The Greek word for “inquiry,” rendered phonetically, is “historia.” The English “history,” passed through the medium of Latin, comes from that root—which is, incidentally, a feminine noun in the Greek. This is lost on the authors of California’s proposed Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, which is being developed to fulfill a requirement that all students in the California state university system take a three-credit course on the topic. The model curriculum employs “intentional respellings”—which is perhaps a respelling of “misspelling”—to render the word either “herstory” or “hxrstory,” apparently to expunge the coincidental “his.”
Such “purposeful academic language” is intended “to challenge various forms of oppression and marginalization.” The purpose of academic language is actually supposed to be to challenge ignorance and illuminate truth. Education that does so is also a powerful tool for challenging oppression. Language that confuses or obscures—such as calling “ethnic studies” what is really the study of marginalization and oppression—is not. Indoctrination is even less so.
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