very idea of any ethnic diversity of the population inhabiting the country led to the schizophrenic insistence on the “homogeneity of the nation” with “one race/one culture society”, despite mounting evidence from interdisciplinary research to the contrary. […] In 1980 the Japanese government even officially informed the UN that there were no minorities in Japan as understood by the Article 27 of the International Convention on Human Rights (pp.157)” The concept of indigeneity is problematic when adapted in my community (see more in Chapter 9, conclusion of this thesis). The devaluation of indigeneity and the lack of policies supporting indigenous peoples in Japan might explain why inhabitants of the Ryukyus do not want to identify themselves as indigenous and why they seek to be considered Japanese. I sometimes wonder whether I could adapt to it since it brings many problematic issues. I have been puzzled by this concept, and I will continue to be puzzled. In my case, I was told that “you are Japanese but also Uchinaanchu36” but found out later that I was indigenous through higher education (see Chapter 1), which brought confusion. In such cases, it is it harder for people to embrace their indigeneity (see more in Chapter 9). Being an academic in Europe is already not easy for me, but going back to the community after becoming “indigenous” is difficult in a different sense. I am aware that it is not possible to use the same concept of indigeneity in different contexts, since indigeneity is not homogenous, but multiple. There are also some cautionary notes to the definitions of indigeneity that were developed in the “West”. Native/indigenous/minority communities are not homogeneous, community members do not agree on the same issues. This example of indigeneity in the Ryukyus shows the complexity of the concepts of indigeneity and indigenous langauges: it is problematic since in some cases, indigeneity is denied by the language speakers and by the society. (Heinrich, 2018; Roche, 2019). 36 Uchinaanchu, is a term used by many Ryukyuans themselves to refer to their identity. I remember one professor in my undergraduate study in Tokyo, asked me if I am Japanese and I answered that I am Japanese but Uchinaanchu. This term for self-identification of Ryukyuan people cannot be simply explained by bilateral of indigenous v.s. non-indigenous. 49 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful 4.1.3. Indigeneity and the Sámi in Finland Traditionally, the Sámi live in the middle and Northern parts of Norway, Sweden, and Northern Finland, and in the Kola Peninsula in Russia. Sápmi is the areas where Sámi people have lived even before the national borders were established. Sámi people are the only recognized indigenous people in the EU, with their own languages, culture, means of livelihood and identity (Kulonen, Seurujärvi-Kari, & Pulkkinen, 2005). It has been estimated that there is a total of 80,000-100,000 Sámi across the four countries intersecting their homelands (Joona, 2012). The Sámi people traditionally have pursued a variety of livelihoods, including coastal fishing, fur trapping, and reindeer herding. Amongst these varieties of livelihoods, their best-known means of livelihood is semi-nomadic reindeer herding. As indigenous peoples, the Sámi have participated in national and international policymaking with regard to language rights, land rights, and rights to natural resources (see e.g. Tennberg, 2006). Figure 7. Map of Sápmi and Sámi languages The Sámi of Finland officially entered the global indigenous people’s movement in 1973 (Nyyssönen 2013). Finland also signed the UNDRIP in 2007 (United Nations, 2007). The Constitution of Finland also specifies that the Sámi people have the right to maintain and develop their languages and cultures. In Finland, the act of establishing the Finnish Sámi Parliament was passed on November 9, 1973. 50 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Finland recognized the Sámi as a “people” in 1995, but Finland has not ratified ILO convention 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples. Finland ratified the 1966 U.N. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights though several cases have been brought before the U.N. Human Rights Committee. Of those, 36 cases involved a determination of the rights of individual Sámi in Finland and Sweden. The committee decisions clarify that Sámi are members of a minority within the meaning of Article 27 and that deprivation of their rights to practice traditional activities that are an essential element of their culture come within the scope of Article 27. The Sámi language was mentioned in the Finnish Primary School Act for the first time in 1983 (Aikio-Puoskari, 2014). The Finnish government gives special funding inside and outside the Sámi home land area, (municipalities of Enontekiö, Inari, Utsjoki and a part of the municipality of Sodankylä) for teaching in Sámi. Sámi language teaching started in the village of Utsjoki in the 1970s, and school classes are also taught in Sámi with special permission of the Finnish Education Ministers. In Finland, Sámi people have had access to Sámi language instruction in some schools since the 1970s, and language rights were established in 1992. There are three Sámi languages spoken in Finland: North Sámi, Skolt Sámi and Inari Sámi. There has been a language revitalization of Inari Sámi language since 1990s, by the means of language nests, language education in school, which has been a success (Pasanen, 2018). Although they are recognized as an Indigenous people in Finland, Sámi people have had very little representation in Finnish national politics. For instance, in fact, as of 2007, Janne Seurujärvi, a Finnish Centre Party representative, was the first Sámi ever to be elected to the Finnish Parliament. In Finland, non-Sámi people can also herd reindeer legally. 4.1.4. Negotiation of Identities This section clarifies my reasons for applying a poststructuralist approach to investigate the “negotiation of identities” in multilingual indigenous language communities (Blackledge & Pavlenko, 2004; Blackledge & Creese, 2014; Cummins, 2001). As individuals, we have multiple different identities depending on the contexts and situation. In this research, I explore how individuals, especially teachers and learners, negotiate their identities in the context of language revitalization (see Sections 4.3.1. and 4.3.2), often, as a way of challenging and contesting languagerelated hierarchy and inequality. As mentioned by Joshua Fishman37 (1991), who is sometimes referred as the father of language revitalization, the relationship between language and identity has received great interest from researchers. When an individual regains one’s own language through language revitalization or language reclamation, it has a very strong connection with regaining a distinct identity since 37 Fishman has theorized Reversing Language Shift (RLS). His theorization of RLS has made great impact in sociolinguistic research and research on language endangerment. 51 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful language is often connected to the ethnolinguistic identity of a group (Liebkind, 2010; Walsh, 2018). I view identities from a poststructuralist approach. To analyze the relationship between language and ethnolingusitic identity, I introduce an example from Walsh (2018) of the mission statement of an Aboriginal organization addressing the importance of language; “… If a person knows a word in their language, he/she is maintaining a link that has lasted thousands of years, keeping words alive that have been used by their ancestors— language is an ancestral right and it distinguishes something special about Aboriginal people from nonAboriginal people. Language is a part of culture, and knowledge about culture is a means of empowering people. Language contributes to the wellbeing of Aboriginal communities, strengthens ties between elders and young people and improves education in general for Indigenous people of all ages.” (as cited in Walsh, 2018, p.5). This is just one example of many statements by indigenous people indicating how they relate to their ancestral languages and how their languages affect who they are. Similar statements were found also in both contexts of my research as discussed later in this thesis38. This example shows us that ancestral languages are an important way for indigenous peoples to maintain their identity. By gaining their languages, indigenous people have the option of choosing to be indigenous. Since poststructuralist approach views identities are fluid, multiple and changeable though the experiences of individuals’, socio political and socio historical circumstances, it fits well with the examples of gaining an option by learning an ancestral language. This is an example to show why I use poststructuralist approach to language and identity. I briefly review three paradigms to investigate the relationship between language and identity. The first paradigm of approaching identity and language is called, the “socio-psychological paradigm”, which draws from Tajfel’s (1978) theory of social identity. Tajfel (1978) proposed that the groups (i.e. social, class, family, football team, to, which people belonged were an important source of pride and self-esteem. The socio-psychological paradigm tends to view identity and ethnic identity as having a one-to-one relationship. The second paradigm, the socio-linguistic perspective, examines the negotiation of identities by focusing on language use and language choice. Gumperz (1982) pointed out that social and ethnic identity is, in most cases, established and maintained by languages. In this framework, code 38 In many places in the Ryukyus, there is a well-known saying: “when you forget your language, you forget your island, when you forget your island, you also forget your parents.” This saying is often repeatedly used in many public events for Ryukyuan languages in general (fieldwork note). 52 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful switching may be used as a choice to negotiate social distance, thus language choice and code switching are seen as the expressed index of identities (Myers-Scotton, 1998). One of the criticisms of viewing code-switching as a way of expressing identities is that “identity is not the only factor influencing code-switching and that in many contexts the mixing of the two languages are best explained through other means” (Blackledge & Pavlenko, 2004). Since this study investigate the negotiation of identities not only in terms of the language choice but also from socio-cultural and socio-political influence, the paradigm of socio psychological is not appropriate for this research. In the past two decades, sociolinguistic and anthropological research on multilingualism has received a solid grounding in poststructuralist and critical theory, which has led many scholars to consider language choices in multilingual contexts as being embedded in larger social, political, economic, and cultural systems (Blackledge & Pavlenko, 2004; Pennycook 2001; Piller, 2016). In post-modern societies, where languages are not only makers of identity, but also sites of resistance, empowerment, solidarity or discrimination, it is important to theorize language choices and identities using “a poststructuralist approach”. As mentioned, when discussing the situations for Ryukyuan peoples and their languages; Okinawan born scholars39 also negotiate their identities according to their personal history, status of languages, history of minorities and indigenous peoples (see Sections 3.1. and 3.2.). We negotiate our identities through language since sociolinguistic viewpoint views social structure as “a system full of inequalities, in which people and actions develop on or across different levels” (see also King & Hermes, 2014). The theory of positioning by Davies and Harré (1990) is another essential theory employed in the poststructuralist approach, which they explain as follows: “Once having taken up a particular position as one’s own, a person inevitably sees the world from the vantage point of that position and in terms of the particular images, metaphors, story lines and concepts which are made relevant within the particular discursive practice in which they are positioned (Davies & Harré, 1990, p. 46).” This theory of positioning was originally developed in the socio-psychological paradigm; however, the poststructuralist approach also employs this perspective, in that people position themselves according to what is happening around them. Employing these frameworks, in the process of identity negotiation, language users may seek new social and linguistic resources that allow them to resist identities that position them in undesirable ways or produce new identities and assign alternative 39 This includes myself. My work also is influenced by my own identity negotiations, my experiences and societal power relations. 