"Let�s start with the obvious: While some of the indigenous people killed or displaced by Europeans and their descendants learned to communicate in English with the settler-colonizers, they did so in a second (or third, fourth, or fifth) language. English is not a native language in the territory we now call the United States -- it�s the language of a colonizing people who pursued a genocidal strategy to acquire that territory and its resources. Though I�ve spent some time reading about that history, it had never occurred to me think of English in that way; being part of the dominant group in a society allowed me to avoid those kinds of obvious, and harsh, realities.

As all this ran through my head, I realized I should scrap my planned closing remarks and use my last few minutes to face this issue. I told the group that I was embarrassed that for so long I had not recognized these obvious points. I was emotional and probably not being all that clear; I looked out at the audience and saw that I wasn�t explaining it well. So I went to the blackboard and wrote �North Dakota,� and then erased �North.� What�s left? �Dakota.� Who are the people today who really speak with a �Dakota� accent? Their ancestors aren�t from Scandinavia or any other part of Europe.

Those people were -- and still are -- the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota, usually collectively referred to as the Great Sioux Nation. Their languages are part of a family that linguistic anthropologists call Siouan or Siouan-Catawban, which is still spoken on the Great Plains of the United States and parts of southern Canada.

I don�t speak any of those languages. I can�t reproduce the accent with which those peoples speak. In other words, I can�t do a real Dakota accent. I can only do the settler-colonizers� accent.

In my home state, we took not only the land of the people of those nations but their name as well, and we then pretend that we are Dakotans. It�s perhaps a small point, but an important one: I am not of the Dakota people. I am of the people who tried to exterminate the Dakota and who colonized their land."

Get the Story:
Robert Jensen: Saying goodbye to my 'Fargo' accent (The Atlantic Free Press 12/13)