tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27760240.post1544217958874743374..comments2024-03-17T16:24:40.322-05:00Comments on American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL): Recommended: CELEBRATE MY HOPI CORN and CELEBRATE MY HOPI TOYSDebbie Reesehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14972409006633565859noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27760240.post-41494079066842254282017-12-11T20:51:52.858-06:002017-12-11T20:51:52.858-06:00"Unevenly applied"...Yeah. As opposed to..."Unevenly applied"...Yeah. As opposed to Japanese katakana, which are used for EVERY word that isn't from Chinese or Old Japanese, such as アーク (āku), from English "arc". That particular word is a word used fairly often in Japanese, much more often than Spanish "burrito" is even <i>italicized</i>(!) in English texts, even though Americans eat them a lot.Sam Jonsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06037969317578064759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27760240.post-42815609217012664712015-12-07T07:43:13.331-06:002015-12-07T07:43:13.331-06:00Sam,
There are interesting discussions about lang...Sam,<br /><br />There are interesting discussions about language. One is the use of italics. In most children's/YA books, you're likely to see italics used to distinguish words in another language. That practice marks the words as other, and marks words in English as the norm. Daniel Jose Older's video on the use of italics makes a very good case on what that feels like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24gCI3Ur7FM<br /><br />I agree with him and am advocating for the end of italics used in that way. It is an interesting and unevenly applied practice. There are a lot of Native words and place names that are used all the time, and they don't get marked with italics. <br /><br />You end with a 'what to look for' question. I look for knowledge of the writer. With the Hopi books, the author and illustrator are Hopi and there are videos of the writer using Hopi. She's fluent in it and has a long-term project by which she teaches it. Beyond that, the language/words used ought to match the tribe the story is about unless there's contextualized reason for using a different one. If, for example, I wrote a story about going to Minnesota to visit Ojibwe friends there and used "boozhoo" to greet them, I'd make sure that readers knew that my character (who would be from Nambe Pueblo where we speak Tewa) was using an Ojibwe word to greet my Ojibwe friends. <br /><br />Debbie Reesehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14972409006633565859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27760240.post-21967865296938883922015-12-06T20:09:27.847-06:002015-12-06T20:09:27.847-06:00Debbie,
It seems that children's books which r...Debbie,<br />It seems that children's books which respectfully incorporate Native languages are more rare than they should be and am sure that, as in the case of your discussion of "squaw" in <i> Sign of the Beaver, </i> much can go wrong when inauthentic texts attempt to appropriate Native languages. I'm wondering if there has been a discussion about the incorporation of Native languages and where books that do so often succeed or fail in their authenticity. What should be looked for when Native languages are found in children's books?Sam Millernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27760240.post-24506884572646177002015-12-02T16:43:55.657-06:002015-12-02T16:43:55.657-06:00Hi, Debbie. Thank you for your family story and fo...Hi, Debbie. Thank you for your family story and for calling attention to this excellent pair of children’s books. I’m wondering whether it was an editorial decision for the man to wear the bandanna, belt and mocs while planting corn.Beverly Slapinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12822325956522105620noreply@blogger.com