From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 1 05:49:06 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 22:49:06 -0700 Subject: E-Learn 2003 (conf) Message-ID: Final Call for Participation Submission Deadline: August 29 November 7-11, 2003 * Phoenix, Arizona, USA http://www.aace.org/conf/eLearn/call.htm Invitation E-Learn 2003 -- World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, & Higher Education is an international conference organized by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) and co-sponsored by the International Journal on E-Learning. This annual conference serves as a multi-disciplinary forum for the exchange of information on research, development, and applications of all topics related to e-Learning in the Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education sectors. We invite you to attend E-Learn 2003 and submit proposals for papers, panels, roundtables, tutorials, workshops, posters/demonstrations, corporate showcases/demos, and SIG discussions. The Conference Review Policy requires that each proposal will be peer- reviewed by three reviewers for inclusion in the conference program, proceedings book, and CD-ROM proceedings. Topics The scope of the conference includes, but is not limited to, the following topics as they relate to e-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education. All topics listed here. Presentation Categories The Technical Program includes a wide range of interesting and useful activities designed to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information. These include keynote and invited talks, full and brief paper presentations, poster/demonstration sessions, tutorials, workshops, panels, and SIG discussions. For Presentation Category descriptions, and information about what to submit with your proposal, click here. Corporate Participation A variety of opportunities are available to present research-oriented papers or to showcase and market your products and services. For information about Corporate Demonstrations (2-hours, scheduled with the Poster/Demos), click here. Proceedings Accepted papers will be published in the proceedings book, abstracts book, and CD-ROM. These publications will serve as major sources of information for the e-Learning community, indicating the current state of the art, new trends and new opportunities. Paper Awards All presented papers will be considered for Best Paper Awards within several categories. Award winning papers will be invited for publication in the International Journal on E-Learning and other AACE journals. Background The E-Learn Conference series originated as the WebNet World Conference on the WWW and Internet which was held in San Francisco (1996); Toronto, Canada (1997); Orlando, Florida (1998); Honolulu, HI (1999); San Antonio, TX (2000); and Orlando, Florida (2001). E-Learn began under this name in Montreal (2002). E-Learn 2003 is the 8th in this series of internationally respected events. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 9 03:03:44 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 20:03:44 -0700 Subject: Trying To Save A Language (fwd) Message-ID: Trying To Save A Language July 8, 2003 By Brian Calvert http://www.komotv.com/stories/25908.htm SEATTLE - A UW linguist is about to move to Alaska in order to help save a language. On a trip to the Pribilof Islands back in 1975, Alice Taff discovered that the youngest people speaking the native language, known as Aleut, were in their 20s and 30s. Next month, she'll move north to help change that. "This is another effort in an ongoing series of activities," she says. Many young people know the basics of Aleut, but fluent conversation is the next big hurdle. She says to really learn it, you have to live among the people. "Listening to the mother tell her child to sweep the floor, or sit in with the guys as they play cards." Taff will move north and help produce CDs and videos in the Aleut language. But the work could take a while, simply because she's working with a big family. "And they all have to agree on the language. Does your family completely agree all the time?" Taff says it could take 10, maybe 20 years, but Aleut will resurface, allowing these Alaskans to thank Taff in their native tongue. From langendt at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 9 03:04:37 2003 From: langendt at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (langendt at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 20:04:37 -0700 Subject: Trying To Save A Language (fwd) In-Reply-To: <1057719824.f20e67a5f7f03@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: I'm on the road with only occasional email access until August 8. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu Jul 10 14:14:33 2003 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 07:14:33 -0700 Subject: Justthe SW? Message-ID: "Legislation introduced to preserve American Indian languages" (AP) -- "New Mexico's congressional delegation introduced legislation Tuesday to preserve American Indian languages. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.. Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., and Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M.., introduced the Southwest Native American Language Revitalization Act of 2003. The bill would encourage the development of American Language to help reduce the impact of past discrimination against Indian language speakers." Complete at: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0709indianlanguages-ON.html From miakalish at REDPONY.US Fri Jul 11 14:31:05 2003 From: miakalish at REDPONY.US (Mia@RedPony) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 08:31:05 -0600 Subject: Immersion Programs Message-ID: Earlier, there was a message sent around about a Dine language site. A wonderful person sent me the following link, and I would like to send it around to the others on this list, specifically under the topic of "immersion". The article is entitled Literacy in America: http://www.bookmagazine.com/issue24/literacy.shtml The following is a brief clip from the section entitled How We Got There: "In a 1999 report titled "How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School," the National Research Council put it this way: "In the early part of the twentieth century, education focused on the acquisition of literacy skills: simple reading, writing, and calculating. It was not the general rule for educational systems to train people to think and read critically, to express themselves clearly and persuasively, to solve complex problems in science and mathematics. Now ... these aspects of high literacy are required of almost everyone in order to successfully negotiate the complexities of contemporary life." We can't settle for the standards of a generation ago." These ideas should be considered seriously by people engaged in language revitalization efforts. A living language is used for many functions, and these include newsletters, tribal business documents, learning materials for science and mathematics. If the learners do not have a place to use the language, it will not be as valuable as those languages that can be used in a broader scope. We don't want to devalue Indigenous languages by restricting them to reduced forms of use or venues of use. No one doubts that there are ways to teach content without reading and writing, as this second excerpt shows: "In the current climate of accountability and big-stakes tests, teachers have received a clear message from school boards, politicians and the press: Teach the content. And that they do. Many have become quite ingenious at using lectures, handouts, class projects and activities to convey content about history and science and government without requiring kids to read. In some classrooms, the textbook is an occasional supplement. In many, it isn't used at all. "As students come in less and less literate, we have gotten better and better at teaching around the text," says California teacher Gayle Cribb. But if kids are never asked to read complex material, how will they learn to read it?" Many revitalization efforts, and I know this from personal experience over and over and over, are slammed by the active idea that there is only one way to say something. Arguments break out, consuming the entire time allotted for a task, because the way one person said something was not the way someone else would have said it. Those of us who are academics, who have read thousands and thousands of books, papers, articles, transcripts, summaries, abstracts, and mailings realize that there a many, many ways to say any given thing, and that this is what we should be looking for in our revitalization efforts. I know I sound a bit soap-boxey, but it is hard not to when time is so short for these languages, and the people who want to learn them, and because I care so much. Mia Kalish NMSU & Red Pony Heritage Language Team :-) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christensen, Rosemary" To: Sent: Monday, June 30, 2003 11:05 AM Subject: Re: Immersion Programs was there a listing attached to your message. I could not find it. -----Original Message----- From: Akira Y. Yamamoto [mailto:akira at KU.EDU] Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2003 8:19 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re: Immersion Programs I have not updated this for several months, but you may want to check this against your list. Akira >I'm helping to compile a list of current Native language immersion schools >in the U.S. While the list we have seems pretty comprehensive, I thought I >should ask here, too. If you know of any immersion programs, I'd >appreciate if you emailed me. Thanks! -- Akira Y. Yamamoto The University of Kansas Department of Anthropology Fraser Hall 622 1415 Jayhawk Blvd. Lawrence KS 66045-7556 Phone: 785/864-2645 FAX: 785/864-5224 Anthropology: http://www.cc.ku.edu/~kuanth/ Linguistics: http://www.linguistics.ku.edu/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 14 18:00:09 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 11:00:09 -0700 Subject: Ancient tongues fade away (fwd) Message-ID: Ancient tongues fade away Languages: As roads, technology and the global economy reach once-isolated areas, old ways of communicating are dying off. By Dennis O'Brien Sun Staff http://www.sunspot.net/news/health/bal-te.language14jul14,0,7846044.story?coll=bal-health-headlines July 14, 2003 Marie Smith knows that her language - the Alaskan tongue of Eyak - will die with her. And she mourns its passing. "If you were expecting a little baby, and it went back to its home so that it wasn't born alive, how would you feel?" says Smith, 85, who moved to Anchorage from her tribal home on Prince William Sound in 1973. A fisherman's daughter, Smith grew up with Eyak, a branch of the Athabaskan-Tlingit family of languages spoken for 3,000 years in Cordova, along the Copper River. But she stopped speaking Eyak when she attended government schools. Neither her children nor grandchildren know the language. "I should have made them learn it, but they just weren't interested," she said. Eyak is among thousands of languages expected to disappear in the next 100 years, a mortality rate that has linguists rushing to document and save the world's endangered tongues. "We're losing a part of our cultural history," said Michael Krauss, a University of Alaska linguistics professor and founder of the Alaska Native Language Center, established in the 1970s to save the state's 20 native tongues. Krauss and other linguists blame the losses on economic and social trends, politics, improved transportation and the global reach of telecommunications. Whatever the reason, they predict that up to half of the world's 6,800 tongues could die over the next century - and hundreds more will disappear in the century after that. "I'd be the happiest guy in the world if I were wrong," Krauss said. But he noted that only 500 to 600 languages are spoken by at least two generations, making them relatively safe from extinction. According to experts, half the people on the planet use just 15 languages to communicate, while 10 percent of the population speak in one of about 6,800 distinct tongues. Half the world's languages are spoken by fewer than 2,500 people, mostly in remote areas that are becoming less remote every day. Global economics are prompting the young to leave isolated villages in India, Mexico and South America. They're headed for cities in search of better lives, leaving native tongues behind. Meanwhile, satellite TV and the Internet are reaching into isolated areas of Papua New Guinea, a South Pacific island nation with 832 languages, more than any other country. "If you go to Papua New Guinea and go out in the most remote areas you can find and you'll see grass huts, and alongside one of them you'll see a satellite dish, and of course the TV that's coming in is coming in English," said Anthony Aristar, a linguistics professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who studies dying languages. He is creating a $2 million database listing the world's tongues. Words come, languages go The death of a language is nothing new. The spoken word, developed tens of thousands of years ago, is in constant motion. Inventions inspire word creation, wars transform nations, poverty prompts waves of immigration, and other historic events - such as the opening of the American West to European settlers - create conditions where one tongue comes to dominate others. For example, linguists note that the Norman Conquest transformed early English, which has its roots in German. Latin, the language of the Roman Empire, replaced Etruscan and Punic before it diversified and influenced 30 other languages, including English. Sometimes, government policies kill a language. Many Native American languages are near extinction - the Lipon Apache have two or three speakers left - in part because government-run boarding schools punished students for speaking native languages until the 1960s. Krauss says that about half of the 200 languages native to North America will probably die out over the next century because so few children are picking up them up. Alan Caldwell, director of the Culture Center at the College of the Menominee Nation in Wisconsin, remembers his father telling of having his hand slapped with a ruler and his mouth washed out with soap for speaking Menominee at the reservation school, which has closed. The experience left the elder Caldwell, who died in 1972, reluctant to speak the native tongue, or pass it on. "We'd be at the dinner table and we would ask him, 'How do you count to 10? How do you say salt and pepper?' And depending on his mood, most often his response was, 'You don't have a need to know that, it won't do you any good,'" Caldwell said. As a result, only 40 of the tribe's 8,800 members speak the original language. That's one reason why Monica McCauley, a University of Wisconsin researcher, drives three hours to the reservation each week. Macaulay recently won a National Science Foundation grant to compile the first complete Menominee dictionary. The project includes taping the tribe's elders and transcribing conversations to capture the nuances of the language. Tribal elders agree that without such help, the language may disappear. And Caldwell, 55, is in a "beginners" class taught by the elders. In Guatemala, parents encourage their children to forsake native Mayan dialects and learn Spanish to get ahead in life. "They go to school and they see that success depends on learning Spanish," said Nora England, a linguistics professor at the University of Texas. Some languages saved Efforts to save languages are as varied as the languages. Nora England spends her summers in Guatemala training local linguists to preserve four endangered Mayan languages. Guatemala's villages have been hotbeds of language diversity for centuries because of poor roads and mountainous terrain. The result is 21 distinct Mayan tongues in Guatemala alone and nine in Mexico. "Some of them are as different from each other as English is from Russian," England said. Success stories exist. Hebrew, once nearly dead as an everyday spoken language, was redeemed from ancient texts after 2,000 years and is spoken by about 5 million people, mostly in Israel. Hebrew's resurgence was aided by its role in the effort to establish a national identity for Israel after World War I. The fight to save other dying languages is more of an uphill battle. Critics argue that it's a waste of time and money if cultural trends dictate their eventual demise. Neil Seeman, an associate editor at the National Review who operates a Canadian think tank, said that while dying languages should be recorded for historical study, governments are responding to political pressure with a kind of "cultural protectionism" by forcing languages on people who no longer have use for them. "I have nostalgia for the electronic typewriter, but I don't see a need for subsidies to protect it, or continue its use," Seeman said. But linguists say that a society's culture and history die out when its language expires. "Part of the world is lost when you can't name it," said Stephen Batalden, a linguist at Arizona State University. In Alaska, Smith says she hopes for a resurgence in Eyak, now that Krauss has recorded her language on tapes and in writing. "I have this feeling in my heart that the Eyak language is going to come back, and usually I'm not wrong about these feelings," she said. And if it happens she will respond with a one-word prayer: awa'ahdah. That's Eyak for "thank you." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 14 18:02:06 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 11:02:06 -0700 Subject: Researching languages by the numbers (fwd) Message-ID: Researching languages by the numbers July 14, 2003 http://www.sunspot.net/news/health/bal-te.language14bjul14,0,7951852.story?coll=bal-home-headlines How many languages are there? For the latest count, scholars often point to the Ethnologue (www.ethnologue.com), published by Texas-based SIL International. Formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics, SIL has been updating the Ethnologue every four years since 1951 with help from 50 researchers worldwide in an effort to translate the Bible into as many of the world's languages as possible, said editor Ray Gordon. The most recent edition, published in 2000, estimates the number of tongues at 6,809, compared with 6,703 four years earlier and 6,528 in 1992. But that doesn't mean the number of languages is increasing - quite the opposite. The increase is the result of studies that have reclassified dialects of the same language as separate languages. "The numbers are actually the result of better research," said Ted Bergman, language assessment coordinator for SIL. "Languages are dying off, there's no question." Generally, languages differ from dialects because they develop over longer periods, are used in distinct political and social communities and are generally so different from one another that outsiders find them difficult to understand. Although many languages are expected to die in the years ahead, Bergman said there's no way to know whether the number of languages will fall when the 15th edition comes out next year. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 14 18:03:36 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 11:03:36 -0700 Subject: How Maria Hinton has kept her culture alive (fwd) Message-ID: How Maria Hinton has kept her culture alive One of the last native-speaking elders takes a look back By Monique Balas News-Chronicle http://www.gogreenbay.com/page.html?article=120912 Her Oneida name is "She Remembers." A more fitting name for Oneida Nation elder Maria Hinton would be hard to find, for it is thanks to Hinton that the Oneidas can remember, too: Their stories, their language, their culture. One of only 20 remaining native-speaking elders in the Oneida Nation ("Maybe less, maybe less," she mused as she thought about those who have since passed), Hinton, 93, spoke recently about what it means to learn those things that need to be remembered. "Oneida language is culture. It's just our way," she said. "It all goes together. You don't say, 'I'm teaching your culture,' you're teaching the language. That's the way I feel." Prim but with plenty of spunk, the Oneida matriarch was raised by her grandmother and didn't learn English until she was 10. "She remembers" were the instructional words Hinton's grandmother would say when Hinton was supposed to be learning. "When I was growing up, and my grandmother used to teach me things, she didn't say, 'Now, this is culture, now this is the language.' She just taught me." So it was an odd twist of fate that Hinton would be named "She Remembers" in Canada, at the age of 46. Over the next 40 years, Hinton would grow into that name and make it her own. When a movement in the 1970s for Oneidas to get back in touch with their linguistic roots starting from the elementary-school level, Hinton would find herself being asked to help. "Because my brother and I were native speakers, well, then they put their attention on us," Hinton said. So in 1973, at the age of 63, the former teacher thought nothing of going back school to pursue her bachelor's degree in linguistics through the University of Wisconsin System (she spent two years in Milwaukee before coming to Green Bay to receive her degree at UWGB in 1979). That's how she ended up becoming one of the founders and first teachers at the Oneida Nation Turtle Elementary School, one of 185 Bureau of Indian Affairs-funded schools nationwide that integrates native American language and culture into the primary school curriculum, said Sheri Mousseau, school administrator of the Oneida Nation School System. When they opened the school in 1980, Hinton taught language and culture to kindergartners and spent some time teaching middle-schoolers as well; the Turtle School serves children from kindergarten through eighth grade. Hinton also spent time as a language curriculum developer at the school, where she taught the Oneida language to teachers. "A lot of us look to her as a role model and mentor," said Mousseau, who taught special education in the classroom next to Hinton's and has known her for more than 20 years. "With her determination and willingness to mentor, to unconditionally provide support for anyone who wanted to learn, it's like the passion that a teacher has for a classroom, she had that passion for teaching her craft, teaching her language, the Oneida language." Hinton's ability to remember was a key reason why she, along with her late brother, Amos Christjohn, was a natural person to ask when the Oneida Grants Office offered $18,000 for the compilation of an Oneida dictionary. The dictionary is one of the Oneida's most tangible representations to keep the language alive and a valuable tool for linguists. Hinton and Christjohn worked daily over the course of two years to put the book together. Now sold at the Turtle School, the reference work is requested nationally and as far away as Russia. In addition to the dictionary, Hinton has also put together several translations of Oneida short stories and is currently working on another. But for now, she has other concerns to keep her occupied. Her 30-year-old great-grandson (she has 22 great-grandchildren in all) is expected to be coming back from Iraq later this month. He has been deployed there with the U.S. Army for nearly two years and Hinton is planning a big homecoming celebration at her home. Although she wishes he weren't in the military, she said he wants to be there to help people who are less fortunate than he is. "It makes you feel good to think he has that attitude," Hinton said. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Wed Jul 16 17:25:39 2003 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 10:25:39 -0700 Subject: Strengthening Families Message-ID: NCIDC is looking for funds to expand into a new arena. We are trying to put together a new program to coordinate Family issues and choices including Tobacco, HIV Issues, pregnancy prevention, food and nutrition and Native health issues. Our idea is to develop a curriculum for leadership development which has a strong emphasis on decision making skills. Do any of you know of any resources, funds or similar programs we can model from? To see what we are operating already see http://www.ncidc.org If you have ideas or contacts please email me @: andrekar at ncidc.org From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Fri Jul 18 14:53:54 2003 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 07:53:54 -0700 Subject: Any one heard of this Group? Message-ID: http://www.nativelanguages.com/ -- André Cramblit: andre.p.cramblit.86 at alum.dartmouth.org Operations Director Northern California Indian Development Council NCIDC (http://www.ncidc.org) is a non-profit that meets the development needs of American Indians and operates an art gallery featuring the art of California tribes (http://www.americanindianonline.com) COMMUNICATION IS THE KEY TO THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN INDIANS/NATIVE AMERICANS/ALASKAN NATIVES & HAWAIIAN ISLANDERS. For news of interest to Natives subscribe send an email to: IndigenousNewsNetwork-subscribe at topica.com or go to: http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/?location=listinfo From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Fri Jul 18 15:02:39 2003 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 08:02:39 -0700 Subject: Revitalization (language) Message-ID: 7/17/2003 - CALIFORNIA by: James May / Indian Country Today Although several tribes in California have at least a few tribal members involved in language revitalization, they often face an uphill battle. There are many people who do not see the value in preserving languages. Dr. Laura Hinton, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley says that she was so upset by a recent commentary in the New York Times that she says ridiculed the idea of language preservation. However, indifference to the plight of disappearing languages is not limited to members of the east coast establishment. Hinton says that in some cases, interested tribal members face a hard sell with their own tribal councils, who are indifferent about the fate of their ancestral languages and more concerned with other priorities such as getting health care and other community funding. She had hoped with the advent of large-scale Indian gaming that tribes would dedicate more resources to language preservation. However, she says that most tribes are still mired in construction debt for their casinos and have not, at least as of yet been able to fund language programs. One of those dedicated tribal members is Nancy Steele, a member of the Karuk tribe and a self-taught speaker of her ancestral language. Steele, along with Hinton, is a founder of the Master Apprentice Program, in which tribal members are paired with elders who help them learn to speak the language. Steele points out that the Master Apprentice Program is designed to provide language in an actual environment. "The Master Apprentice program is designed to bridge the gap between an elder speaker and a learner, it's like using a key to unlock a door," says Steele. Steele began learning Karuk 28 years ago, though she says that it was not until she got involved with the Master Apprentice Program in the mid-1990s that she could fully learn the language. Now Steele says there is a dedicated core group, numbering about a dozen or so individuals, who speak the language with some fluency and an additional 45 people who are semi-fluent. Stressing the importance of putting resources behind any language rejuvenation project, Steele points to the case of the neighboring Yurok tribe on California's north coast. She says that the Yuroks have approximately 10 - 20 people involved in the Master Apprentice Program at any given time. She credits the Yuroks success with their tribal council, who according to Steele, focus most of their education budget on revitalizing their language. In just a little more than the past decade, the federal government has made some effort to preserve American Indian and other indigenous languages. The Native American Languages Act was signed by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, and given some funding through an amendment a few years later. Currently, there is an amendment to the Act working its way through Congress that seeks to provide support for American Indians and other indigenous language "survival" schools. Sen. Daniel Inoyue, D-Hawaii, introduced the amendment, known as S. 575, last March, and is currently in the hearing process of the Indian Affairs Committee. However, Hinton says that this bill probably will not help many California Indian languages, because it is designed to only support existing schools and will probably have its biggest impact in Hawaii, where the island's indigenous language is taught in many schools. This is not to say that it will not affect California tribes at all. Hinton says that existing programs, such as the one at Pechanga will benefit from this legislation. Steele tells a story about a recent trip she took to meet with Oklahoma Indian tribes, where the fates of several languages are also currently on the verge of extinction. In the last few years, for example, the Delaware language has become extinct. She said that she met a Kickapoo man, who could only speak Kickapoo, a language that is still tenaciously holding on to life. Steele asked the man through a translator why Kickapoo had survived and was in reasonably healthy shape compared to other Oklahoma languages, where most of them except for Cherokee and a few others are on the verge of extinction. In paraphrase, he replied the Kickapoos burned down the churches, and when the reformers came, they burned down the schools, and when they tried to move the tribe, the tribe left and went to Mexico. "He's saying that you have to be tough in order to keep your language, and it is tough, but you work hard and it is really enjoyable." ICT's RSS News Feed -- http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/?location=listinfo From sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Jul 18 17:57:54 2003 From: sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Susan Penfield) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 10:57:54 -0700 Subject: Something of interest for linguistic work! Message-ID: Hi, all This site seems to have some helpful info. for a variety of linguistic approaches, including the latest on software for transcription... www.talkbank.org Best, Susan Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D. Department of English University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jul 20 21:36:51 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2003 14:36:51 -0700 Subject: Tribes work to preserve native language (fwd) Message-ID: Tribes work to preserve native language PETER HARRIMAN Associated Press Posted on Sun, Jul. 20, 2003 http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/6346339.htm LAKE ANDES, S.D. - Thirteen tiny graduates in red and blue caps and gowns gather around a large white screen in the 4-H building here. The 4- and 5-year-old students in the Yankton Sioux Tribe's language immersion class of 2003 watch a videotape of themselves, made several days earlier. On the tape, the kids eagerly shout out answers to questions. "How do you say gold?" "Mazaskazi." "How do you say red?" "Ska." "How do you say spotted?" "Gleshka." Here is either the future of the tribe's language or a futile dream. South Dakota tribes have embarked on a quest to reverse the rapid decline of the Lakota, Nakota and Dakota dialects of their native language. Before World War II, these were the vernacular on most reservations, the languages tribal members learned at home before they learned English. But a survey conducted by Oglala Lakota College in 1993-94, the latest data that's available, shows what has happened at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and, by extension, to all tribal languages in the state. Among the survey findings: _ 90 percent of people 70 and older still spoke Lakota. _ 80 percent between ages 60-70 still spoke the language. _ Overall, an estimated 40 percent of Oglalas could still speak it. _ 1 percent of people younger than 18 could speak their native tongue. _ The average age of speakers was 35. The goal at Pine Ridge and elsewhere is to make tribal languages commonly spoken. Tribes hope to preserve language as vital instruments for conveying the nuances of Indians' concepts of themselves and their relation to the world. It's a goal that must be met before a critical mass of speakers ages and dies. But there is no set path toward language salvation, and efforts in the state use widely different approaches that are often underfunded and controversial. The Oglalas at Pine Ridge are being assisted by the Indiana University American Indian Studies Research Institute, which is acting as a linguistics technical consultant, says Will Meya, who runs IU's Lakota Language program. A native language is vital to preserving a unique world view, he says. "It is hard to appreciate, if you are monolingual, that there really is a way of thinking, articulating and conceiving of ideas that is inherent in another way of speaking," he says. "Some linguists compare language to a biological species. Within the grammar and vocabulary is sort of a genetic code that has evolved for thousands of years and is unique." The fundamental Lakota idea that everything is interrelated is conveyed in the syntax of the Lakota language. European thought assumes an individual stands separate from the world and makes value judgments about it. This is seen in basic English syntax: subject, verb, object, "Jane sees the dog." In Lakota, the syntax is object, subject, verb, "The dog Jane sees." There is no subtle implication the dog exists only because Jane sees it. "We have got to look at life on this planet as inherently more valuable if we have those ideas available to us," Meya says. The first Lakota immersion program began in 1997 at Loneman School on Pine Ridge. Meya's assertion that language is integral to culture resonates with Leonard Little Finger, the school's Lakota studies director. "One of the most important areas of language is the spiritual side," Little Finger says. "Our elders say our tongue was given to us by our creator so we can speak with our creator." Tribal languages were under attack in South Dakota from the time tribes were conquered in the 1880s and forced to submit to government assimilation policies. Isolation, though, served as an effective antidote. Reservations far removed from the dominant society were reservoirs of native speakers. Despite consistent pressures at boarding schools and elsewhere to turn Indians into imitation whites, native languages survived well on South Dakota's reservations until the past 50 years. "Before 1954, the identity to be Lakota was very strong," Meya says. That all began to change when Indians who entered the wider world to fight World War II began returning home. "Lakotas resisted language change and remained true to their culture much longer than many other tribes," he says. "When so many of the young Lakota males went off to war, it changed so profoundly. They saw the rest of the world for the first time and also realized the vastness of what was up against them, the dominant society. "The cash economy started on Pine Ridge. That's when so many things came back from the outside world." Little Finger, 65, is from Pine Ridge. Like many of his peers, he learned Lakota as a first language. He illustrates the profound difficulty in bridging the gap between aging fluent speakers and the children who proponents hope will carry on their tongue. "In my life, I grew up where everyone spoke the language. It was just as natural as could be. I didn't have to read a book to learn my words. I heard it and spoke it," he says. "I look now, and those people are few and far between. We can still carry on a conversation, but I carry them on primarily with people my own age. It is rare I speak with youth. I try to say words in Lakota, and they look at me with saucer eyes." Making native languages relevant to the 21st century is crucial if they are to survive as living languages, says Meya, the Indiana linguist. "We're battling English," he says. "We're competing against things like satellite television and all the things the dominant English language has to offer. We're competing just for students' attention. Part of the strategy is to create as much material for them as possible to make it relevant." Jerome Kills Small, who has taught Indian languages at the University of South Dakota for 13 years, does detect in them a necessary attribute of a living language, the ability to create new words. Like every language, they have bound morphemes, an arbitrary pairing of sound and meaning that is the building material of words. "If you can put syllables together you can create and describe a new noun. If a first-language speaker heard it, they would know exactly what that word is," Kills Small says. Perhaps the simplest example of a bound morpheme in English is the sound "s." Attached to the end of any noun, it signifies the plural. Even as tribes race to create a new generation of speakers, their native languages need gatekeepers to ensure tribal language morphemes and existing words are used to make new words in the 21st century, rather than letting English creep into the lexicon, Meya says. "That's what the French do all the time. Everything is brought into French. There are no Anglo words at all," he says. There are two types of language-restoration programs on reservations. At Yankton and Pine Ridge, the goal of immersion classes is to conduct them almost totally in the native language. Cheyenne River's Good Child Program - Cinci Wakpa Waste - seeks to teach Lakota and English together in grades K-12. Bilingual education was the favored method of Lakota language instruction, according to a survey conducted among Cheyenne River parents in 1999 by Marion Blue Arm. "Parents always feel we are giving up English if we teach Lakota," she says. That's not the case. "If you truly have immersion to the third grade, there are all these studies that show English will come back anyway. They will learn that and pick it up like nothing," says Blue Arm. "But people don't believe that. They believe that if you are not teaching English intensely from the beginning, the students will be at a disadvantage." Rosie Roach, a former elementary school principal, is the administrator of language programs in Cheyenne River schools. Immersion has run afoul of not only leery parents but recalcitrant teachers, she says. "We do get a small amount of resistance from parents. We get a lot of resistance from teachers," she says of language immersion. "Most of the teachers in our systems are non-Indians. Research shows our Native American children can really progress if they have their language and culture. Yet when we look at that as teachers, we don't do anything with it. We continue to teach in the same way we've been teaching the past 50 years. That has to change." Cheyenne River has put an innovative twist on bilingual instruction. It has started to pair fluent Lakota speakers in classrooms with certified teachers. The idea is to bring both language proficiency and teaching proficiency together. That level of professional support stands in stark contrast to Lavena Cook, who teaches the Yankton's language immersion classes at Lake Andes. "I knew my language. But I don't know a thing about teaching. I did everything in my life but teach children," says Cook, 54. She was working as a postal clerk in Marty last year when officials with the tribal-language immersion program prevailed upon her to take over the class. "I said, `I'll try. I'll do it for six months, and if I'm not doing a good job, you can let me go.'" Whatever the state of language restoration, things are better than they were, says Roach at Cheyenne River. While interest in restoring native language is strong now, the opportunity to do so is relatively short. Meya points to the aging native language speakers. "We only have 20 years, if that, to use the speakers of today as teachers to train a generation of speakers," he says. Meya, Little Finger and Roach all say the federal government could play a major role in providing funding for language teachers and producing native language curricula. Meya talks about $5 million a year for 40 years for the Pine Ridge project alone. Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota is a co-sponsor of the 2003 amendment to the 1990 Native American Languages Act. He also is the most prominent official Meya solicits for federal aid. The amendment he is co-sponsoring encourages the development of language nests, organized language programs for children 7 years old and younger and their families. It offers schools a chance to qualify as language-survival schools to receive funding. The catch is, there is virtually no funding in the current budget. "We are trying to devise new, more effective ways to provide for Native American language survival. This is one step in that direction," Johnson says of the amendment. "There is not a lot of money to be had that is focused exclusively on Lakota language preservation." Meya points out the irony that what federal money is available tends to go to the most threatened languages, rather than ones like Lakota, that have enough speakers to have a chance of survival. Johnson agrees: "A language like Lakota, that still has a significant number of fluent speakers, has a better long-term chance at being preserved in a meaningful way and not just as an academic subject but as a language that is utilized in daily life." But he adds that when it comes to fighting for funding, he must take into account what the tribes want and need. "Their funding requests tend to focus more on basic human needs, school funding, nutrition, Indian Health Service, law enforcement, roads and water," he says. "I know language preservation is important. But that's not an area they have made central to their appropriations requests." So there are people such as Cook, the nonteacher, with no help or experience, trying to save the Yankton's Dakota by cobbling together her version of immersion. The students probably heard more English than a linguist would like to see in an immersion program, they learned more vocabulary than sentence structure, and the class concluded with no exam, no formal assessment of success. But Cook recounts a telling little triumph, an example of language truly restored. One day, she intervened as a pair of her tiny students were squabbling over a toy. They were arguing in Dakota. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Mon Jul 21 19:06:40 2003 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2003 12:06:40 -0700 Subject: Preserving a culture Message-ID: http://www.argusleader.com/specialsections/2003/woundedknee/Sundayarticle3.shtml The Legacy of Wounded Knee Educator works to preserve Lakota language and, in essence, a culture Jon Walker Argus Leader published: 3/16/2003 MANDERSON - Wilmer Mesteth carries a treasure he'd like to share with as many people as possible on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The treasure is the Lakota language, a soft, smooth tongue that unlocks the heart and history of Mesteth's people, and in his view keeps alive the hope of their enduring identity. "The language is the basis of our culture," he says Wilmer Mesteth stands in an arbor where he holds night dances at his home west of Pine Ridge. Mesteth is an arts, language and culture instructor at Oglala Lakota College and a Lakota spiritual leader. from his classroom at the Oglala Lakota College in Manderson. "If we don't have a language, we don't have a culture. It's very important the language survives because our whole culture depends on it." Unfortunately, the language is in sharp decline, the victim of neglect in a generational paradox growing more acute in the 30 years since the occupation of Wounded Knee. For all the pros and cons of the American Indian Movement's standoff against federal authorities in 1973, the protesters did stand up to authority in a way that provided a cultural spark that asserted tribal people's right to speak Lakota freely. Young adults rejoiced at the possibilities, some of them with fresh memories of being punished for speaking the language on school playgrounds in the 1950s and '60s. Indians born since then, however, haven't picked up the torch and run. "On a lot of reservations, the language is nearly nonexistent," says Belva Hollow Horn Emery, who grew up in Wounded Knee and now lives in White River. "That's what is keeping the culture alive. It makes us Indian. Without the language, pardon my saying, we're just brown-skinned white people." Elaine Yellow Horse, an 18-year-old senior at Red Cloud High School in Pine Ridge, illustrates the gap. "I wish I did," she says when asked whether she speaks Lakota. "My mom does and that's one of her regrets, that she didn't teach it to her kids." South Dakota's overall population is aging with the exodus of the young. But Pine Ridge sees the opposite with a birth rate twice as high as the rest of the state. "I'm 46 and my generation is probably the last generation to speak Lakota," Mesteth says. "Most of the people on the reservation are 25 and below. Almost none of them speak it. Maybe 1 percent is my estimation." He sees the culprit as the acculturation that Wounded Knee challenged. "Most kids now spend 70 percent of their time in school and when they get home most of them watch television," he says. "Everything's English." That the language hasn't flourished since Wounded Knee is doubly disappointing for Mesteth, who carries his own painful memory from the '73 occupation. He was 16 when the standoff began, an AIM supporter who was expelled from high school in turbulent times as youthful demonstrations turned physical. His grandfather was Pedro Bissonette, an organizer of the occupation. Mesteth today, living on Bissonette's land in Cheyenne Creek, salutes the occupation effort of 30 years ago. "It showed the world we weren't going to waltz into mainstream society and everything wasn't all right," Mesteth says. "When AIM came here, they showed our people we were headed in the wrong direction. Our traditions were important, and our religious ways were important, and our treaties are legal and binding. AIM brought those issues to the attention of our people." Supporters of Lakota are looking at different ways to bring the language back. One approach would be immersion courses, which follows a principle that has students adhere entirely to the language at hand rather than falling back onto English for definitions and explanations. The trappings of the computer age are providing an assist as instruction goes electronic. Hollow Horn Emery, 45, is teaching the language to her 2- and 6-year-old daughters and making a compact disc of children's rhymes sung in Lakota. "We'd like to help preserve the language in that sense," she says. >>From his classroom at Oglala Lakota College, Mesteth leads a one-hour seminar on Lakota after teaching a three-hour session on native quillwork. It's a modest undertaking on a recent Thursday afternoon, with three adults joining him at the end of a school day. As with any language, Lakota locks inside it a structure of thinking unique to the people who speak it. While many European languages retain gender-specific terms such as "host" and "hostess," Lakota extends the gender distinction to the speaker as well. In essence, men talk one way and women another. Wearing shaded glasses and parting his shiny black hair both left and right in a way that accents his bushy gray sideburns, Mesteth illustrates the distinctions of Lakota with a deep, resonant voice. For "a sunny day" in English, a Lakota man would say "Ampetu Omaste yelo." A woman would say "Ampetu Omaste ye." A translation of "what time is it?" takes the distinctions a step further. A man would say "Maza skan skan Tona hwo?" A woman would say "Maza skan skan Tona he?" The "skan skan" repetition comes from the sense of motion, as in two hands of a watch moving around a dial. The literal word-by-word in English would be "moving metal time how many?" If moving between Lakota and English is clumsy with common phrases, it approaches impossible in some communication. Just as Western European languages regard time, life, death and friendship as concepts with meanings that exceed their literal definition, so too the Lakota have embedded in their tongue ideas on religion, kinship and nature that defy translation. If the language goes, "we lose all that valuable information," Mesteth says. "Ceremonies, songs and prayers are all conducted in Lakota. Our worldview is centered in the language." -- André Cramblit: andre.p.cramblit.86 at alum.dartmouth.org Operations Director Northern California Indian Development Council NCIDC (http://www.ncidc.org) is a non-profit that meets the development needs of American Indians and operates an art gallery featuring the art of California tribes (http://www.americanindianonline.com) COMMUNICATION IS THE KEY TO THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN INDIANS/NATIVE AMERICANS/ALASKAN NATIVES & HAWAIIAN ISLANDERS. For news of interest to Natives subscribe send an email to: IndigenousNewsNetwork-subscribe at topica.com or go to: http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/?location=listinfo From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Tue Jul 22 18:58:43 2003 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2003 11:58:43 -0700 Subject: Introduction Message-ID: Hello, just a brief moment to let others know a little bit about me ( or remind you, if you have been around awhile). I am an enrolled member of the Karuk Tribe from the Klamath and Salmon Rivers in NW California. I am the chairman of my tribes language restoration committee (please see http://www.ncidc.org/karuk/index.html) and am an active participant in our Tribal dances and ceremonies. What is your full name? André Pierre Cramblit What State do you reside in? Arcata, CA What nation do you come from? Karuk Tribe Of California (also have Creek & Tohono O'odham blood-Norris Family) Do you have a title or position that will identify you more clearly to others in the group? Operations Director NCIDC http://www.ncidc.org What activities are you involved in that help the American Indians today? Language Preservation, cultural resources, story telling, traditional activities, tribal ceremonies, grant writing, communications http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/?location=listinfo education, environmental issues, etc Who are your favorite musical artist/s? (Only Considering Natives) Indigenous, Arigon Starr, Merve George, Native Roots, Who is your favorite author or authors? (Only Considering Natives) Vine Deloria, Louise Erdrich, Heid Erdrich, Diane Burns, Joy Harjo What is your favorite Native Movie? Pow Wow Highway or Black Robe From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 23 19:36:29 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 12:36:29 -0700 Subject: Lithuania/Ukraine: Karaims Struggle To Maintain Their Language And Culture (fwd) Message-ID: Lithuania/Ukraine: Karaims Struggle To Maintain Their Language And Culture http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2003/07/22072003165742.asp By Charles Carlson Karaim is an endangered Turkic language spoken only by an estimated 50 speakers mostly living in Lithuania. RFE/RL traces the ethnogenesis of the Karaims and highlights present-day efforts to maintain their language and culture. Prague, 22 July 2003 (RFE/RL) -- Karaims are the descendants of Kypchak tribes who lived in the tribal union of the Khazar empire in the Crimea between the eighth and 10th centuries. In the eighth century, the Karaims converted to a form of Judaism known as Karaism, which may be described as a return to the roots or "sola scriptura." The Karaims later split into three main groups. One group remained in the Crimea; another moved to Galicia, in part of present-day Ukraine; and the third group -- the largest -- in the 14th century left for what is now the town of Trakai in present-day Lithuania. By the end of the 17th century there were about 30 Karaim communities in eastern Central Europe. But just 100 years later, their numbers had been drastically reduced as a result of epidemics and wars. Nevertheless, they were given status as a religious community by the respective countries in which they found themselves. According to a 1992 study by Lithuania's National Research Center, the country's Karaims are considered a national minority and "original inhabitants" of Lithuania. The sect of Karaism to which the Karaims have belonged since the eighth century is known as Anan ben David, a form of Judaism that acknowledges the Old Testament, but rejects the Talmud. According to Karaim religious teaching, reading the Bible is the duty of each believer. This religion is distinct from Rabbinical Judaism. The Karaim house of worship is called a kenesa. Today there are two functioning kenesas in Lithuania, one in Vilnius and one in Trakai. In the 19th century, Karaim intellectuals became aware of the need to develop a literary language and publish periodicals in Karaim. The vocabulary of the Karaim language is strongly influenced by folklore, proverbs, riddles, and folk poetry, but lacks many abstract terms and has not expanded to incorporate words to express many scientific, technical, and philosophical concepts. Until the 20th century, Karaim literacy was based on a knowledge of Hebrew. At first, Hebrew characters were used for writing Karaim, but later the orthographic system was based on the writing systems of the countries in which Karaims lived. After Lithuania gained independence in 1990, Karaims adopted an orthography based on the Lithuanian writing system. The most comprehensive grammar of Karaim is by the well-known Turkologist Kenesbay Musaev. Estimates place the number of Karaim speakers today at around 50. This includes about 45 speakers of the language in Lithuania and only five speakers in the small settlement of Halych in Ukraine. This has led to Karaim being classified as a "seriously endangered" language in the UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages. The maintenance of their mother tongue and the revitalization of community life are the most urgent tasks facing the Karaims today. Several projects today are aimed at maintaining conversational Karaim. One such project, designed to document the spoken language, has been carried out by Professor Eva Csato Johansson, a specialist of Karaim at Sweden's Uppsala University. She launched a program in 1994 to document the language by means of voice and video recordings. Working with other linguists, she also produced a multimedia CD which has been in use by the community in order to support the revitalization of the language in Lithuania, and help linguists who want to learn about this language. Csato praised the local Ukrainian authorities in the town of Halych, home to the five remaining elderly speakers of the Halych dialect of Karaim, for their efforts to publicize and preserve the Karaim language and culture. "Now in spite of the fact that the Halych community consists of only five old speakers, this is a very, very powerful little community. In 2002, in September, they could organize an international conference on Halych Karaim history and culture which evoked very great interest," Csato said. This, Csato said, was partly due to the support the Karaim community received from Halych authorities, which has provided financial aid as well as help in maintaining Halych traditions. The Karaim community in Lithuania, too, receives support from the state for the development of its culture. The Lithuanian Karaim Cultural Society, under the leadership of Karaim musicologist Karina Firkaviciute, seeks to promote Karaim cultural traditions through courses and programs especially designed for the approximately 250-member Karaim community in Vilnius and Trakai. Karina is one of the very few young native speakers of the endangered Karaim language. Firkaviciute told RFE/RL that a great deal is being done to help preserve Karaim culture. "As the Cultural Society of Lithuanian Karaims, we are trying to maintain the language, and the most important thing is to be able to give the children the possibility to learn the language. So we are trying to organize each summer a kind of summer camp for Karaim children, where they can get some time to learn the Karaim language. But of course they would need to do it more often and during the whole year, not only in the summertime," she said. She also praised the work of Eva Csato Johansson, especially the CD-ROM she compiled for people who would like to learn the Karaim language. "[It] includes also some dictionary, and grammar and sounds, and you would be able to learn how to read and how to pronounce it correctly, so it is quite a live thing. It is a very fresh and nice thing, but it is not yet published, and you would not be able to buy it. But we expect it every second to come, so there would be already the scientific background for the future lessons, and also we are trying to document the language in the sense of printing the books, printing the poems or literature or some articles on the Karaim language, on something that has been written in Karaim language, etc.," Firkaviciute said. Firkaviciute said the various Karaim communities maintain contacts with each other and meet practically every year. RFE/RL asked her if she was optimistic the language would survive. "I would say, 'yes,' and if somebody is not, I would say we should actually be optimistic, because otherwise you are not able to do anything," she said. "And of course the only pessimistic note that could be here is that the [size] of the communities is very small, but it is not the main thing which could make you pessimistic. If you are pessimistic, then you are not a human being. You should be optimistic, and I think we are optimistic, and we will try to do something to make other people more optimistic. But it's the main thing just to stay with those positive moods, because otherwise there's no way to run." As an example of her language, Karina read a Karaim poem entitled "Syru Trochnun": "Being faraway our brothers always remember our native lands. Elders and the young, everybody from distant places always come back to Trakai. There everybody enjoys the nature, summertime on the islands. Youth will not come back, so we have to remember and being faraway not to forget about Trakai. What is the secret of Trakai, why does everybody long for that small town? You have to tell that secret even for the youngest -- Youth go there because of young nice girls and we all go and long for Trakai because of tradition." Some are convinced languages like Karaim, which have only a few speakers, are doomed to extinction. But Professor David Crystal, an internationally recognized linguist and supporter of endangered languages, believes that a language can survive regardless of the number of speakers -- as long as there is support for the language. "It is possible for a language to survive, to regenerate -- to 'revitalize' is the usual term -- regardless of the number of speakers it has. There are cases on record of peoples with just a few hundred speakers who have, with appropriate support, managed to maintain their language presence and to build upon it," Crystal said. This should be encouragement to the small community of Karaims in Trakai. From mward at LUNA.CC.NM.US Wed Jul 23 20:15:00 2003 From: mward at LUNA.CC.NM.US (Matthew Ward) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 14:15:00 -0600 Subject: Lithuania/Ukraine: Karaims Struggle To Maintain Their Language And Culture (fwd) Message-ID: Thanks for another good article. I am constantly reminded about how the struggle to preserve traditional languages is going on all over the world, and find it striking how similar the issues are everywhere. I once lived in Taiwan, which is trying to preserve its linguistic diversity against the dominance of the powerful Mandarin Chinese. The traditional languages there are "Taiwanese" (a dialect of the Hokkien language), Hakka (another Chinese language) and around a dozen aboriginal languages. Like so many other countries, Taiwan has gone from very harsh government policies which attempted to force Mandarin on the entire population, to policies which often celebrate multilingualism, and which struggle to preserve the island's traditional linguistic diversity. It is a VERY interesting situation there, since democratization has make a flowering of language preservation efforts possible. If anyone would like to know more details, please let me know, I'd be happy to share it. Matthew Ward Phil Cash Cash wrote: >Lithuania/Ukraine: Karaims Struggle To Maintain Their Language And >Culture > >http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2003/07/22072003165742.asp > > By Charles Carlson > > Karaim is an endangered Turkic language spoken only by an estimated 50 >speakers mostly living in Lithuania. RFE/RL traces the ethnogenesis of >the Karaims and highlights present-day efforts to maintain their >language and culture. > >Prague, 22 July 2003 (RFE/RL) -- Karaims are the descendants of Kypchak >tribes who lived in the tribal union of the Khazar empire in the Crimea >between the eighth and 10th centuries. In the eighth century, the >Karaims converted to a form of Judaism known as Karaism, which may be >described as a return to the roots or "sola scriptura." > >The Karaims later split into three main groups. One group remained in >the Crimea; another moved to Galicia, in part of present-day Ukraine; >and the third group -- the largest -- in the 14th century left for what >is now the town of Trakai in present-day Lithuania. > > By the end of the 17th century there were about 30 Karaim communities >in eastern Central Europe. But just 100 years later, their numbers had >been drastically reduced as a result of epidemics and wars. >Nevertheless, they were given status as a religious community by the >respective countries in which they found themselves. > >According to a 1992 study by Lithuania's National Research Center, the >country's Karaims are considered a national minority and "original >inhabitants" of Lithuania. > >The sect of Karaism to which the Karaims have belonged since the eighth >century is known as Anan ben David, a form of Judaism that acknowledges >the Old Testament, but rejects the Talmud. According to Karaim >religious teaching, reading the Bible is the duty of each believer. >This religion is distinct from Rabbinical Judaism. The Karaim house of >worship is called a kenesa. Today there are two functioning kenesas in >Lithuania, one in Vilnius and one in Trakai. > > In the 19th century, Karaim intellectuals became aware of the need to >develop a literary language and publish periodicals in Karaim. The >vocabulary of the Karaim language is strongly influenced by folklore, >proverbs, riddles, and folk poetry, but lacks many abstract terms and >has not expanded to incorporate words to express many scientific, >technical, and philosophical concepts. > >Until the 20th century, Karaim literacy was based on a knowledge of >Hebrew. At first, Hebrew characters were used for writing Karaim, but >later the orthographic system was based on the writing systems of the >countries in which Karaims lived. After Lithuania gained independence >in 1990, Karaims adopted an orthography based on the Lithuanian writing >system. The most comprehensive grammar of Karaim is by the well-known >Turkologist Kenesbay Musaev. > >Estimates place the number of Karaim speakers today at around 50. This >includes about 45 speakers of the language in Lithuania and only five >speakers in the small settlement of Halych in Ukraine. This has led to >Karaim being classified as a "seriously endangered" language in the >UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages. The maintenance of their >mother tongue and the revitalization of community life are the most >urgent tasks facing the Karaims today. > >Several projects today are aimed at maintaining conversational Karaim. >One such project, designed to document the spoken language, has been >carried out by Professor Eva Csato Johansson, a specialist of Karaim at >Sweden's Uppsala University. She launched a program in 1994 to document >the language by means of voice and video recordings. > > Working with other linguists, she also produced a multimedia CD which >has been in use by the community in order to support the revitalization >of the language in Lithuania, and help linguists who want to learn >about this language. > > Csato praised the local Ukrainian authorities in the town of Halych, >home to the five remaining elderly speakers of the Halych dialect of >Karaim, for their efforts to publicize and preserve the Karaim language >and culture. "Now in spite of the fact that the Halych community >consists of only five old speakers, this is a very, very powerful >little community. In 2002, in September, they could organize an >international conference on Halych Karaim history and culture which >evoked very great interest," Csato said. > > This, Csato said, was partly due to the support the Karaim community >received from Halych authorities, which has provided financial aid as >well as help in maintaining Halych traditions. > >The Karaim community in Lithuania, too, receives support from the state >for the development of its culture. The Lithuanian Karaim Cultural >Society, under the leadership of Karaim musicologist Karina >Firkaviciute, seeks to promote Karaim cultural traditions through >courses and programs especially designed for the approximately >250-member Karaim community in Vilnius and Trakai. Karina is one of the >very few young native speakers of the endangered Karaim language. > > Firkaviciute told RFE/RL that a great deal is being done to help >preserve Karaim culture. "As the Cultural Society of Lithuanian >Karaims, we are trying to maintain the language, and the most important >thing is to be able to give the children the possibility to learn the >language. So we are trying to organize each summer a kind of summer >camp for Karaim children, where they can get some time to learn the >Karaim language. But of course they would need to do it more often and >during the whole year, not only in the summertime," she said. > >She also praised the work of Eva Csato Johansson, especially the CD-ROM >she compiled for people who would like to