Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 January 7

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January 7

American Indian literature

i.e. literature written in American Indian languages (not literature written by ethnic American Indians in whatever language), or to prevent misunderstandings in North American Indian languages (not literature in South American languages). What types of American Indian literature does exist?

• There is some Christian religious stuff.
• It appears that Asterix ([1]) and Harry Potter (see) were not translated into an American Indian language. The Hobbit / The Lord of the Rings (see), Tintin and other similar works (similar regarding number of translations) probably weren't too. What about Le Petit Prince (see)?
• Is there some non-Christian religious/mythological literature? Mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas indicates that there were at least some non-Christian religious/mythological believes. However, literature as mentioned here is English.
• Category:Native American literature appears to be a sub-category of English-language literature (with Sanaaq as exception).

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.161.25.55 (talk) 23:39, 5 January 2019 (UTC) (moved from WP:RFPP by Balkywrest (talk) 05:59, 7 January 2019 (UTC))

The only North American Indian language with more than 100,000 speakers (if North America is defined as the US & Canada) is Navajo, though many of that number also speak English. A book publisher would have to ask whether the number of people who could be expected to buy Harry Potter books in Navajo would result in recouping the various publication costs. That goes double for Tintin, which is perceived in the United States as quaintly European, and something of an acquired taste... AnonMoos (talk) 06:41, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Asterix and Tintin are both very definitely niche products in the US. I've seen them in a few comics shops, but even there they are rare. And I don't think I've ever encountered The Little Prince. And that's limiting it to English translations, American Indian language translations would be several orders of magnitude rarer at best.--Khajidha (talk) 02:42, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

There is certainly some publishing in the Cherokee language. But, as AnonMoos says, it is hard to see why anybody would translate current popular fiction into a minority language where almost all speakers could read the major language anyway. --ColinFine (talk) 10:53, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Most books published in indigenous languages in Canada are to teach those languages. There is not much demand, as Colin Fine explained, for general books in indigenous languages - English or French serve that purpose. There are some official government publications in various languages (particularly in Nunavut where inuktitut has official language status, but also in the Northwest Territories, which recognizes a number of indigenous languages). The newspaper Nunatsiaq News does publish articles in Inuktitut and related languages. Here's an article from the CBC on indigenous news sources, which covers other areas of the country. [2] You should also not forget that there exists a lot of oral literature, however. --Xuxl (talk) 14:22, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Mesoamerican_literature if you consider Mesoamerica as part of North America. --Error (talk) 02:19, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

• One thing to remember is that well-developed written language was not widespread in the pre-contact Americas. There's a reason why Native American literature redirects to Mesoamerican literature; Mesoamerican writing systems were about the only for which there is significant pre-contact literature. There have been some post-contact writing systems developed for Native American languages, such as the Cherokee syllabary developed in the 1810s, or the Canadian Aboriginal syllabics developed a few decades later. Many other languages, when written, are done so based on transcriptions into the standard Latin character set, using close approximations of the sounds of said letters. These cultures had a rich, oral story-telling tradition, but they didn't have written stories. If you want the traditional literature of such Native American peoples, Mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas is a good place to start your research. Modern, North American native languages are extremely limited in usage; other than the Bible, many such languages probably don't have any significant modern written literature. Few people speak them as their primary language, and definitely not as their only language. Translating something like Harry Potter into, say the Moose Cree language, for its 3000 native speakers, all of whom probably also speak English, doesn't seem like much of an economically viable plan. The most widely spoken Native North American language is the Navajo language, which is the only single such language I know of with more than 100,000 speakers. Navajo does have a fairly robust written literature, but I don't know of the availability of any specific European-language book as translated into Navajo. There may be some others, but don't expect as much as you'd find in English or Spanish or French... --Jayron32 16:17, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Taking Navajo as a starting point, yes there is plenty of material written in that language, including its own Wikipedia. As for literature per se, one of the tips I got in reading around the subject is that some Navajo people now are using their language in poetry, often mixed with English. There are bilingual children's books. Finding them might be tricky, but there are some oral history or story telling in video collections, either official archives or e.g. YouTube.--Carbon Caryatid (talk) 16:50, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

How many abort because Down syndrom or other disablity?

--Curious Cat On Her Last Life (talk) 08:44, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Googling "reasons for seeking abortion" brings up many entries, such as this one.[3] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:56, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

A 2018 Slate article covers a variety of countries. For example:

In the United States, screening is not as widespread, but about three-quarters of women who do receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome terminate the pregnancy, according to a survey of recent studies published in 2012. Data suggest that the number of Down syndrome births in the U.S. would be about one-third times higher today if it weren’t for prenatal testing.

--Carbon Caryatid (talk) 23:32, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Down syndrome#Abortion rates which currently states the number as 67% but apparently the study Slate also mentions was cited wrong. I expanded / changed that. Regards SoWhy 10:17, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

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