From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 2 15:33:40 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 08:33:40 -0700 Subject: Dine curriculum guide is a milestone for indigenous lanugages (fwd) Message-ID: >From Farmington Daily Times http://www.daily-times.com/artman/publish/article_8243.shtml Dine curriculum guide is a milestone for indigenous lanugages By Carol Cohea/The Daily Times Feb 2, 2004, 11:04 am FARMINGTON — Once they walk into the bilingual portable at McKinley Elementary after 3:30 in the afternoon, the pupils are immersed in reading, writing, speaking and listening in Navajo. One recent evening for parents, some pupils were reading and speaking quickly and easily. Some were just beginning to understand the words and wrap their tongues around the glottal stops, dipthongs and high and low nasal tones. Others were struggling. Some were beginning to read words together to make sentences. “Your jaw muscles have to adjust to Navajo language, the glottal stops and high tones,” explained Carole Yazzie. She and Mary Lou Yazzie are in charge of the Afterschool Bilingual Program. Parents were getting a look at what their youngsters do in the afterschool program. This night children were reading from a worksheet they’d done earlier in the week, introducing themselves by clan, describing their clothing and colors and talking about food. Elthea Charles said daughter Ashlynn Atcitty, 9, considered the class a treat. “She’s communicating with her grandparents. It’s opening new horizons for her. I feel lucky she’s got the class. She’s picking up a lot of things,” Charles said. “Last year it was really just an arts and crafts program. This year I see a lot more knowledge coming back,” she said. Linda Jim said she speaks fluent Navajo, but raised her three children speaking English. Her own daughter, Shianne Jim, 9, wrote her a letter asking her permission to come to Navajo class, so she could communicate with her grandmother. “She loves the class. It’s wonderful. I tell her I’m learning a lot from her. She’s bringing home books and we’re learning to read the language,” Jim said. “It’s fun. It’s my first time doing this,” Shianne said. Jarred Billy, 10, is enthusiastic about coming to class. “I want to learn more Navajo words. It helps pull up my grades in regular classes,” he said. “I like it. I think my son is learning a lot. All we talk is English. He likes coming here and he’s trying to teach me the language,” said mom Lisa Jones. Parent Alfreda Scott said a child’s knowledge of two languages gives the child an ability to look at life more colorfully. “They can see the world in colors compared to just one way or another. It opens their eyes to other opportunities out there for Navajo language speakers and in society itself. Language gives them a strong background,” she said. In November the Farmington School District became the first district in New Mexico and the U.S. to have an indigenous language curriculum guide which meets the state Department of Education Standards and Benchmarks. The school board approved the kindergarten through grade 12 Dine Bilingual Language Culture and History Curriculum Guide. “A lot of school districts are asking for it. We are copyrighting it and will offer it for sale at $30 a copy,” said Arlene Kirstine, director of Farmington Schools Bilingual and Indian Education Program. The guide was developed by Bernice Casaus, as curriculum consultant, along with her team of co-developers, Sharon Becenti, Karen Begay, Donna Irvin, Videna John, Jenny Kaye, Herbert Platero, Jennie Platero, Barbara Sorensen, Nellie Storer, Jeanette Wauneka, Betty Williams and Mary Gregori. The guide includes language and culture components on Navajo history, government, fundamental philosophy and parent involvement. It complies with Farmington Schools Education Plan for Student Success, state Department of Education Standards and Benchmarks and the Navajo Nation Education Policy. As lesson plans and materials are developed, they are taken directly to the pupils, in this case the 15 pupils at McKinley Elementary and the program teachers Carole Yazzie and Mary Lou Yazzie. Casaus began her professional career as an English teacher, teaching second language learners how to speak English. For the last 10 years she has taught Navajo language to teachers. Before that she volunteered her time at Swinburne Elementary. “When my kids started at Swinburne I was a home room mother, making cookies and Koolaid. In the afternoons I volunteered time to work with kids. I’d hear that the language of Navajo kids was not up to par. I decided I would see how I could help. I was going to teach them English,” she said. Over the years she realized that learning Navajo was the way to get the children to learn correct English. “When kids know both languages they realize the importance of the sound and importance of correct English,” she said. “If they know two languages, they have something to compare to. The two vocabularies can be compared and they are able to draw from both.” She pointed out that Navajo is written in English phonetics. It takes some children who have had no experience with Navajo a while to get their tongues moving and to begin to verbalize Navajo, she said. Then she and Carole Yazzie and Mary Lou Yazzie begin to introduce them to the high tones and low tones and to mix them up. “In English, for example, mom is a nasal tone; bank and sky are falling tones, high is a high tone. Once they hear that and get the idea of high and low tones, the speaking and reading will come quickly for them,” Casaus said. Casaus wants to make the lessons meaningful to the children in the area and uses animals and structures they see. Some lessons involve teaching through the use of a plastic diorama of a farm scene with animals and corral fences. It’s used for teaching post positions, prepositions, such as over, under, beside, near, and by. Through the diorama children also learn nouns, placement of objects, handling verbs and names of domestic animals. Colors and numbers are integrated for review. At another time Casaus brings out her back of tricks — a white flour sack, emptied of flour, now filled with an assortment of stuffed and plastic animals and objects. She pulls these from it, asking the children to name the object in Navajo and say it’s color. She asks questions of them and waits for their responses. “If you can do hands-on, it sticks. Abstract doesn’t work,” she said. The hour-long after-school class is at the point now where it’s taught almost totally in Navajo. “The kids are smart. If you’re going to do English translations between the Navajo, the kids are going to wait for the translations,” she said. The work on the lesson plans will continue this summer for upper grades and staff will be trained on how to use it. “Each level will progress with more detail and more complex thinking,” she said. Carol Cohea: carolc at daily-times.com From mward at LUNA.CC.NM.US Mon Feb 2 18:23:14 2004 From: mward at LUNA.CC.NM.US (Matthew Ward) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 11:23:14 -0700 Subject: Regional languages dying in mixed marriages (fwd) Message-ID: If Native American societies had been allowed to develop as independent states, then you would probably see this kind of thing happening on a widespread scale: language shift occuring in the direction of more powerful indigenous languages, rather than in the direction of colonial languages. You would still see endangered minority languages, but you would also have powerful, thriving indigenous languages, as India has. The sad thing is that in the American continents, four colonial languages (Spanish, English, Portuguese and French) are official or de-facto official in every state, and very few countries have given either official recognition or widespread official use to indigenous languages, which has put the latter in a precarious position. I personally believe that making indigenous languages the de facto state languages of various reservations or regions would be one of the most effective ways to fight back. Some of the Alaskan languages, for example, are relatively healthy, due to their widespread use in local government and education. It is easier to maintain a language when using that language is required in order to participate in a variety of spheres within a given society. To take the article we read about Easter Island for an example, if Spanish-speaking newcomers to Easter Island had to learn the local language in order to navigate local government and education, they would be more likely to learn that language, and the locals would have a concrete, practical reason for passing the language on to their children. I have read about Spanish-speaking migrants to Basque country in Spain who have complained bitterly about having to learn Basque, but, in my view, the Basques are simply doing what they need to do in order to maintain their culture. European minority languages like Catatlan and Basque remain healthy because their speakers have won political battles which have enabled them to restore their languages' official status and use. Hopefully, indigenous people in America (meaning, the American continents) will be able to win similar battles. phil cash cash wrote: > the situation described by the article was quite interesting. in the > southern Columbia Plateau region (OR, WA, ID), an undocumented > language isolate--Cayuse--shifted to Nez Perce in the 18th century and > the last vestiges of the language shift was complete by 1930 with its > last speakers. this language shift event is unique because it is not a > contemporary one like we now know, it is entirely an indigenous > language shift. apparently, the Cayuse and Nez Perce allied themselves > through intermarriage, political, and economic means. but more than > anything, it is likely the intermarriage that facilitated the language > shift. > > phil cash cash (cayuse/nez perce) > UofA, ILAT > > > On Jan 29, 2004, at 4:11 PM, Matthew Ward wrote: > >> It's my understanding that there is indeed language shift going on in >> India, but it is mostly in the direction of Hindi or other major state >> languages. Hindi is now estimated by some to be the native language of >> fully one-third of the population, which means, with the population of >> India having recently passed one billion, that the number of Hindi >> native speakers in the world population (let alone in India) may have >> already caught up with that of English. In fact, in the next century >> Hindi is widely forecasted to pass both English and Spanish to become >> the world's second largest native tongue, second only to Mandarin >> Chinese. >> >> As for language shift to English, it probably does occur to a certain >> degree when you are dealing with people like those described in the >> article: children of members of the small upper-class elite, who are >> are products of mixed marriages, and whose parents both speak minority >> languages and are likely to be fluent in English. But, for the large >> majority of Indians who are not members of this elite, mixed marriages >> are far more likely to favor dominant indigenous languages like Hindi. >> At any rates, even liberal estimates put the native-English speaking >> population of India at a tiny fraction. >> >> A personal observation: for some reason, there are a number of Indian >> students in Las Vegas, New Mexico, where I am living, and although they >> come from a variety of Indian states and speak a variety of Indian >> languages, they use Hindi as their lingua franca, although they are >> living in an English-speaking country and studying in English. Were two >> such people to marry, it seems clear that their children would be >> hearing mostly Hindi at home. >> >> There is also quite a large anti-English movement in India, and there >> have been a growing number of states which have eliminated English as >> one of their official languages in recent years. This is, in my mind, a >> positive development, but I have also read articles that argue that the >> focus on containing the national role of English sometimes obscures a >> more pressing issue: the widespread loss of minority languages to more >> dominant Indian languages. In the more populated north, especially, >> where most languages are related to Hindi, the spread of Hindi as the >> national languages has met with little resistance, as it is not seen as >> an alien language. Consequently, it puts minority languages at a great >> deal of risk. In the south, where people speak completely unrelated >> languages, there is more resistance to Hindi, which has allowed English >> to remain a lingua franca to a greater degree, arguably a negative >> development, but it also reduces the likehood that local languages will >> be replaced by Hindi. Certainly, it is a very good thing indeed that >> India has chosen for their national language an indigenous language over >> a colonial language, and I agree that they should continue to expand the >> role of Hindi at the expense of English, but it does necessarily make >> the position of minority languages any more secure. >> For an extreme example of this kind of thing, I think of France, which >> speaks one of the most dominant languages in the world. All of the >> French paranoia about English loan words (which have about as much >> potential of "harming" French as tens of thousands of French loan-words >> have "harmed" English) have obscured the reality that French-only >> policies, some of the most conservative in any modern democracy, have >> put traditional languages like Breton in great danger. >> >> I think that the world in general, and not only the people who live in >> the major English-speaking countries, have a good reason to be wary of >> the English language, but it is not good to let that wariness draw >> attention away from the reality that most of the endangered minority >> languages in the world are not being replaced by English. >> >> Don Osborn wrote: >> >>> It would seem in principle that the same techniques used by >>> international >>> bilingual couples to impart the languages of both to their children >>> could be >>> used by interethnic couples within a country to do the same. The >>> situation >>> described in the article is probably widespread in multilingual >>> societies. >>> In West Africa my impression is that there is not a systematic >>> approach to >>> teaching languages to the very young before school (rather laissez >>> faire, >>> with kids picking up language from