Recently, President Donald Trump signed an executive order under the title “Restoring Names that Honor American Greatness.” Among the presidential actions was to rename the highest peak in North America from Mount Denali to Mt. McKinley. According to the White House, the actions that made McKinley great were a) “heroically led our nation to victory in the Spanish-American War,” b) “expansion of territorial gains for the United States,” c) “championed tariffs to protect American manufacturing,” d) and his “steadfast commitment to American greatness.” Superlatives such as “rapid growth and prosperity,” or “new heights,” and “enormous wealth” pepper the four short paragraphs in the presidential action. Subsequent paragraphs outlined similar imperialist ideologies as justification for renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Rather than looking forward, the White House is rushing head-long into the past. The President’s linguistic imperialism echoes 500 years of colonial erasure of the first peoples of this continent.
Linguistic Imperialism 1.0 eradicated untold numbers of languages indigenous to native North America as well as all the knowledge of sustainable practices. Christopher Columbus wrote in his diary on October 12, 1492:
They ought to make good slaves for they are quick of intelligence since I notice they are quick to repeat what is said to them, and I believe they could very easily become Christians, for it seemed to me that they had no religion of their own. God willing, when I come to leave I will bring six of them to Your Highnesses so that they may learn to speak.
Columbus denied the Indigenous peoples their personal, religious, and linguistic sovereignty. It seems he did not recognize Indigenous languages as languages. To make matters worse, 107 years later, linguistic imperialism was not just the erasure of Indigenous languages, it was couched in terms of a gift, “the treasure of our tongue.”
Samuel Daniel wrote in Musophilus (1599):
And who in time knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores
This gain of our best glorie shall be sent,
T’enrich unknowing Nations with our stores?
What words in th’yet unformed Occident
May come refin’d with th’accents that are ours?
Steven Greenblatt writes, “For Daniel, the New World is a vast, rich field for the plantation of the English language.” For President Trump, it is not enough to erase Native American/Indigenous place names, he forces the gift of English to all who live within the borders of the United States.
Linguistic imperialism 2.0 is an antiquated self-delusion of wilful ignorance
In March, The White then released the “Designating English as the Official Language of the United States” presidential executive order. The President echoes the gift of English language deception, “Speaking English not only opens doors economically, but it helps newcomers engage in their communities, participate in national traditions, and give back to our society.” Not only does the President echo 16th century linguistic imperialism, he also perpetuates the erroneous claims of single-language-ideologues, who would claim “A nationally designated language is at the core of a unified and cohesive society, and the United States is strengthened by a citizenry that can freely exchange ideas in one shared language.” This 18th century nationalist claim ignores the divisiveness that is fomented and amplified by the President’s use of English. Linguistic imperialism 2.0 is an antiquated self-delusion of wilful ignorance that will inflict harm on citizens of the United States as well as all peoples across the globe.
In just a few short months, thousands of lives have been upended, entire communities are at risk of upheaval, and misguided language ideologies will silence research, knowledge exchange, and diminish our collective humanity. The White House’s imagining of America’s greatness is an evocation of a nostalgic past that never was. The concurrent crises of climate change, political instabilities, health and economic uncertainties necessitate open communication across languages, experiences, knowledges, and environments. The greatness of “America” has been the multilingual and diverse polity that contributed to innovations in science, health, culture, and our collective human condition. The Presidential executive actions are not making America great; they are making America small.
The erasure of eons of knowledge of environmentally sustainable practices encoded in Native American and Indigenous languages through the misguided renaming executive order and the imposition of linguist imperialism 2.0 is not a path to greatness. The shine reflecting off the gold trophies on the Oval Office mantel of the White House will not blind us to the fact that these executive orders are specious nationalist retrenchments. Sadly, they may be a prelude to human species suicide.
Bernard C. Perley (Tobique Maliseet) is a professor and the director of the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. He is also current President of the Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA).