Talk:Mutsun language

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A fact from Mutsun language appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 4 April 2006. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Mutsun language, became an extinct Native American language in 1930 mainly because of the Spanish missionaries who made the Mutsun learn the Spanish language?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2006/April.

Wikipedia

NPOV

OK, here's the problem I have with the article. It cites a single source, which is (and is welcome to be) a booster of the language and people. That's potential bias right there. More factually, though:

the language did not go extinct until 1930, long after Spanish control (see Talk:Main page). That's a problem.
I can learn a language, and have, and I could even be forced to learn and use a language, but I still know and use English. A language doesn't go extinct because someone is forced to learn a new one, it goes extinct because people stop using it. What are the causes that led the Mutsun to stop using their language? Potentially:
- Legal. Persecuted for using Mutsun.
- Economic. Need to use Spanish for trade reasons.
- Technological. Use the language that has the words for the new items you encounter.
- Social. Live around mainly Spanish speakers, or around few Mutsun speakers.
So after Mexico secularized the missions in 1834, how did the legal control continue? Or did the extinction happen as with many languages -- because a niche language is less useful in an interconnected society.

I recognize the imperialism of Spain and the questionable voluntary character of religious conversions of the era by modern standards, but the flat statement "went extinct when they were forced to learn Spanish" is not just questionable, it's obviously factually wrong, because the extinction occurred more than a century later. --Dhartung | Talk 07:40, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That map is incorrect -- it is not a map of the area in which Mutsun was spoken, but rather a map of the area in which the Utian languages were found. Utian is the larger language family in which Costanoan and Miwokan are classified. The map should be changed. -Anonymous, 9/27/06

wrong phonemic chart

Hi, I've made the french version of mutsun. The chart of phonems is from Arroyo, a spanich colonial source from the XIXth century. it doesn't describe the phonems at all! It's the transcription of Fray Arroyo! "tr", for example, is a alveolar "t" (or retroflex), and so on. Dhegiha (french wikipedia) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.227.169.157 (talk) 14:41, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Number of Grammars

What is this supposed to mean? 'which to this day remains the only grammar ever written of any Costanoan language.'

Clearly it's not true, since there was a grammar written by Father Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta, which is referred to in the previous sentence. I suspect it means something like, 'which to this day remains the only grammar written of any Costanoan language that is couched in modern linguistic theory', or perhaps, 'Mutsun is the only Costanoan language to this day to have a grammar written for it', but that's an extremely different meaning which requires a different context. Paperflight (talk) 03:14, 23 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]