family, neighbors, friends), >>> except in >>> isolated(?) cases where parents may insist on speaking French or >>> English >>> only at home in the belief this will somehow help their children. So in >>> linguistically mixed marriages it's catch as catch can for the kids' >>> language education, especially in the cities. >>> >>> Don Osborn >>> Bisharat.net >>> >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>> From: "Phil Cash-Cash" >>> To: >>> Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 6:27 PM >>> Subject: Regional languages dying in mixed marriages (fwd) >>> >>> >>> Regional languages dying in mixed marriages >>> SANDHYA IYER >>> >>> The Times of India >>> TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2004 05:55:13 AM ] >>> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/438291.cms >>> >>> When two mothertongues meet, the result is a third language. In the >>> bargain, both the regional languages are forgotten. >>> >>> Sociologists are calling it a linguistic cultural quandary, that may >>> not >>> be ideal for those keen on a sense of identity and rootedness. But >>> there seems to be little room for mother-tongues in today s global >>> village. >>> >>> Mixed marriages are breeding children who speak neither the >>> mother-tongue of the dad or the local lingo of their mom s hometown. >>> >>> Says event manager, Namita Shibad, who has two children aged 15 and 10, >>> "My father was from Mangalore and my mother from Punjab . So they >>> mostly stuck to speaking English,which is why I couldn t even gather a >>> smattering of either languages. There is a regret, in the sense that >>> there is no native element to look up to. At the same time, it isn t >>> so bad to shed regionality and adopt a very global approach towards >>> life," she reasons. >>> >>> Sociologist Sujata Patel, however, warns, "The urban upper-class >>> populace faces this threat most of all. It is very important for >>> children to know a regional language. >>> >>> Primarily, because a mothertongue brings along with it an entire >>> cultural ethos. Any kind of diversity and richness only comes when a >>> regional language is encouraged. >>> >>> To be able to attain a certain level of stability, it is important that >>> a special effort is made towards retaining a regional essence," she >>> opines. >>> >>> That essence is a fast disappearing flavour with each passing >>> generation >>> in families where the parents are from different regions. >>> >>> Jyotsna and Vighnesh Shahane are another couple who admit that their >>> five-year-old son Ishaan cannot speak either Marathi or Kannada. >>> >>> "There s little we can do about it. My husband is constantly >>> travelling, >>> so he gets very little time with Ishaan. >>> >>> I m am not too good with my Kannada, so I prefer sticking to English. >>> The only time my son really listens to Marathi is when his grandparents >>> come over," says Jyotsna. >>> >>> Many parents feel that the challenge is greater when there is no >>> support >>> system, in terms of extended family or grand-parents. >>> >>> Ashish and Shweta Khandelwal, are very keen that their kids speak both >>> mothertongues. Says Ashish, "My elder daughter Vanshika can speak >>> Marwari quite well. >>> >>> But it took some effort. My wife Shweta is from the North and doesn t >>> speak Marwari at all. So it was primarily left to me to teach her the >>> language. >>> >>>> From the beginning, I was very clear that I didn t want her talking >>>> only >>> >>> in English. That attitude will make regional languages completely fade >>> away," he warns. >>> >>> >>> >> > From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Wed Feb 4 00:40:01 2004 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 16:40:01 -0800 Subject: More Rapa Nui Info Message-ID: 02/02/2004 - EASTER ISLAND ASSOCIATED PRESS Evelyn Hucke wants her son to speak in the language of the king who settled this remote island more than a millennium ago, the same Polynesian tongue spoken by the people who carved the totemic statues that rise above the powder-blue waters of the South Pacific. Hucke, 30, grew up speaking that language, known as Rapa Nui. But as she walks the streets of Hanga Roa, Easter Island's only town, she hears the Polynesian-faced children chattering and arguing in Spanish, the language of the island's current rulers, the Chileans. Every day is a linguistic battle for Hucke as she fights the cartoons beamed in from South America, the Spanish repartee at the grocery store and in the island's only schoolyard. "Ko ai a Hotu Matu'a?" she asks her 7-year-old. Obediently, he answers in the same language: "He was the first king who came here." Often called the loneliest place on Earth, Easter Island is now caught up in the swirling changes of globalization and is on the front line of a broader effort to preserve the world's endangered languages. Every year, more languages pass into extinction. In the Chilean archipelago north of the Strait of Magellan, the last dozen or so speakers of the Kawesqar Indian language are aged. Inevitably, Kawesqar will join Kunza and Selknam on the list of Chile's dead languages. Only an end to "Chileanization," local leaders here say, can rescue Rapa Nui -- the term applies to the language, the 2,000 people who speak it and the island itself. Rapa Nui leaders want political autonomy from Chile or independence so they can control the migration of Spanish-speaking "Continentals" to the island. Saving Rapa Nui has become an obsession for a handful of people here, including a pair of California linguists who've spent nearly three decades helping create a Rapa Nui literature, and a former medical worker who became a schoolteacher and launched the island's first Rapa Nui "immersion" program. "You realize something of your people is being lost, the spirit of our people," says Virginia Haoa, who runs the immersion classes for students from kindergarten through fourth grade. For Haoa and others, saving Rapa Nui means saving Easter Island's uniqueness -- "our culture, our cosmology, our way of being," Haoa says. If Rapa Nui dies, so will a living connection to ancestors who built an exotic, mysterious civilization on an island just a few miles wide in a vast, otherwise empty stretch of the Pacific, 2,300 miles from the South American mainland. For now, there are still Easter Islanders who can tell you, in Rapa Nui, stories that have been passed down for generations about Hotu Matu'a, who, around A.D. 400, arrived with seven explorers from the land called Hiva to settle this place. You can still talk to people whose grandfathers were part of the Birdman cult that raised one of the last of the island's 800 famed, imposing "moai" statues. It was later shipped off to the British Museum in London. "What we've kept alive (of our culture) has been entirely on our own initiative," says Alfonso Rapu, 61, who in the 1960s led one of the most important protests against Chilean rule, escaping an arrest warrant by hiding in the island's caves. Intermarriage with Chilean Continentals, he says, might soon do away with many of the 39 surnames associated with the island's tribes. Chile has ruled the island since one of its admirals arrived here in 1888, signing a treaty with its last king, who residents believe was later poisoned in the Chilean city of Valparaiso. Until recently, geographic isolation kept alive the Rapa Nui language -- a rhythmic tongue with few hard consonants -- despite the small number of people speaking it. But these days, the peak of tourist season brings four flights weekly from Santiago, Chile's capital. Taxi drivers who've relocated from Santiago cruise up and down Atamu Tekena Avenue in Hanga Roa, in search of fares. "Word has gotten out in Chile that you can make dollars easy on Easter Island," explains Hucke, a member of the self-appointed "Rapa Nui parliament," which is pushing to have the island's status placed on the agenda of a United Nations committee on colonization. "They come to try their luck. They aren't interested when we tell them our culture is being destroyed." Chileans are currently as free to come to Easter Island as Americans are to move to Hawaii. "The Constitution of Chile is killing my culture and my identity," says Petero Edmunds, the mayor of Hanga Roa and the island's only popularly elected official. "We are a millenarian culture that existed long before Chile did. And the only way to protect that culture is by regulating migration." Edmunds and other leaders head to Santiago several times a year to negotiate autonomy with the authorities. Islanders hope to eventually achieve a status similar to their oceanic neighbors in French Polynesia, which was granted self-rule in 1984. "We are Polynesians," says activist Mario Tuki Hey, expressing an opinion shared by most anthropologists. "It's only an accident that makes us part of Chile." There is a growing consensus on the mainland that Easter Island deserves a different status from other isolated corners of the Chilean state. "There is unanimity in the idea that certain places, like an island located in the middle of the Pacific, should receive special treatment," said Sen. Jaime Orpis, a member of the conservative Independent Democratic Union who was part of a Chilean Senate commission that visited the island in September. "They should have autonomy." Sen. Carlos Ominami of the Socialist Party said such a status would probably be based on that of the Galapagos Islands, which are allowed to control migration from Ecuador and charge a visitors' fee to raise money for development. The Easter Island negotiations have dragged on for at least a year. For the time being, the island remains simply another administrative subdivision of the city of Valparaiso, Chile's main Pacific port. "We are as far from Valparaiso as Los Angeles is from Miami," Edmunds says. "It does not make sense that I have to call Valparaiso to get the money to fill a pothole or to have a Chilean bureaucrat tell me in what language I should educate my children." In fact, the island's school established its Rapa Nui immersion program four years ago in defiance of Chile's education laws, which mandate instruction primarily in Spanish. The educators and linguists behind the program say Rapa Nui was in such desperate straits, they couldn't afford to wait any longer. "For anyone under 25, Rapa Nui is not their primary language," says Nancy Weber, a linguist who has worked on the island with her husband, Robert, since the mid-1970s. Back then, things were different. "When we came, probably the greatest percentage of Rapa Nui children spoke Rapa Nui as their primary language," she says. Television arrived on Easter Island about the same time the Webers did. In those days, the linguists had great fun listening to the island's schoolchildren talk -- in Rapa Nui -- about the strange and exotic happenings on shows such as "Daniel Boone." The beaver-capped explorers and tomahawk-wielding Indians on the series were speaking dubbed Spanish, and the children weren't entirely sure what they were saying or doing. "None of them agreed with each other about what they had seen on TV the night before," Robert says. "And none of their stories seemed to match the `Daniel Boone' I had seen." At the same time, the Webers set out to create Rapa Nui texts, inviting local residents to writing workshops and publishing mimeographed anthologies of poetry and family narratives. If Rapa Nui was to be taught in school, they felt, it needed a literature -- writing that reflected its cultural reality. "People were moved to tears when they produced their first books," Nancy recalls. Rapa Nui, it seemed, was on the rebound. But as time passed, Rapa Nui began to slip behind Spanish, especially after Chilean TV expanded to a daylong schedule. By 1997, a sociolinguistic survey of the school found that no exclusive Rapa Nui speakers were left and that only a handful of students were "coordinate bilingual," or equally fluent in Spanish and Rapa Nui. The Chileans are only the most recent in a long line of Europeans and South Americans to control the island. For centuries, colonialists and slavers decimated the population. The small group of elders who could read Easter Island's rongo rongo writing system -- preserved in 28 carved wooden tablets -- all died as slaves in 19th century Peru. By the time the Chileans arrived, the Rapa Nui people numbered fewer than 200. In the 20th century, Chile ruled the island with a mixture of paternalism and benign neglect. Older residents remember an island without electricity or running water, run by Chilean naval officers "as if the island were a ship and we were all sailors." Chilean educators encouraged the parents of Easter Island's "best and brightest" to send their children to mainland boarding schools. Haoa, the Rapa Nui teacher, was sent off to Chile when she was 9. She suffered an unbearable loneliness for months on end, rarely hearing a word of her native language. "The nuns told my parents I was too smart, that it would be a waste to let me stay on the island," she says. As an adult with a Chilean university degree, she returned to the island to work at the local clinic -- until the day her oldest daughter started kindergarten at Easter Island's elementary school. "I had always spoken to her in Rapa Nui because I knew when she grew up there would be pressure to speak in Spanish," Haoa remembers. After that first day of kindergarten, Haoa discovered that Rapa Nui was being treated "like an alien language" in her daughter's class, which was conducted entirely in Spanish. Soon Haoa was volunteering to organize Rapa Nui workshops at the school. Eventually, she became a full-time teacher there. "It was urgent that we have our children speaking our language," she says. Related Links http://www.alphabets-world.com/rapanui.html http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=PBA From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 4 16:08:51 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 09:08:51 -0700 Subject: Broadband Internet services expected for most Washington state reservations (fwd) Message-ID: Broadband Internet services expected for most Washington state reservations Posted: February 02, 2004 - 2:53pm EST by: James May / Indian Country Today SEATTLE - There is a common half-serious joke making its way around Indian country that says American Indians invented wireless technology with smoke signals. Though smoke signals were more common on the clear and open plains than the rainy and varied landscape of the Pacific Northwest, modern technology has found a way to compensate. A partnership between tribal organizations and business is bringing broadband Internet service to rural Washington state tribes. Around the middle of February, 20 families on the Sauk-Suiattle reservation, located about 80 miles through difficult terrain northeast of Seattle, will receive high-powered computers as the first step toward having a broadband Internet service. A broadband service is a wireless Internet connection that emanates from a transmitting source like radio or television. The tribe will also have the ability to be an Internet Service Provider to not just tribal members but others in the surrounding rural community. The project is a joint plan by Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians Economic Development Corporation (ATNI-EDC) and Verizon Avenue, formerly a small time local carrier or "ma bell" that was bought by the larger cell phone company. ATNI-EDC is a non-profit organization representing 54 Pacific Northwest tribes. "We hope this project will act as a model for other major telecom corporations, who have overlooked bringing new technology and expanded service to rural areas," said ATNI-EDC President Dave Tovey in a press release. Also contributing to the plan were separate foundations set up by Microsoft pioneers Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who contributed grant funding for the feasibility studies on Washington state reservations. Sometimes compared to the 1930s Rural Electrification Act, this project stems from a provision in the 1996 Telecommunications Act that asked that federal subsidies to be given to telecommunications companies that would provide services to rural areas. This has proven to be especially valuable for tribes as most are located in rural areas. The Sauk-Suiattle tribe is the first of several tribes that is due for a telecommunications make over. Already plans are under way to provide similar broadband service for the Lummi, Makah and Lower Elwah tribes in addition to several others.   