Article

Tribalizing Linguistic Inquiry

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Abstract

Linguists are beginning to help rebuild that which many of our predecessors helped to destroy.

In this paper I outline methodological considerations for tribalizing linguistic inquiry in ways that acknowledge the history of Linguistics, incorporate lessons from state based civil rights oriented approaches to research, and integrate Constitution based and inherent rights oriented research. Specifically, I consider Community Based Research, Indigenous Research Methodologies, Tribally Based Community Research, and Tribally Driven Participatory Research in context of UNESCO’s International Decade of Indigenous Languages 2022-2032, the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the United States’ 10-year National Plan on Native Language Revitalization. 

The common principles threading each approach center on reciprocity and redistribution as means to assert rights to self-determination in tribal and colonial frameworks. These principles are present in the work of tribal, Indigenous, and accomplice language workers who are paradigmatically changing Linguistics from a scientific discipline complicit with, if not embracive of, the construction of the United States as a white European Nation to one that helps to sustain the political integrity of tribal peoples from time immemorial to time infinite. 

Recognizing that sovereignty maintains its meaning as tribes exercise inter-sovereign relations, I share this paper from my lived experiences as a Klamath Tribes citizen of Modoc, Klamath, Big Pine Paiute, and Mnicoujou Lakota (Cheyenne River Sioux) descent engaged in the inter-sovereign relations of my own nation. 

Keywords: Tribes, Indigenous, Politics, Linguistics, Sovereignty

How to Cite:

Dupris, J. J., (2025) “Tribalizing Linguistic Inquiry”, Living Languages 4(1), 47-84. doi: https://doi.org/10.7275/livinglanguages.2238