53 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful meanings to the links between identities and linguistic varieties (Blackledge, 2005). Pavlenko and Blackledge (2004) argued that negotiation of identities takes place where different ideologies of language and identity come into conflict with each other. While identities or positions are often given by social structures, conflicting ideologies, or ascribed by others, they can also be negotiated by social agents who wish to position themselves (Norton & Toohey, 2011). In this sense, in the poststructuralist approach, identities of individuals are seen as not “being” but “doing,” being constructed, communicated, and negotiated in each context and time (see also Piller, 2002). In my dissertation, I am interested in how individuals exercise each individual’s agency and how they negotiate identities. Therefore, individuals and social actors in my research may also set off to negotiation of their attitudes, beliefs, ideologies or identities when they face different perspectives, which may lead them to reconstruction of identities. In indigenous language contexts, identity negotiation of individuals often relates to sociopolitical, historical, and structural factors in society. According to SkutnabbKangas, (2000) suggests indigenous language speakers can be used to legitimate lack of services offered in the indigenous language, and then leads to less use and competence and influences indigenous language speakers’ identities. One of these services is the education. For instance, indigenous language speakers can be labeled as primitive or backward people and thus, they might abandon their language resulting in assimilating their identities to the majority. Language in education is recognized as an essential part of a student’s and teacher’s identity negotiation and is an important factor for inclusion (Skutnabb-Kangas & Heugh, 2011). 4.1.5. Identities of Language Teachers Understanding teachers’ identities is a crucial factor because teachers’ identities are expected to shape their pedagogical practices and affect students’ identity formation (Cummins, 2014; Fishman & Gàrcia, 2010; Fong & Yee, 2013; Gràcia, 2009). Moreover, within the educational system, including educational policies of the government and school as an institution, teachers with minority backgrounds might negotiate their identities in relation to their professions (see more Section 4.3.3. of this thesis). This aspect will be further discussed in the later sections in this thesis. Teacher identity is not unified but fragmented, not singular but multiple. Identity construction is influenced not only “by inherited traditions such as culture, or by external exigencies such as history, or by ideological constructs such as power, but by the individual’s ability and willingness to exercise agency” (Kumaravadivelu, 2012, p.10). Based on Bourdieu’s model of symbolic domination (Bourdieu, 1991), I view teacher identity from a poststructuralists’ view on identities as “multiple and negotiable,” which allows us to investigate human agency in instances where individuals resist, negotiate or change their identities. This view of identities enables us to analyze teacher identities as embedded within power relations between the 54 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful majority and minority in any given society. Teacher identity has been also studied from sociocultural and sociopolitical perspectives (e.g. Norton, 1997; Pennycook, 1994, 2001). Along this line, it has been argued that there is a ‘native speaker fallacy’ (Canagarajah, 1999), meaning that sometimes the bilingual and intercultural skills of non-native speaker teachers have been marginalized. Native speaker fallacy is also relevant to minority or indigenous language teachers. Because of the history of colonization and assimilation to majority cultures and languages, Sámi language teachers may be non-native speakers who learned the language later in their lives depending on each teachers’ life path. Similarly, Ryukyuan language teachers might be native speakers who experienced the period of assimilation or might be nonnative speakers who learned the language as a second language. Since these theories are mainly developed within the field of teaching major languages such as English, one aim of this research is to investigate these theories within the field of indigenous Sámi/Ryukyuan language teaching. 4.2. The Second Theme – Language – The second theme is language (see Figure 1, p.20). I view language from a critical sociolinguistic perspective, which means that I view language as a social phenomenon and I examine linguistic practice with its embedded power dynamics of society. Previously, researchers in the domains of sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, bilingual education, multilingualism, and linguistic anthropology and other fields, have examined some of the factors and processes that contribute to the creation of inequalities related to languages, as well as the efforts that counter these inequalities (e.g. Fishman, 1991; Cummins, 2014; Hornberger, 2008; Tollefson, 1991). I engage my research socially, following works such as Pennycook’s (2001) approach to “Critical Applied Linguistics” and Piller’s (2016) “Applied Sociolinguistics” who have shed light on the power dynamics that influence linguistic choices and practices. To examine the relationship between society and language further, I identify five factors worth discussing in this dissertation: (1) multilingualism, (2) language rights, (3) language policy, (4) language endangerment, and (5) language attitudes and beliefs. 4.2.1. Multilingualism Multilingualism, one of the key words of this research, describes the use of more than one language in society. In today’s world, 6,000 or 7,000 languages are spoken and most of the countries in the world are multilingual (e.g. Hinton, Huss & Roche, 2018). While “multilingualism” is a reality of the today’s global world, most countries have one or a few official languages that are supported in the government, media and education; which means that most of the world`s languages are very local and unsupported outside the speech community. These languages are often 55 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful labeled as “minority languages” and many of them are “indigenous” languages which have been spoken traditionally on the land. Although the term minority language generally refers to “language spoken by a group of numerically inferior to the rest of the population of a state with a more restricted use at the institutional level” (Cenoz, 2009, p. 32), the concept of minority language is not straightforward. Many minority or indigenous languages have been endangered around the world, partially due to the global spread of dominant languages, nation`s desire to maintain ideology of homogeneity, or lack of legitimization and protection in language policy planning (e.g. Groff, 2017; Heller, 1997, 2007; May, 2003; Tollefson, 1991). The concept of multilingualism and minority/majority languages, thus, cannot be discussed without the frameworks of power relation. 4.2.2. Language Rights The loss of language diversity also involves the loss of diversity of knowledge systems, cultures, and ecosystems, as well as human rights (e,g, Evans, 2009; Magga & Skutnabb-Kangas, 2003). International standards such as UNDRIP40 explicitly state the right for indigenous peoples to maintain, transmit, revitalize and develop their languages. Among these rights of indigenous peoples, the language right refers to having access to their language and being able to learn it and acquire skills in reading, writing, speaking and listening and use these skills without difficulties. It is a part of human individual and collective right to choose the language or languages for communication (Phillipson & Skutnabb-Kangas, 1995). Having such skills in one`s own language is a privilege that many indigenous peoples and minorities have not had or are just starting to enjoy; people who are not indigenous cannot experience what it is like to be without this privilege (e.g. Outakoski, 2015). For instance, Outakoski (2015, p. 1) noted that “for indigenous peoples, being literate in one’s own language, and not only in the dominating language, is a step forward in acquiring basic human rights.” This diversity of language has been a critical part of human’ ability to adapt and grow culturally. When people meet new people who have different languages, we often ask them to speak their languages out of curiosity. Linguistic diversity is or used to be everywhere for people to enjoy naturally41. From the perspective of linguistic human rights, scholars have argued that the loss of linguistic diversity is a violation of linguistic human rights. Phillipson & Skutnabb-Kangas, (1995) claimed that the loss of language diversity results in linguistic genocide/linguicide, which refers to the loss of the language rights of indigenous or minority peoples. 40 UNDRIP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) delineates and defines the individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples, including their ownership rights to cultural and ceremonial expression, identity, language, employment, health, education and other issues. 41 In my book chapter, I noted how traditional speakers of Yaeyaman naturally use translanguaging practices and how linguistic diversity was the norm for them (Hammine, 2019). 56 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful The language right is taken away from individuals or groups when languages are marginalized and deprived of resources or recognition, and when a language shift is imposed on individuals and groups. There are abundant examples of the major role played in this process by education systems and language policies worldwide, the underlying policy being to assimilate linguistic minority groups to the dominant language and culture (Hornberger, 2008). Since it is about human rights, it is not enough to celebrate linguistic diversity by saying we are supporting endangered languages. It is important to remember that indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, revitalize, and develop their languages regardless of what people say about the aesthetic, historical, scientific, or cultural value of those languages. This right does not depend on those perceptions of “the beauty of linguistic diversity” or “the beauty of indigenous languages (Roche, 2019).” As the loss of indigenous languages relates to human rights, it evokes different kinds of emotions and feelings among its community members. If someone inside the community realizes the loss of their languages, it usually evokes different reactions from indigenous language communities. Thus, it is important to remember that within the communities whose languages and cultures are disappearing, there are complex, varied feelings and reactions, which include the loss of their own sense of identity (Walsh, 2017; see Section 4.3.2). It is natural that members of minority communities have emotional responses to language use, even if language is not, of itself, a crucial maker of ethnic identity. “As linguists, it is a privilege to witness the emotion that both language loss and language reclamation provoke, from delight at having someone to talk to, to anger and dismay that the linguistic recording the language is a member of the ethnic group whose actions directly led to the language becoming endangered in the first place. (Bowern, 2017, p. 249)” Language loss or violation of human rights evokes emotions. As a community member, I have struggled with this issue because although we are told that we have right to maintain, revitalize or develop our languages, often the community has mixed feelings about the language right. In other words, if people do not know keeping the language is related to human right, people within the community might or might be willing to share their language with outsiders. It seems quite different from the “Western” indigenous language situation where the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized is evident (see more in my conclusion). In my community, during my fieldwork, I noticed that the linguists coming from the outside are generally welcomed, perhaps due to the complexity of history in the Ryukyus. Recognition of a language right among community members might play an important role for the indigenous communities to realize what they can ask for with their languages. 63 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful thesis. When I refer to language reclamation, I emphasize its decolonial aspect, including non-linguistic factors in language revival. Education is one method of language revitalization (reclamation); however, since language revitalization is related to power structure, educational change from the ground level could contest unequal distribution of power (see e.g. Darder, 1991). I view education from a perspective of critical pedagogy and critical theory, meaning that any attempt to construct a theory of education with the oppressed must involve a serious and sincere attempt to understand the realities of their daily lives (e.g. Freire, 1970). The thoughts from critical theory view the society as divided and hierarchical influenced by an unequal distribution of power. It views education as a tool used by dominant groups to legitimate the iniquitous arrangement. For instance, Darder (1991, p. 77) noted that “critical pedagogy views all education theory as intimately linked to ideologies shaped by power, politics, history and culture.” Critical pedagogy in education enables us to emphasize the importance of bottom-up power to change and challenge the power relations (see also Giroux, 1998). Following these views, language revitalization, as a tool to overcome symbolic domination, lies within the similar perspective of critical pedagogy and critical theory in education. Language revitalization emphasizes the importance of bottomup power to challenge symbolic domination created by unequal distribution of power. Critical thoughts in education, not only at school but in the community, bring the potential to challenge existing power inequality through means as language revitalization. In both contexts of this research, there are language revitalization attempts in the respective communities. In the case of Sámi languages, local initiatives started language nests, where children learn Sámi languages in a language immersion environment. In the North Sámi language, language revitalization started earlier than other among the smaller Sámi languages such as Inari and Skolt Sámi. However, currently, in Finland, there are also language nests for children whose mother tongue is Inari or Skolt Sámi. The Finnish government provides state funding to support Sámi language educational activities and all three Sámi languages spoken in Finland can be learned by adults in a vocational school in Inari. In the Ryukyus, although the Japanese nation state does not provide any official funding for teaching Ryukyuan in school, some local initiatives and the local prefectural government of Okinawa started to react gradually to language endangerment. The Okinawa Prefectural Assembly enacted a regulation drafted by the local government to promote the use of Ryukuyan languages and set up Language Day46 held every year. There are some local governmental movements which try to include Ryukyuan in school. The Department of Culture, Tourism and Sports of the Okinawa Prefecture Government implemented the “Shimakutuba47 46 Shimakutuba no hi. 47 Shimakutuba means shima (island, community, locality, native land) kutuba (language) in Okinawan. 