Over the next few years, all 29 of Washington state’s tribes are supposed to at least have broadband projects on the drawing board. Elstun Lauesen, ATNI-EDC technology director, said both his organization and Verizon Avenue are following a strict protocol. Tribal councils of the prospective tribes are consulted before the plan is laid out and both the tribal government and tribal members are being consulted before both allowing the project to proceed and designing a network that works best for both individual tribal members and the tribal government. "This is a locally-driven project," said Lawrence Spotted Bird who runs a tribal technology consulting firm that is working on the project. "We don’t come in with an established vision." Spotted Bird noted how quickly the Sauk-Suiattle project came together. It was only last November that the feasibility study was done and the project has a tentative Feb. 10 start date. Sources close to the project say that Verizon Avenue became involved in the project largely because 90 percent of the metropolitan market is already sewn up by the telecommunications giant. Verizon Avenue apparently still has retained its old "ma bell" staff who are described by one source as "a lot of younger people who wanted to capitalize on the open rural markets." Verizon Avenue realized that the rural market was the best way to expand business and the 1996 Act helped put the federal funding in place to make this a reality. Opening service on the reservations allows the company a foothold in rural areas of Washington state and reservations will serve as de facto field posts for Verizon Avenue as Internet Service Providers. The subsidies allow Verizon Avenue to provide a lower cost installation and thus lower costs on the tribal members who are expected to pay only $10 to $12 a month for Internet service. Unlike analog telephone service the broadband, coupled with a high-speed digital connection does not price its service according to time. Since the tribes will also have the option of being their own Internet Service Provider with the ability to sell low cost service this adds an additional form of revenue for the project. Though, as in the case of the Sauk-Suiattle reservation, it will be necessary in many instances to install additional land-based lines to service the area which can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars, Verizon Avenue is expected to recoup their costs within three to five years. A similar, though unrelated project was done a few years ago on the Suquamish reservation close to Seattle. Bob Gemmell, a Suquamish tribal member who worked on that project said it was easier for them to do their project because of the nearness of an existing fiber cable. Suquamish, located immediately across the Puget Sound from Seattle, benefited from its proximity to that city and thus eliminated the difficulty of having to install a new line, a luxury many of the state’s more remote tribes do not have. In fact, ATNI-EDC Technology Director Lauesen said that many of the tribes in Washington state are reliant on antiquated phone lines. "Some of those phone lines have become so degraded that (only a low speed connection) could be made. Now the tribes will have the fastest and most modern connections." This article can be found at http://IndianCountry.com/?1075751806 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 4 16:14:10 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 09:14:10 -0700 Subject: What people call things around them (fwd) Message-ID: What people call things around them John Craig - Staff writer http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=020304&ID=s1482520&cat=section.Tribal_news [subscription] While Kalispel tribal leaders try to preserve their language by teaching young people, tribal natural resources director Deane Osterman is generating public interest one fish at a time. Osterman, who is not Native American, has been studying the Interior Salish languages in this region for 15 years as a means of understanding the relationship between culture and biology. "The best way to do that is through language," according to Osterman, who recently lectured on the Kalispel language in Newport, Wash. What people call the things around them says a lot about the importance they attach to those things, Osterman said. Fish must be important to people who have names even for sculpin so scrawny you'd need a half-dozen to make a sandwich. "They knew this resource like the back of their hand," Osterman said. "There's a lot of specificity in their fish nomenclature." For example, he said there are three names for varieties of sculpin, all referring in some way to the barbels, or whiskers, on their upper lips. To begin to appreciate the names, one must understand that Salish words -- both nouns and verbs -- are formed by tacking prefixes and suffixes onto descriptive roots, Osterman said. Plurals are formed by doubling the root. Thus, a "hairy-mouthed" fish has "upup" (pronounced oop-oop), or more than one hair, as part of its name. It is remarkable how similar the Kalispel fish classification system is to modern scientific designations, Osterman said. Kalispel and other Salish names "all key in on how these animals look," he said. That kind of insight is why Newport-area resident John Stuart was among some 15 people who turned out for the WSU/Pend Oreille Cooperative Extension program last week at the CREATE arts center in Newport. Stuart is active in a conservation group and hoped to learn shades of meaning from Kalispel animal and plant names. His adult son, Tighe Stuart, shared that motive as well as an interest in linguistics, having visited some Latin American countries after studying Spanish in high school. Tighe Stuart said one of his friends is an avid linguist, and "knowing someone else is excited about it makes you wonder what's there." Cathy Stolarik, manager of a Newport title insurance office, said she has always been fascinated by languages and attended Osterman's lecture as a way "to further humble me." She was humbled when Osterman discussed the sounds used in the Kalispel language and the parts of the mouth used to produce them. "What do you do with that thing in the back of your mouth?" Stolarik asked. "Oh, that sound," she said, prompting laughter, when Osterman attempted to demonstrate a sound that doesn't come naturally to non-native speakers. Osterman knows all the international phonetic symbols used to represent Kalispel and other American Indian languages and recognizes the sounds when he hears them. But some of the sounds in the "consonant-rich" language just won't come out of his mouth, he said. Sue Finley has the opposite problem. She's one of only 10 or so tribal members who still speak Kalispel, but some of the symbols used to write the language still elude her. "Just to sit down and write a letter in Indian, I couldn't do that," Finley said in an interview from the tribe's cultural office. Despite the difficulty, she translated eight children's books last year as part of the tribe's effort to teach its language to schoolchildren during summer breaks. Pronouncing the words seems "pretty simple" to Finley, who didn't learn English until she started grade school at the Indian Day School on the reservation across the Pend Oreille River from Cusick, Wash. But, she acknowledges, "a lot of people tell me it's hard." To help beginners learn some of the unfamiliar sounds, Finley resorts to instructions such as, "Make the sound like you're going to cough or you're clearing your throat or something like that." Osterman's instruction began with a year of classes from Spokane tribal elder Pauline Flett at Eastern Washington University, where he earned a master's degree combining anthropology, biology and linguistics in 1994. The Spokanes have an "R" sound that the Kalispels don't have and they pronounce some words differently, but native speakers of both tribes as well as the Montana Flatheads can communicate easily. Those tribes speak dialects of the same language, according to Raymond Brinkman, director of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe's language program. Brinkman wasn't surprised that Finley sometimes can and sometimes can't understand native speakers from the Coeur d'Alene Tribe. The Coeur d'Alenes have a separate Salish language, as distinct from Kalispel as Portuguese is from Spanish, he said. Since the 19th century, the Coeur d'Alenes and other tribes throughout the region have used Kalispel as a lingua franca, or trade language, when they want to be more widely understood, Brinkman said. Still, all the Salish languages in the Inland Northwest have much in common. That's why Rathdrum, Idaho, resident Laura Hunter felt at home when Osterman listed the four words Kalispels use for grandparents -- words that mean mother's mother, mother's father, father's mother and father's father. Hunter is a member of the Colville Confederated Tribes, and the Arrow Lakes Band words her father taught her were essentially the same. She said she is interested in learning more of her tribal language. Hunter's 14-year-old son, Zach, said he didn't get much from Osterman's lecture. He may have wished he had. "We home-school," Laura Hunter said. "There might be a little quiz tomorrow." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Feb 5 18:09:18 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 11:09:18 -0700 Subject: Native Americans focus on preservation of language (fwd) Message-ID: Native Americans focus on preservation of language By Walter Rubel/Santa Fe Bureau Chief Feb 4, 2004, 04:25 pm http://www.daily-times.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=276&num=8315 SANTA FE — Christine Sims of Acoma Pueblo and Lt. Gov. Diane Denish were both honored Tuesday for their work with American Indian children during a Senate committee hearing held as part of Native American Day at the Legislature. Sims was honored for her work in preserving native languages. “The Indian nation is not going to survive if we don’t have our language and culture,” said Carlotta Penny Bird, assistant secretary for Indian Education, in introducing Sims. Sims said that of the 300 to 400 native languages once in existence, only about 175 remain, and only about 20 or 30 of those are still being taught to children. “I hope we have the support of the Legislature, tribal leaders and people in the community to ensure a new generation of speakers of these languages,” Sims said. “These languages cannot go on without producing speakers in our communities. We can’t replenish the supply without teaching within our communities. We have to generate new generations of speakers.” Sims said they are still dealing with the legacy of their elders being told they could no longer speak their native languages. “We’re hoping to reverse that, but it takes a long time,” she said. Denish was honored for her work in heading the new Mexico Children’s Cabinet, which is working to deal with several issues involving children. She said the committee has talked with Native and non-Native residents throughout the state. “What we found was, for the most part, we share common problems and we share common dreams for our state,” she said. Leaders from the Navajo, Zuni and Mescalero Apache nations each addressed the Legislature. Frank Dayish, Jr., vice president of the Navajo Nation, said the Navajo were working to stimulate their economy in three areas — agriculture, mining and manufacturing. “Today we don’t have a lot of manufacturing in our area, but we want to explore those opportunities,” he said. He said that health care was a major concern for the nation, and urged the Legislature not to make cuts in the Medicaid program that have been suggested by Gov. Bill Richardson. “I’d like to appeal to the Legislature to help us and to not limit the resources in that area,” Dayish said. Walter Rubel: wrubel at lcsun-news.com. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Feb 5 18:29:13 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 11:29:13 -0700 Subject: Second picture dictionary aims to save Indigenous language (fwd) Message-ID: [This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/central/news/200402/s1038240.htm] Second picture dictionary aims to save Indigenous language Thursday, 5 February 2004 A project to address poor literacy levels in Aboriginal communities will be launched in Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory today. The Kaytete Picture Dictionary is the second of a series of dictionaries being developed for central Australian communities. The Institute of Aboriginal Development project will be used as a learning resource in the Neutral Junction school, Barrow Creek, Tara and Stirling. The institute's Josie Douglas says the picture dictionary aims to encourage more people to speak Kaytetye. "There are only a few hundred speakers of the Kaytetye language and by any definition that number ... means that this language is considered to be endangered and I suppose that all languages in central Australia ... there's a great need for language maintenance," she said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 6 16:24:11 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 09:24:11 -0700 Subject: Maori 'leader' in native tongue development (fwd) Message-ID: Maori 'leader' in native tongue development http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2807481a7694,00.html SATURDAY , 07 FEBRUARY 2004 Maori lead the world in indigenous language development, a visiting Native American academic says. Rocky Mountain College American Indian Affairs vice-president Janine Pease was one of 30 indigenous people from 11 North American and Canadian Indian nations visiting celebrations to mark the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi at Hamilton's Innes Common yesterday. The group is visiting Maori language schools to help develop total immersion programmes for their people. "What is going on here is revolutionary, with Maori language immersion from infancy to doctorate level. "Maori are world leaders in indigenous educational rights," she said. "American Indians are at square one; on a scale of one to 10 Maori are a 10." Ms Pease said her people in the late 1800s signed the Laramie Treaty, which was equivalent to the Treaty of Waitangi. She said the Crow experienced a similar erosion of rights to Maori since that treaty was signed. That decline has seen the original reservation size shrink from 15,000 sq km to 3000 sq km today. "We have seen our rights diminish based on trials and the court." She said there was not a state celebration of the treaty signing but her people gathered each year to celebrate the event. There, 10,000 people stay in 1600 teepees and dance, race horses and feast. British Columbia Carrier tribe representative Murphy Patrick said there was no national treaty signing celebration in Canada either. It was good to see Maori fighting for sovereignty and cultural rights. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 6 16:32:34 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 09:32:34 -0700 Subject: New program seeks to revitalize aboriginal languages (fwd) Message-ID: New program seeks to revitalize aboriginal languages http://communications.uvic.ca/ring/04feb04/features/aborginal-language.html by Patty Pitts As a child attending the Duncan Indian School, Hul'qumi'num linguistic consultant Ruby Peter would sit on the swings and secretly spin tales. "I used to tell the younger kids Indian stories in my language. But we had to keep a look out for the teachers. If they caught me speaking Indian, I'd be punished." Peter no longer has to hide her pride in her language and, thanks to a new Community University Research Alliance (CURA) partnership with UVic, she'll join other members of the Hul'qumi'num Treaty Group (representing six communities), the First People's Cultural Foundation (FPCF), the First Peoples' Heritage language and Culture Council and the Saanich Native Heritage Society (representing seven communities) in studying and revitalizing their native languages. The five-year, $901,720 CURA grant, funded through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, will link UVic researchers with First Nations community members and elders. Together, they'll create new programs, evaluate current ones and set up systems to keep the revitalized languages thriving in the future. "This CURA responds to a passionate need and desire on behalf of the communities to help their languages live again," says linguist Dr. Ewa Czaykowska-Higgins, the project's lead researcher. "The researchers will be directed by the communities. The CURA will assess the community needs and determine how all the partners can best work together." All the First Nations partners have various projects underway. Collaborating with UVic linguists and others, the Hul'qumi'num have developed a dictionary and a written system for their oral language. The Saanich Native Heritage Society, with assistance from the FPCF, is ready to have the Saanich language, SENÇOÏEN, available online as part of the Foundation's First Voices project. The researchers and partners will use the CURA to co-ordinate existing community projects and identify opportunities for new programs. Some of the proposals being considered include language camps, language fairs and mentoring programs involving elders. "I'm looking forward to being able to work with UVic linguistic experts along with our own SENÇOÏEN experts to be able to complete some of the work we started here on the grammar of SENÇOÏEN," says John Elliott, a teacher at the Saanich Tribal School and chairman of the Saanich Native Heritage Society. In addition to making the Saanich language available online, the society is developing a dictionary and refining a curriculum guide. Some of the first children taught SENÇOÏEN at the school are now young parents, teaching the language to their own youngsters. Hul'qumi'num elder and language teacher Florence James of the Penelakut Tribe hopes the project will expand opportunities to teach adults their own history in their own language. "Part of my work is to introduce the oral history, the way we learned when we were kids. This is what the students really enjoy. Most don't learn their history in the traditional way and then the chance to pass it along to their children is lost." Czaykowska-Higgins says the CURA project will revitalize more than words. "Language is tied to culture. You can't separate the two. When a language thrives, so does the culture." From CRANEM at MAIL.ECU.EDU Fri Feb 6 18:23:50 2004 From: CRANEM at MAIL.ECU.EDU (Bizzaro, Resa Crane) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 13:23:50 -0500 Subject: Predoctoral fellowship Message-ID: Hi, everyone. The message below came to me from another list. Please share this info with anyone who might be eligible. Resa The Graduate School & the American Indian Studies Program of Michigan State University invite applications for the 2004-2005 Pre-Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship Award in American Indian Studies. The fellowship award provides office space, access to Michigan State University's outstanding library and computing facilities and to the faculty involved in the American Indian Studies Program, benefits for the year, and a considerable stipend. Applicants must be finished with all doctoral work but the dissertation, actively working in American Indian Studies, and committed to a career in Native Studies. It is fully expected that the Fellow will complete the dissertation during the award year. Applicants may be pursuing the Ph.D. degree in any discipline or area offered at Michigan State University. (More information about the university's offerings is available at the university website, http://www.msu.edu .) The successful applicant will be required to teach one course each semester in either the College of Arts and Letters or the College of Social Science and will affiliate him/herself with a department or program in one of the university's colleges. The Fellow must reside in East Lansing, Michigan, for the duration of the fellowship. Michigan State University is very interested in bringing in American Indian Studies scholars who are serious about teaching, researching, and publishing. Application Deadline: April 15, 2004 Award Period: MSU Fiscal Year - July 1, 2004-June 30, 2005 MSU is an affirmative-action, equal-opportunity institution. Persons with disabilities may request and receive reasonable accommodation. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Feb 7 16:25:24 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 09:25:24 -0700 Subject: Sacred dance essay prompts tribal banishment (fwd) Message-ID: Sacred dance essay prompts tribal banishment TAOS PUEBLO, New Mexico (AP) --A college professor has been banned from a New Mexico Indian community after writing an essay about a sacred tribal dance that was published in a newspaper. The banishment means Tito Naranjo, 66, could be arrested if he enters Taos Pueblo, which has about 1,200 tribal members near the city of Taos, about 110 miles northeast of Albuquerque. Many tribes prohibit sacred dances from being recorded in stories or photographs because they believe doing so detracts from the ritual's spiritual significance. Naranjo, who lives in nearby Mora, said he was inspired by the "deer dance" and submitted a short essay to a newspaper writing contest. The essay, published December 21, took first place in the adult category and earned Naranjo $100. Leaders of Taos Pueblo accused Naranjo of using tribal religious activity "for self promotion by writing an essay of a sensitive activity for publication." Naranjo, a professor of Native American studies at the University of New Mexico at Taos, said the only way to preserve the tribe's oral traditions is to write them down and record the sounds of the dance. "Young tribal members are watching television instead of doing community work," he said. "CD-ROM will record the entire language of the elders and preserve precise intonations and authenticity of the language for future generations." The order banishing Naranjo says he "caused irreparable harm to the sensible nature of the religious activity through exploitation." Taos Pueblo Gov. John Mirabal declined to comment. Naranjo hopes the banishment will be lifted, but he acknowledges he considered the consequences before writing the essay. Naranjo is married to a Taos Pueblo woman whose father lives in the community. "I thought immediately, Taos Pueblo is going to disagree," he said. "Am I going to be a wimp, or am I going to write about this?" Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Find this article at: http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Southwest/02/06/tribal.banishment.ap From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 9 16:32:18 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 09:32:18 -0700 Subject: Students learn Blackfeet (fwd) Message-ID: Students learn Blackfeet CMR, GFH language curriculum opens 'window to another culture' http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/20040209/localnews/380816.html By PETER JOHNSON Tribune Staff Writer Tribune Photo by Stuart S. White [photo insert] Instructor Klane King writes a conversation during his Blackfeet language class at Great Falls High. Students in Klane King's Great Falls language classes enjoy reciting everyday phrases they've learned in Blackfeet and listen eagerly as their teacher tells them how Native American songs, games and dances came to be. It's a heady experience for King, who learned Blackfeet from his parents as a preschooler in southern Alberta, only to have boarding school teachers try to drum it out of him by whacking his wrists with a yardstick. "I almost forgot the basics of my native tongue," he said. But King had the last say. After college, he came home to the Blood Reserve, as reservations are known in Canada, and started a video production company that specialized in features about Blackfeet elders and legends. Teachers used many of those videos in classrooms of the reservation schools, which had reformed and stressed the importance of Blackfeet culture and language. Since mid-January King has been teaching an introductory Blackfeet class at both Great Falls and C.M. Russell high schools. It's the only Indian language class being taught at a nonreservation Montana high school. The Great Falls district offered a similar intro class to the Cree language three years ago. It was dropped after three semesters when enrollment tapered off. This semester, 23 GFH students and 11 CMR students are taking the class. There are 1,243 Indian students in the Great Falls public schools, about 11 percent of the total, said Assistant Superintendent Dick Kuntz, who was instrumental in starting and renewing the Indian language classes. The district has reduced its Native American dropout rate from a sky-high 80 percent to a state low 10 percent in the 30 years it has had an Indian Education Program featuring tutoring and home counseling, Kuntz said. But that's still about four times the dropout rate for the entire student body. "Any way you can help Native American kids identify with their culture, you've given them another incentive to stay in school," Kuntz said. "And if we get them coming to school every day, they'll do better in their other subjects, too." Great Falls High School Principal Fred Anderson said school officials hope to sustain interest this time by adding more advanced classes if enough students want to keep going. "I think it's an excellent class that will provide an opportunity for both Native American and other students to increase their cultural awareness," Anderson said. He was enthralled after hearing King describe the Blackfeet's original territory, which sprawled from present-day Edmonton to Yellowstone Park, between the Rockies and eastern Montana. "Window to another culture" "The Blackfeet language is a window to another culture," agreed Deanne Leader, director of the Indian Education Program. "Without the words, you can't understand a group's customs and beliefs." The new language class is not all that the district is doing. This year Great Falls sophomores are required to take a Montana civics class divided evenly between tribal government and nontribal government. Next fall high school students can take an optional class that gives an overview of the history and culture of Montana's 11 Indian tribes. "I'm glad to see them start teaching the language here," said Jewell Snell, 65, who with her husband, Frank, is raising four school-age grandchildren. "A lot of people my age never had the chance. The government sent us from the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana to a boarding school in Oregon where nobody spoke our language." "I learned a little bit of Blackfeet from my mother and aunts, but not a lot," said parent Mary Marceau, 37. "I think Indian kids should be able to learn their language and cultural background, but it's harder in an urban setting off the reservation." "I knew a few Blackfeet words, but am learning a lot more," said her son, GFH sophomore Ché Marceau, 15. "It's easy the way Mr. King teaches with repetition and stories." "I've spent half my time growing up in Great Falls and half in Browning, so I learned a few basic words from my grandparents," said GFH junior Roger Cruz, 17. "I wanted to learn more about my culture, and the class is already helping. It's the class I most look forward to every day." "I grew up in Great Falls and didn't know any Blackfeet," said freshman Virginia Yazzie, 16. "I'm looking forward to going to a powwow some time and striking up a conversation in Blackfeet." GFH senior Joe Eagleman, 17, is a senior of Chippewa-Cree descent. "This (Blackfeet class) is learning about another Indian culture that is like mine in some ways but different," he said. "It can be hard starting from scratch with an unwritten language." One-quarter of the Blackfeet language students at both schools are non-Indian. Exchange student interested One is Hanneke Stubbe, 18, a Dutch exchange student at GFH. "I really like languages and in Europe we're required to take four," she said. "I want to become an anthropologist and this class is great, because I'm learning about a culture I knew nothing about." GFH senior Josh Werkheiser, 17, also is a language buff, and said it's not hard to learn a new language once you realize that internal English rules do not apply. "It's definitely been fun to start learning the Blackfeet language and culture," he said. King stressed that Blackfeet should be spoken "in a flat and low tone, with no musical lilts up and down." There are other differences between English and Blackfeet, too, he said. "In the United States and Canada people almost seem to panic when there is a lapse in conversation," he said. "In Blackfeet, it's common to pause every now and then, maybe take a swig of coffee, and let companions absorb what's been said." King also thinks the Blackfeet language has more specific nouns, with some words taking the place of whole sentences in English. For instance, the word "iniwa" means buffalo. When Blackfeet add a long, tongue-twisting suffix, the word signifies "the buffalo are rumbling toward you with their back, dew claws clicking." You can almost feel the dust and better scramble for cover. But King, 50, was at the tail end of the similar Canadian and U.S. government practices of sending Native American kids to boarding schools where they were directly or indirectly discouraged from using their own language. Starting at age 6, he spent weekdays at a boarding school across the reservation from his home. Teachers demanded that students speaking Blackfeet place their hands on the table and smacked their wrists. He said they drove the colorful language from his lips, and almost from his memory, but not from his heart. King attended college in Edmonton, picking up degrees in Canadian studies and Native communication, including broadcast and video production skills. But the instructors who spoke a Native language were Cree, he said. When he returned home he remembered how rich his native tongue and traditions were when he began making videos of tribal elders. King moved to Great Falls in 2000, where he has been a volunteer cameraman for the public access television channel and a disk jockey for KGPR, the public radio station. Offer to teach King jumped at the chance to teach Blackfeet when Kuntz approached him. He demonstrated he was fluent in the language to Blackfeet tribal officials, a requirement to get his education certificate from the state. King has several goals for his students. He wants to teach them enough conversational Blackfeet so they can walk up to tribal elders and politely chat. He also will teach them a few Blackfeet meditations, thanking the Creator and asking for blessings. Last week, King chanted his brief, eloquent personal song for the students, suggesting if they listen carefully they can catch a rhythm and make their own song to see them through adversity. "Mine is a really sweet and calming little ditty that came to me one time," he said, quipping: "And there's no copyright infringement worries to prevent me from singing it over and over." Johnson can be reached by e-mail at pejohnso at greatfal.gannett.com, or by phone at (406) 791-1476 or (800) 438-6600. Originally published Monday, February 9, 2004 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 9 16:37:19 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 09:37:19 -0700 Subject: Tribes work to restore `critically endangered' Lakota language (fwd) Message-ID: Tribes work to restore `critically endangered' Lakota language http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/7906913.htm Associated Press OGLALA, S.D. - The Lakota language, once spoken exclusively in most American Indian homes and communities on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, is no longer learned at a rate that keeps up with the death of fluent-speaking elders. "Nationally, it's critically endangered," said Wayne H. Evans, a professor in the school of education at the University of South Dakota. "The Lakota language status is critical to the point of being lost," added Stephanie Charging Eagle, graduate department director at Oglala Lakota College. At Loneman School on the reservation, students speak, think and learn almost entirely in English, a dramatic change from just a couple of decades ago, according to officials. "Twenty-six years ago, 90 percent of the student body were fluent speakers," said Leonard Little Finger, cultural resource educator at Loneman. "Today those statistics have flip- flopped." One reason for the decline is the language is no longer valued, said Deborah Bordeaux, principal at Loneman School. As an administrator, she works to achieve federal and educational standards of a Bureau of Indian Affairs school. But keeping and maintaining the Lakota language isn't one of those standards, she said. "We as a people need to validate that. We need to value the language to save it," she said. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization estimates 6,000 members of South Dakota's American Indian tribes are fluent speakers of Lakota. But because English is the language of education, business and government, interest in learning the Lakota language has dwindled, said Little Finger. At a recent Oglala Sioux Tribal Council meeting, council members debated agenda items, talked about financial reforms and agreed to sell its tribal farm and ranch - all while speaking entirely in English. "Only about half of the council speaks Lakota," said Lyman Red Cloud Sr., a council official who is bilingual. Even though an Oglala Sioux Tribal Council resolution states that the Lakota language is the official language of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, speaking Lakota at council meetings is the exception rather than the rule. "That's why we have difficulty with the council talking to the people in their districts," said Red Cloud. The older population is more comfortable speaking in their native language, and also have limited understanding of English, he said. Little Finger said his first language was Lakota, but education drew him off the reservation and eventually into a career that took him throughout the United States. "If you can't speak English, you're out," Little Finger said. "That's our struggle." Yet the loss of native language includes a loss of cultural history, and to lose the language is to lose understanding of a unique people, he said. The Lakota language encompasses not only culture but a spiritual belief system, said Charging Eagle. "Usually healers, spiritual leaders and specialized healers will acquire their power through a dream or vision," she said. Today, more of those healers are not speaking the language and it is not being passed down from healer to healer, Charging Eagle said. "We're losing our spiritual strength," she said. While fluent conversations in Lakota still take place at social gatherings, a revitalization of the language is needed in the areas of education, governmental affairs and business, said Charging Eagle. Evans said he was able to maintain fluency in Lakota even after his family moved off the reservation when he completed eighth grade. But he realizes that keeping up with Lakota has become increasingly difficult for young people. "There has to be a sustained environment; there has to be a need to use the language," he said. Computer games, books, movies, magazines, radio, music and TV saturate the lives of Lakota youth in English, he said. "From the time you get up and every time you turn around, you're bombarded by it," Evans said. Both the Pine Ridge and Cheyenne River Sioux reservations have started projects aimed at keeping Lakota alive. But time is running out for students to learn Lakota from native speakers, officials say. If any the language classes have produced fluent speakers, Evans isn't aware of them. "I don't see the results of that," he said. Information from: The Rapid City Journal From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 9 18:43:58 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 11:43:58 -0700 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?b?Tvz8bfw=?= Yadoha Language program seeks applications (fwd) Message-ID: Please forward this job description to any interested applicants. Call for Applicants for the Coordinator of Second Language Acquisition for the Owens Valley Paiute-Shoshone Reservation. The Nüümü Yadoha Language program seeks applications for a full time position as Coordinator of Second Language Acquisition. Applicants must have a BA or BS in linguistics, education, anthropology or a related field with a documented emphasis in second language acquisition or language instruction. Applicants with an MA or PhD in one of the above fields of study or the equivalent number of years of practical experience are preferred. Candidates with experience or a specialization in early childhood development/language acquisition/instruction will be given special consideration. Additionally, candidates with experience in Native American education and/or languages will be given priority status. The annual salary for this position is $45,000 plus benefits. Applicants will be expected to perform the following tasks as Coordinator of Second Language Acquisition: (1) Provide instructors with training and strategies for language instruction, including methods for teaching students of different abilities and learning strategies; (2) Provide (or coordinate) monthly seminars and workshops on core elements of language instruction as well as weekly evaluation and one-on-one instruction with the language teachers (topics of particular concern are: creating effective lesson plans, evaluation methods and early childhood development and language acquisition); (3) Aid instructors in developing and coordinating a beginning-level curriculum for their language with a focus on a curriculum suitable for pre-K—1st grade (although assistance with curriculum for adult programs will be expected). Above all, it is essential that the applicant be able to creatively adapt his or her understanding of language instruction and acquisition to produce curricula and teaching methods that are specific to instructors’ needs, specific to the language and culturally appropriate. The Nüümü Yadoha Language program is a department of the Owens Valley Career Development center, located on the Bishop Paiute-Shoshone Reservation in Bishop, California. The Nüümü Yadoha Language program is dedicated to preserving the various dialects of the Owens Valley Paiute language and teaching them in a community setting. There are currently ten instructors working on three dialects of Owens Valley Paiute. These instructors have access to the most current video and audio recording technology and have been trained to use it effectively. Applicants for this position must be able to coordinate planning and curriculum development for the Nüümü Yadoha Language program. We seek a highly motivated individual to coordinate teacher training and curriculum development for this language revitalization and instruction program. The Owens Valley Career Development Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to programs designed to assist Native Americans in achieving their educational and career goals. Benefits include health/dental/life insurance, retirement, 13 paid holidays and generous paid vacation and sick leave. OVCDC offers competitive salaries, employee training and support for continuing education. OVCDC is an Equal Opportunity Employer within the confines of the Indian Preference Act. Log on to www.ovcdc.com or e-mail tallen at ovcdc.com to receive an application and a complete job description or call 1-800-924- 8091 ext.109. Application deadline is March 15, 2004. Sky Vasquez, OVCDC Recruiter P.O. Box 1467, Bishop, CA 93515 760-873-5107 ext.246 Fax: 760-873-8882 (svasquez at ovcdc.com) From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Feb 10 20:16:36 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 13:16:36 -0700 Subject: Students incorporating Navajo language into studies (fwd) Message-ID: Students incorporating Navajo language into studies Farmington school provides culture to education http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=3781 FARMINGTON NM Candice Adson 2/10/2004 Students at McKinley Elementary are spending an hour each afternoon submersing themselves in Navajo language, history and culture. This comes after the Farmington School District approved a bilingual language and culture guide in November. Bernice Casaus, and a team of co-developers developed the Dine Bilingual Language, Culture and History Curriculum Guide. The guide complies with Farmington Schools Education Plan for Student Success, state Department of Education standards and Benchmarks and the Navajo Nation Education Policy. The guide’s approval made Farmington the first school district in New Mexico to have an indigenous language guide that meets state standards. Recently, parents were able to sit in on a session of the class and see how the curriculum has affected their children. Elthea Charles said that her daughter, Ashlynn has considers herself lucky to be enrolled in the class. “She’s communicating with her grandparents. It’s opening new horizons for her. She’s picking up a lot of things,” said Charles. Pupils reported different reasons for participating