learn the Karaim language. >"[It] includes also some dictionary, and grammar and sounds, and you >would be able to learn how to read and how to pronounce it correctly, >so it is quite a live thing. It is a very fresh and nice thing, but it >is not yet published, and you would not be able to buy it. But we >expect it every second to come, so there would be already the >scientific background for the future lessons, and also we are trying to >document the language in the sense of printing the books, printing the >poems or literature or some articles on the Karaim language, on >something that has been written in Karaim language, etc.," Firkaviciute >said. > > Firkaviciute said the various Karaim communities maintain contacts with >each other and meet practically every year. RFE/RL asked her if she was >optimistic the language would survive. "I would say, 'yes,' and if >somebody is not, I would say we should actually be optimistic, because >otherwise you are not able to do anything," she said. "And of course >the only pessimistic note that could be here is that the [size] of the >communities is very small, but it is not the main thing which could >make you pessimistic. If you are pessimistic, then you are not a human >being. You should be optimistic, and I think we are optimistic, and we >will try to do something to make other people more optimistic. But it's >the main thing just to stay with those positive moods, because >otherwise there's no way to run." > > As an example of her language, Karina read a Karaim poem entitled "Syru >Trochnun": "Being faraway our brothers always remember our native >lands. Elders and the young, everybody from distant places always come >back to Trakai. There everybody enjoys the nature, summertime on the >islands. Youth will not come back, so we have to remember and being >faraway not to forget about Trakai. What is the secret of Trakai, why >does everybody long for that small town? You have to tell that secret >even for the youngest -- Youth go there because of young nice girls and >we all go and long for Trakai because of tradition." > > Some are convinced languages like Karaim, which have only a few >speakers, are doomed to extinction. But Professor David Crystal, an >internationally recognized linguist and supporter of endangered >languages, believes that a language can survive regardless of the >number of speakers -- as long as there is support for the language. > > "It is possible for a language to survive, to regenerate -- to >'revitalize' is the usual term -- regardless of the number of speakers >it has. There are cases on record of peoples with just a few hundred >speakers who have, with appropriate support, managed to maintain their >language presence and to build upon it," Crystal said. This should be >encouragement to the small community of Karaims in Trakai. > > > From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 24 22:36:38 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 15:36:38 -0700 Subject: The Ken Hale Prize (fwd) Message-ID: The Ken Hale Prize is presented annually by the Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA) in recognition of outstanding community language work and a deep commitment to the documentation, maintenance, promotion, and revitalization of indigenous languages in the Americas. The Prize (which carries a small monetary stipend and is not to be confused with the Linguistic Society of America's Kenneth Hale Book Award) will honor those who strive to link the academic and community spheres in the spirit of Ken Hale, and recipients will range from native speakers and community-based linguists to academic specialists, and may include groups or organizations. No academic affiliation is necessary. Nominations for the award may be made by anyone, and should include a letter of nomination stating the current position and affiliation, if appropriate, of the nominee or nominated group (tribal, organizational, or academic), and a summary of the nominee's background and contributions to specific language communities. The nominator should also submit a brief portfolio of supporting materials, such as the nominee's curriculum vitae, a description of completed or ongoing activities of the nominee, letters from those who are most familiar with the work of the nominee (e.g. language program staff, community people, academic associates), and any other material that would support the nomination. Submission of manuscript-length work is discouraged. The 2003 Ken Hale Prize will be announced at the next annual meeting of SSILA, in Boston, in January 2004. The other members of this year's selection committee are Sara Trechter and Colette Grinevald. The deadline for receipt of nominations is September 30, 2003. The nomination packet should be sent to the chair of the Committee: Akira Y. Yamamoto Department of Anthropology University of Kansas Fraser Hall 622 1415 Jayhawk Blvd. Lawrence, KS 66045-7556 Nominations will be kept active for two subsequent years for prize consideration, and nominators are invited to update their nomination packets if so desired. Inquiries can be e-mailed to Akira Yamamoto at . - Akira Y. Yamamoto The University of Kansas Department of Anthropology Fraser Hall 622 1415 Jayhawk Blvd. Lawrence KS 66045-7556 Phone: 785/864-2645 FAX: 785/864-5224 Anthropology: http://www.cc.ku.edu/~kuanth/ Linguistics: http://www.linguistics.ku.edu/ ~~~ From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Jul 25 00:49:20 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 17:49:20 -0700 Subject: It's Dells, dude, for Sandia (fwd) Message-ID: It's Dells, dude, for Sandia http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/news03/072403_news_sandia.shtml By Ailene Torres Tribune Reporter Close to home, far from ordinary, the casino advertising says. Sandia Pueblo council members are attempting to live up to that slogan by donating a new computer to each household on its pueblo. "The council is committed to education and the continued learning of our people," said Pueblo Governor Stuwart Paisano. "We look for ways to give back to the community that will benefit all members in a positive way." It's not every day a business donates more than 100 computers and related equipment to its community. But today is different, and Sandia Casino is not the average business. Sandia Pueblo's 16-member tribal council today will distribute to all 135 households on the pueblo a new Dell computer, flat screen monitor and laser jet printer. The computers and training classes on how to use them are funded by gaming revenues earned through the pueblo's main source of income: Sandia Casino. The casino is owned and operated by the pueblo's tribal council, the governing body for all 481 members that reside on its land. Paisano said the idea of donating computers to the entire pueblo came from a visit to New Mexico by President Clinton in April 2000. Clinton noted that many residents in the Navajo Nation lacked basic technological items most American families possess, such as telephones, and were close to what he termed "the digital divide." As Sandia continues to search for ways to enrich the community from its businesses, they decided technology would be ideal gift for those who live on the pueblo, he said. "It's a very powerful tool," Paisano said. He said computers are essential if members want to be competitive in today's job market, Paisano said. "I continue to be proud of the council's commitment. . . . I'm glad they are providing the necessary tools the members need to survive in the world of technology," Paisano said. The machines also will be a means to ensure the continuity of the pueblo's native dialect - Tiwa - to the next generation. The pueblo teaches their young members the language and provides study materials on CD-ROM and DVD. Although the Learning Resource Center, which is located on the pueblo, is open to all members, it can be inconvenient to go there and check e-mails, write resumes or study Tiwa, say pueblo residents. "The computers will be used to teach and preserve our language," Paisano said. "If members don't have that technology they will be at a disadvantage." Aaron Chavez, a pueblo resident and father of four children, three of whom are school age, said he is grateful for the gift. "Not having to go down to the Learning Resource Center will save a lot of time," Chavez said. "It will be of great use and make me more productive." Chavez said the tool will be an enormous aid to his children for their school work. "Having these things on a daily basis makes it easier," Chavez said. "It enhances our ability to survive in the world." An assessment for the types of training needed will be determined after each member receives their computer. For those not physically able to collect their machines, deliveries will be arranged, Paisano said. All training will be free. Pueblo officials will also act as a liaison between members and Dell when technical issues arise, he said. "All they will have to do is call us," Paisano said. "And we will contact Dell, and help them any way we can." The council takes the responsibility of taking care of their people and community very seriously, Paisano said. The pueblo will continue to deliver computers to each household including those who move in after today, he said. "Giving back to the community is an idea which is embedded in the hearts and minds of the tribal council," Paisano said. From fnkrs at UAF.EDU Sun Jul 27 03:56:02 2003 From: fnkrs at UAF.EDU (Hishinlai') Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2003 19:56:02 -0800 Subject: It's Dells, dude, for Sandia Message-ID: Wow! This might be a very energetic focus for the casino, but I think it will also be an equally (maybe) daunting move to provide the training. I remember about thirteen years ago (when I first became affiliated with a university), I didn't even know how to turn on a computer, let alone know how to navigate around a word processor! It leads me to wonder if this idea came from the Pueblo community, and also how they will incorporate language revitalization into homes via the computer? Language certainly isn't static now...is it? >===== Original Message From Indigenous Languages and Technology ===== >It's Dells, dude, for Sandia >http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/news03/072403_news_sandia.shtml > > By Ailene Torres > Tribune Reporter > > Close to home, far from ordinary, the casino advertising says. > > Sandia Pueblo council members are attempting to live up to that slogan >by donating a new computer to each household on its pueblo. > > "The council is committed to education and the continued learning of >our people," said Pueblo Governor Stuwart Paisano. "We look for ways to >give back to the community that will benefit all members in a positive >way." > > It's not every day a business donates more than 100 computers and >related equipment to its community. > > But today is different, and Sandia Casino is not the average business. > > Sandia Pueblo's 16-member tribal council today will distribute to all >135 households on the pueblo a new Dell computer, flat screen monitor >and laser jet printer. The computers and training classes on how to use >them are funded by gaming revenues earned through the pueblo's main >source of income: Sandia Casino. > > The casino is owned and operated by the pueblo's tribal council, the >governing body for all 481 members that reside on its land. > > Paisano said the idea of donating computers to the entire pueblo came >from a visit to New Mexico by President Clinton in April 2000. Clinton >noted that many residents in the Navajo Nation lacked basic >technological items most American families possess, such as telephones, >and were close to what he termed "the digital divide." > > As Sandia continues to search for ways to enrich the community from its >businesses, they decided technology would be ideal gift for those who >live on the pueblo, he said. > > "It's a very powerful tool," Paisano said. > > He said computers are essential if members want to be competitive in >today's job market, Paisano said. > > "I continue to be proud of the council's commitment. . . . I'm glad >they are providing the necessary tools the members need to survive in >the world of technology," Paisano said. > > The machines also will be a means to ensure the continuity of the >pueblo's native dialect - Tiwa - to the next generation. > > The pueblo teaches their young members the language and provides study >materials on CD-ROM and DVD. Although the Learning Resource Center, >which is located on the pueblo, is open to all members, it can be >inconvenient to go there and check e-mails, write resumes or study >Tiwa, say pueblo residents. > > "The computers will be used to teach and preserve our language," >Paisano said. "If members don't have that technology they will be at a >disadvantage." > > Aaron Chavez, a pueblo resident and father of four children, three of >whom are school age, said he is grateful for the gift. > > "Not having to go down to the Learning Resource Center will save a lot >of time," Chavez said. "It will be of great use and make me more >productive." > > Chavez said the tool will be an enormous aid to his children for their >school work. > > "Having these things on a daily basis makes it easier," Chavez said. >"It enhances our ability to survive in the world." > > An assessment for the types of training needed will be determined after >each member receives their computer. For those not physically able to >collect their machines, deliveries will be arranged, Paisano said. All >training will be free. > > Pueblo officials will also act as a liaison between members and Dell >when technical issues arise, he said. > > "All they will have to do is call us," Paisano said. "And we will >contact Dell, and help them any way we can." > > The council takes the responsibility of taking care of their people and >community very seriously, Paisano said. The pueblo will continue to >deliver computers to each household including those who move in after >today, he said. > > "Giving back to the community is an idea which is embedded in the >hearts and minds of the tribal council," Paisano said. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Hishinlai' "Kathy R. Sikorski", Gwich'in Instructor University of Alaska Fairbanks Alaska Native Language Center P. O. Box 757680 Fairbanks, AK 99775-7680 P (907) 474-7875 F (907) 474-7876 E fnkrs at uaf.edu ANLC-L at www.uaf.edu/anlc/ Hah! Nakhweet'ihthan t'ihch'yaa! From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 30 17:17:53 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 10:17:53 -0700 Subject: WireTap - Mac OSX audio recorder Message-ID: Dear ILAT, I came across this handy new free software called "WireTap" for Mac OSX. It has been a great little tool for recording audio directly from the web. I've been capturing language audio (among other things) where previously I could only listen to it without downloading. Download http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/freebies/ Review http://www.macobserver.com/article/2003/07/09.10.shtml heenek'e (again), Phil Cash Cash (cayuse/nez perce) UofA, ILAT http://www.u.arizona.edu/~cashcash/ILAT.html From summerw at STANFORD.EDU Wed Jul 30 19:44:54 2003 From: summerw at STANFORD.EDU (Summer Waggoner) Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 12:44:54 -0700 Subject: Inquiry in creating interactive CD Roms Message-ID: Aiy-yu-kwee', The Yurok Tribe's language program needs your help. We are seeking to create language cd-roms and we are in the process of identifying software--that would help us create the cd-roms-- that would be the most helpful as well as efficient in this task. I was hoping that there may be those of you who would be willing to advise me on software that you may have used or know to be helpful. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration. Wok'hlaw, Summer Waggoner Yurok Tribe Language Curriculum Specialist 530-625-4137 From jenjit at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jul 30 20:50:40 2003 From: jenjit at HOTMAIL.COM (Jen G) Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 03:50:40 +0700 Subject: Inquiry in creating interactive CD Roms Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From twoelkenterprise at YAHOO.COM Wed Jul 30 21:45:45 2003 From: twoelkenterprise at YAHOO.COM (Two Elk) Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 14:45:45 -0700 Subject: Inquiry in creating interactive CD Roms In-Reply-To: <1059594294.3f28203634b41@webmail.stanford.edu> Message-ID: Hi! I owe everyone a big Intro thing,...but will get it out soon...until then I apologize...just been lurking...learning and such... on the Q... Depending on how Hi Tek you want to, or are qualified to, based on learning curves, etc., you could go with Dreamweaver and Flash...I had some Tek Wizards put together an Interactive CD Rom using those, and you can read a speech at the same time you hear it... but I'm not sure what the advanced levels of Interactivity potentials are... on the Lo Tek end...you could put together some pretty Interactive DHTML pages using Javascript, etc. save it much the same as a web page structure and load it onto a CD as a Data file. With that programming and scripting it's possible to code the audio files from the HTML pages, work in forms, etc. When you've got what you want in the Interactivity arena, you save it to CD with the autoload code and Voila! Interactive Lo Tek CD, anybody can recreate or learn from... so, again...it depends on what you need... hope this helps some... Two Elk ===== "We are all students and we are all teachers. We are students of those who know more and we are teachers of those who know less..." TLAKEALEL Kalpulli De Koacalco Koacalco, Mexico __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 31 21:35:20 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 14:35:20 -0700 Subject: Bishop =?iso-8859-1?b?TXVzZXVtknM=?= project preserves Hawaiian language (fwd) Message-ID: Bishop Museum’s project preserves Hawaiian language By Huy Vo Posted: Thursday July 31, 2003 http://www.hawaiibusiness.cc/hb72003/hbe-brief.cfm?hbeid=505 Thanks to Bishop Museum's newspaper project entitled Ho'olaupa'i, Hawaiian language newspapers are now easily accessible. Nineteenth and early 20th century Hawaiian newspapers are an untapped source of historical information about Hawaii. Thoughts and ideas of Hawaiians during this time period will be revealed for the first time in a century to researchers and the general public. In partnership with Alu Like and Hale Kuamo'o at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, Bishop Museum is archiving and providing research tools for improved access to the newspapers. The project is striving to have a partial database of Hawaiian newsprint available on the Internet by the end of this summer under the direction of Project Manager Kau'i Goodhue. Over the next five years, a searchable database of the more than 100 different Hawaiian language newspapers, with 125,000 pages of Hawaiian Language Newsprint will be available to researchers on the Internet, through the help of the project. Ho'olaupa'i is initially funded by federal grants of about $360,000, contributed by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, and the U.S. Department of Interior, National Park Service - Native Hawaiian Culture and Arts Program. Full operation is expected by next year, and the Bishop Museum expects Ho'olaupa'i will be in need of about $500,000. Bishop Museum is finding ways to secure the increased funding requirements from foundation grants and private contributions. With the help of optical character recognition technology and Hawaiian language students, Ho'olaupa'i will create the most comprehensive searchable database for Hawaiian language newspapers. By capturing previously unrecorded Hawaiian words from the newspapers, the project is generating words not found in the standard Pukui & Elbert Hawaiian language dictionary. "We are honored to take part in such a culturally important program," says Bishop Museum President Bill Brown. "Ho'olaupa'i gives renewed life to these important Hawaiian language newspapers that will contribute to furthering the perpetuation of the Native Hawaiian culture and language." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 31 22:27:32 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 15:27:32 -0700 Subject: Inquiry in creating interactive CD Roms In-Reply-To: <1059594294.3f28203634b41@webmail.stanford.edu> Message-ID: Summer, The Critical Languages Instruction Group here at the University of Arizona has created a freeware called "MaxAuthor," a multimedia authoring system for language instruction. It is available for dowloading at the following link. http://cali.arizona.edu/docs/wmaxa/ Check out the most recent example lessons in Chemehuevi! The UofA Critical language staff (along with linguist Susan Penfield and I) worked hard to make this happen with Chemehuevi speaker Johhny Hill, who is among the youngest and few fluent speakers of Chemehuevi remaining. Did I mention that MaxAuthor is free? Also, I hope that more responses from our ILAT list participants are forthcoming as I too am interested in what people are using. Anybody using Macromedia Director MX or Authorware? SMIL? qo'c (later), Phil Cash Cash (cayuse/nez perce) > ----- Message from summerw at STANFORD.EDU --------- > Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 12:44:54 -0700 > From: Summer Waggoner > Reply-To: Indigenous Languages and Technology > Subject: Inquiry in creating interactive CD Roms > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > > Aiy-yu-kwee', > > The Yurok Tribe's language program needs your help. We are seeking to > create language cd-roms and we are in the process of identifying > software--that would help us create the cd-roms-- that would be the > most helpful as well as efficient in this task. > > I was hoping that there may be those of you who would be willing to > advise me on software that you may have used or know to be helpful. > > Thank you in advance for your time and consideration. > > Wok'hlaw, > > Summer Waggoner > Yurok Tribe Language Curriculum Specialist > 530-625-4137 > > > ----- End message from summerw at STANFORD.EDU ----- From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 1 05:49:06 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 22:49:06 -0700 Subject: E-Learn 2003 (conf) Message-ID: Final Call for Participation Submission Deadline: August 29 November 7-11, 2003 * Phoenix, Arizona, USA http://www.aace.org/conf/eLearn/call.htm Invitation E-Learn 2003 -- World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, & Higher Education is an international conference organized by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) and co-sponsored by the International Journal on E-Learning. This annual conference serves as a multi-disciplinary forum for the exchange of information on research, development, and applications of all topics related to e-Learning in the Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education sectors. We invite you to attend E-Learn 2003 and submit proposals for papers, panels, roundtables, tutorials, workshops, posters/demonstrations, corporate showcases/demos, and SIG discussions. The Conference Review Policy requires that each proposal will be peer- reviewed by three reviewers for inclusion in the conference program, proceedings book, and CD-ROM proceedings. Topics The scope of the conference includes, but is not limited to, the following topics as they relate to e-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education. All topics listed here. Presentation Categories The Technical Program includes a wide range of interesting and useful activities designed to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information. These include keynote and invited talks, full and brief paper presentations, poster/demonstration sessions, tutorials, workshops, panels, and SIG discussions. For Presentation Category descriptions, and information about what to submit with your proposal, click here. Corporate Participation A variety of opportunities are available to present research-oriented papers or to showcase and market your products and services. For information about Corporate Demonstrations (2-hours, scheduled with the Poster/Demos), click here. Proceedings Accepted papers will be published in the proceedings book, abstracts book, and CD-ROM. These publications will serve as major sources of information for the e-Learning community, indicating the current state of the art, new trends and new opportunities. Paper Awards All presented papers will be considered for Best Paper Awards within several categories. Award winning papers will be invited for publication in the International Journal on E-Learning and other AACE journals. Background The E-Learn Conference series originated as the WebNet World Conference on the WWW and Internet which was held in San Francisco (1996); Toronto, Canada (1997); Orlando, Florida (1998); Honolulu, HI (1999); San Antonio, TX (2000); and Orlando, Florida (2001). E-Learn began under this name in Montreal (2002). E-Learn 2003 is the 8th in this series of internationally respected events. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 9 03:03:44 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 20:03:44 -0700 Subject: Trying To Save A Language (fwd) Message-ID: Trying To Save A Language July 8, 2003 By Brian Calvert http://www.komotv.com/stories/25908.htm SEATTLE - A UW linguist is about to move to Alaska in order to help save a language. On a trip to the Pribilof Islands back in 1975, Alice Taff discovered that the youngest people speaking the native language, known as Aleut, were in their 20s and 30s. Next month, she'll move north to help change that. "This is another effort in an ongoing series of activities," she says. Many young people know the basics of Aleut, but fluent conversation is the next big hurdle. She says to really learn it, you have to live among the people. "Listening to the mother tell her child to sweep the floor, or sit in with the guys as they play cards." Taff will move north and help produce CDs and videos in the Aleut language. But the work could take a while, simply because she's working with a big family. "And they all have to agree on the language. Does your family completely agree all the time?" Taff says it could take 10, maybe 20 years, but Aleut will resurface, allowing these Alaskans to thank Taff in their native tongue. From langendt at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 9 03:04:37 2003 From: langendt at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (langendt at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 20:04:37 -0700 Subject: Trying To Save A Language (fwd) In-Reply-To: <1057719824.f20e67a5f7f03@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: I'm on the road with only occasional email access until August 8. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu Jul 10 14:14:33 2003 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 07:14:33 -0700 Subject: Justthe SW? Message-ID: "Legislation introduced to preserve American Indian languages" (AP) -- "New Mexico's congressional delegation introduced legislation Tuesday to preserve American Indian languages. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.. Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., and Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M.., introduced the Southwest Native American Language Revitalization Act of 2003. The bill would encourage the development of American Language to help reduce the impact of past discrimination against Indian language speakers." Complete at: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0709indianlanguages-ON.html From miakalish at REDPONY.US Fri Jul 11 14:31:05 2003 From: miakalish at REDPONY.US (Mia@RedPony) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 08:31:05 -0600 Subject: Immersion Programs Message-ID: Earlier, there was a message sent around about a Dine language site. A wonderful person sent me the following link, and I would like to send it around to the others on this list, specifically under the topic of "immersion". The article is entitled Literacy in America: http://www.bookmagazine.com/issue24/literacy.shtml The following is a brief clip from the section entitled How We Got There: "In a 1999 report titled "How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School," the National Research Council put it this way: "In the early part of the twentieth century, education focused on the acquisition of literacy skills: simple reading, writing, and calculating. It was not the general rule for educational systems to train people to think and read critically, to express themselves clearly and persuasively, to solve complex problems in science and mathematics. Now ... these aspects of high literacy are required of almost everyone in order to successfully negotiate the complexities of contemporary life." We can't settle for the standards of a generation ago." These ideas should be considered seriously by people engaged in language revitalization efforts. A living language is used for many functions, and these include newsletters, tribal business documents, learning materials for science and mathematics. If the learners do not have a place to use the language, it will not be as valuable as those languages that can be used in a broader scope. We don't want to devalue Indigenous languages by restricting them to reduced forms of use or venues of use. No one doubts that there are ways to teach content without reading and writing, as this second excerpt shows: "In the current climate of accountability and big-stakes tests, teachers have received a clear message from school boards, politicians and the press: Teach the content. And that they do. Many have become quite ingenious at using lectures, handouts, class projects and activities to convey content about history and science and government without requiring kids to read. In some classrooms, the textbook is an occasional supplement. In many, it isn't used at all. "As students come in less and less literate, we have gotten better and better at teaching around the text," says California teacher Gayle Cribb. But if kids are never asked to read complex material, how will they learn to read it?" Many revitalization efforts, and I know this from personal experience over and over and over, are slammed by the active idea that there is only one way to say something. Arguments break out, consuming the entire time allotted for a task, because the way one person said something was not the way someone else would have said it. Those of us who are academics, who have read thousands and thousands of books, papers, articles, transcripts, summaries, abstracts, and mailings realize that there a many, many ways to say any given thing, and that this is what we should be looking for in our revitalization efforts. I know I sound a bit soap-boxey, but it is hard not to when time is so short for these languages, and the people who want to learn them, and because I care so much. Mia Kalish NMSU & Red Pony Heritage Language Team :-) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christensen, Rosemary" To: Sent: Monday, June 30, 2003 11:05 AM Subject: Re: Immersion Programs was there a listing attached to your message. I could not find it. -----Original Message----- From: Akira Y. Yamamoto [mailto:akira at KU.EDU] Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2003 8:19 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re: Immersion Programs I have not updated this for several months, but you may want to check this against your list. Akira >I'm helping to compile a list of current Native language immersion schools >in the U.S. While the list we have seems pretty comprehensive, I thought I >should ask here, too. If you know of any immersion programs, I'd >appreciate if you emailed me. Thanks! -- Akira Y. Yamamoto The University of Kansas Department of Anthropology Fraser Hall 622 1415 Jayhawk Blvd. Lawrence KS 66045-7556 Phone: 785/864-2645 FAX: 785/864-5224 Anthropology: http://www.cc.ku.edu/~kuanth/ Linguistics: http://www.linguistics.ku.edu/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 14 18:00:09 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 11:00:09 -0700 Subject: Ancient tongues fade away (fwd) Message-ID: Ancient tongues fade away Languages: As roads, technology and the global economy reach once-isolated areas, old ways of communicating are dying off. By Dennis O'Brien Sun Staff http://www.sunspot.net/news/health/bal-te.language14jul14,0,7846044.story?coll=bal-health-headlines July 14, 2003 Marie Smith knows that her language - the Alaskan tongue of Eyak - will die with her. And she mourns its passing. "If you were expecting a little baby, and it went back to its home so that it wasn't born alive, how would you feel?" says Smith, 85, who moved to Anchorage from her tribal home on Prince William Sound in 1973. A fisherman's daughter, Smith grew up with Eyak, a branch of the Athabaskan-Tlingit family of languages spoken for 3,000 years in Cordova, along the Copper River. But she stopped speaking Eyak when she attended government schools. Neither her children nor grandchildren know the language. "I should have made them learn it, but they just weren't interested," she said. Eyak is among thousands of languages expected to disappear in the next 100 years, a mortality rate that has linguists rushing to document and save the world's endangered tongues. "We're losing a part of our cultural history," said Michael Krauss, a University of Alaska linguistics professor and founder of the Alaska Native Language Center, established in the 1970s to save the state's 20 native tongues. Krauss and other linguists blame the losses on economic and social trends, politics, improved transportation and the global reach of telecommunications. Whatever the reason, they predict that up to half of the world's 6,800 tongues could die over the next century - and hundreds more will disappear in the century after that. "I'd be the happiest guy in the world if I were wrong," Krauss said. But he noted that only 500 to 600 languages are spoken by at least two generations, making them relatively safe from extinction. According to experts, half the people on the planet use just 15 languages to communicate, while 10 percent of the population speak in one of about 6,800 distinct tongues. Half the world's languages are spoken by fewer than 2,500 people, mostly in remote areas that are becoming less remote every day. Global economics are prompting the young to leave isolated villages in India, Mexico and South America. They're headed for cities in search of better lives, leaving native tongues behind. Meanwhile, satellite TV and the Internet are reaching into isolated areas of Papua New Guinea, a South Pacific island nation with 832 languages, more than any other country. "If you go to Papua New Guinea and go out in the most remote areas you can find and you'll see grass huts, and alongside one of them you'll see a satellite dish, and of course the TV that's coming in is coming in English," said Anthony Aristar, a linguistics professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who studies dying languages. He is creating a $2 million database listing the world's tongues. Words come, languages go The death of a language is nothing new. The spoken word, developed tens of thousands of years ago, is in constant motion. Inventions inspire word creation, wars transform nations, poverty prompts waves of immigration, and other historic events - such as the opening of the American West to European settlers - create conditions where one tongue comes to dominate others. For example, linguists note that the Norman Conquest transformed early English, which has its roots in German. Latin, the language of the Roman Empire, replaced Etruscan and Punic before it diversified and influenced 30 other languages, including English. Sometimes, government policies kill a language. Many Native American languages are near extinction - the Lipon Apache have two or three speakers left - in part because government-run boarding schools punished students for speaking native languages until the 1960s. Krauss says that about half of the 200 languages native to North America will probably die out over the next century because so few children are picking up them up. Alan Caldwell, director of the Culture Center at the College of the Menominee Nation in Wisconsin, remembers his father telling of having his hand slapped with a ruler and his mouth washed out with soap for speaking Menominee at the reservation school, which has closed. The experience left the elder Caldwell, who died in 1972, reluctant to speak the native tongue, or pass it on. "We'd be at the dinner table and we would ask him, 'How do you count to 10? How do you say salt and pepper?' And depending on his mood, most often his response was, 'You don't have a need to know that, it won't do you any good,'" Caldwell said. As a result, only 40 of the tribe's 8,800 members speak the original language. That's one reason why Monica McCauley, a University of Wisconsin researcher, drives three hours to the reservation each week. Macaulay recently won a National Science Foundation grant to compile the first complete Menominee dictionary. The project includes taping the tribe's elders and transcribing conversations to capture the nuances of the language. Tribal elders agree that without such help, the language may disappear. And Caldwell, 55, is in a "beginners" class taught by the elders. In Guatemala, parents encourage their children to forsake native Mayan dialects and learn Spanish to get ahead in life. "They go to school and they see that success depends on learning Spanish," said Nora England, a linguistics professor at the University of Texas. Some languages saved Efforts to save languages are as varied as the languages. Nora England spends her summers in Guatemala training local linguists to preserve four endangered Mayan languages. Guatemala's villages have been hotbeds of language diversity for centuries because of poor roads and mountainous terrain. The result is 21 distinct Mayan tongues in Guatemala alone and nine in Mexico. "Some of them are as different from each other as English is from Russian," England said. Success stories exist. Hebrew, once nearly dead as an everyday spoken language, was redeemed from ancient texts after 2,000 years and is spoken by about 5 million people, mostly in Israel. Hebrew's resurgence was aided by its role in the effort to establish a national identity for Israel after World War I. The fight to save other dying languages is more of an uphill battle. Critics argue that it's a waste of time and money if cultural trends dictate their eventual demise. Neil Seeman, an associate editor at the National Review who operates a Canadian think tank, said that while dying languages should be recorded for historical study, governments are responding to political pressure with a kind of "cultural protectionism" by forcing languages on people who no longer have use for them. "I have nostalgia for the electronic typewriter, but I don't see a need for subsidies to protect it, or continue its use," Seeman said. But linguists say that a society's culture and history die out when its language expires. "Part of the world is lost when you can't name it," said Stephen Batalden, a linguist at Arizona State University. In Alaska, Smith says she hopes for a resurgence in Eyak, now that Krauss has recorded her language on tapes and in writing. "I have this feeling in my heart that the Eyak language is going to come back, and usually I'm not wrong about these feelings," she said. And if it happens she will respond with a one-word prayer: awa'ahdah. That's Eyak for "thank you." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 14 18:02:06 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 11:02:06 -0700 Subject: Researching languages by the numbers (fwd) Message-ID: Researching languages by the numbers July 14, 2003 http://www.sunspot.net/news/health/bal-te.language14bjul14,0,7951852.story?coll=bal-home-headlines How many languages are there? For the latest count, scholars often point to the Ethnologue (www.ethnologue.com), published by Texas-based SIL International. Formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics, SIL has been updating the Ethnologue every four years since 1951 with help from 50 researchers worldwide in an effort to translate the Bible into as many of the world's languages as possible, said editor Ray Gordon. The most recent edition, published in 2000, estimates the number of tongues at 6,809, compared with 6,703 four years earlier and 6,528 in 1992. But that doesn't mean the number of languages is increasing - quite the opposite. The increase is the result of studies that have reclassified dialects of the same language as separate languages. "The numbers are actually the result of better research," said Ted Bergman, language assessment coordinator for SIL. "Languages are dying off, there's no question." Generally, languages differ from dialects because they develop over longer periods, are used in distinct political and social communities and are generally so different from one another that outsiders find them difficult to understand. Although many languages are expected to die in the years ahead, Bergman said there's no way to know whether the number of languages will fall when the 15th edition comes out next year. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 14 18:03:36 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 11:03:36 -0700 Subject: How Maria Hinton has kept her culture alive (fwd) Message-ID: How Maria Hinton has kept her culture alive One of the last native-speaking elders takes a look back By Monique Balas News-Chronicle http://www.gogreenbay.com/page.html?article=120912 Her Oneida name is "She Remembers." A more fitting name for Oneida Nation elder Maria Hinton would be hard to find, for it is thanks to Hinton that the Oneidas can remember, too: Their stories, their language, their culture. One of only 20 remaining native-speaking elders in the Oneida Nation ("Maybe less, maybe less," she mused as she thought about those who have since passed), Hinton, 93, spoke recently about what it means to learn those things that need to be remembered. "Oneida language is culture. It's just our way," she said. "It all goes together. You don't say, 'I'm teaching your culture,' you're teaching the language. That's the way I feel." Prim but with plenty of spunk, the Oneida matriarch was raised by her grandmother and didn't learn English until she was 10. "She remembers" were the instructional words Hinton's grandmother would say when Hinton was supposed to be learning. "When I was growing up, and my grandmother used to teach me things, she didn't say, 'Now, this is culture, now this is the language.' She just taught me." So it was an odd twist of fate that Hinton would be named "She Remembers" in Canada, at the age of 46. Over the next 40 years, Hinton would grow into that name and make it her own. When a movement in the 1970s for Oneidas to get back in touch with their linguistic roots starting from the elementary-school level, Hinton would find herself being asked to help. "Because my brother and I were native speakers, well, then they put their attention on us," Hinton said. So in 1973, at the age of 63, the former teacher thought nothing of going back school to pursue her bachelor's degree in linguistics through the University of Wisconsin System (she spent two years in Milwaukee before coming to Green Bay to receive her degree at UWGB in 1979). That's how she ended up becoming one of the founders and first teachers at the Oneida Nation Turtle Elementary School, one of 185 Bureau of Indian Affairs-funded schools nationwide that integrates native American language and culture into the primary school curriculum, said Sheri Mousseau, school administrator of the Oneida Nation School System. When they opened the school in 1980, Hinton taught language and culture to kindergartners and spent some time teaching middle-schoolers as well; the Turtle School serves children from kindergarten through eighth grade. Hinton also spent time as a language curriculum developer at the school, where she taught the Oneida language to teachers. "A lot of us look to her as a role model and mentor," said Mousseau, who taught special education in the classroom next to Hinton's and has known her for more than 20 years. "With her determination and willingness to mentor, to unconditionally provide support for anyone who wanted to learn, it's like the passion that a teacher has for a classroom, she had that passion for teaching her craft, teaching her language, the Oneida language." Hinton's ability to remember was a key reason why she, along with her late brother, Amos Christjohn, was a natural person to ask when the Oneida Grants Office offered $18,000 for the compilation of an Oneida dictionary. The dictionary is one of the Oneida's most tangible representations to keep the language alive and a valuable tool for linguists. Hinton and Christjohn worked daily over the course of two years to put the book together. Now sold at the Turtle School, the reference work is requested nationally and as far away as Russia. In addition to the dictionary, Hinton has also put together several translations of Oneida short stories and is currently working on another. But for now, she has other concerns to keep her occupied. Her 30-year-old great-grandson (she has 22 great-grandchildren in all) is expected to be coming back from Iraq later this month. He has been deployed there with the U.S. Army for nearly two years and Hinton is planning a big homecoming celebration at her home. Although she wishes he weren't in the military, she said he wants to be there to help people who are less fortunate than he is. "It makes you feel good to think he has that attitude," Hinton said. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Wed Jul 16 17:25:39 2003 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 10:25:39 -0700 Subject: Strengthening Families Message-ID: NCIDC is looking for funds to expand into a new arena. We are trying to put together a new program to coordinate Family issues and choices including Tobacco, HIV Issues, pregnancy prevention, food and nutrition and Native health issues. Our idea is to develop a curriculum for leadership development which has a strong emphasis on decision making skills. Do any of you know of any resources, funds or similar programs we can model from? To see what we are operating already see http://www.ncidc.org If you have ideas or contacts please email me @: andrekar at ncidc.org From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Fri Jul 18 14:53:54 2003 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 07:53:54 -0700 Subject: Any one heard of this Group? Message-ID: http://www.nativelanguages.com/ -- Andr? Cramblit: andre.p.cramblit.86 at alum.dartmouth.org Operations Director Northern California Indian Development Council NCIDC (http://www.ncidc.org) is a non-profit that meets the development needs of American Indians and operates an art gallery featuring the art of California tribes (http://www.americanindianonline.com) COMMUNICATION IS THE KEY TO THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN INDIANS/NATIVE AMERICANS/ALASKAN NATIVES & HAWAIIAN ISLANDERS. For news of interest to Natives subscribe send an email to: IndigenousNewsNetwork-subscribe at topica.com or go to: http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/?location=listinfo From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Fri Jul 18 15:02:39 2003 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 08:02:39 -0700 Subject: Revitalization (language) Message-ID: 7/17/2003 - CALIFORNIA by: James May / Indian Country Today Although several tribes in California have at least a few tribal members involved in language revitalization, they often face an uphill battle. There are many people who do not see the value in preserving languages. Dr. Laura Hinton, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley says that she was so upset by a recent commentary in the New York Times that she says ridiculed the idea of language preservation. However, indifference to the plight of disappearing languages is not limited to members of the east coast establishment. Hinton says that in some cases, interested tribal members face a hard sell with their own tribal councils, who are indifferent about the fate of their ancestral languages and more concerned with other priorities such as getting health care and other community funding. She had hoped with the advent of large-scale Indian gaming that tribes would dedicate more resources to language preservation. However, she says that most tribes are still mired in construction debt for their casinos and have not, at least as of yet been able to fund language programs. One of those dedicated tribal members is Nancy Steele, a member of the Karuk tribe and a self-taught speaker of her ancestral language. Steele, along with Hinton, is a founder of the Master Apprentice Program, in which tribal members are paired with elders who help them learn to speak the language. Steele points out that the Master Apprentice Program is designed to provide language in an actual environment. "The Master Apprentice program is designed to bridge the gap between an elder speaker and a learner, it's like using a key to unlock a door," says Steele. Steele began learning Karuk 28 years ago, though she says that it was not until she got involved with the Master Apprentice Program in the mid-1990s that she could fully learn the language. Now Steele says there is a dedicated core group, numbering about a dozen or so individuals, who speak the language with some fluency and an additional 45 people who are semi-fluent. Stressing the importance of putting resources behind any language rejuvenation project, Steele points to the case of the neighboring Yurok tribe on California's north coast. She says that the Yuroks have approximately 10 - 20 people involved in the Master Apprentice Program at any given time. She credits the Yuroks success with their tribal council, who according to Steele, focus most of their education budget on revitalizing their language. In just a little more than the past decade, the federal government has made some effort to preserve American Indian and other indigenous languages. The Native American Languages Act was signed by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, and given some funding through an amendment a few years later. Currently, there is an amendment to the Act working its way through Congress that seeks to provide support for American Indians and other indigenous language "survival" schools. Sen. Daniel Inoyue, D-Hawaii, introduced the amendment, known as S. 575, last March, and is currently in the hearing process of the Indian Affairs Committee. However, Hinton says that this bill probably will not help many California Indian languages, because it is designed to only support existing schools and will probably have its biggest impact in Hawaii, where the island's indigenous language is taught in many schools. This is not to say that it will not affect California tribes at all. Hinton says that existing programs, such as the one at Pechanga will benefit from this legislation. Steele tells a story about a recent trip she took to meet with Oklahoma Indian tribes, where the fates of several languages are also currently on the verge of extinction. In the last few years, for example, the Delaware language has become extinct. She said that she met a Kickapoo man, who could only speak Kickapoo, a language that is still tenaciously holding on to life. Steele asked the man through a translator why Kickapoo had survived and was in reasonably healthy shape compared to other Oklahoma languages, where most of them except for Cherokee and a few others are on the verge of extinction. In paraphrase, he replied the Kickapoos burned down the churches, and when the reformers came, they burned down the schools, and when they tried to move the tribe, the tribe left and went to Mexico. "He's saying that you have to be tough in order to keep your language, and it is tough, but you work hard and it is really enjoyable." ICT's RSS News Feed -- http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/?location=listinfo From sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Jul 18 17:57:54 2003 From: sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Susan Penfield) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 10:57:54 -0700 Subject: Something of interest for linguistic work! Message-ID: Hi, all This site seems to have some helpful info. for a variety of linguistic approaches, including the latest on software for transcription... www.talkbank.org Best, Susan Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D. Department of English University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jul 20 21:36:51 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2003 14:36:51 -0700 Subject: Tribes work to preserve native language (fwd) Message-ID: Tribes work to preserve native language PETER HARRIMAN Associated Press Posted on Sun, Jul. 20, 2003 http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/6346339.htm LAKE ANDES, S.D. - Thirteen tiny graduates in red and blue caps and gowns gather around a large white screen in the 4-H building here. The 4- and 5-year-old students in the Yankton Sioux Tribe's language immersion class of 2003 watch a videotape of themselves, made several days earlier. On the tape, the kids eagerly shout out answers to questions. "How do you say gold?" "Mazaskazi." "How do you say red?" "Ska." "How do you say spotted?" "Gleshka." Here is either the future of the tribe's language or a futile dream. South Dakota tribes have embarked on a quest to reverse the rapid decline of the Lakota, Nakota and Dakota dialects of their native language. Before World War II, these were the vernacular on most reservations, the languages tribal members learned at home before they learned English. But a survey conducted by Oglala Lakota College in 1993-94, the latest data that's available, shows what has happened at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and, by extension, to all tribal languages in the state. Among the survey findings: _ 90 percent of people 70 and older still spoke Lakota. _ 80 percent between ages 60-70 still spoke the language. _ Overall, an estimated 40 percent of Oglalas could still speak it. _ 1 percent of people younger than 18 could speak their native tongue. _ The average age of speakers was 35. The goal at Pine Ridge and elsewhere is to make tribal languages commonly spoken. Tribes hope to preserve language as vital instruments for conveying the nuances of Indians' concepts of themselves and their relation to the world. It's a goal that must be met before a critical mass of speakers ages and dies. But there is no set path toward language salvation, and efforts in the state use widely different approaches that are often underfunded and controversial. The Oglalas at Pine Ridge are being assisted by the Indiana University American Indian Studies Research Institute, which is acting as a linguistics technical consultant, says Will Meya, who runs IU's Lakota Language program. A native language is vital to preserving a unique world view, he says. "It is hard to appreciate, if you are monolingual, that there really is a way of thinking, articulating and conceiving of ideas that is inherent in another way of speaking," he says. "Some linguists compare language to a biological species. Within the grammar and vocabulary is sort of a genetic code that has evolved for thousands of years and is unique." The fundamental Lakota idea that everything is interrelated is conveyed in the syntax of the Lakota language. European thought assumes an individual stands separate from the world and makes value judgments about it. This is seen in basic English syntax: subject, verb, object, "Jane sees the dog." In Lakota, the syntax is object, subject, verb, "The dog Jane sees." There is no subtle implication the dog exists only because Jane sees it. "We have got to look at life on this planet as inherently more valuable if we have those ideas available to us," Meya says. The first Lakota immersion program began in 1997 at Loneman School on Pine Ridge. Meya's assertion that language is integral to culture resonates with Leonard Little Finger, the school's Lakota studies director. "One of the most important areas of language is the spiritual side," Little Finger says. "Our elders say our tongue was given to us by our creator so we can speak with our creator." Tribal languages were under attack in South Dakota from the time tribes were conquered in the 1880s and forced to submit to government assimilation policies. Isolation, though, served as an effective antidote. Reservations far removed from the dominant society were reservoirs of native speakers. Despite consistent pressures at boarding schools and elsewhere to turn Indians into imitation whites, native languages survived well on South Dakota's reservations until the past 50 years. "Before 1954, the identity to be Lakota was very strong," Meya says. That all began to change when Indians who entered the wider world to fight World War II began returning home. "Lakotas resisted language change and remained true to their culture much longer than many other tribes," he says. "When so many of the young Lakota males went off to war, it changed so profoundly. They saw the rest of the world for the first time and also realized the vastness of what was up against them, the dominant society. "The cash economy started on Pine Ridge. That's when so many things came back from the outside world." Little Finger, 65, is from Pine Ridge. Like many of his peers, he learned Lakota as a first language. He illustrates the profound difficulty in bridging the gap between aging fluent speakers and the children who proponents hope will carry on their tongue. "In my life, I grew up where everyone spoke the language. It was just as natural as could be. I didn't have to read a book to learn my words. I heard it and spoke it," he says. "I look now, and those people are few and far between. We can still carry on a conversation, but I carry them on primarily with people my own age. It is rare I speak with youth. I try to say words in Lakota, and they look at me with saucer eyes." Making native languages relevant to the 21st century is crucial if they are to survive as living languages, says Meya, the Indiana linguist. "We're battling English," he says. "We're competing against things like satellite television and all the things the dominant English language has to offer. We're competing just for students' attention. Part of the strategy is to create as much material for them as possible to make it relevant." Jerome Kills Small, who has taught Indian languages at the University of South Dakota for 13 years, does detect in them a necessary attribute of a living language, the ability to create new words. Like every language, they have bound morphemes, an arbitrary pairing of sound and meaning that is the building material of words. "If you can put syllables together you can create and describe a new noun. If a first-language speaker heard it, they would know exactly what that word is," Kills Small says. Perhaps the simplest example of a bound morpheme in English is the sound "s." Attached to the end of any noun, it signifies the plural. Even as tribes race to create a new generation of speakers, their native languages need gatekeepers to ensure tribal language morphemes and existing words are used to make new words in the 21st century, rather than letting English creep into the lexicon, Meya says. "That's what the French do all the time. Everything is brought into French. There are no Anglo words at all," he says. There are two types of language-restoration programs on reservations. At Yankton and Pine Ridge, the goal of immersion classes is to conduct them almost totally in the native language. Cheyenne River's Good Child Program - Cinci Wakpa Waste - seeks to teach Lakota and English together in grades K-12. Bilingual education was the favored method of Lakota language instruction, according to a survey conducted among Cheyenne River parents in 1999 by Marion Blue Arm. "Parents always feel we are giving up English if we teach Lakota," she says. That's not the case. "If you truly have immersion to the third grade, there are all these studies that show English will come back anyway. They will learn that and pick it up like nothing," says Blue Arm. "But people don't believe that. They believe that if you are not teaching English intensely from the beginning, the students will be at a disadvantage." Rosie Roach, a former elementary school principal, is the administrator of language programs in Cheyenne River schools. Immersion has run afoul of not only leery parents but recalcitrant teachers, she says. "We do get a small amount of resistance from parents. We get a lot of resistance from teachers," she says of language immersion. "Most of the teachers in our systems are non-Indians. Research shows our Native American children can really progress if they have their language and culture. Yet when we look at that as teachers, we don't do anything with it. We continue to teach in the same way we've been teaching the past 50 years. That has to change." Cheyenne River has put an innovative twist on bilingual instruction. It has started to pair fluent Lakota speakers in classrooms with certified teachers. The idea is to bring both language proficiency and teaching proficiency together. That level of professional support stands in stark contrast to Lavena Cook, who teaches the Yankton's language immersion classes at Lake Andes. "I knew my language. But I don't know a thing about teaching. I did everything in my life but teach children," says Cook, 54. She was working as a postal clerk in Marty last year when officials with the tribal-language immersion program prevailed upon her to take over the class. "I said, `I'll try. I'll do it for six months, and if I'm not doing a good job, you can let me go.'" Whatever the state of language restoration, things are better than they were, says Roach at Cheyenne River. While interest in restoring native language is strong now, the opportunity to do so is relatively short. Meya points to the aging native language speakers. "We only have 20 years, if that, to use the speakers of today as teachers to train a generation of speakers," he says. Meya, Little Finger and Roach all say the federal government could play a major role in providing funding for language teachers and producing native language curricula. Meya talks about $5 million a year for 40 years for the Pine Ridge project alone. Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota is a co-sponsor of the 2003 amendment to the 1990 Native American Languages Act. He also is the most prominent official Meya solicits for federal aid. The amendment he is co-sponsoring encourages the development of language nests, organized language programs for children 7 years old and younger and their families. It offers schools a chance to qualify as language-survival schools to receive funding. The catch is, there is virtually no funding in the current budget. "We are trying to devise new, more effective ways to provide for Native American language survival. This is one step in that direction," Johnson says of the amendment. "There is not a lot of money to be had that is focused exclusively on Lakota language preservation." Meya points out the irony that what federal money is available tends to go to the most threatened languages, rather than ones like Lakota, that have enough speakers to have a chance of survival. Johnson agrees: "A language like Lakota, that still has a significant number of fluent speakers, has a better long-term chance at being preserved in a meaningful way and not just as an academic subject but as a language that is utilized in daily life." But he adds that when it comes to fighting for funding, he must take into account what the tribes want and need. "Their funding requests tend to focus more on basic human needs, school funding, nutrition, Indian Health Service, law enforcement, roads and water," he says. "I know language preservation is important. But that's not an area they have made central to their appropriations requests." So there are people such as Cook, the nonteacher, with no help or experience, trying to save the Yankton's Dakota by cobbling together her version of immersion. The students probably heard more English than a linguist would like to see in an immersion program, they learned more vocabulary than sentence structure, and the class concluded with no exam, no formal assessment of success. But Cook recounts a telling little triumph, an example of language truly restored. One day, she intervened as a pair of her tiny students were squabbling over a toy. They were arguing in Dakota. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Mon Jul 21 19:06:40 2003 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2003 12:06:40 -0700 Subject: Preserving a culture Message-ID: http://www.argusleader.com/specialsections/2003/woundedknee/Sundayarticle3.shtml The Legacy of Wounded Knee Educator works to preserve Lakota language and, in essence, a culture Jon Walker Argus Leader published: 3/16/2003 MANDERSON - Wilmer Mesteth carries a treasure he'd like to share with as many people as possible on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The treasure is the Lakota language, a soft, smooth tongue that unlocks the heart and history of Mesteth's people, and in his view keeps alive the hope of their enduring identity. "The language is the basis of our culture," he says Wilmer Mesteth stands in an arbor where he holds night dances at his home west of Pine Ridge. Mesteth is an arts, language and culture instructor at Oglala Lakota College and a Lakota spiritual leader. from his classroom at the Oglala Lakota College in Manderson. "If we don't have a language, we don't have a culture. It's very important the language survives because our whole culture depends on it." Unfortunately, the language is in sharp decline, the victim of neglect in a generational paradox growing more acute in the 30 years since the occupation of Wounded Knee. For all the pros and cons of the American Indian Movement's standoff against federal authorities in 1973, the protesters did stand up to authority in a way that provided a cultural spark that asserted tribal people's right to speak Lakota freely. Young adults rejoiced at the possibilities, some of them with fresh memories of being punished for speaking the language on school playgrounds in the 1950s and '60s. Indians born since then, however, haven't picked up the torch and run. "On a lot of reservations, the language is nearly nonexistent," says Belva Hollow Horn Emery, who grew up in Wounded Knee and now lives in White River. "That's what is keeping the culture alive. It makes us Indian. Without the language, pardon my saying, we're just brown-skinned white people." Elaine Yellow Horse, an 18-year-old senior at Red Cloud High School in Pine Ridge, illustrates the gap. "I wish I did," she says when asked whether she speaks Lakota. "My mom does and that's one of her regrets, that she didn't teach it to her kids." South Dakota's overall population is aging with the exodus of the young. But Pine Ridge sees the opposite with a birth rate twice as high as the rest of the state. "I'm 46 and my generation is probably the last generation to speak Lakota," Mesteth says. "Most of the people on the reservation are 25 and below. Almost none of them speak it. Maybe 1 percent is my estimation." He sees the culprit as the acculturation that Wounded Knee challenged. "Most kids now spend 70 percent of their time in school and when they get home most of them watch television," he says. "Everything's English." That the language hasn't flourished since Wounded Knee is doubly disappointing for Mesteth, who carries his own painful memory from the '73 occupation. He was 16 when the standoff began, an AIM supporter who was expelled from high school in turbulent times as youthful demonstrations turned physical. His grandfather was Pedro Bissonette, an organizer of the occupation. Mesteth today, living on Bissonette's land in Cheyenne Creek, salutes the occupation effort of 30 years ago. "It showed the world we weren't going to waltz into mainstream society and everything wasn't all right," Mesteth says. "When AIM came here, they showed our people we were headed in the wrong direction. Our traditions were important, and our religious ways were important, and our treaties are legal and binding. AIM brought those issues to the attention of our people." Supporters of Lakota are looking at different ways to bring the language back. One approach would be immersion courses, which follows a principle that has students adhere entirely to the language at hand rather than falling back onto English for definitions and explanations. The trappings of the computer age are providing an assist as instruction goes electronic. Hollow Horn Emery, 45, is teaching the language to her 2- and 6-year-old daughters and making a compact disc of children's rhymes sung in Lakota. "We'd like to help preserve the language in that sense," she says. >>From his classroom at Oglala Lakota College, Mesteth leads a one-hour seminar on Lakota after teaching a three-hour session on native quillwork. It's a modest undertaking on a recent Thursday afternoon, with three adults joining him at the end of a school day. As with any language, Lakota locks inside it a structure of thinking unique to the people who speak it. While many European languages retain gender-specific terms such as "host" and "hostess," Lakota extends the gender distinction to the speaker as well. In essence, men talk one way and women another. Wearing shaded glasses and parting his shiny black hair both left and right in a way that accents his bushy gray sideburns, Mesteth illustrates the distinctions of Lakota with a deep, resonant voice. For "a sunny day" in English, a Lakota man would say "Ampetu Omaste yelo." A woman would say "Ampetu Omaste ye." A translation of "what time is it?" takes the distinctions a step further. A man would say "Maza skan skan Tona hwo?" A woman would say "Maza skan skan Tona he?" The "skan skan" repetition comes from the sense of motion, as in two hands of a watch moving around a dial. The literal word-by-word in English would be "moving metal time how many?" If moving between Lakota and English is clumsy with common phrases, it approaches impossible in some communication. Just as Western European languages regard time, life, death and friendship as concepts with meanings that exceed their literal definition, so too the Lakota have embedded in their tongue ideas on religion, kinship and nature that defy translation. If the language goes, "we lose all that valuable information," Mesteth says. "Ceremonies, songs and prayers are all conducted in Lakota. Our worldview is centered in the language." -- Andr? Cramblit: andre.p.cramblit.86 at alum.dartmouth.org Operations Director Northern California Indian Development Council NCIDC (http://www.ncidc.org) is a non-profit that meets the development needs of American Indians and operates an art gallery featuring the art of California tribes (http://www.americanindianonline.com) COMMUNICATION IS THE KEY TO THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN INDIANS/NATIVE AMERICANS/ALASKAN NATIVES & HAWAIIAN ISLANDERS. For news of interest to Natives subscribe send an email to: IndigenousNewsNetwork-subscribe at topica.com or go to: http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/?location=listinfo From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Tue Jul 22 18:58:43 2003 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2003 11:58:43 -0700 Subject: Introduction Message-ID: Hello, just a brief moment to let others know a little bit about me ( or remind you, if you have been around awhile). I am an enrolled member of the Karuk Tribe from the Klamath and Salmon Rivers in NW California. I am the chairman of my tribes language restoration committee (please see http://www.ncidc.org/karuk/index.html) and am an active participant in our Tribal dances and ceremonies. What is your full name? Andr? Pierre Cramblit What State do you reside in? Arcata, CA What nation do you come from? Karuk Tribe Of California (also have Creek & Tohono O'odham blood-Norris Family) Do you have a title or position that will identify you more clearly to others in the group? Operations Director NCIDC http://www.ncidc.org What activities are you involved in that help the American Indians today? Language Preservation, cultural resources, story telling, traditional activities, tribal ceremonies, grant writing, communications http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/?location=listinfo education, environmental issues, etc Who are your favorite musical artist/s? (Only Considering Natives) Indigenous, Arigon Starr, Merve George, Native Roots, Who is your favorite author or authors? (Only Considering Natives) Vine Deloria, Louise Erdrich, Heid Erdrich, Diane Burns, Joy Harjo What is your favorite Native Movie? Pow Wow Highway or Black Robe From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 23 19:36:29 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 12:36:29 -0700 Subject: Lithuania/Ukraine: Karaims Struggle To Maintain Their Language And Culture (fwd) Message-ID: Lithuania/Ukraine: Karaims Struggle To Maintain Their Language And Culture http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2003/07/22072003165742.asp By Charles Carlson Karaim is an endangered Turkic language spoken only by an estimated 50 speakers mostly living in Lithuania. RFE/RL traces the ethnogenesis of the Karaims and highlights present-day efforts to maintain their language and culture. Prague, 22 July 2003 (RFE/RL) -- Karaims are the descendants of Kypchak tribes who lived in the tribal union of the Khazar empire in the Crimea between the eighth and 10th centuries. In the eighth century, the Karaims converted to a form of Judaism known as Karaism, which may be described as a return to the roots or "sola scriptura." The Karaims later split into three main groups. One group remained in the Crimea; another moved to Galicia, in part of present-day Ukraine; and the third group -- the largest -- in the 14th century left for what is now the town of Trakai in present-day Lithuania. By the end of the 17th century there were about 30 Karaim communities in eastern Central Europe. But just 100 years later, their numbers had been drastically reduced as a result of epidemics and wars. Nevertheless, they were given status as a religious community by the respective countries in which they found themselves. According to a 1992 study by Lithuania's National Research Center, the country's Karaims are considered a national minority and "original inhabitants" of Lithuania. The sect of Karaism to which the Karaims have belonged since the eighth century is known as Anan ben David, a form of Judaism that acknowledges the Old Testament, but rejects the Talmud. According to Karaim religious teaching, reading the Bible is the duty of each believer. This religion is distinct from Rabbinical Judaism. The Karaim house of worship is called a kenesa. Today there are two functioning kenesas in Lithuania, one in Vilnius and one in Trakai. In the 19th century, Karaim intellectuals became aware of the need to develop a literary language and publish periodicals in Karaim. The vocabulary of the Karaim language is strongly influenced by folklore, proverbs, riddles, and folk poetry, but lacks many abstract terms and has not expanded to incorporate words to express many scientific, technical, and philosophical concepts. Until the 20th century, Karaim literacy was based on a knowledge of Hebrew. At first, Hebrew characters were used for writing Karaim, but later the orthographic system was based on the writing systems of the countries in which Karaims lived. After Lithuania gained independence in 1990, Karaims adopted an orthography based on the Lithuanian writing system. The most comprehensive grammar of Karaim is by the well-known Turkologist Kenesbay Musaev. Estimates place the number of Karaim speakers today at around 50. This includes about 45 speakers of the language in Lithuania and only five speakers in the small settlement of Halych in Ukraine. This has led to Karaim being classified as a "seriously endangered" language in the UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages. The maintenance of their mother tongue and the revitalization of community life are the most urgent tasks facing the Karaims today. Several projects today are aimed at maintaining conversational Karaim. One such project, designed to document the spoken language, has been carried out by Professor Eva Csato Johansson, a specialist of Karaim at Sweden's Uppsala University. She launched a program in 1994 to document the language by means of voice and video recordings. Working with other linguists, she also produced a multimedia CD which has been in use by the community in order to support the revitalization of the language in Lithuania, and help linguists who want to learn about this language. Csato praised the local Ukrainian authorities in the town of Halych, home to the five remaining elderly speakers of the Halych dialect of Karaim, for their efforts to publicize and preserve the Karaim language and culture. "Now in spite of the fact that the Halych community consists of only five old speakers, this is a very, very powerful little community. In 2002, in September, they could organize an international conference on Halych Karaim history and culture which evoked very great interest," Csato said. This, Csato said, was partly due to the support the Karaim community received from Halych authorities, which has provided financial aid as well as help in maintaining Halych traditions. The Karaim community in Lithuania, too, receives support from the state for the development of its culture. The Lithuanian Karaim Cultural Society, under the leadership of Karaim musicologist Karina Firkaviciute, seeks to promote Karaim cultural traditions through courses and programs especially designed for the approximately 250-member Karaim community in Vilnius and Trakai. Karina is one of the very few young native speakers of the endangered Karaim language. Firkaviciute told RFE/RL that a great deal is being done to help preserve Karaim culture. "As the Cultural Society of Lithuanian Karaims, we are trying to maintain the language, and the most important thing is to be able to give the children the possibility to learn the language. So we are trying to organize each summer a kind of summer camp for Karaim children, where they can get some time to learn the Karaim language. But of course they would need to do it more often and during the whole year, not only in the summertime," she said. She also praised the work of Eva Csato Johansson, especially the CD-ROM she compiled for people who would like to learn the Karaim language. "[It] includes also some dictionary, and grammar and sounds, and you would be able to learn how to read and how to pronounce it correctly, so it is quite a live thing. It is a very fresh and nice thing, but it is not yet published, and you would not be able to buy it. But we expect it every second to come, so there would be already the scientific background for the future lessons, and also we are trying to document the language in the sense of printing the books, printing the poems or literature or some articles on the Karaim language, on something that has been written in Karaim language, etc.," Firkaviciute said. Firkaviciute said the various Karaim communities maintain contacts with each other and meet practically every year. RFE/RL asked her if she was optimistic the language would survive. "I would say, 'yes,' and if somebody is not, I would say we should actually be optimistic, because otherwise you are not able to do anything," she said. "And of course the only pessimistic note that could be here is that the [size] of the communities is very small, but it is not the main thing which could make you pessimistic. If you are pessimistic, then you are not a human being. You should be optimistic, and I think we are optimistic, and we will try to do something to make other people more optimistic. But it's the main thing just to stay with those positive moods, because otherwise there's no way to run." As an example of her language, Karina read a Karaim poem entitled "Syru Trochnun": "Being faraway our brothers always remember our native lands. Elders and the young, everybody from distant places always come back to Trakai. There everybody enjoys the nature, summertime on the islands. Youth will not come back, so we have to remember and being faraway not to forget about Trakai. What is the secret of Trakai, why does everybody long for that small town? You have to tell that secret even for the youngest -- Youth go there because of young nice girls and we all go and long for Trakai because of tradition." Some are convinced languages like Karaim, which have only a few speakers, are doomed to extinction. But Professor David Crystal, an internationally recognized linguist and supporter of endangered languages, believes that a language can survive regardless of the number of speakers -- as long as there is support for the language. "It is possible for a language to survive, to regenerate -- to 'revitalize' is the usual term -- regardless of the number of speakers it has. There are cases on record of peoples with just a few hundred speakers who have, with appropriate support, managed to maintain their language presence and to build upon it," Crystal said. This should be encouragement to the small community of Karaims in Trakai. From mward at LUNA.CC.NM.US Wed Jul 23 20:15:00 2003 From: mward at LUNA.CC.NM.US (Matthew Ward) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 14:15:00 -0600 Subject: Lithuania/Ukraine: Karaims Struggle To Maintain Their Language And Culture (fwd) Message-ID: Thanks for another good article. I am constantly reminded about how the struggle to preserve traditional languages is going on all over the world, and find it striking how similar the issues are everywhere. I once lived in Taiwan, which is trying to preserve its linguistic diversity against the dominance of the powerful Mandarin Chinese. The traditional languages there are "Taiwanese" (a dialect of the Hokkien language), Hakka (another Chinese language) and around a dozen aboriginal languages. Like so many other countries, Taiwan has gone from very harsh government policies which attempted to force Mandarin on the entire population, to policies which often celebrate multilingualism, and which struggle to preserve the island's traditional linguistic diversity. It is a VERY interesting situation there, since democratization has make a flowering of language preservation efforts possible. If anyone would like to know more details, please let me know, I'd be happy to share it. Matthew Ward Phil Cash Cash wrote: >Lithuania/Ukraine: Karaims Struggle To Maintain Their Language And >Culture > >http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2003/07/22072003165742.asp > > By Charles Carlson > > Karaim is an endangered Turkic language spoken only by an estimated 50 >speakers mostly living in Lithuania. RFE/RL traces the ethnogenesis of >the Karaims and highlights present-day efforts to maintain their >language and culture. > >Prague, 22 July 2003 (RFE/RL) -- Karaims are the descendants of Kypchak >tribes who lived in the tribal union of the Khazar empire in the Crimea >between the eighth and 10th centuries. In the eighth century, the >Karaims converted to a form of Judaism known as Karaism, which may be >described as a return to the roots or "sola scriptura." > >The Karaims later split into three main groups. One group remained in >the Crimea; another moved to Galicia, in part of present-day Ukraine; >and the third group -- the largest -- in the 14th century left for what >is now the town of Trakai in present-day Lithuania. > > By the end of the 17th century there were about 30 Karaim communities >in eastern Central Europe. But just 100 years later, their numbers had >been drastically reduced as a result of epidemics and wars. >Nevertheless, they were given status as a religious community by the >respective countries in which they found themselves. > >According to a 1992 study by Lithuania's National Research Center, the >country's Karaims are considered a national minority and "original >inhabitants" of Lithuania. > >The sect of Karaism to which the Karaims have belonged since the eighth >century is known as Anan ben David, a form of Judaism that acknowledges >the Old Testament, but rejects the Talmud. According to Karaim >religious teaching, reading the Bible is the duty of each believer. >This religion is distinct from Rabbinical Judaism. The Karaim house of >worship is called a kenesa. Today there are two functioning kenesas in >Lithuania, one in Vilnius and one in Trakai. > > In the 19th century, Karaim intellectuals became aware of the need to >develop a literary language and publish periodicals in Karaim. The >vocabulary of the Karaim language is strongly influenced by folklore, >proverbs, riddles, and folk poetry, but lacks many abstract terms and >has not expanded to incorporate words to express many scientific, >technical, and philosophical concepts. > >Until the 20th century, Karaim literacy was based on a knowledge of >Hebrew. At first, Hebrew characters were used for writing Karaim, but >later the orthographic system was based on the writing systems of the >countries in which Karaims lived. After Lithuania gained independence >in 1990, Karaims adopted an orthography based on the Lithuanian writing >system. The most comprehensive grammar of Karaim is by the well-known >Turkologist Kenesbay Musaev. > >Estimates place the number of Karaim speakers today at around 50. This >includes about 45 speakers of the language in Lithuania and only five >speakers in the small settlement of Halych in Ukraine. This has led to >Karaim being classified as a "seriously endangered" language in the >UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages. The maintenance of their >mother tongue and the revitalization of community life are the most >urgent tasks facing the Karaims today. > >Several projects today are aimed at maintaining conversational Karaim. >One such project, designed to document the spoken language, has been >carried out by Professor Eva Csato Johansson, a specialist of Karaim at >Sweden's Uppsala University. She launched a program in 1994 to document >the language by means of voice and video recordings. > > Working with other linguists, she also produced a multimedia CD which >has been in use by the community in order to support the revitalization >of the language in Lithuania, and help linguists who want to learn >about this language. > > Csato praised the local Ukrainian authorities in the town of Halych, >home to the five remaining elderly speakers of the Halych dialect of >Karaim, for their efforts to publicize and preserve the Karaim language >and culture. "Now in spite of the fact that the Halych community >consists of only five old speakers, this is a very, very powerful >little community. In 2002, in September, they could organize an >international conference on Halych Karaim history and culture which >evoked very great interest," Csato said. > > This, Csato said, was partly due to the support the Karaim community >received from Halych authorities, which has provided financial aid as >well as help in maintaining Halych traditions. > >The Karaim community in Lithuania, too, receives support from the state >for the development of its culture. The Lithuanian Karaim Cultural >Society, under the leadership of Karaim musicologist Karina >Firkaviciute, seeks to promote Karaim cultural traditions through >courses and programs especially designed for the approximately >250-member Karaim community in Vilnius and Trakai. Karina is one of the >very few young native speakers of the endangered Karaim language. > > Firkaviciute told RFE/RL that a great deal is being done to help >preserve Karaim culture. "As the Cultural Society of Lithuanian >Karaims, we are trying to maintain the language, and the most important >thing is to be able to give the children the possibility to learn the >language. So we are trying to organize each summer a kind of summer >camp for Karaim children, where they can get some time to learn the >Karaim language. But of course they would need to do it more often and >during the whole year, not only in the summertime," she said. > >She also praised the work of Eva Csato Johansson, especially the CD-ROM >she compiled for people who would like to learn the Karaim language. >"[It] includes