64 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful prefectural campaign” and held the first Shimakutuba Citizen’s Rally on 18th September, 2013 (see Ishihara, 2016). At the rally, then Vice governor Kurayoshi Takara read the speech of then Governor Hirokazu Nakaima claiming that “The languages that Okinawan people have been passing down in each community are the basis of Okinawan culture. They identify Okinawa. We want to pass on our culture to future generations” (Ryukyu Shimpo, 19th September, 2013 as cited in Ishihara, 2016, p.69). The Department of Culture, Tourism and Sports of Okinawa Prefectural Government also published guidebooks to be distributed in schools in the Ryukyus in 201550 (Ishihara, 2016). These guidebooks have been distributed to elementary schools and junior high schools every year since 2015. However, according to my friends who are teaching in elementary and junior high schools in Okinawa, these books are never used in actual classroom. Most classes focusing on Ryukyuan language teaching are locally led by local school teachers and local initiatives, especially during “integrated study hour”48 (see Heinrich, 2018). As a result of recent interests in language revitalization, there are increasing number of books and learning materials, language classes, focusing on the Okinawan language. However, there are fewer educational materials, for Ryukyuan languages including Yaeyama49, Yonaguni, Miyako, Kunigami and Amami. Amami, for instance, is not included in Shimakutuba Dokuhon [island language reader] partly due to the fact that Amami is spoken in another prefecture, Kagoshima, not in Okinawa prefecture. This is a similar phenomenon noted in Sámi language communities in Nordic countries, where smaller Sámi languages, minorities within minority, tend to have less learning materials (see e.g. Huss, 2011; Todal, 1998). Most university driven language lessons on Ryukyuan languages focus on the Okinawan language rather than other Ryukyuan languages. Since there are no universities except on Okinawa main island, it is harder to teach other Ryukyuan languages spoken on other islands of the Ryukyus at the higher education level. In these courses at universities, due to its diversity even within the Okinawan language (see Figure 4), lecturers and teachers already have struggles in deciding which linguistic varieties of the Okinawan language they should focus on50in these courses. 50 This is published not by the department of education, but by the department of culture, tourism and sports. 48 Sōgōtekina gakushū no jikan (integrated study hours) was introduced in the school curriculum in 2000. Most of the language lessons for Ryukyuan languages in school are taken place in those hours by local teachers and initiatives in each community since there is no official curriculum for Ryukyuan languages in national curriculum. 49 I made a podcast series for the learners of Miyaran variety of Yaeyaman during my fieldwork. 50 No standard variety of any of the Ryukyuan languages exists, and ideas to develop standard varieties are controversial (Ishihara, 2016). 65 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful 4.3.2. Newspeakerness51 In this dissertation, I use the concept of newspeakerness to include and emphasize the importance of the people who may not be native speakers of the language (Jaffe, 2015; O’Rourke et al., 2015). It is defined as “individuals with little or no home or community exposure to a minority language but who instead acquire it through immersion or bilingual educational programs, revitalization projects or as adult language learners” (O’Rourke & Walsh, 2015). The focus on new speakers of endangered language is an emerging field since previously, most research of endangered languages tended to focus on older native speakers (see also O’Rourke, Pujolar, & Ramallo, 2015; Smith-Christmas, ÓMurchadha, Hornsby, & Moriarty, 2018). The concept of new speakers brings complexity to Fishmanian paradigm of language revitalization and in particular, the concept of new speakers brought up questions about the role of new speakers as potential agents of sociolinguistic change in the process of language revitalization or reclamation. O’Rourke (2018) pointed out that Fishman’s (1991) view of RLS is largely about expanding language use into institutions such as education and government, which is not really what happens in the current situation of language revitalization or reclamation. What comes out the other side of language decline as a revitalized language is not the same language, but rather a new language with many features of the old language, being used by new speakers in new venues and talking about new topics that were never talked about before in that language. Since very few researches of Ryukyuan languages looked at newspeakerness, the introduction of the concept has a potential to decolonize endangered language research since it prevents researchers from writing about data of native speakers but to shift their eyes also to newspeakers of already endangered languages. I use the concept of new speakers to bring the agencies of non-native speakers. Since members in endangered language communities already have stigma, the sole focus on older speakers could possibly bring another layer of stigma to the new speakers who are learning to speak their language (c.f. new speakers might feel not confident to speak the language). Many linguists who come to the Ryukyus with a goal to “save” us from language endangerment view our communities as “dying” or that we are “losing” our languages. These kinds of attitudes from researchers could potentially discourage non-native speakers.52 During my fieldwork, I have seen that people in their 40s or 50s are the most difficult to talk to because they tend to have developed some uncertainty about their linguistic identity. Even though they are proud to be from this community, those people tend to lack fluency in 51 Dr. Wesley Leonard kindly read the earlier version of this section and gave me a lot of constructive comments. Thank you very much. 52 For instance, some linguists consider the Yaeyaman language has fewer speakers so it is not worth going there, which relates to Hill`s (2002) notion of enumeration (also see Moore et al, 2010).. 66 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful the language. When I visit people’s houses, they tend to avoid being interviewed partly because they feel unsecured. Also, they were told by researchers that their languages are endangered, but they feel unsecured due to their lack of fluency. It shows that they are the generations to be empowered to ensure language reclamation efforts. In communities with minoritized or endangered languages, there are young people who wish to learn indigenous languages or who speak indigenous languages. To investigate the situation of indigenous language education, the concept of new speakers is important because it includes voices of emerging young generations learning the languages. During my studies, I have learned not only the Yaeyaman language, but also the Okinawan language.53 Although my research focuses on Yaeyaman, my mother’s family speaks Okinawan (see Hammine54, 2017). My grandmother is a native speaker of Yonabaru variety of Okinawan and I grew up listening to her speaking, especially when she is emotional, she tends to switch to Okinawan. She used to be a teacher of Japanese, which means that she used to teach Standard Japanese as an Okinawan teacher. Therefore, I have a position where I cannot completely deny the need for Okinawan former teachers like my grandmother, who are Okinawan to speak and teach Japanese for the better of the children. On the other hand, my other grandma, who is a native speaker of Miyaran Yaeyaman, did not finish elementary school. She used to tell me not to speak Miyaran to her, but I continued to do so, making many mistakes. One day during my fieldwork, she started crying and started holding my hand. She repeated “thank you for learning Miyaran.” She started praying for spirits and our ancestors, wishing them to pray for me. On that day, she did not want to let me go so I slept in her room, holding her hand. That was a moment of “muda” for me and for her. The Catalan noun muda (based on the verb mudar) means “to transform or change significantly and a linguistic “muda” to a critical juncture in a language trajectory when a person makes a significant shift towards the target language” (Walsh, 2017, p.5). Walsh (2017) explained that mudes entail a change in linguistic practice but may also be accompanied by a shift in positionality as subjects change their self-awareness and orientation to others. For me, this moment was an identity transformation (see also Matsumura55, 2018). The experience of learning an endangered indigenous language 53 I am taking the Okinawan language course by Dr. Gijs Van Der Lubbe and Misato Maeda at the University of the Ryukyus. They have been teaching the Okinawan language for local Okinawan students every week. The course is divided into three levels: beginner, intermediate and advanced. For each class, students meet one to two hours every week. 54 I wrote a bilingual essay in Yaeyaman and Okinawan with the help of elders in the village in 2017. 55 Yukie Matsumura (2018) explains her experience of learning and speaking Hyoomuni (Okinoerabu variety of Ryukyuan). She says that when it was the first time for me to write and read in Hyoomuni, so it was fun. She explains the relationship between psychological wellness and the language (Matsumura, 2018). 67 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful involves emotions. Emotions experienced by learners and speakers of an indigenous language have been theorized recently. Speakers experience a spectrum of emotions experienced during the process of becoming new speakers ranging from shame, fear, and frustration to excitement, joy and pride (Walsh, 2017). 4.3.3. Indigenous Teachers` Identities The experience of the individual teachers and the colonial history around indigenous languages influence the indigenous teachers’ identities in specific ways. For instance, according to Santoro and Reid (2006), indigenous teachers have a number of complex and sometimes conflicting roles within and beyond classrooms. Their roles cover not only those of teachers, but also that of a counsellor who listens to their students’ struggles and healing, due to the complicated feelings and psychological needs of students who are learning indigenous languages. Moreover, Liu and Xu (2011) point outed that when working in a complex situation, teachers negotiate their identities to adapt to the “new work order” where two pedagogies, indigenous pedagogies and pedagogies based on majority values, meet. Their research illuminates the complexity of teacher identity in the context where teachers must reconcile their conflicting selves to contend with a workplace in which liberal and traditional pedagogies coexist. These findings show that teachers need to shift, negotiate and construct their identities to cope with changes (Liu & Xu, 2011; Santoro & Reid, 2006). Furthermore, other researchers have explored indigenous teachers’ identities in other indigenous language communities. One example is the work of Steward (2005), who explored personal and professional identities among nine indigenous teachers in the lower mainland of British Columbia in Canada. While her study found several common themes, relating to marginalization and a passionate commitment to change, also emerged56. As previous studies in Sámi schools have shown (Keskitalo, 2010; Rahko-ravantti, 2016), Sámi language teachers are also constantly searching ways to work in culturally relevant ways in demanding context. As Burgess (2016) shows, more recently, the extent to which indigeneity plays a role in enacting agency is dependent upon individual lived experiences as well as personal responses to educational contexts. Based on these studies, I investigate and highlight the agency of an individual teacher as a key factor in the development of indigenous teachers’ identities. This research includes non-indigenous Sámi language and non-indigenous Yaeyaman or Ryukyuan teachers’ experiences for understanding the current situations of indigenous language education. There are non-indigenous Sámi language teachers who teach Sámi languages (see my first article). In the case of Yaeyama, there are non-Yaeyaman teachers who work in school but those teachers do not know the language since they speak only Japanese in school and at home (see my second article). 