in the curriculum. Some say it is a way for them to communicate with their grandparents, and other tribal elders who primarily speak Navajo, and some said that it has helped to improve their marks in other classes. Mary Lou Yazzie and Carol Yazzie have been chosen to instruct the class, along with Casaus. Presently, the class is taught almost completely in Navajo. They use a mostly hands-on approach with the children. “If you do hands-on, it sticks. Abstract doesn’t work,” said Casaus. From anguksuar at YAHOO.COM Tue Feb 10 20:48:49 2004 From: anguksuar at YAHOO.COM (Richard LaFortune) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 12:48:49 -0800 Subject: Boarding schools & language funding In-Reply-To: <1076444196.30ddfab9fb489@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: I'm not quite sure what to make of this web posting from Assembly of First Nations, Canada, but I do check on updates on their whole boarding school resolution process. The information below appears on AFN's website today, and it's significant because, contrary to a press release from the Federal Government in Ottawa last August, the overview posted below regarding languages appears to be less defined. I met with Chief Fontaine a couple of months ago regarding the proposed Resolution Framework settlement figure, which for language was scheduled at $172.5 million over 10 years. This update from their website gives the appearance that the offer by Canada and the Churches has not been accepted by the tribes. In that case, the logical negotiating movement would be upward from the $172.5M figure. All of this is interesting because in the US Native language programs officially have only $2M a year scheduled for about 200+ languages. In Canada, with the proposed settlement for the Residential School Resolution Framework, the tribes would have about $47.5M a year for language revitalization for 55 Aboriginal languages. If $47.5M is federally spent on 55 languages, that averages out to $863,636 per language annually in Canada If equivalent support in US for 200+ languages, the annual overall federal support would be $172,727,200 -However, current annual language spending under Native American Languages Act is authorized at a regular level of only $2M for 250 languages, or (drum roll) a whopping $8,000 a year per Native language in the US. (That would be $8,000 a year for all Ojibwe language programs in the Uniited States, $8,000 for all Navajo language programs in the United States, etc.) Canada is scheduled to receive one hundred times more language revitalization support per language, per year than the US. Canada's GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is $774.7 Billion a year vs. the US $9,963 Trillion (yes, that is the letter T), so the differential is represented thus: 774,700,000,000 GDP and a national population of 31 million people (Canada) 9,963,000,000,000 GDP and a national population of 280.5 million people (US) This means that the overall population of the US is 9 times that of Canada, and the overall US GDP is almost 13 times larger than Canada's. Yet, Canada is spending 100 times more per Native language than the US. US boarding school and Native language eradication policy history can be found in the new position paper, "Living Water, A Cooperative Mapping Project for Native Communities and Language Revitalization". It is available by request at: tele 612/331-9995 fax 612/331-9862 email: hotess at ties2.net The paper is referenced in the preface to this month's Tribal College Journal, which is devoted to language revitalization: http://www.tribalcollegejournal.org/ Peace Richard LaFortune * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * http://www.afn.ca/ AFN Indian Residential Schools Unit Update Overview of Key Accomplishments The federal government Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) process will be implemented in the Fall of 2004. The AFN Working Group has recommended that the ADR must not include the signing off of claims based on loss of language and culture. The Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada (IRSRC) office has announced a $1.720 billion fund for the settlement of claims through the ADR process. Settlement for language and culture claims is still not on the governments agenda. The ADR includes the use of adjudicators for settling claims. The AFN Survivor Working Group is pleased that the IRSRC has agreed to expedite residential school claims for the sick and elderly. Current Activities The Prime Minister has announced that Mr. Mario Dion, is the new Deputy Minister of IRSRC, effective April 2003. Vice-Chief Kenneth Young has met with Mr Dion and was given the new ADR document for our review and perusal. Mr. Dion has agreed to further meetings with Mr.Young to negotiate and update the AFN on any movement on the Residential School file. Information and updates on the residential school issues are also provided by attending as many residential school conferences as possible throughout Canada. Networking with survivor groups, individuals, healing circles, and Aboriginal Healing Foundation funded projects is also underway. Key Planned Activities To develop and share information with survivors. The AFN Survivor Working Group will meet in June and July 2004 with the Plaintiffs and Churches Lawyers. The Director of the Residential Schools Unit will also continue to attend meetings with the IRSRC to ensure that the survivors~R voice is heard. The Director will also attend survivor meetings as requested by survivor groups. A new work-plan for the AFN Residential School Unit has been prepared. The AFN Residential School Unit~Rs workplan will include establishment of a data-base, communications strategy, researcher, and conferences as requested by survivors. Issues - Challenges ~V Opportunities The AFN Survivor Working Group will continue to offer their assistance to the IRSRC in finding a fair and just resolution for residential school survivors. The Residential Schools Unit will make best efforts to inform all residential school survivors of their legal and non-legal options in reaching a fair and just settlement through the development of an effective communication strategy. The AFN Survivor Working Group recommends that a working relationship be established with the churches to enhance communication to address the need for fair and just settlement for residential school survivor claims. The AFN Working Group must also begin the healing process and lead the way through national healing conferences. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From anguksuar at YAHOO.COM Wed Feb 11 17:52:26 2004 From: anguksuar at YAHOO.COM (Richard LaFortune) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 09:52:26 -0800 Subject: NCLB & NALA/OLA In-Reply-To: <1076444196.30ddfab9fb489@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Under NALA, I believe there is the basis of a legal challenge to NCLB. Here follows some abbreviated and highlighted textual citations with added commentary from Public Law 101-477. NALA may be regarded as a living document. It is an Act of Congress and therefore carries the same weight in international law as treaties, which are the Supreme Law of the Land, over and above the Constitution, according to the Constitution. Richard LaFortune (Yupik) Native Language Researcher Minneapolis * * * * * * * * * * SEC. 101. This title may be cited as the "Native American Languages Act". FINDINGS SEC. 102. The Congress finds that~W (6) there is convincing evidence that student achievement and performance, community and school pride, and educational opportunity is clearly and directly tied to respect for, and support of, the first language of the child or student; (7) it is clearly in the interests of the United States, individual States, and territories to encourage the full academic and human potential achievements of all students and citizens and to take steps to realize these ends; (8) acts of suppression and extermination directed against Native American languages and cultures are in conflict with the United States policy of self-determination for Native Americans; SEC. 104. It is the policy of the United States to-- (1) preserve, protect, and promote the rights and freedom of Native Americans to use, practice, and develop Native American languages; No Child Left Behind, and attempts by the federal government to abridge funding to Native language programs, appears to represent an internal conflict of federal education funding, and funding to programs directed to and for the benefit of Native people under the provisions of NALA. Proper exceptions for Native Language programs operating under the provisions of NALA must be articulated apropos of NCLB. Furthermore, the provisions of NALA and the Official Languages Act (OLA) of Canada must undergo comparative review under the terms of the United Nations Draft Declaration of Rights of Indigenous People, to assure Native people in the United States and Canada, operating language programs under the provisions of OLA and NALA, that no recent or pending legislation will interfere with the resources or operations of language programs. [RL] (2) allow exceptions to teacher certification requirements for Federal programs, and programs funded in whole or in part by the Federal Government, for instruction in Native American languages when such teacher certification requirements hinder the employment of qualified teachers who teach in Native American languages, and to encourage State and territorial governments to make similar exceptions; It is the policy of the United States to-- (3) encourage and support the use of Native American languages as a medium of instruction in order to encourage and support-- (4) encourage State and local education programs to work with Native American parents, educator, Indian tribes, and other Native American governing bodies in the implementation of programs to put this policy into effect; (5) recognize the right of Indian tribes and other Native American governing bodies to use the Native American languages as a medium of instruction in all schools funded by the Secretary of the Interior; (6) fully recognize the inherent right of Indian tribes and other Native American governing bodies, States, territories, and possessions of the United States to take action on, and give official status to, their Native American languages for the purpose of conducting their own business; (7) support the granting of comparable proficiency achieved through course work in a Native American language the same academic credit as comparable proficiency achieved through course work in a foreign language, with recognition of such Native American language proficiency by institutions of higher education as fulfilling foreign language entrance or degree requirements; and (8) encourage all institutions of elementary, secondary and higher education, where appropriate, to include Native American languages in the curriculum in the same manner as foreign languages and to grant proficiency in Native American languages the same full academic credit as proficiency in foreign languages. EVALUATIONS Sec. 106. (a) The President shall direct the heads of the various Federal departments, agencies, and instrumentalities to-- (1) Evaluate their policies and procedures in consultation with Indian tribes and other Native American governing bodies as well as traditional leaders and educators in order to determine and implement changes needed to bring the policies and procedures into compliance with the provisions of this title; I believe this means that a perfunctory reading of No Child Left Behind must be reviewed by Native American governing bodies to make sure that it is not in conflict with NALA. [RL] (2) give the greatest effect possible in making such evaluations, absent a clear specific Federal statutory requirement to the contrary, to the policies and procedures which will give the broadest effect to the provisions of this title; and ie No Child Left Behind must be read in the context of NALA, and it must be read liberally to benefit the Native. [RL] (3) evaluate the laws which they administer and make recommendations to the President on amendments needed to bring such laws into compliance with the provisions of this title. This means that Native language immersion programs and education cannot be summarily dismissed by No Child Left Behind. Such a decision must receive exhaustive review by Native governing bodies, and this precludes any prohibitions or timelines separately established by NCLB. [RL] Date: Mon Jan 26, 2004 2:04:59 PM US/Central > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > Subject: No Rich Child Left Behind (language) > Reply-To: Indigenous Languages and Technology > > > 01/24/2004 - JUNEAU AK > By Mike Chambers, Associated Press Writer > > Some western Alaska schools that for decades have taught and helped > preserve the Native Yupik language are in a quandary over meeting new > federal testing requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act. > > In the Lower Kuskokwim School District, third grade children taught > almost exclusively in the Yupik language may be required to pass > federal tests written in English. > > In Alaska, where Natives speak 20 aboriginal languages and dialects, > meeting a uniform federal law could ultimately be too expensive, > conflict with Native cultural traditions as well as the local control > that the rural villages treasure. > > "Not many states face the issues that we do," said state Education > Commissioner Roger Sampson. > > Under the federal law, students would be tested annually from grades > 3-8 and again in high school. > > States could make accommodations for language barriers, but after > three years in U.S. public schools the children would be required to > take English-only tests. > > Aside from the Heritage Language programs in more than 30 rural > public schools, Alaska's largest city of Anchorage has more than 93 > languages spoken by students, Sampson said. > > Already cash strapped, the state can little afford to translate tests > into more than 100 languages, education officials said. > > And even if it could, the Yupik language, though spoken by thousands > of Alaska Natives from Norton Sound to Bristol Bay, does not > translate as completely as Spanish or other European languages. > > For instance, mathematics to American children is based on units of > 10, where increments of 20 are used in Yupik math and numerous > English words have no Yupik counterparts. > > The