Interior Department Announces New Guidance to Honor and Elevate Hawaiian Language
"In commemoration of Mahina ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, or Hawaiian Language Month, and in recognition of its unique relationship with the Native Hawaiian Community, the Department of the Interior today announced new guidance on the use of the Hawaiian language.
A comprehensive new Departmental Manual chapter underscores the Department’s commitment to further integrating Indigenous Knowledge and cultural practices into conservation stewardship.
“Prioritizing the preservation of the Hawaiian language and culture and elevating Indigenous Knowledge is central to the Biden-Harris administration's work to meet the unique needs of the Native Hawaiian Community,” said Secretary Deb Haaland. “As we deploy historic resources to Hawaiʻi from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, the Interior Department is committed to ensuring our internal policies and communications use accurate language and data."
Department bureaus and offices that engage in communication with the Native Hawaiian Community or produce documentation addressing places, resources, actions or interests in Hawaiʻi will use the new guidance on ‘ōlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language) for various identifications and references, including flora and fauna, cultural sites, geographic place names, and government units within the state. The guidance recognizes the evolving nature of ‘ōlelo Hawaiʻi and acknowledges the absence of a single authoritative source. While the Hawaiian Dictionary (Pukui & Elbert 2003) is designated as the baseline standard for non-geographic words and place names, Department bureaus and offices are encouraged to consult other standard works, as well as the Board on Geographic Names database.
Developed collaboratively and informed by ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi practitioners, instructors and advocates, the new guidance emerged from virtual consultation sessions and public comment in 2023 with the Native Hawaiian Community.
The new guidance aligns with the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to strengthening relationships with the Native Hawaiian Community through efforts such as the Kapapahuliau Climate Resilience Program and Hawaiian Forest Bird Keystone Initiative. During her trip to Hawaiʻi in June, Secretary Haaland emphasized recognizing and including Indigenous Knowledge, promoting co-stewardship, protecting sacred sites, and recommitting to meaningful and robust consultation with the Native Hawaiian Community."
-via US Department of the Interior press release, February 1, 2024
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Note: I'm an editor so I have no idea whether this comes off like as big a deal as it potentially is. But it is potentially going to establish and massively accelerate the adoption of correctly written Native Hawaiian language, as determined by Native Hawaiians.
Basically US government communications, documentations, and "style guides" (sets of rules to follow about how to write/format/publish something, etc.) can be incredibly influential, especially for topics where there isn't much other official guidance. This rule means that all government documents that mention Hawai'i, places in Hawai'i, Hawaiian plants and animals, etc. will have to be written the way Native Hawaiians say it should be written, and the correct way of writing Hawaiian conveys a lot more information about how the words are pronounced, too, which could spread correct pronunciations more widely.
It also means that, as far as the US government is concerned, this is The Correct Way to Write the Hawaiian Language. Which, as an editor who just read the guidance document, is super important. That's because you need the 'okina (' in words) and kahakō in order to tell apart sizeable sets of different words, because Hawaiian uses so many fewer consonants, they need more of other types of different sounds.
And the US government official policy on how to write Hawaiian is exactly what editors, publishers, newspapers, and magazines are going to look at, sooner or later, because it's what style guides are looking at. Style guides are the official various sets of rules that books/publications follow; they're also incredibly detailed - the one used for almost all book publishing, for example, the Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS), is over a thousand pages long.
One of the things that CMoS does is tell you the basic rules of and what specialist further sources they think you should use for writing different languages. They have a whole chapter dedicated to this. It's not that impressive on non-European languages yet, but we're due for a new edition (the 18th) of CMoS in the next oh two to four years, probably? Actually numbering wise they'd be due for one this year, except presumably they would've announced it by now if that was the case.
I'm expecting one of the biggest revisions to the 18th edition to add much more comprehensive guidance on non-Western languages. Considering how far we've come since 2017, when the last one was released, I'll be judging the shit out of them if they do otherwise. (And CMoS actually keep with the times decently enough.)
Which means, as long as there's at least a year or two for these new rules/spellings/orthographies to establish themselves before the next edition comes out, it's likely that just about every (legit) publisher will start using the new rules/spellings/orthographies.
And of course, it would expand much further from there.
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I’m reading this book at the moment, and did you know that shepherds had their own counting system in parts of Northern England, Wales and the Scottish Borders?
“… let’s start with a little known, deliciously quirky, remnant called the 'shepherds' score', or Yan Tan Tethera. It’s an ancient way of counting, still used by some shepherds today, in northern England, Wales, parts of the southwest and lowland Scotland. The system is vigesimal, or base-20. It stops at twenty - once a shepherd had counted to this number, he’d mark it in some way (a notch on his crook, perhaps, or a stick placed in the ground) and then start again at one.