56 See more in my first article. 68 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Chapter 5 Research Questions The theoretical concepts presented in the previous chapter 4 will be taken into consideration in this thesis. This research focuses on educational contexts of Sámi and Ryukyuan languages, not only official educational institutions but also the everyday use of language practice and how indigenous languages are learned, acquired and taught. The purposes of this research are to (1) investigate the situations of indigenous language teaching and learning, and (2) facilitate better ways to embrace multilingualism in indigenous language communities. To achieve these purposes, three important concepts (identity, language and education) are discussed throughout three articles. The first purpose is explored in three articles, the first and second articles discuss it from data obtained from linguistic ethnographies in two contexts. The third article focuses on Japan, and explores the purpose (1) from a more historical, and political perspective. In this study, I set one main research question with six sub-questions. Each sub-study has two research questions (see Figure 2). Thus, there are seven questions in total. First, I generated one main question to achieve the aims and purposes of this study (see Chapter 2). The main question of this research concerns of how socio political, historical aspects of each context influence individuals in indigenous language communities. Main Research Question How do the social, political, and cultural aspects of each context, the history of policies toward indigenous languages and the implementation of language-ineducation-policies influence the identities of individuals in indigenous language communities? In each sub study, I aim to identity negotiations of social actors (teachers, new speakers and traditional speakers) in each context and examine how teachers, traditional speakers and new speakers position themselves in each context. To investigate their experiences of teaching and learning, I set the following research questions for each sub-study. In the first and second articles, I examined two contexts of indigenous language communities and analyzed experiences of indigenous language teaching and learning. Two research questions were generated to achieve the research purpose of (1) investigating the situations of indigenous language teaching and learning and (2) facilitating better ways to embrace multilingualism 69 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful in indigenous language communities. Each sub study has two research questions. The conclusion of this dissertation discusses purpose (2) to facilitate better ways to embrace multilingualism in indigenous language communities, in more greater detail. Research Questions for the First Article “Sámi language teachers professional identities explained through narratives about language acquisition” 1. How do Sámi language teachers narrate their experience of Sámi language acquisition? 2. How do these teachers construct their professional identities in various educational settings? Research Questions for the Second Article “Educated not to speak our language: Newspeakerness and language attitudes in the Yaeyaman language” 1. How do schoolteachers face the language endangerment situation in Miyara village on Ishigaki island? 2. What kind of language attitudes do people have toward the Yaeyaman language? After conducting two ethnographic fieldwork studies in Finland and Japan, I found the concept of “indigeneity” and “linguistic-self orientalism” as core concepts which are closely related to the language endangerment of the Ryukyuan languages. Therefore, for the third article, I adjusted my original research plan which was to compare the two contexts of Finland and Japan, and I instead focused more on indigenous policies, and language policies of Japan and examined how these policies have influenced the current language endangerment of the Ryukyus. I re-generated two additional aims for the third sub-study for this dissertation. These aims are (1) to investigate how the educational policies of Japan have dealt with education for its indigenous population historically and today and (2) examine how indigenous groups, pursue their indigenous identities in the current Japanese educational system (see also Chapter 2 for details). The following two research questions are examined in the third sub-study. 70 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Research Questions for the Third Article Indigenous in Japan? -The reluctance of the Japanese state to acknowledge Indigenous peoples and their need for education1. How have the educational policies of Japan dealt with the education for its indigenous population historically and today? 2. How do indigenous groups pursue their indigenous identities in the current Japanese society? 71 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Chapter 6 Methodology This chapter introduces the methodological framework and my methodological approach used in this research. The chapter is divided into four sections. First, I introduce the main methodological framework of this research: Indigenous Research Methodology. Second, I discuss research with Indigenous Research Methodology as a means to decolonize endangered language research. Then, I introduce linguistic ethnography as a means of data collection for this research. Finally, I mention my positionality and the research ethics of this work. 6.1. Indigenous Research Methodology, Participatory Research, Action Research I employ Indigenous Research Methodology (henceforth, IRM) (Smith, 1999) as a main methodological framework of this study. The emergence of IRM aims at gaining indigenous peoples’ autonomy in the meaning making of the research process. IRM allows indigenous researchers to include their agencies in theory building and enables indigenous researchers to put forward their perspectives aside from the frames of Western epistemologies suited to Western academic though, which are, in most cases, different from the indigenous ways of thinking. Based on these understanding, in this research, my experience forms part of this study and I situate myself as a cultural insider (see also Gaudet, 2009). The choice of this framework relates to my philosophy as a researcher and to the important terminology in research philosophy: epistemology (beliefs and assumptions we make about knowledge and what constitutes acceptable, valid and legitimate knowledge) (see Isaeva, 2018). In the framework of IRM, it is “the cultural aspirations, understandings and practices of indigenous people that implement and organize the research process and that position researchers in a way as to operationalize self-determination” (Bishop, 2010). For my epistemology, I assume that that my research process shapes and constitutes knowledge and my experiences as an indigenous scholar shape the knowledge making process. Hence, as Bishop (2010) claimed, IRM places emphasis on how the cultural context positions the participants by constructing the story lines. It also emphasizes how the language is used and how the researcher-research partners (participants) relationship is organized. Thus, IRM rejects outside control over what constitutes authority and truth and it emphasizes the agency of indigenous peoples and their way of meaning making, theory building based on their self-determination. IRM also promotes an 72 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful approach to validity; that is, what is valid in research. It locates the power within indigenous practices. By locating power within the community, what is acceptable and what is not acceptable research, text, and/or processes is determined and defined by the research community itself (see also Denzin & Lincoln, 1994, 2008). Based on these philosophical understandings, I interact with the community throughout the research process and construct knowledge with my research partners and the research community. This approach has been used not only in endangered language research but in other research with indigenous communities in general. By choosing this methodology as a basis for the research framework, I aim to not only use this methodology to investigate two endangered language communities, but to also establish a more solid foundation for indigenous scholarships in Japan and more generally in Asia. There is a need to include more indigenous researchers for exploring and developing the decolonization process of research in a Japanese context (see also Shinya,57 1972). Partly because there has not yet been a widely known translation of “indigenous methodology” in the Japanese language yet (see also Uzawa, 2019), my research becomes, to the best of my knowledge, the first attempt at the PhD level to use this framework in the context of the Ryukyuan language endangerment in Japan. Within the framework of IRM, I combine participatory community-based research methodology with an action research (see Gaudet, 2009). Participatory communitybased research, a relatively new approach in academia, is both a theoretical and a methodological inquiry that emerged with the rise of critical indigenous scholarship as mentioned above, encouraged by internationally recognized indigenous Maori scholars such as Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2000, 2008) and Russel Bishop (Bishop & Glynn, 1999; Bishop, 1999, 2010). The participatory research paradigm emerged within IRM as an alternative way of thinking of the research process. The emergence of participatory research within the social science, educational science and sociolinguistics stems from the awareness that research initiatives are enriched by the participation of the knowledge keepers. In the last few decades, researchers have been encouraged to re-examine epistemological foundations as part of the methodological shift from an objective model of science to a humanistic approach (e.g. Gaudet, 2009). Some scholars argue for a participatory process that directly addresses the inevitable issues of power and control, thereby recognizing the limitations of the methodology (Varcoe, Brown, Calam, Buchanan, & Newman, 2011). Throughout my research, I seek to understand the ways in which participatory community-based research either re57 Shinya (1972), in his book, Ainu Minzoku Teikōshi (A History of Resistance of the Ainu) writes about the need to include more Ainu scholars in research on Ainu issues. To the author’s knowledge, in Japanese academia, there is still little awareness in research on indigenous peoples and there is a need to improve our understanding of indigenous methodology in Japanese scholarship. 79 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful outsider researcher, two indigenous Sámi researchers assisted me in the data analysis and article publication. In Japan, all interviews were conducted using Japanese, Okinawan and Yaeyaman. I mostly started speaking Yaeyaman with my research partners but some did not wish to speak it with me so we used Japanese (see more in my second article). In most field locations, schools, educational contexts on the Yaeyama islands, I used mostly Japanese and Yaeyaman. Those interviews were translated, analysed, coded by the researcher. I employed a linguistic biography (Busch et al., 2015) as the main method for conducting the interviews, focusing on the teachers’ language-learning and teaching experiences related to their professional agency. The analysis is based on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork (four months in Northern Lapland and other months in Rovaniemi) in 2016-2017 and nine ethnographic fieldwork in 2017-2018 on the Yaeyama and Okinawa islands, during which I observed the use of indigenous languages in formal and non-formal settings in multiple locations in the respective villages. In Finland, my research partners were aged between 25 and 60 years and both male and female teachers were included. The participants had attended folk and primary schools in their childhood. Each interview lasted 1-4 hours. Some interviews were conducted at the schools where the teachers worked, and others were conducted outside the school context. In Japan, my partners were aged between 6 and 94 years and both male and female teachers, volunteer teachers, and some children were included. For both fields, open-ended questions were created before the interview period, employing a standard semi-structured interview methodology (Kvale, 2007; Wei & Moyer, 2008). For the data analysis, within the general framework of positioning theory (Davies & Harré, 1990), I used Bamberg’s (2000) three-stage process to analyse how interviewees position themselves in their interviews. I paid special attention to how language teachers and language learners remembered their experiences (see also Keskitalo et al., 2016). During coding, all interviews were replayed several times for in-depth analysis. Following Steward (2005) and Rahko-Ravantti (2016), I initially examined the following themes: (1) the impact of the official discourse of identity, (2) experiences of power relations within the community, in teacher education and in the workplace, (3) devaluation of indigenous programmes and curricula, (4) being a language resource of indigenous languages for their students, (5) obligation to their communities and (6) participants’ complex role as language teachers. Different themes were generated and analysed. For my third study, I combined data obtained during my fieldwork with language policy document analysis. In the third study, I focused more on the analysis of policy documents and historical analysis of language-in-education-policies toward indigenous languages in Japan. I also analyzed how ideologies in the language-ineducation-policies of Japan interact with indigenous identities. The analysis focused on policy documents, a historical analysis of indigenous education policy and 80 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful how indigenous peoples as social actors influence and are influenced by policies. According to Tollefson & Perez-Milans (2018), language policy is fraught with tensions between the processes of social change and the still-powerful ideological framework of modern nationalism (Tollefson & Perez-Milans, 2018). I analysed language policy in terms of the ideology which it produces and in which it is embedded. I discuss and analyse language-in-education-policies from a social theory perspective which is useful for discussing the role of the state, power and the relationship between social constraint and individual freedom (e.g. Foucault, 1972; Giddens, 1985; Habermas, 1973, 1979; see more in Section 4.2.3.). 