Lower Kuskokwim School District, which oversees schools in Bethel > and surrounding villages has had an intensive Yupik language program > for about 30 years, said Superintendent Bill Ferguson. > > A similar program instituted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in > earlier years was seen as a progressive way to assimilate Native > children into English fluency. > > Since then, it's become a way for Yupik-speaking Natives to sustain > their language and culture just as other Alaska Native languages > dwindle. > > "I feel strongly that our kids should speak Yupik fluently," said > state Rep. Mary Kapsner, of Bethel. "I really feel this isn't just an > academic issue about benchmark tests, but about cultural and social > well being." > > Beginning in kindergarten and extending to third grade, students > enrolled in the Yupik language program are taught a Western > curriculum similar to those found in Lower 48 classrooms. > > But teachers speak Yupik and students read from Yupik textbooks, > produced by the district by permission of their English-language > publishers. > > While most children speak some English, those enrolled in the > programs don't begin formal academic training in the language until > fourth grade. > > Sampson wants permission from federal education officials to delay > testing these Heritage Language students until sixth grade. At that > time, the students would have had three years of English-speaking > instruction. > > Already, schools in the district are failing to meet "adequate yearly > progress" set out by the federal law, and much of that is attributed > to the language barrier, Ferguson said. > > Alaska educators hold little hope that Yupik-speaking students will > fare well in third-grade testing in the 2005-2006 school year when > all schools are expected to have such tests in place. > > Ultimately, Alaska may seek a waiver under the federal law to > accommodate its language barrier, Sampson said. The state Board of > Education will to take up the issue Jan. 29. > > Winning an exemption from some parts of No Child Left Behind from > Education Secretary Rod Paige will be difficult. > > "Secretary Paige has made some very strong statements regarding the > fact that he doesn't anticipate the state's being exempted from any > requirement under NCLB," said U.S. Department of Education spokesman > Zollie Stevenson. > > States could seek federal funds to pay for translating testing > materials, Stevenson said, but he acknowledged enough money may not > be available to meet Alaska's varied dialects. > > On the Net: > No Child Left Behind: http://www.nochildleftbehind.gov/ > > State Department of Education and Early Development: > http://www.eed.state.ak.us/ > � Lower Kuskokwim School District: http://www.lksd.org/ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Wed Feb 11 19:13:01 2004 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 11:13:01 -0800 Subject: Grammer Work (language) Message-ID: Karuk Language Program Special Events Karuk Grammar Workshops with William Bright, Linguist Tuesday February 24, 2004 12:00 to 1:00 PM At the Karuk Council Chambers Happy Camp, CA Wednesday February 25, 2004 6:30 to 8:30 PM At the A-Frame next to Orleans Elementary School Highway 96, Orleans, CA William Bright will also be at the Karuk Tribal Council Meeting in Orleans on Thursday, February 26 to give a brief presentation. A Yreka event is proposed for late spring or summer. In 1955 William Bright received his doctorate in linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley, where his dissertation was a grammar of the Karuk language. From 1959 to 1988 he taught linguistics and anthropology at UCLA; now he is Professor Adjoint in Linguistics, University of Colorado, Boulder. He has helped with Karuk language revitalization efforts for many years. For more information, you can call Susan Gehr, Karuk Language Program Director at (800) 505-2785 extension 2205. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Wed Feb 11 21:16:32 2004 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 13:16:32 -0800 Subject: Small Languages? Message-ID: Dear sirs, new on the list, I should like to present myself and the site I am working on. My name is Patrick-Henri Burgaud. I was born in France but I have been living for years in the Netherlands, where I studied linguistics. I am working on a web site called THE HOUSE OF THE SMALL LANGUAGES: http://www.houseofthesmalllanguages.org a virtual monument devoted to the seriously endangered languages, all over the world. It is "a work in progress", in permanent evolution. Keywords are: strong social engagement and participation. The functions of the web site is to let know about the existence of dying languages to the largest possible audience and to create and increase the possibility of a permanent contact with and between all native speakers of endangered languages. My wish is to create for every language a separate own page, with various information about the language, a sound sample of it, a picture of one or more speakers nd/or a link with an already existing home page in or about this language. It will become a tremendous huge site. The House of the Small Languages is mirrored to by the West Virginian University (it is at the moment under constuction). I try to update it with accurate information, which is very difficult to get. Information about dying or recently died languages looks like military secrets, it is very hard to get. I am very glad to have heard about the list and to become a member. friendly yours with regards To know more about me and my interests, please visit the site http://home.tiscali.nl/burgaud/ruine/entree.htm ----------------------------------------------- drs. Patrick-Henri Burgaud Zypendaalseweg 75 6814 CE Arnhem http://houseofthesmalllanguages.org -- André Cramblit: andre.p.cramblit.86 at alum.dartmouth.org is the Operations Director Northern California Indian Development Council NCIDC (http://www.ncidc.org) is a non-profit that meets the development needs of American Indians To subscribe to a news letter of interest to Natives send an email to: IndigenousNewsNetwork-subscribe at topica.com or go to: http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/?location=listinfo From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Feb 12 15:49:17 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 08:49:17 -0700 Subject: CAHUILLA: Two sisters pass on their knowledge to students (fwd) Message-ID: CAHUILLA: Two sisters pass on their knowledge to students http://www.pe.com/digitalextra/metro/tribes/vt_stories/PE_News_Local_hclass11.e647.html 08:03 AM PST on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 By HAN KWAK / The Press-Enterprise SAN JACINTO - The instructors were about namekwana minutes late. That's five minutes for those who don't speak Cahuilla. Sisters Lorina Duro and Virginia Duenaz, who are liaisons with the Soboba Cultural Center on the Soboba Indian Reservation, are passing on what they know of the language to students at San Jacinto Valley Academy."I thought maybe we might not be able to keep their attention," Duro said of the students, who range from the second to sixth grade. DeeAnn Bradley / The Press-Enterprise [photo insert] Xochiquetzal Medina, 10, identifies a fork and plate in Cahuilla with laughing teacher Virginia Duenaz in back. But the students are active in class. On a recent day, their hands shot up when Duro asked for the name of numerous objects used as visual aids. Donna Buck, principal of the charter school, said the idea was pitched by a graduating student last year who wanted to learn Luiseño as a second language. Luiseño is spoken by members of the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians. "We value a second language at our school," Buck said, adding that Spanish is offered to all students, but that a handful study other languages as well, such as Hebrew. However, the school could not locate a fluent Luiseño speaker to teach the class. So Duenaz, whose grandson Angel Casarez attends the school, offered to teach the Cahuilla language instead. "I wanted to try it out, to see what response we get from the children," Duenaz said. Interested, Buck offered a 10-week class to the school's students as an elective. Twenty-one students signed up for the class. About half are non-Indian students, Buck said. "A lot of them seemed to pick it up quick," Duro said of the non-Indian children. Many of the students have taken Spanish classes, so the pronunciation of Cahuilla words comes easier because the languages share similar sounds, Duro said. Fourth-grader Ryan Reid said he enjoyed learning Spanish and wanted to take on another language. He said he practices the vocabulary at home to the confusion of his family. "They have no clue what I'm talking about," Ryan said. Duro said she is learning the Cahuilla language herself as a master apprentice under her mother-in-law, Kathleen Duro. Although the sisters' mother was from the Cahuilla reservation near Anza and spoke to the girls with a mix of Spanish, English and Cahuilla, Duro said they are not fluent speakers. "I'm definitely not a fluent speaker," Duro said. "But what I've learned I'm giving it." Duro said she tries to teach the students as her mother-in-law teaches her: by using repetition and visual aids. Sometimes the lessons Duro learns are done in an everyday setting through conversation. "We just sat around and had lunch," Duro said of one session she had with her teacher. Those lessons are brought to the classroom in the form of song and games such as Cahuilla bingo, a game that familiarizes students with the translation of numbers. Many of the children said they signed up for the class out of curiosity but a few said they want to continue the studies. "There's only a few people speaking it and I want to be one of those people," said sixth-grader Anyssa Baca. Reach Han Kwak at (909) 763-3456 or hkwak at pe.com From anguksuar at YAHOO.COM Thu Feb 12 21:56:32 2004 From: anguksuar at YAHOO.COM (Richard LaFortune) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 13:56:32 -0800 Subject: First People Cultural Foundation In-Reply-To: <1076600957.4a53653655a0d@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Here's an amazing Canadian language and technology organization, the First Peoples' Cultural Foundation. http://www.fpcf.ca/ The First Peoples' Cultural Foundation is a not-for-profit charitable public organization that generates support to raise awareness and funding for Aboriginal language revitalization. The Foundation works with its sister organization, the First Peoples~R Heritage, Language and Culture Council to ensure fair and equal access for all funds raised and to all programs available. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET Sat Feb 14 15:48:46 2004 From: pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 08:48:46 -0700 Subject: Accuracy of Internet academic (fwd) Message-ID: Accuracy of Internet academic 'Like trying to pull a library book without the Dewey Decimal system' http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/artslife/story.html? id=35deb42a-93e2-4cbc-befe-59b5f8ce483 Siri Agrell National Post Saturday, February 14, 2004 Laura Buszard-Welcher thought she had found the perfect source to support her PhD research on endangered languages. The anthropologist was completing her doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, when she discovered the Web site of someone who spoke the obscure and threatened dialect she was investigating. She referred to the site in her research, which was later published as a book. Months later, when she revisited the site, she discovered her research now cited something quite different. "It took me to some porno site," says Buszard-Welcher, now a professor at Wayne State University in Michigan and one of a growing population of anthropologists who have logged on to the Internet as a way to study human society. Cyberanthropology is a growing area of study. Through the Web, anthropologists are discovering societies that reveal themselves online while remaining submerged in the world at large. But, as Buszard-Welcher and others have found, cyberanthropology requires the navigation of many pitfalls -- issues of accuracy, credibility and professional esteem -- even as it unearths communities at the click of a button. "I'm finding a lot more language information than I would otherwise have had access to," Buszard-Welcher says. "But you have to be critical. Just like picking up a book off the library shelf, you have to decide how important it's going to be." As an undergraduate, Buszard-Welcher knew she wanted to explore endangered languages and the tools used to protect them. At first, she studied a native dialect (a form of Ojibwa) which was local to the area of Michigan where she grew up. But she soon began to look farther afield and her curiosity led her online. When her computer started speaking Potawatomi, a language spoken by only about 50 people, she had found her thesis. "People have created Web sites to promote this language, to learn this language again, bring it back to widespread use," she says. "People from these far-flung communities are becoming integrated in ways that they couldn't have before because of physical distances." Online language preservation is now her specialty. When not studying Potawatomi, she is collecting URLs for other language projects, monitoring the different techniques people are using to protect their traditional tongues. But as any Web browser knows, surfing the Internet often becomes a struggle to stay afloat in a sea of spam. Looking for an academically useful online source is like finding a library book without the Dewey Decimal system. But anthropologists are patient. "There are all these resources out there that people haven't learned to share," Buszard-Welcher says. "I think if people start making their information available on the Web, it's going to have a huge impact on our field." She fantasizes about the world of information that will be at her fingertips as soon as someone thinks to upload it. Right now, someone could be building the site she has been looking for all her scholarly life. When she does unearth a useful site, she is confronted with issues of credibility. "It's a problem of figuring out whether a site is authoritative," she says. "That's a problem in academia in general." Though most universities have their own standards for citing the Internet, following The Chicago Manual of Style, there is still