also some dictionary, and grammar and sounds, and you >would be able to learn how to read and how to pronounce it correctly, >so it is quite a live thing. It is a very fresh and nice thing, but it >is not yet published, and you would not be able to buy it. But we >expect it every second to come, so there would be already the >scientific background for the future lessons, and also we are trying to >document the language in the sense of printing the books, printing the >poems or literature or some articles on the Karaim language, on >something that has been written in Karaim language, etc.," Firkaviciute >said. > > Firkaviciute said the various Karaim communities maintain contacts with >each other and meet practically every year. RFE/RL asked her if she was >optimistic the language would survive. "I would say, 'yes,' and if >somebody is not, I would say we should actually be optimistic, because >otherwise you are not able to do anything," she said. "And of course >the only pessimistic note that could be here is that the [size] of the >communities is very small, but it is not the main thing which could >make you pessimistic. If you are pessimistic, then you are not a human >being. You should be optimistic, and I think we are optimistic, and we >will try to do something to make other people more optimistic. But it's >the main thing just to stay with those positive moods, because >otherwise there's no way to run." > > As an example of her language, Karina read a Karaim poem entitled "Syru >Trochnun": "Being faraway our brothers always remember our native >lands. Elders and the young, everybody from distant places always come >back to Trakai. There everybody enjoys the nature, summertime on the >islands. Youth will not come back, so we have to remember and being >faraway not to forget about Trakai. What is the secret of Trakai, why >does everybody long for that small town? You have to tell that secret >even for the youngest -- Youth go there because of young nice girls and >we all go and long for Trakai because of tradition." > > Some are convinced languages like Karaim, which have only a few >speakers, are doomed to extinction. But Professor David Crystal, an >internationally recognized linguist and supporter of endangered >languages, believes that a language can survive regardless of the >number of speakers -- as long as there is support for the language. > > "It is possible for a language to survive, to regenerate -- to >'revitalize' is the usual term -- regardless of the number of speakers >it has. There are cases on record of peoples with just a few hundred >speakers who have, with appropriate support, managed to maintain their >language presence and to build upon it," Crystal said. This should be >encouragement to the small community of Karaims in Trakai. > > > From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 24 22:36:38 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 15:36:38 -0700 Subject: The Ken Hale Prize (fwd) Message-ID: The Ken Hale Prize is presented annually by the Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA) in recognition of outstanding community language work and a deep commitment to the documentation, maintenance, promotion, and revitalization of indigenous languages in the Americas. The Prize (which carries a small monetary stipend and is not to be confused with the Linguistic Society of America's Kenneth Hale Book Award) will honor those who strive to link the academic and community spheres in the spirit of Ken Hale, and recipients will range from native speakers and community-based linguists to academic specialists, and may include groups or organizations. No academic affiliation is necessary. Nominations for the award may be made by anyone, and should include a letter of nomination stating the current position and affiliation, if appropriate, of the nominee or nominated group (tribal, organizational, or academic), and a summary of the nominee's background and contributions to specific language communities. The nominator should also submit a brief portfolio of supporting materials, such as the nominee's curriculum vitae, a description of completed or ongoing activities of the nominee, letters from those who are most familiar with the work of the nominee (e.g. language program staff, community people, academic associates), and any other material that would support the nomination. Submission of manuscript-length work is discouraged. The 2003 Ken Hale Prize will be announced at the next annual meeting of SSILA, in Boston, in January 2004. The other members of this year's selection committee are Sara Trechter and Colette Grinevald. The deadline for receipt of nominations is September 30, 2003. The nomination packet should be sent to the chair of the Committee: Akira Y. Yamamoto Department of Anthropology University of Kansas Fraser Hall 622 1415 Jayhawk Blvd. Lawrence, KS 66045-7556 Nominations will be kept active for two subsequent years for prize consideration, and nominators are invited to update their nomination packets if so desired. Inquiries can be e-mailed to Akira Yamamoto at . - Akira Y. Yamamoto The University of Kansas Department of Anthropology Fraser Hall 622 1415 Jayhawk Blvd. Lawrence KS 66045-7556 Phone: 785/864-2645 FAX: 785/864-5224 Anthropology: http://www.cc.ku.edu/~kuanth/ Linguistics: http://www.linguistics.ku.edu/ ~~~ From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Jul 25 00:49:20 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 17:49:20 -0700 Subject: It's Dells, dude, for Sandia (fwd) Message-ID: It's Dells, dude, for Sandia http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/news03/072403_news_sandia.shtml By Ailene Torres Tribune Reporter Close to home, far from ordinary, the casino advertising says. Sandia Pueblo council members are attempting to live up to that slogan by donating a new computer to each household on its pueblo. "The council is committed to education and the continued learning of our people," said Pueblo Governor Stuwart Paisano. "We look for ways to give back to the community that will benefit all members in a positive way." It's not every day a business donates more than 100 computers and related equipment to its community. But today is different, and Sandia Casino is not the average business. Sandia Pueblo's 16-member tribal council today will distribute to all 135 households on the pueblo a new Dell computer, flat screen monitor and laser jet printer. The computers and training classes on how to use them are funded by gaming revenues earned through the pueblo's main source of income: Sandia Casino. The casino is owned and operated by the pueblo's tribal council, the governing body for all 481 members that reside on its land. Paisano said the idea of donating computers to the entire pueblo came from a visit to New Mexico by President Clinton in April 2000. Clinton noted that many residents in the Navajo Nation lacked basic technological items most American families possess, such as telephones, and were close to what he termed "the digital divide." As Sandia continues to search for ways to enrich the community from its businesses, they decided technology would be ideal gift for those who live on the pueblo, he said. "It's a very powerful tool," Paisano said. He said computers are essential if members want to be competitive in today's job market, Paisano said. "I continue to be proud of the council's commitment. . . . I'm glad they are providing the necessary tools the members need to survive in the world of technology," Paisano said. The machines also will be a means to ensure the continuity of the pueblo's native dialect - Tiwa - to the next generation. The pueblo teaches their young members the language and provides study materials on CD-ROM and DVD. Although the Learning Resource Center, which is located on the pueblo, is open to all members, it can be inconvenient to go there and check e-mails, write resumes or study Tiwa, say pueblo residents. "The computers will be used to teach and preserve our language," Paisano said. "If members don't have that technology they will be at a disadvantage." Aaron Chavez, a pueblo resident and father of four children, three of whom are school age, said he is grateful for the gift. "Not having to go down to the Learning Resource Center will save a lot of time," Chavez said. "It will be of great use and make me more productive." Chavez said the tool will be an enormous aid to his children for their school work. "Having these things on a daily basis makes it easier," Chavez said. "It enhances our ability to survive in the world." An assessment for the types of training needed will be determined after each member receives their computer. For those not physically able to collect their machines, deliveries will be arranged, Paisano said. All training will be free. Pueblo officials will also act as a liaison between members and Dell when technical issues arise, he said. "All they will have to do is call us," Paisano said. "And we will contact Dell, and help them any way we can." The council takes the responsibility of taking care of their people and community very seriously, Paisano said. The pueblo will continue to deliver computers to each household including those who move in after today, he said. "Giving back to the community is an idea which is embedded in the hearts and minds of the tribal council," Paisano said. From fnkrs at UAF.EDU Sun Jul 27 03:56:02 2003 From: fnkrs at UAF.EDU (Hishinlai') Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2003 19:56:02 -0800 Subject: It's Dells, dude, for Sandia Message-ID: Wow! This might be a very energetic focus for the casino, but I think it will also be an equally (maybe) daunting move to provide the training. I remember about thirteen years ago (when I first became affiliated with a university), I didn't even know how to turn on a computer, let alone know how to navigate around a word processor! It leads me to wonder if this idea came from the Pueblo community, and also how they will incorporate language revitalization into homes via the computer? Language certainly isn't static now...is it? >===== Original Message From Indigenous Languages and Technology ===== >It's Dells, dude, for Sandia >http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/news03/072403_news_sandia.shtml > > By Ailene Torres > Tribune Reporter > > Close to home, far from ordinary, the casino advertising says. > > Sandia Pueblo council members are attempting to live up to that slogan >by donating a new computer to each household on its pueblo. > > "The council is committed to education and the continued learning of >our people," said Pueblo Governor Stuwart Paisano. "We look for ways to >give back to the community that will benefit all members in a positive >way." > > It's not every day a business donates more than 100 computers and >related equipment to its community. > > But today is different, and Sandia Casino is not the average business. > > Sandia Pueblo's 16-member tribal council today will distribute to all >135 households on the pueblo a new Dell computer, flat screen monitor >and laser jet printer. The computers and training classes on how to use >them are funded by gaming revenues earned through the pueblo's main >source of income: Sandia Casino. > > The casino is owned and operated by the pueblo's tribal council, the >governing body for all 481 members that reside on its land. > > Paisano said the idea of donating computers to the entire pueblo came >from a visit to New Mexico by President Clinton in April 2000. Clinton >noted that many residents in the Navajo Nation lacked basic >technological items most American families possess, such as telephones, >and were close to what he termed "the digital divide." > > As Sandia continues to search for ways to enrich the community from its >businesses, they decided technology would be ideal gift for those who >live on the pueblo, he said. > > "It's a very powerful tool," Paisano said. > > He said computers are essential if members want to be competitive in >today's job market, Paisano said. > > "I continue to be proud of the council's commitment. . . . I'm glad >they are providing the necessary tools the members need to survive in >the world of technology," Paisano said. > > The machines also will be a means to ensure the continuity of the >pueblo's native dialect - Tiwa - to the next generation. > > The pueblo teaches their young members the language and provides study >materials on CD-ROM and DVD. Although the Learning Resource Center, >which is located on the pueblo, is open to all members, it can be >inconvenient to go there and check e-mails, write resumes or study >Tiwa, say pueblo residents. > > "The computers will be used to teach and preserve our language," >Paisano said. "If members don't have that technology they will be at a >disadvantage." > > Aaron Chavez, a pueblo resident and father of four children, three of >whom are school age, said he is grateful for the gift. > > "Not having to go down to the Learning Resource Center will save a lot >of time," Chavez said. "It will be of great use and make me more >productive." > > Chavez said the tool will be an enormous aid to his children for their >school work. > > "Having these things on a daily basis makes it easier," Chavez said. >"It enhances our ability to survive in the world." > > An assessment for the types of training needed will be determined after >each member receives their computer. For those not physically able to >collect their machines, deliveries will be arranged, Paisano said. All >training will be free. > > Pueblo officials will also act as a liaison between members and Dell >when technical issues arise, he said. > > "All they will have to do is call us," Paisano said. "And we will >contact Dell, and help them any way we can." > > The council takes the responsibility of taking care of their people and >community very seriously, Paisano said. The pueblo will continue to >deliver computers to each household including those who move in after >today, he said. > > "Giving back to the community is an idea which is embedded in the >hearts and minds of the tribal council," Paisano said. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Hishinlai' "Kathy R. Sikorski", Gwich'in Instructor University of Alaska Fairbanks Alaska Native Language Center P. O. Box 757680 Fairbanks, AK 99775-7680 P (907) 474-7875 F (907) 474-7876 E fnkrs at uaf.edu ANLC-L at www.uaf.edu/anlc/ Hah! Nakhweet'ihthan t'ihch'yaa! From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 30 17:17:53 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 10:17:53 -0700 Subject: WireTap - Mac OSX audio recorder Message-ID: Dear ILAT, I came across this handy new free software called "WireTap" for Mac OSX. It has been a great little tool for recording audio directly from the web. I've been capturing language audio (among other things) where previously I could only listen to it without downloading. Download http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/freebies/ Review http://www.macobserver.com/article/2003/07/09.10.shtml heenek'e (again), Phil Cash Cash (cayuse/nez perce) UofA, ILAT http://www.u.arizona.edu/~cashcash/ILAT.html From summerw at STANFORD.EDU Wed Jul 30 19:44:54 2003 From: summerw at STANFORD.EDU (Summer Waggoner) Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 12:44:54 -0700 Subject: Inquiry in creating interactive CD Roms Message-ID: Aiy-yu-kwee', The Yurok Tribe's language program needs your help. We are seeking to create language cd-roms and we are in the process of identifying software--that would help us create the cd-roms-- that would be the most helpful as well as efficient in this task. I was hoping that there may be those of you who would be willing to advise me on software that you may have used or know to be helpful. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration. Wok'hlaw, Summer Waggoner Yurok Tribe Language Curriculum Specialist 530-625-4137 From jenjit at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Jul 30 20:50:40 2003 From: jenjit at HOTMAIL.COM (Jen G) Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 03:50:40 +0700 Subject: Inquiry in creating interactive CD Roms Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From twoelkenterprise at YAHOO.COM Wed Jul 30 21:45:45 2003 From: twoelkenterprise at YAHOO.COM (Two Elk) Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 14:45:45 -0700 Subject: Inquiry in creating interactive CD Roms In-Reply-To: <1059594294.3f28203634b41@webmail.stanford.edu> Message-ID: Hi! I owe everyone a big Intro thing,...but will get it out soon...until then I apologize...just been lurking...learning and such... on the Q... Depending on how Hi Tek you want to, or are qualified to, based on learning curves, etc., you could go with Dreamweaver and Flash...I had some Tek Wizards put together an Interactive CD Rom using those, and you can read a speech at the same time you hear it... but I'm not sure what the advanced levels of Interactivity potentials are... on the Lo Tek end...you could put together some pretty Interactive DHTML pages using Javascript, etc. save it much the same as a web page structure and load it onto a CD as a Data file. With that programming and scripting it's possible to code the audio files from the HTML pages, work in forms, etc. When you've got what you want in the Interactivity arena, you save it to CD with the autoload code and Voila! Interactive Lo Tek CD, anybody can recreate or learn from... so, again...it depends on what you need... hope this helps some... Two Elk ===== "We are all students and we are all teachers. We are students of those who know more and we are teachers of those who know less..." TLAKEALEL Kalpulli De Koacalco Koacalco, Mexico __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 31 21:35:20 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 14:35:20 -0700 Subject: Bishop =?iso-8859-1?b?TXVzZXVtknM=?= project preserves Hawaiian language (fwd) Message-ID: Bishop Museum?s project preserves Hawaiian language By Huy Vo Posted: Thursday July 31, 2003 http://www.hawaiibusiness.cc/hb72003/hbe-brief.cfm?hbeid=505 Thanks to Bishop Museum's newspaper project entitled Ho'olaupa'i, Hawaiian language newspapers are now easily accessible. Nineteenth and early 20th century Hawaiian newspapers are an untapped source of historical information about Hawaii. Thoughts and ideas of Hawaiians during this time period will be revealed for the first time in a century to researchers and the general public. In partnership with Alu Like and Hale Kuamo'o at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, Bishop Museum is archiving and providing research tools for improved access to the newspapers. The project is striving to have a partial database of Hawaiian newsprint available on the Internet by the end of this summer under the direction of Project Manager Kau'i Goodhue. Over the next five years, a searchable database of the more than 100 different Hawaiian language newspapers, with 125,000 pages of Hawaiian Language Newsprint will be available to researchers on the Internet, through the help of the project. Ho'olaupa'i is initially funded by federal grants of about $360,000, contributed by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, and the U.S. Department of Interior, National Park Service - Native Hawaiian Culture and Arts Program. Full operation is expected by next year, and the Bishop Museum expects Ho'olaupa'i will be in need of about $500,000. Bishop Museum is finding ways to secure the increased funding requirements from foundation grants and private contributions. With the help of optical character recognition technology and Hawaiian language students, Ho'olaupa'i will create the most comprehensive searchable database for Hawaiian language newspapers. By capturing previously unrecorded Hawaiian words from the newspapers, the project is generating words not found in the standard Pukui & Elbert Hawaiian language dictionary. "We are honored to take part in such a culturally important program," says Bishop Museum President Bill Brown. "Ho'olaupa'i gives renewed life to these important Hawaiian language newspapers that will contribute to furthering the perpetuation of the Native Hawaiian culture and language." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 31 22:27:32 2003 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Phil Cash Cash) Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 15:27:32 -0700 Subject: Inquiry in creating interactive CD Roms In-Reply-To: <1059594294.3f28203634b41@webmail.stanford.edu> Message-ID: Summer, The Critical Languages Instruction Group here at the University of Arizona has created a freeware called "MaxAuthor," a multimedia authoring system for language instruction. It is available for dowloading at the following link. http://cali.arizona.edu/docs/wmaxa/ Check out the most recent example lessons in Chemehuevi! The UofA Critical language staff (along with linguist Susan Penfield and I) worked hard to make this happen with Chemehuevi speaker Johhny Hill, who is among the youngest and few fluent speakers of Chemehuevi remaining. Did I mention that MaxAuthor is free? Also, I hope that more responses from our ILAT list participants are forthcoming as I too am interested in what people are using. Anybody using Macromedia Director MX or Authorware? SMIL? qo'c (later), Phil Cash Cash (cayuse/nez perce) > ----- Message from summerw at STANFORD.EDU --------- > Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 12:44:54 -0700 > From: Summer Waggoner > Reply-To: Indigenous Languages and Technology > Subject: Inquiry in creating interactive CD Roms > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > > Aiy-yu-kwee', > > The Yurok Tribe's language program needs your help. We are seeking to > create language cd-roms and we are in the process of identifying > software--that would help us create the cd-roms-- that would be the > most helpful as well as efficient in this task. > > I was hoping that there may be those of you who would be willing to > advise me on software that you may have used or know to be helpful. > > Thank you in advance for your time and consideration. > > Wok'hlaw, > > Summer Waggoner > Yurok Tribe Language Curriculum Specialist > 530-625-4137 > > > ----- End message from summerw at STANFORD.EDU -----