81 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Chapter 8 Summaries and Evaluation of the Sub-Studies This section summaries and evaluates each sub-study. In Section 8.1., I summarize the paper entitled “Sámi language teachers` professional identities explained through narratives about language acquisition.” This paper is a collaboration with two Sámi researchers, Dr Pigga Keskitalo and Dr Erika Katjaana Sarivaara. It is based on my fieldwork in Lapland in Finland. In Section 8.2., I summarize the paper entitled “Educated not to speak our language: language attitudes and new speakers in the Yaeyaman language.” This paper is based on my fieldwork in the Yaeyaman community in the Ryukyus. Section 8.3. summarize my third paper entitled “Indigenous in Japan? The reluctance of Japanese state to acknowledge indigenous peoples and their need for education,” which is based on a historical analysis of language-in-educationpolicies of Japan. It also draws data from my own fieldwork in the Ryukyus. 8.1. Sub study 1: Sámi language teachers’ professional identities explained through narratives about language acquisition My first study was conducted in northern Finland. I focused on how teachers’ professional identities are shaped by their language acquisition process. The results are based on the narratives of nine North, Inari and Skolt Sámi language teachers. The result suggests that two aspects of teachers’ narratives were significantly linked to their identities as Sámi language teachers: (1) their backgrounds (indigenous/nonindigenous) and (2) their language acquisition experiences (acquired Sámi language in childhood/adulthood). The results of the first sub-study indicate that Sámi language teachers have a range of professional identities and their professional identities are influenced by not only their language acquisition process but also their teaching experiences. I highlighted how the Sámi language teachers perceive their background (indigenous/ non-indigenous) and their language acquisition experiences (acquired Sámi in childhood/adulthood) to influence their professional identities. First, symbolic domination (Bourdieu, 1991) appears constantly in the teachers’ narratives in this study. For instance, some teachers described how Finnish was considered the norm in society: it was the primary, —if not only—, language of instruction in school and some stated that they did not speak Sámi at home. In this case of symbolic domination, both minority and majority groups believed that the majority language and culture was stronger, which was considered normal. To resist the symbolic domination, the language choice for each teacher plays an important role. 82 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful The choice to speak a particular language, whether freely chosen or imposed, seemed to play an important role. Their choice to speak, study in indigenous languages, speak them and/or teach them is a way to resist symbolic domination (Bourdieu, 1991; Heller, 1997). Yet, some indigenous teachers became language teachers, at least in part, to try to meet the expectations of their indigenous communities, particularly those of small communities trying to preserve their languages. Another important result of my first study is that non-indigenous teachers who have learned Sámi languages as adults actively link their roles as language teachers to the language revitalisation project. Sámi language revitalisation has been active since the 1990s. Many teachers, including non-indigenous teachers, have learned Sámi languages as adults. In particular, the Inari Sámi community has revitalised its language with the cooperation of non-indigenous language teachers (Olthuis, Kivelä, & Skutnubb-Kangas, 2013; Pasanen, 2015). To ensure its survival, the community has strategically recruited and welcomed non-indigenous people to learn and transmit the language to children and others who want to learn Inari Sámi as a second language (Pasanen, 2015). In this study, non-Sámi teachers who learned Inari Sámi as adults perceived themselves to be accepted in indigenous communities and in schools, despite being non-native speakers and nonindigenous. This finding reveals the Sámi community’s pragmatic attitude towards maintaining and revitalising their language. This research reminds us of the importance of carefully examining smaller and endangered languages as the results suggest that teachers who learned Sámi languages as adults tend to have positive attitudes towards themselves and their roles as teachers, thus implying a positive change in their identities though learning indigenous languages. During the interviews, some teachers mentioned that their non-nativeness sometimes reduced their confidence in teaching, even though the communities seemed to accept teachers who acquired Sámi as adults. Being a nonnative speaker could be a benefit in such cases when community members support the teachers positively and they appreciate having a teacher. Thus, it would seem that the Sámi community has largely avoided the non-native fallacy, that is, the idea that only native speakers can be good language teachers by supporting non-native language teachers strategically (see Phillipson, 1992 for more details). For indigenous language education, there are much more diverse advantages of being a language teacher65. For instance, one advantage of being a non-native language teacher of an indigenous language is to become involved in language 65 For instance, for indigenous language teachers, one advantage of being a non-native language teacher of indigenous language is to be able to involve in language revitalization. Some teachers in my research shows that their role as teachers is much bigger and they are working toward revitalizing the language as well as educating young people. This is a particular advantage that only indigenous language teachers can have, while dominant language teachers cannot have. 83 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful revitalization. Some teachers in my research showed that their role as teachers is much different from that of a teacher of dominant languages. Being able to work with an indigenous community toward an aim of revitalizing their languages gives teachers hope, a dream and positivity which cannot be experienced in dominant language teaching and learning. This is an advantage that only indigenous language teachers can have, and that dominant language teachers cannot. There have been disadvantages and limitation in this research. First, due to the lack of my knowledge about Sámi communities and due to my lack of Sámi languages, the analysis might be influenced by these factors. Moreover, the data is small due to the limited time and budget of my research. The future research needs to focus on developing theories of identity negotiations in different Sámi language communities. Despite these disadvantages, the findings of this study show that some teachers have lack of confidence as a teacher of indigenous languages due to the fact that they acquired the language as a second language. For such teachers, further support and validation of their professional identities is necessary. This is an important factor to remember, because research on indigenous education should be aimed at empowering the weak and less powerful and not discouraging them from challenging the existing symbolic power in society. 8.2. Sub-Study 2: Educated Not to Speak Our Language -Language Attitudes and Newspeakerness in the Yaeyaman LanguageTraditional native speaker communities in the Ryukyus have been eroded as a result of modernization, leading to a break the intergenerational transmission of indigenous language in domains such as home or education. While the transmission of indigenous languages from one generation of native speakers to the next has for long been considered a crucial part of linguistic vitality (Fishman, 2001), the recent theorization around new speakers seeks to explicitly question the native speaker ideology in language revitalization movements (see also O’Rourke et al., 2015; Smith-Christmas et al., 2018). Through their linguistic practices, new speakers have the potential to generate bottom-up language planning on the ground, influencing language learning and creating future generations of speakers. New speakers are expected to have potential to create and implement “invisible language planning” defined as “non-governmental and spontaneous language planning relating to the acquisition and use of a language” (Pakir, 1994) and may also work as a resistance against the top-down language policies introduced by the state in the revitalization. To examine the voices and experiences of indigenous language teachers and learners in the Yaeyaman language community, I conducted my second fieldwork focusing on Yaeyaman language education, focusing on one variety called meeramuni or Miyaran (see more Section 3.2.). 84 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful My findings of the second study show that educational policy is part of the problem of language endangerment in Miyara. Athough indigenous language teachers express concerns about keeping and preserving the Yaeyaman language, the centralized school curriculum and the system of teacher circulation represent an institutional, linguistic and ideological obstacle for implementing Miyaran into actual teaching practices. It shows an example of people “choosing” which language to speak in a context for some people in Miyara, leaving the village means “gaining” education or getting economically better jobs. The disparity between people who only go to high school and those who go on to study at universities outside the Yaeyama Islands also reflects the gap between those who keep the indigenous language and those who do not. There is no possibility of learning Yaeyaman in higher education in Japan. These educational policies, which assimilate Yaeyaman systematically, are part of the reasons why Yaeyaman has become critically endangered. In order to maintain Yaeyaman, educational policies in Japan for indigenous languages needs to be completely rethought, in a manner similar to other indigenous languages in America or in Europe, where research shows that indigenous peoples become consciously indigenous themselves and accept themselves after learning indigenous languages through education (e.g. Hornberger, 2014). Picture 3. One of the revitalization activities in the Ryukyus, an example from a Miyara Elementary School,66 2017 66 I conducted Miyaran language lesson with Dr Christopher Davis, a linguist at the University of the Ryukyus. I translated two songs from Disney films (see Chapter 6, p.76) with the help of the elders in the village. 