| Summary: | <p>This study explores the dilemma facing young adults from former colonized
cultures in their attempts to (re)claim their native, minority languages. It traces the
historical clash of European, African and Aboriginal cultures, and the condescending
attitudes Europeans adopt towards non-European cultures, which attitudes eventually lead
to the colonization of such cultures, dwelling on the effects of colonization on African
and Aboriginal languages, Twi and Kalenjin and Cree, respectively. Colonization has
succeeded in dichotomizing the world's cultures into dominant and minority cultures,
which has spilled over into languages used by the respective cultures; consequently, the
world speaks dominant and minority languages. Just as dominant cultures are more
visible than minority ones, dominant languages continue to overshadow minor ones.
Consequently, the former dominate in major areas of communication--education,
economics, technology, politics and entertainment.</p>
<p>This study examines how young adults from the former colonized cultures handle
the differences between their minority cultures and the dominant ones that impact so
heavily on their day-to-day existence in Canada. The study also explores the colonial
implications of the numerous choices the young adults have to make in their quest to keep
abreast with the times.</p>
<p>A combination of three focus group interviews and twelve fully structured
interviews with eight students comprise the principal forms of data collection for this
study. Additionally, I had four dialogue sessions with African and Aboriginal elders in
order to solicit their opinions about good language skills. Participants are of African and
Aboriginal backgrounds, aged between twenty and thirty five years, all of them in post-
secondary education at the time of the study. I analysed the data as similar themes
emerged from the interviews.</p>
<p>In the final analyses, all the participants agreed that colonial processes have
impacted negatively on oral languages and cultures. Oral languages and cultures are
considered minority in comparison with the colonizers' languages and cultures. There was
consensus that from their minority domains, oral languages and cultures grant distinct
socio-cultural identities to the people inhabiting the culture, in similar ways to dominant
cultures. Formal education has aided people from the (former) colonized cultures to
critique colonizing processes. Yet, theories supposed to grant the former silenced good
audience tend to be a marginalizing agent, because they stem from the Western
worldview. The (former) colonized themselves tend to be implicated in the colonizing
processes, due to exposure to Western education. Consequently, it is difficult to
distinguish between the colonial and the post-colonial periods. The participants agree that
oral languages and cultures are as authentic worldviews as the written languages and
cultures. Each has complex inherent systems through which one can obtain knowledge
about the world. Therefore, if people from the (former) colonized cultures invest
proportionately in their native cultures, as they do with the dominant cultures, they imply
the authentic natures of their cultures and ensure their concurrent existence with the
dominant ones.</p>
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