Linguistically, its origins are lost, but some scholars believe it may have its roots in Brittonic (or Brythonic) languages, those early versions of Welsh, Cornish and Breton spoken during the Iron Age. Individual words vary slightly from region to region, but they all share remarkable similarities. The Lincolnshire version goes like this:
Yan (1), Tan (2), Tethera (3), Pethera (4), Pimp (5), Sethera (6), Lethera (7), Hovera (8), Covera (9), Dik (10), Yan-a-dik (11), Tan-a-dik (12), Tethera-dik (13), Pethera-dik (14), Bumfit (15), Yan-a-bumfit (16), Tan-a-bumfit (17), Tethera-bumfit (18), Pethera-bumfit (19), Figgot (20).
The numbers above ten use a combination of smaller digits - so eleven is Yan-a-dik (one and ten) - it's brilliant in its simplicity and rhythmic bounce when spoken aloud.”
— A Short History of the World According to Sheep, Sally Coulthard, p. 68
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Blackcrowing's Master Reading List
I have created a dropbox with pdfs I have gathered over the years, I have done my best to only allow access to documents which I found openly available through sites like JSTOR, Archive.org, or other educational resources with papers available for download.
That being said I ALSO recommend (I obviously have not read all of these but they are either in my library or I intend to add them)
📚 Celtic/Irish Pagan Books
The Morrighan: Meeting the Great Queens, Morgan Daimler
Raven Goddess: Going Deeper with the Morríghan, Morgan Daimler
Ogam: Weaving Word Wisdom, Erynn Rowan Laurie
Irish Paganism: Reconstructing Irish Polytheism, Morgan Daimler
Celtic Cosmology and the Otherworld: Myths, Orgins, Sovereignty and Liminality, Sharon Paice MacLeod
Celtic Myth and Religion, Sharon Paice MacLeod
A Guide to Ogam Divination, Marissa Hegarty (I'm leaving this on my list because I want to support independent authors. However, if you have already read Weaving Word Wisdom this book is unlikely to further enhance your understanding of ogam in a divination capacity)
The Book of the Great Queen, Morpheus Ravenna
Litany of The Morrígna, Morpheus Ravenna
Celtic Visions, Caitlín Matthews
Harp, Club & Calderon, Edited by Lora O'Brien and Morpheus Ravenna
Celtic Cosmology: Perspectives from Ireland and Scotland, Edited by Jacqueline Borsje and others
Polytheistic Monasticism: Voices from Pagan Cloisters, Edited by Janet Munin
📚 Celtic/Irish Academic Books
Early Medieval Ireland 400-1200, Dáibhí Ó Cróinín
The Sacred Isle, Dáithi Ó hÓgáin
The Ancient Celts, Berry Cunliffe
The Celtic World, Berry Cunliffe
Irish Kingship and Seccession, Bart Jaski
Early Irish Farming, Fergus Kelly
Studies in Irish Mythology, Grigory Bondarnko
Prehistoric Archaeology of Ireland, John Waddell
Archeology and Celtic Myth, John Waddell
Understanding the Celtic Religion: Revisiting the Past, Edited by Katja Ritari and Alexandria Bergholm
A Guide to Ogam, Damian McManus
Cesar's Druids: an Ancient Priesthood, Miranda Aldhouse Green
Animals in Celtic Life and Myth, Miranda Aldhouse Green
The Gods of the Celts, Miranda Green
The Celtic World, Edited by Miranda J Green
Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Tradition, Edited by Emily Lyle
Ancient Irish Tales, Edited by Tom P Cross and Clark Haris Slover
Cattle Lords and Clansmen, Nerys Patterson
Celtic Heritage, Alwyn and Brinley Rees
Ireland's Immortals, Mark Williams
The Origins of the Irish, J. P. Mallory
In Search of the Irish Dreamtime, J. P. Mallory
The Táin, Thomas Kinsella translation
The Sutton Hoo Sceptre and the Roots of Celtic Kingship Theory, Michael J. Enright
Celtic Warfare, Giola Canestrelli
Pagan Celtic Ireland, Barry Raftery
The Year in Ireland, Kevin Danaher
Irish Customs and Beliefs, Kevin Danaher
Cult of the Sacred Center, Proinsais Mac Cana
Mythical Ireland: New Light on the Ancient Past, Anthony Murphy
Early Medieval Ireland AD 400-1100, Aidan O'Sullivan and others
The Festival of Lughnasa, Máire MacNeill
Curse of Ireland, Cecily Gillgan
📚 Indo-European Books (Mostly Academic and linguistic)
Dictionary of Indo-European Concepts and Society, Emily Benveniste
A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principle Indo-European Languages, Carl Darling Buck
The Horse, the Wheel and Language, David W. Anthony
Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, Robert S.P. Beekes
In Search of the Indo-Europeans, J.P. Mallory
Indo-European Mythology and Religion, Alexander Jacob
Some of these books had low print runs and therefore can be difficult to find and very expensive... SOME of those books can be found online with the help of friends... 🏴☠️
library genesis might be a great place to start... hint hint...
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