85 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Interviews with language teachers who teach the Yaeyaman language in school revealed another problem for indigenous language education in the Ryukyus: a lack of compatibility in language attitudes and beliefs between traditional speakers and new speakers. I argued that some types of language attitudes from traditional speakers might act as an obstacle for new speakers to use and speak indigenous languages comfortably. Younger speakers (in their thirties or forties) seem to be afraid of misusing Miyaran, especially in terms of the correct use of honorifics, which is known to be complicated and different from Japanese. It means that new speakers need to overcome their lack of confidence related to “correct” use of honorifics first, then need to overcome such negative attitudes from traditional speakers to speak indigenous language. This lack of compatibility between new speakers and traditional speakers might be one of the reasons of language endangerment in Yaeyama. Among traditional speakers of Miyaran, I find tendencies of self-orientalism with regard to their language. Similarly, to what has been discussed previously in Fishman & Garcia (2010), I define self-orientalism as a phenomenon where individuals subconsciously devalue their own language in comparison to the dominant language here, Japanese. In Miyara, the features of linguistic selforientalism manifest most obviously in the belief that Miyaran is “ugly” whereas Japanese is “beautiful”, and a desire to speak “beautiful Japanese” and in doing so proving to be “good Japanese.” While speaking Miyaran has a positive image of keeping tradition and authenticity with regard to ethnolinguistic identity, it is at the same time perceived as not being “sophisticated” by many traditional speakers. I further noted that this linguistic self-orientalism can be found in educational polices made by City Board of Education. Previous research in Yaeyaman studies show that it was crucial to stress a theory of common origin between Yaeyama and the Japanese main islands to justify Yaeyama’s rightful membership in the Japanese nation (see also section 3.2. of this thesis). Yaeyaman people are proud of being able to “speak like the Japanese” and this perception is linked to their experiences of colonization, their acceptance of symbolic domination and their self-orientalism. Language-in-education-policy based on symbolic domination, whether consciously or not, continues to reproduce the self-orientalism of Yaeyaman speakers. The problem in Ryukyuan language endangerment is larger than that of school and educational policies (see also Bowern, 2017). People usually choses a language which minimizes their exposure to physical or symbolic violence. Symbolic violence is often shaped by policies and it causes language endangerment. However, there are other factors which seems to continuously affect language endangerment on the ground in the case of Yaeyaman. Traditional speakers tend to have linguistic self-orientalism, thus, discourage younger speakers from speaking the indigenous 86 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful language67 and tend to lack confidence in teaching Yaeyaman as shown by volunteer teachers viewing themselves as “unqualified teachers”, because they have never studied in higher educational institutions. On the other hand, there are some young speakers, especially young men, who constantly make effort to learn and speak the language to prove their identity as Miyaran. There is need to raise awareness that one can be “beautiful”, “young” and “educated” and, at the same time, be a competent speaker of the indigenous language. I would like to learn and speak my language despite those difficulties. It shows that there is a need to react to the language endangerment from perspectives of decolonization to empower minority indigenous languages (see also May, 2001). My findings suggest that there is also an urgent need to re-evaluate the monolingual policy prevailing in the Japanese education system since it crucially enhances linguistic self-orientalism of traditional speakers. At present, we are educated not to speak our language. 8.3. Sub-Study 3: Indigenous in Japan? The Reluctance of the Japanese State to Acknowledge Indigenous Peoples and Their Need for Education During the second fieldwork in my community, I met with some confusion. I met a teacher from Kohama island who told me that “we are indigenous68” I met another traditional native speaker who told me “our language has the oldest Japanese word, which we can see in our national anthem.69” When I learn my language and try to speak it with the elders, some people in Yaeyama told me, “I don’t speak my language with a beautiful woman” (see more in my second article). My question shifted: Why can I not be beautiful while speaking my own language? This question is deep and painful. Having been hidden my indigenous identity while growing up as Japanese, when I take my identity and language back, I realise there is something deep within my community that needs to be addressed. In my research for the first and second articles, I found that Ryukyuan and Sámi teachers tend to experience unequal power relations towards their own languages 67 During the fieldwork, I met one researcher who does fieldwork one area of the Yaeyama island. He told me that especially people whose age is between 40s, 50s, and 60s tend to comment that “you are from outside and why do you speak this language?” 68 He used the word senjūmin (see abstract foot note 2, and Section 4.1.1.). He identifies himself as non-native speaker and he thinks his Yaeyaman is rusty, but in his everyday conversations with elders on the island, he uses Yaeyaman (See Hammine, 2019 for more on Kohama). 69 Perhaps, once a person goes to university and become “indigenous,” he tends to lose the language, while people who remain on the island who deny indigeneity are the one who retain communicative competence in Yaeyaman. More research is needed. 87 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful throughout their professional and personal lives. Active language revitalization occurred in Sámi since 1970s, which seems to have had a positive influence on their negative attitudes toward indigenous languages. Teachers of Sámi languages have access to higher education in their languages. However, language policy in Japan has ignored existing indigenous languages within the nation (Fujita-Round & Maher, 2008; Gayman, 2011; Heinrich, 2012) and even accelerated the selforientalism of traditional speakers of indigenous languages (see Section 8.2.). An assimilative language policy has influenced the self-orientalism of traditional speakers of Yaeyaman, which has influenced young new speakers. Thus, there is a need to investigate language-in-education policies to cultivate a space for positive construction of indigenous identities in Japan. In my third article, therefore, I set two aims: (1) to investigate how the educational policies of Japan have dealt with education for its indigenous population historically (2) to examine how indigenous groups, pursue their indigenous identities in the current Japanese educational system. I analysed the Japan’s state policy on indigenous peoples and their need for education. I investigated how education policies have contributed to the ignorance of indigenous groups in Japan historically and today. The “Japanization” of Indigenous population happened simultaneously in both in the North, in Ainu land and in the South in the Ryukyus. Under the ideology of one-ethnicity as “Japanese,” non-Japanese identities, indigenous identities, have been assimilated through means such as the assignment of Japanese names, education in the Japanese language, construction of shintō70 shrines in indigenous land and adoption of Japanese customs (Howell, 2004; Oguma, 1998). The goal of these educational policies was always the assimilation because it was not possible to achieve the ideology of monoethnic, monocultural, monolingual nation with the presence of non-Japanese (Ainu and Ryukyuans /Okinawans) peoples (see also Taira, 1997; Weiner, 1997). How can indigenous individuals pursue their indigenous identities in Japan? According to statistics from the Hokkaido government, the Ainu are approximately 0.02 percent of the total population of Japan and their numbers are extremely small. It is difficult to estimate the exact number, both because many Ainu try to hide their ethnic backgrounds or ancestry out of fear of discrimination and because of substantial intermarriage over many generations (Takayanagi & Shimomura, 2013; Emori, 2015). There are many young Ainu individuals who do not affirm their Ainu identity and heritage due to the negative attitudes to their Ainu heritage and ethnicity that their parents and ancestors experienced. In the Ryukyus, Japan’s assimilation policy of encouraging people to speak Japanese discouraged people from speaking their local languages (see Heinrich 2012a; Kondo 2014; Oguma 1998; and Ishihara 2016, among others). As I have argued previously, Ryukyuans 70 Shintō is a state religion of Japan. 88 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful also identify themselves as Japanese since their ancestors made efforts to be Japanese by studying Japanese to achieve success in mainstream society. Although a strong desire to learn the Ryukyuan languages and culture is reported (e.g. Ishihara, 2010), there is not yet systematic education which recognises the need for indigenous language and cultural transmission in the Ryukyus. The speakers themselves devalue their own language and culture due to the history of assimilation in the past and believe their language as “dirty.” Currently, it is not possible to be educated in the local language, which feeds to negative attitudes toward their heritage. This kind of internalized psychological colonialism is a phenomenon often reported in other Indigenous groups all over the world (see e.g. Fryberg, Rebecca, & Burack, 2018). Educational policies in the past and present have fed to the ignorance among the majority of Japanese citizens of the multilingual, multiethnic, multicultural reality and to the reluctance of Indigenous groups to affirm their own heritage and identities in Japan (see e.g. Maher, 1997; Gayman, 2011; Heinrich, 2011). Agreeing with Gayman (2011), the status of groups as indigenous minorities in Japan has been downplayed, compared to the international standard set in UNDRIP.16 The principles of UNDRIP, particularly, Articles 13, 14 and 15 on education and cultural transmission are (1) the notion of indigenous knowledge, (2) the recognition of the devastating effects of colonization, especially through schooling, (3) the simultaneous recognition of the need for modern education in achieving the political and economic aims of indigenous peoples to further their own autonomy and self-determination, and (4) recognition of the need and desire to bring more congruence between traditional ways of knowing and modern knowledge practices as epitomized by the school (Gayman, 2011). These principles are not taken into consideration in current education policies in Japan, for either Ryukyuans or Ainu. Their indigenous rights in education are yet unachieved in the Japanese educational system. I concluded my article that multicultural, multilingual educational policy based on the multilingual reality of the different regions in Japan enables indigenous individuals to choose to construct indigenous identities, comfortably as well as to achieve “success” in society where dominant values prevail. In other words, policy based on multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual reality of the nation could be a solution; being indigenous could be one choice in Japan. 95 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful it makes it difficult for indigenous community members to have a positive thought of learning it and acquiring it. To overcome this linguistic self-orientalism of traditional speakers and encourage new speakers’ effort to learn the language, it is important for traditional speakers to accept and encourage their efforts. It, then, might be easier for some of the members of indigenous communities to live without facing the pain resulting from the colonial history. Language revitalization does not work when it is imposed on language communities, like I discussed in the example of Sami language revitalization. Researchers argue that language revitalization has to be the desire of community members (Mufwene, 2017; Whaley, 2011), but if the community has negative attitudes toward their language resulting from history and pollical situation, language revitalization is not only about desire of the community. If they are hurting themselves psychologically without realizing it like a case in Yaeyaman, what language revitalization could do might be bigger than language: it becomes an issue of self-esteem and confidence (see 9.7.3 of this thesis). Research on other indigenous language communities suggest that learning indigenous languages could possibly reduce racism (as mentioned in Walsh, 2018). In my own research experiences, people who study Ryukyuan languages or other indigenous languages usually tend to be kind and understand the inequality more than people who don’t study them. There might be a reason for everyone to study and be aware of indigenous languages and the speakers of indigenous languages. Future research should investigate how younger people or children (both indigenous and non-indigenous) can learn Yaeyaman without the constraints that have accumulated over time as a result of Yaeyaman colonial experiences. Future research should also investigate whether there is a clear link exists between the uptake of Indigenous Languages by nonIndigenous people and a reduction in racism (see also Walsh, 2018). Both my first and second studies suggest the importance of teachers as social actors to possible changes and implementation of indigenous language education. I view it is crucial for language teachers to have positive self-esteem as language teachers. This positive self-image and positive identities could enhance language learners (new speakers) to cultivate positive identities as indigenous language speakers (e.g. Cummins, 2014). For such teachers, further support and validation of their professional identities is necessary to overcome linguistic self-orientalism unconsciously embedded in the community. 