Workshop designed to give 'sleeping' Indian languages a breath of life (fwd)

[Phil Cash Cash]

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Workshop designed to give 'sleeping' Indian languages a breath of life

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-09/uow-wdt090203.php

          Thirty-six participants from 13 Pacific Northwest Indian
tribes will gather at the University of Washington next week for a
workshop designed to open the linguistic riches of the UW campus and
assist in tribal efforts to revitalize indigenous languages.

        Members of the Nooksack, Chehalis, Cowlitz, Lummi, Tulalip,
Colville, Yakama, Samish, Skokomish, Muckleshoot, Squaxin Island, Lower
Rogue and Unangax tribes and nations will participate in the weeklong
Breath of Life workshop Sept. 8-12.  They will work with a dozen
linguists, primarily UW linguistics Ph.Ds. and graduate students, and
library archivists, to learn basics of linguistics and explore material
in their languages that is stored at the UW.

        "All of the participants are working to revitalize imperiled
languages, and some of these languages have no fluent speakers today,"
said Alice Taff, a research associate in the UW's linguistics
department who is coordinating the workshop.

        "We call these 'sleeping' languages when there are no speakers.
But you can wake up a language.  Hebrew, in the context of daily
conversation, was sleeping and is now quite awake."

        During the workshop, participants will go to class in the
mornings to learn linguistic skills that will aid them in their work in
the archives.  In the afternoons, archivists will help them explore and
sort through the material in their language.  To focus their archives
search, each participant will work on a project related to revitalizing
his or her language.

        The UW archives and the Burke Museum of Natural History and
Culture contain a number of collections with material devoted to the
languages of native peoples of Washington and the Pacific Northwest.
The largest is the Melville Jacobs Collection.  Jacobs was chairman of
the UW's anthropology department for nearly 30 years, and from 1926 to
1939 did extensive field research documenting Indian language and music
in Washington.  The Jacobs collection includes numerous field
recordings, many originally made on wax cylinders, as well as his
notebooks and cards and material collected by some of his students. The
collection fills about 150 boxes.

        The Northwest Linguistics Collection contains miscellaneous
material that includes more than 800 audiotapes and countless microfilm
copies of linguistics field notes.  The Ethnomusicology Collection,
housed in the School of Music, is one of the largest in the country and
contains material related to the songs of Washington and Pacific
Northwest Indians.  The Metcalf Collection, stored in the Burke Museum
contains, 76 one-hour tapes, primarily of songs and music collected
around Puget Sound in the 1950s.

        "Many academics built their careers on the backs of linguistic
data that Indian people gave them, so it behooves the UW to turn around
and open the archives to their descendents who are working to
revitalize their language," said Taff.

        She hopes the workshop will continue in future years. But even
if it doesn't, she thinks the weeklong program will show participants
how to use the archives, know the university and feel comfortable
enough to come back at their convenience and continue their work.

        "What we are going to be doing and teaching is secondary, and
going through this material will be absolute detective work to help
sleeping languages awaken," she said.

        The UW workshop is modeled and named after a similar program
that has been held every other year since 1996 at the University of
California, Berkeley, to revitalize Indian languages in California.

###

For more information, contact Taff at taff at u.washington.edu or the UW
department of linguistics after Sept. 7 at 206-543-2046.