Native Language: Keeping the words alive (fwd)

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Native Language: Keeping the words alive

Tribal elders, members endeavor to preserve their native language

By CARRIE ANTLFINGER
Associated Press
5/4/2003


ONEIDA NATION RESERVATION, Wis. - At the Language House, a log house
tucked between sugar maples and white pines, 10 members of the Oneida
tribe sit around a table repeating words that rolled off the tongues of
their ancestors.

They've just finished watching a videotape that recorded elders talking
with students. Their assignment is to pick out trouble phrases and
determine their pronunciation and meaning.

One of the phrases they're struggling with translates to mean: "We're
always trying hard to be like the Caucasian race," a telling phrase in
their struggle to preserve their language.

The members are paid to learn the ancient language and teach it to others
in an effort to ensure the language survives. Other tribes nationwide are
taking similar steps with help from the federal government, which has poured
more than $23.6 million into such language preservation projects since 1994.

"If we don't know the language we probably won't be Indian people
anymore," said Dennis White, director of instruction in the Lac Courte
Oreilles Band, a Chippewa tribe in Hayward.

"We'd be Americans with nice tans." Indians say losing the language of
their ancestors takes away a tribe's sense of identity and culture partly
because many of their meetings and prayers are in their native tongue.

Before Europeans  arrived in North America, 400 to 600 tribal languages
were spoken in the United States and Canada. Today, there are only 211,
said Inee Yang Slaughter, executive director of The Indigenous Language
Institute in Santa Fe, N.M.

The Administration for Native Americans recognizes 558 tribes in the
United States. It gives grants to tribes to preserve their language, which
usually means having elders teach it to others who will pass it on.

Sheila Cooper, acting director of program operations for the federal
agency, said it is the only federal entity that provides tribes funding
for such programs. Many don't realize the funds are available.

The Oneida received $125,000 last year to pay for seven trainees, who meet
with two elders, both in their 80s, five days a week. The trainees spend
half the day with the elders; the rest of the time is spent in schools teaching
the language.

But the lessons aren't limited to the classroom.

A grocery store on the reservation lists product names in English and
Oneida. One sign in the cereal aisle translates to read: "Morning Time
Foods." The tribe also has a biweekly tribal newspaper with a full page
written in Oneida.

Indian languages began disappearing in the 17th century after European
missionaries arrived on the East Coast. In the mid-1880s the government
established boarding schools that prohibited students from acknowledging
their culture, including language. Students were punished for practicing
any part of their culture until the 1960s, and many of the elders still alive
are afraid to teach children the language.

Language tends to be better preserved when a tribe isolates itself from an
urban community and its American influences and when tribe members take an
active part in language lessons, Slaughter said.

Another challenge the tribes face is the languages are passed down from
generation to generation orally, so there are few materials or trained
teachers. In many tribal communities, members have grown up speaking English.

About a year and a half ago, The Indigenous Language Institute of Santa
Fe, N.M., started teacher training sessions, including curriculum
development. The institute, which is funded through grants and private
contributions, also established a teaching material resource center for
tribes.

Only a handful of states let tribes certify their teachers so they can
teach tribal languages in the public school system. In January, the
Washington state Board of Education agreed to grant special teaching
certificates that would allow speakers of the ancient languages to teach
in public schools there.

The 3,500-member Tulalip tribe, located about 30 miles northwest of
Seattle, stands to benefit from the teaching certificates. Fewer than 10
of its elders age 70 or older speak Lushootseed.

"They are the experts," Suzi Wright,a program developer and applied
linguist for the Tulalips. "We're unused to recognizing someone's
expertise if they don't have some sort of university degree but there's no
way you can be an expert in culture unless you've grown up in the culture."

The Tulalips have no textbooks; they rely on taping speakers.

On Kodiak Island, Alaska, only 25 fluent speakers of Alutiiq are left
after 7,500 years. A 25-year-old dictionary and nine videotapes with
language lessons are all they have to help preserve their identity.

Shauna Hegna, the 25-year-old language coordinator for the island's 10
tribes, which speak different dialects of Alutiiq, is trying to obtain
federal and private funding for a three-year master apprentice program. It
would identify seven or eight fluent speakers, each of whom will work for
10 hours a week with one or two adults to teach them the language.

The tribes will learn this summer if they will receive funding.

"I have to get it off the ground because if we don't accomplish this goal
our language will die," Hegna said.

"To me it's not acceptable because I want my children to know my language."

www.oneidanation.org/