9.4. Education Policies based on Multilingualism The third study shows the historical and current educational policies of Japan, which do not favor indigenous languages in Japan. At present, owing to the lack of multilingualism in educational policy, it is not possible to learn Ryukyuan 96 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful languages in school, which results in difficulties in developing indigenous identities in Japan. Also, I discussed that both state and local educational policy based on monolingual ideology is part of the problem. Although teachers express concerns about the Yaeyaman language, the centralized school curriculum and the system of teacher circulation represent an institutional, linguistic and ideological obstacle for implementing indigenous language into actual teaching practices. To encourage elders to support young new speakers’ effort in Yaeyama and to be able to speak our language also after getting educated at higher educational institution, I argue that there is a need to re-evaluate our multilingualism in the Ryukyus (see also Hammine, 2019). and that both state and local educational policies based on a monolingual ideology are part of the problem. There is also a need to recognize the multiple linguistic, cultural and intercultural resources that exist in actual education which will enable individuals from indigenous communities to construct indigenous identities that are compatible with the modern world (Cummins, 2001; Hammine, 2019; Hornberger, 2014; Hornberger, 2010; Skutnabb-Kangas, 2010). My findings suggest that there is a need to improve the education and professional education focusing on multilingualism and multiculturalism for people with Yaeyaman language abilities (e.g. Hornberger, 2014). To conclude this research, I present a new model for indigenous language communities (Figure 9). I suggest three aspects that need to be addressed: (1) lack of self-esteem (language attitudes), (2) unconscious richness in their linguistic abilities (language practice), and (3) an invisible indigenous language policy (language management) (see Figure. 8). These three problems identified from my research are the obstacles to language revitalization within the language community. I hope this model could be adopted not only in the two research contexts of my research but also in other indigenous language communities in the world. 9.5. A New Model of Teacher Education for Indigenous Language Teachers I previously argued that language education needs to be decolonized from within endangered language communities. Decolonization is not easy, but I attempt to develop a model of decolonizing teacher education based on three identified problems of my research. The findings of my research revealed three problems: (1) lack of self-confidence and self-affirmation of teachers (traditional speakers), (2) unconscious linguistic richness of indigenous language speakers, (3) invisibility of community-based language policies (see Figure 8, p.97). To decolonize language education from within the community, there is a need to change these three problems which seem to affect language endangerment of the Yaeyaman language. Before moving on to my suggestion for how to teach and learn an endangered language (i.e. 97 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful Yaeyaman) comfortably and how to decolonize language education from within, I remind the readers of the purpose of this research. One purpose of this thesis was to investigate the situations of indigenous language teaching and learning. The second purpose of this research was to facilitate the better ways to embrace multilingualism in indigenous language communities (see Chapter 2) and one of the aims of this research was to suggest a possible suggestion of an indigenous language teacher education based on the result of this study. As a conclusion, I present the following model of indigenous language teacher education for indigenous languages maintenance, which could hopefully be used in other indigenous minority language communities around the world. Notably, in my new model for indigenous language teacher education, I suggest three components of the model from indigenous perspective based on the results of my research; (1) the invisible language policy replaces what his model calls language policy, (2) the unconscious linguistic richness replaces what his model calls language practice, and (3) the lack of confidence and self-esteem replaces what his model calls language attitudes and belief. Language Policy Making invisible indigenous policy visible Language Practice Making unconscious multilingual practice visible to language speakers Language Attitudes Increasing Confidence and Self-Esteem of Language Teachers Figure. 9. A new model of indigenous language teacher education 9.5.1. Making “invisible” language policy visible For language policy, I emphasize the importance of community-based-language policy, meaning that at community level, there are policies which are made by indigenous populations by themselves. Festival, art, and music are part of our 98 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful traditional education in the Ryukyus. In the traditional festivals, we are supposed to speak our languages, and that is where we learn the language. Educational policy usually focuses on “official” policies, but there are more things we should include. We learn, we speak, we dance, we sing in indigenous languages. Indigenous policies are there; they are just not visible (see also Canagarajah, 2006). Just as multilingualism of the Ryukyus has been brainwashed by the language policy based on monolingual ideology of the nation state, there is a need to revisit the concept of language policy once again by recognizing the translanguaging practices and the pedagogy of elders in the Ryukyus (see mnore in Hammine, 2019). The findings of this research suggest that there are what is called “invisible language policies” in the case of Yaeyaman. However, what they call, invisible language policies are those which are the most visible for endangered language community members (see Picture 2). Invisible language policies are “invisible” when it is looked upon from the majority viewpoint but they are the most visible policies for the most people in the village of Miyara because they made these policies and these policies are embedded in their everyday life. Local language policies such as shown in Picture 2 are the ones which are closer to them and those are the ones they can make by themselves. In turn, the language policy of the state is rather invisible for those people who are situated inside unequal power relations. Local people, indigenous people are more focused on the language policies of their village, which are to them, more visible. For the indigenous population, the national state policy or prefectural government policy is invisible because they do not see it and they do not make it. To get back what has been taken from us, it is important to decolonize research of language policy, by looking at our way of language policy which comes from inside the communities. This is an example of decolonising perspectives in language policy research, which could raise awareness in the ideas of institutional and substantial colonialism (see e.g. Leonard, 2019). Leonard (2019) points out that Linguistics emerges largely from a Euroamerican colonial tradition, whose traditions establish languages as objects to be described in scientific materials (e.g., texts, corpora, technical publications) for multiple audiences. Contemporary linguistic science privileges certain ways of defining language and language policy. Language policy is defined particularly by structural units that are described and analysed not only separately from each other, but that are also disembodied from the people who use them, thus contradicting indigenous values of interrelatedness as a framework for describing and interacting with the world. By introducing those terms “invisible language policy” which does not come from insider perspective of language communities, there is a danger of emphasizing majority viewpoint in language policy research. Thus, there is a need not to call those indigenous language policies as “invisible” since these policies are the most visible policies for the local population. For researchers who study endangered languages, it is important not to endanger endangered languages by looking at indigenous languages as an object of research. 99 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful As one of the solutions to this, there should be more indigenous researchers from the Ryukyus who understand this point of view in order to decolonise research traditions in Japan (see Hammine, 2019). For Sámi languages, there are legal protections including the Sámi Language Act and the constitution of Finland mentions guarantees the right to learn Sámi languages for indigenous Sámi population. This makes what researchers call “invisible” policy more “visible” to the majority people. But the naming of invisible language policy is contradictory. If we also have legal framework to visualize our indigenous languages in the Ryukyus, it could further strengthen the positions of Ryukyuan languages in Japan. It, thus, relates to self-determination of Ryukyuan people to their own languages, and culture (McCarty & Lee, 2014). Learning from an example of Sámi language revitalization, my research shows that there is need to make “invisible” language policy “visible” in the Ryukyus by legally. Therefore, making legal means for indigenous Ryukyuan languages is one way not to endanger endangered languages (Whaley, 2011). 9.5.2. Unconscious Richness in Language Practice When building an indigenous language teacher education, my finding suggests that it is important to shed light on the unconscious richness of traditional speakers in the language community (see more in Hammine, 2019). I showed that many traditional speakers of Yaeyaman are multilingual, but they are unconsciously multilingual since national policy has considered their linguistic variety as less valuable compared to standard Japanese. Those national policies in Japan have made traditional speakers unaware of their linguistic richness. The teacher education model for indigenous language teachers needs to bring the unconscious richness forward and make traditional speakers be aware of their own richness. There is unconscious richness in traditional speakers of the Ryukyuan languages, which need to be focused upon. Previous research affirms the importance of affirming heritage language learners’ multilingual talent as a valued component of their identities and hence as a part of what is called “empowering education” (Cummins, 2014; Evans & Hornberger, 2005). We can see differences in the teachers’ awareness of indigenous language as talents of students and teachers. I highlight the importance of affirming the heritage language learners’ multilingual talents as a valued component of their identities. When school contexts reinforce status differentials between home and school languages, students disengage with their identities from their home languages and the process of language loss is accelerated (Cummins, 1986). We can see the result of this in traditional speakers’ attitudes toward the indigenous languages in the Ryukyus, but they are using translanguaging in their everyday life. It is important that heritage language learners are provided for and choose to engage in bringing heritage languages forward. 100 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful This shows that building a model for indigenous language education requires us as insiders to make this unconscious multilingualism conscious (see also in Hammine, 2019), which means it should make us notice what we have on the ground level. It is also important to look outside Japan and learn from other contexts. Being able to speak different languages means to learn about outside practices but also to look inside. Multilingualism, therefore, has positive aspects. 