When identifying landscapes, flora and fauna, we unintentionally participate in a logic of naming, claiming and objectifying. In Braiding Sweetgrass (2020), Robin Wall Kimmerer discusses the ecologically damaging impact of English as a noun-based language. She explains, “Our toddlers speak of plants and animals as if they were people, extending to them self-intention and compassion – until we teach them not to,” suggesting that the grammatical rules of English subtly instil a human-centred way of thinking as we grow and learn.
Potawatomi, a North American Indigenous language with ...
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