9.5.3. Lack of Confidence and Self-Esteem in Language Attitudes and Belief For the last component of Spolsky’s model, I propose the importance of dealing with the lack of confidence and lack of self-esteem in language attitudes and beliefs amongst indigenous language teachers. One of the main points of my research is that because of the history of assimilation in the Ryukyus and in Sapmi, teachers of indigenous origin experienced the process of linguistic assimilation to speak, learn, and teach dominant languages, i.e. Finnish or Japanese, throughout their education. Because education reinforced status differentials between home and school languages (i.e. Ryukyuan as a home language and Japanese as an official school language), those indigenous disengaged their identities from their home languages and the process of language loss was accelerated in the Ryukyus (e.g. Cummins, 2014). We can see the result of this language loss in traditional speakers’ attitudes toward the indigenous languages of the Ryukyus (for a further discussion of attitudes, see my second article). Traditional speakers still devalue their own language and culture due to the history of assimilation and discrimination in the past and they tend to speak “beautiful,” “sophisticated” Japanese with people who are educated (my second article). Traditional speakers of Miyaran tend to have self-orientalism or internalized colonialism toward their language, which often hinders new speakers from learning the language comfortably. In addition to internalized colonialism among traditional speakers of Yaeyaman, we find the phenomenon of low self-esteem and a lack of selfconfidence among teachers of the Yaeyaman language. The teachers who are teaching local languages are volunteers who have knowledge of the language but lack the official teaching qualifications and educational attainments considered prerequisite for being a “real” teacher in the Japanese school system. The lack of confidence was also found among some teachers of the Sami languages in Finland. To support their lack of confidence, teacher education program which enhances their self-esteem is necessary. Therefore, teacher education for indigenous languages need to focus on developing the self-esteem and confidence of traditional speakers of indigenous languages. There is a need to make people realize that their language can be used as a sophisticated means of communication and they, as indigenous language speakers, have a linguistic, cultural resource which they can be proud of. This suggests that the work called decolonization goes further than fields of traditional sociolinguistics. It is connected to psychology of language teachers. In the Ryukyus, although currently 101 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful in 2019, there is a teacher education program supported by Okinawa prefectural government at one of the local universities in Okinawa, the program extensively focuses on grammatical description of the Ryukyuan languages, using grammar based pedagogical approach (see also Hermes & King, 2019). This is partly due to the lack of communicatively oriented learning materials for indigenous languages and of course, lack of speakers. Although documentation-oriented work such as dictionaries, grammars and collectives of narratives by linguists serve as basis for teaching materials, in contrast to English or other major high-status languages, the development of Indigenous language learning materials is in its infancy. At the same time with the development of communicative learning materials, it is important to include support systems for language teachers where they can consult their worries and goals with their peers. To raise their awareness and confidence as indigenous language teachers, a teacher education program focusing on their psychological needs is crucial. Decolonising the existing norm is not a metaphor, and decolonial interventions must be specific (see Leonard, 2019; Tuck & Yang, 2012). Indigenous language revitalization aims at taking back what is ours by decolonizing the accepted assumptions and norms posed from outside. There is a need to empower people from inside the language community. Here, I would like to introduce one example I found during my fieldwork in Yaeyaman community. I was sitting with other linguists from the University with several other local Yaeyamans. One person started talking about the Yaeyaman language and his lack of communicative competence. He also started talking about his colleagues who have high motivation of learning Yeayaman but do not speak it. Then, he started to ask other linguists to ask for help. I was sitting and listening to this conversation. It was somehow, sad for me to see a local person asking for a help from outsiders. For this person, I am sure that this is an opportunity to learn the language. Some of the other local people started laughing, saying that we do not know the language and we have to ask help from outsiders. It is certainly positive to have such people with expertise in our language, but this kind of attitude from local people shows that people are not so seriously wanting to learn and reclaim their heritage language. People might be able to learn phrases or words. t, as a researcher, am wondering how it is possible to revitalize the Yaeyaman when this kind of language attitudes is common in local people. I am wondering if the local people really have desire to learn and reclaim their language. I would like to posit questions such as why children and young people inside the language community do not want to learn the language and ask for help from outsider linguists for correcting Yaeyaman poems for traditional music competition. However, as an insider of the community, it is not so simple. I cannot ask such a question since I become a “stranger” in my own community. Perhaps, I became indigenous through my PhD study but I cannot become indigenous in reality within a community with such language attitudes are dominant (see also 10.0 and introduction of this thesis). This 102 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful question will certainly be my life-long question, which is related to my own identity. My findings suggest that conflicting viewpoints exist between the locals and the non-locals in the endangered language community. Local people seem to struggle with indigenous language learning due to lack of service and lack of education based on indigenous rights. In the case of the Yaeyama islands, most of the new speakers who are learning the language in a course held at local community centre were not originally from the island; they are not indigenous Yaeyaman (see Hammine, in press). People from outside tend to attend the course to learn indigenous languages of Yaeyama. As in the case of the Sámi language teachers, non-local learners do not experience stigma associated with indigenous languages. In my first and second studies, indigenous teachers tend to internalize their colonial history, the past, discrimination while non-indigenous teachers do not have this aspect. As an insider researcher, I did not know that there was an indigenous language on my home island until I went to university. The understanding of indigenous right to education could bring a stronger backbone to endangered language situation in Yaeyama. In order to do so, ironically, it is again through a means of education that we can be indigenous. It is never a good idea to have top-down policy which do not match the needs of the local people. If the local indigenous population does not participate in continuous effort of language revitalization, it is not easy. The first step might be that the local people come to realise that their right to learn those languages according to international standard. It is perhaps more important to make ourselves notice and educate the children who are conscious of colonial history and current language endangerment. As one of my participants teachers told me, “it is not good to make children learn the indigenous language; it is rather, better to educate children who want to learn the language” (fieldwork note). To enhance native speaker teachers’ confidences as speakers and teachers, I emphasize the different roles of locals and non-locals. There are different roles for both indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in Yaeyama language revitalization. Those who know outside Yaeyama (i.e. the immigrant population from mainland Japan or local people who studied in mainland Japan or abroad) could empower the indigenous population by learning Yaeyaman. Being minority should not be a problem but rather an advantage, something that people can be proud of. Thus, the right insight into an indigeneity both from minority and majority could be a key. Being indigenous should be “cool” and accepted both by minority and majority populations in Japan (see more in Hammine, 2019; Kitahara, 2019). Being indigenous needs to be accepted and guaranteed in Japanese society according to international standard of human rights (Kitahara, 2019). There should be an awareness that keeping indigenous languages is beneficial not only for minority indigenous language communities but also for the majority populations. By revisiting the definitions of language policy research, such as invisible vs. visible, we can understand that keeping indigenous languages is beneficial for all. 103 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful 9.6. Limitations of the Study For my first study, there is a limitation due to my lack of a cultural background in the Sami culture and language. By researching in my own community as an insider researcher and in Lapland as an outsider researcher, I found this difference crucial. My research partners and I created relationships differently depending on our positions. For my first study, my position as an outsider became a limitation to having a cultural understanding of the research context. The challenges limiting the current study include subjectivity and its qualitative nature of this study. My own identities have been negotiated and constructed throughout my life; this perhaps motivated my interest in the experiences and life journeys of indigenous teachers in learning and teaching indigenous languages. My identities were also negotiated during the process of research. Because of my insider position within the community, this research is biased. I mainly used qualitative methods of data collection and analysis, including observations of language teaching and learning, qualitative interviews, fieldnotes, classroom observation and linguistic landscape documentation. Owing to the nature of qualitative data, there is an issue of representativeness in that the research partners who participated in my study might be those who are interested in language revitalization and there might be voices from people who showed no interest in language revitalization. To compensate for this issue, future research should include quantitative data when investigating the language attitudes and practices of the Yaeyaman language community and other communities in the Ryukyus. In addition, owing to the limited time and budget, my study included only one particular village of the Yaeyaman language community and one area of Lapland in Finland. This ethnographic fieldwork mainly focused on one particular village of Yaeyaman community (see 3.2.). There are other varieties in Yaeyama, where no such research has been conducted. It is possible that other villages and communities are different, and there is a limitation that I should be careful in generalizing this research as “Yaeayaman study.” There is need for investigating other villages of Yaeyama. Indigenous communities are diverse (De Korne, 2017; Leonard, 2012). To understand the whole sociolinguistic situation of the Yaeyaman language revitalization, further research is needed on other villages and area of the Yaeyaman community. 9.7. Future Research I am critical about the way some research tradition could endanger already endangered languages (see also Dorian, 1994). Common discourses around language endangerment have been criticized by linguistic anthropologists and sociolinguists. 104 Hammine: Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful These discourses include; the linguistic diversity being linked to biodiversity, the endangerment being considered as matter of a number of fluent speakers, the endangerment being discussed without considering the embodiment of the people who speak indigenous languages (Davis, 2017; Hill, 2002; King & Hermes, 2014; Whaley, 2011). Some works have criticized the ideas such as “universal ownership,” viewing language endangerment as something ascetically beautiful is disappearing from “the resources of the world” (Hill, 2002), “linguistic extraction” viewing the process of discussing languages and language reclamation movements extracted from the personal lives, communicative practices (Davis, 2017), and “enumeration,” counting the number of speakers as if the language is disembodied from the people who speak it (Hill, 2002; Moore et al., 2010). In Ryukyaun linguistics research, documentation linguistics traditionally have focused on linguistic data of native speakers or traditional speakers. For example, at a conference for research on Ryukyuan linguistics, I met some researchers presenting that this community has only one native speaker, so we will not be able to go there to research on this variety during the discussion of the future direction of Ryukyuan research. Ennumeration, counting a number of “native speaker” (Hill, 2002; Moore, Pietikäinen, & Blommaert, 2010) could reproduce colonial nature of research methodology. Moreover, for those who are labelled as “non-native speaker” or “nonfluent speaker” or “passive speaker,” it could increase the feeling of failure as they are labelled as “insufficient source of data.” The goal to be fluent, to be able to speak the language properly, is problematically being imposed onto the community, which has been already marginalized. Many linguists actually do documentation with a primary goal of contributing linguistic science, and adopt “help the community” as a secondary purpose. Traditionally, until now, in Ryukyuan linguistic research, this kind of attitudes from researchers can be observed in writings and in conferences. Some researchers are not aware the fact that there is a danger of “endangering” (Whaley, 2011) already endangered Ryukyuan languages. This kind of attitudes from academia possibly increase lack of confidence of speakers of indigenous languages. If I use my own experience, first, we are labelled by outsiders, like myself becoming indigenous all of a sudden through higher education and being told that there is an endangered language in my home. We are shocked, like I was, and try to learn it. However, if people do not have fluency, they feel like they are a failure. We, as new speakers, fail to speak it properly and deliver the “authentic” data to the researchers who come “all the way down” to “help” us (see also Leonard, 2018). We are marginalized by being labelled as indigenous in Japan where there is no recognition of indigeneity as a positive trait, then again labelled as insufficient speakers of the indigenous languages. 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