resistance to its use as a primary or even secondary source. The Internet is frowned upon because of the very traits that make it effective for the public: an utter lack of controls. Academic journals are rigorously researched, cited and peer-reviewed, a level of oversight that is currently impossible for cyberanthropologists. "If you do it anyway, it's going to impact you negatively in terms of tenure decisions and that kind of thing," Buszard-Welcher says of citing online material. "I would be very happy if people in my profession would change their attitude and accept it as more valuable than it's particularly seen to be." David Zeitlyn, an anthropologist at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, says there are valid reasons to distrust Internet research. "There's a lot of what I perceive as bad anthropology that uses the Internet," he says. "People say they're doing the ethnography of the Internet by sitting at their desk and playing around in [chat rooms]. "For me, the whole point of anthropology is that you're not looking at one little part of society, you're looking at how all the parts interconnect. So, you might start or end up with how people are using the Internet. But as an anthropologist, I want to look at a whole load of other things." The Internet reveals little about human behaviour, he says, because it does not explain why people are doing what they are doing. Resources such as the Google Zeitgeist -- a yearly compilation of search trends -- should be used as an index, not an encyclopedia, he says. "It's a starting point. It raises questions," Zeitlyn says of the feature. "But taking those patterns by themselves doesn't do enough. Questions can only be answered by doing weird things like talking to people. And I don't mean sending them an e-mail." Zeitlyn is a leading voice on the Internet's impact on society. It is an interesting jump from his anthropological area of expertise: the methods of divination in rural Cameroon -- how tribes interpret the signs and omens around them. He sees the Web as a harbinger of things to come, but does not believe the patterns of its use can be read like chicken bones to divine the past or the future. For him, the Internet is a way "to do classic anthropology better" -- to access more research, monitor more communities and keep in constant touch with the world. Already, he sees ways to make the Internet a more authoritative research tool. Through Google's cached pages -- photographs of every page created -- such researchers as Buszard-Welcher can find expired sources without being redirected to HOT TEEN GIRLS.com. "There are ways of turning the clock back," he says. "There's loads of unreliable stuff printed on paper, too. The critical thing is being critical." Zeitlyn doubts that the Internet can be sharpened into the primary tool for anthropologists, but his research partner and co-author, Michael Fischer, who also spoke to me from the University of Kent, says, "Things could change over the next decade. There could be pervasive network connections that will make our broadband seem like teletype. It'll look like we're just standing still right now." He believes the Internet is already "pretty authoritative" as a source and is limited only by perception, not content. "Just like in real life, some people misrepresent themselves," he says of online content. "But you have to know an awful lot to misrepresent yourself successfully. "I suspect [most people are] being more themselves," he says of the online individual. "Part of what society and culture do is force you to present yourself in a way that is appropriate to the parties that are observing you, not to do what you want to do." But relevant human voices are being drowned out by corporate or private interests on the Internet, he says. Such search engines as Google are quickly becoming redundant as people learn to manipulate the system. Type the words "Miserable Failure" into a Google search and the first link delivered is the White House biography of President George W. Bush. The Google algorithm rates sites by the number of other pages that link to them. The more sites that connect the phrase "miserable failure" to the White House, the higher its ranking becomes. A search of "Santorum," the last name of U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, brings up his own Web site but also references to the sexual by-product of a homosexual act, named for the Senator by a syndicated columnist outraged by his anti-gay remarks. This sort of "Google Bombing" is so pervasive that it is impossible to know if search results are clean. "Google is only adaptive in terms of popularity," Fischer says. "And popularity doesn't always result in the highest quality." While Google is busy developing commercial and pop-culture applications, the less advanced sites, such as Hot Bot and Lycos, are more useful for authoritative searches, he says. "The net was actually at its most useful for academics between '95 and '98, because the rest of you weren't on it." In the early days, the Internet was the domain of dorks and doyennes only. "At that time, most of it was actually people trying to use this as an alternative medium to get stuff out there," he says. "Now it's gotten much harder to find information. Google ... but it doesn't promote depth. On the other hand, most people don't want depth; they want to buy a TV and it's really good for that." For academics, the Great Byte Hope is called the "Grid." The U.K. government is funding Zeitlyn and Fischer to try out a new subscription-based information-sharing system. The Grid is for research organizations, accessible by invitation only. "It's the so-called eScience grid," Fischer says. "It's actually built around the notion of people having to have credentials to know things." The Grid is privately controlled, expensive to get into and extremely interesting to academics, private research groups and governments. Unlike conventional networks that accommodate communication between machines, grid computing harnesses the unused processing capacity of all computers in a network to solve problems too intensive for any one machine. It feeds on a network of communal resources, sucking its power like a matrix. "They need all the power to analyze all the material that's out there in the public," Fischer says. With Zeitlyn, Fischer has long used the Internet to track human behaviour. Now he is considering writing a book about ways to avoid online monitoring, or "data mining" as he calls it. As an anthropologist, he has learned to embrace the Internet as a tool to study, but as a person, he thinks applications such as the Grid have frightening Big Brother potential. "Am I trying to sabotage the Internet's effectiveness in terms of monitoring human behaviour?" he asks. "Absolutely. Once it becomes effective, you're going to have to." © National Post 2004 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 10943 bytes Desc: not available URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Feb 15 17:20:28 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 10:20:28 -0700 Subject: Native Tongue (fwd) Message-ID: http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?display=rednews/2004/02/15/build/state/50-nativetongue.inc Native Tongue: Falls schools offer unique opportunity Associated Press GREAT FALLS - Students in Klane King's language classes here enjoy reciting everyday phrases they've learned in Blackfeet and listen eagerly as their teacher tells them how American Indian songs, games and dances came to be. It's a heady experience for King, who learned Blackfeet from his parents as a preschooler in southern Alberta, only to have boarding school teachers try to drum it out of him. "I almost forgot the basics of my native tongue," he said. Sharing the language But King had the last say. After college, he came home to the Blood Reserve, as reservations are known in Canada, and started a video production company specializing in features about Blackfeet elders and legends. Teachers used many of those videos in classrooms of the reservation schools, which had reformed and stressed the importance of Blackfeet culture and language. Since mid-January King has been teaching an introductory Blackfeet class at both Great Falls and C.M. Russell high schools. It is believed to be the only Indian language class being taught at a nonreservation Montana high school. The Great Falls district offered a similar introductory class to the Cree language three years ago. It was dropped after three semesters when enrollment tapered off. This semester, 23 GFH students and 11 CMR students are taking the Blackfeet language class. "Any way you can help Native American kids identify with their culture, you've given them another incentive to stay in school," said Assistant Superintendent Dick Kuntz. "And if we get them coming to school every day, they'll do better in their other subjects, too." The district has reduced its Indian dropout rate from a sky-high 80 percent to a state low 10 percent in the 30 years it has had an Indian Education Program featuring tutoring and home counseling, Kuntz said. But that's still about four times the dropout rate for the entire student body. Great Falls High School Principal Fred Anderson said school officials hope to sustain interest this time by adding more advanced classes if enough students want to keep going. "I think it's an excellent class that will provide an opportunity for both Native American and other students to increase their cultural awareness," Anderson said. "The Blackfeet language is a window to another culture," added Deanne Leader, director of the Indian Education Program. "Without the words, you can't understand a group's customs and beliefs." Just the beginning The new language class is not all that the district is doing. This year, Great Falls sophomores are required to take a Montana civics class divided evenly between tribal government and nontribal government. Next fall, high school students can take an optional class that gives an overview of the history and culture of Montana's 11 Indian tribes. "I'm glad to see them start teaching the language here," said Jewell Snell, 65, who with her husband, Frank, is raising four school-age grandchildren. "A lot of people my age never had the chance." "I learned a little bit of Blackfeet from my mother and aunts, but not a lot," said parent Mary Marceau, 37. "I think Indian kids should be able to learn their language and cultural background, but it's harder in an urban setting off the reservation." Her son, Great Falls High sophomore Chi Marceau, 15, is among the students taking the language class. "I knew a few Blackfeet words, but am learning a lot more," Chi said. "It's easy the way Mr. King teaches with repetition and stories." Learning the differences One-quarter of the Blackfeet language students at both schools are non-Indian. One is Hanneke Stubbe, 18, a Dutch exchange student at GFH. "I really like languages and in Europe we're required to take four," she said. "I want to become an anthropologist and this class is great, because I'm learning about a culture I knew nothing about." GFH senior Josh Werkheiser, 17, also is a language buff, and said it's not hard to learn a new language once you realize that internal English rules do not apply. King stressed that Blackfeet should be spoken "in a flat and low tone, with no musical lilts up and down." There are other differences between English and Blackfeet, too, he said. "In the United States and Canada people almost seem to panic when there is a lapse in conversation," he said. "In Blackfeet, it's common to pause every now and then, maybe take a swig of coffee, and let companions absorb what's been said." King also thinks the Blackfeet language has more specific nouns, with some words taking the place of whole sentences in English. For instance, the word "iniwa" means buffalo. When Blackfeet add a long, tongue-twisting suffix, the word signifies "the buffalo are rumbling toward you with their back, dew claws clicking." You can almost feel the dust and better scramble for cover. Reviving one's native tongue But King, 50, was at the tail end of the similar Canadian and U.S. government practices of sending Indian kids to boarding schools where they were directly or indirectly discouraged from using their own language. Starting when he was 6, he spent weekdays at a boarding school across the reservation from his home. Teachers demanded that students speaking Blackfeet place their hands on the table, where their wrists were smacked with rulers. He said they drove the colorful language from his lips, and almost from his memory, but not from his heart. King attended college in Edmonton, Alberta, picking up degrees in Canadian studies and native communication, including broadcast and video production skills. But the instructors who spoke a native language were Cree, he said. When he returned home, he remembered how rich his native tongue and traditions were when he began making videos of tribal elders. King moved to Great Falls in 2000, where he has been a volunteer cameraman for the public access television channel and a disk jockey for KGPR, the public radio station. He jumped at the chance to teach Blackfeet when Kuntz approached him. He demonstrated he was fluent in the language to Blackfeet tribal officials, a requirement to get his education certificate from the state. King has several goals for his students. He wants to teach them enough conversational Blackfeet so they can walk up to tribal elders and politely chat. He also will teach them a few Blackfeet meditations, thanking the Creator and asking for blessings. Last week, King chanted his brief, eloquent personal song for the students, suggesting if they listen carefully they can catch a rhythm and make their own song to see them through adversity. "Mine is a really sweet and calming little ditty that came to me one time," he said, quipping: "And there's no copyright infringement worries to prevent me from singing it over and over." Copyright © 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Feb 15 17:28:22 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 10:28:22 -0700 Subject: Cox, Dauenhauer among winners of Indigenous Literature Awards (fwd) Message-ID: Cox, Dauenhauer among winners of Indigenous Literature Awards http://www.adn.com/life/story/4746196p-4692929c.html [photo insert] Loretta Outwater Cox speaks during an Alaska Federation of Natives workshop in October as her parents listen. Her book about her great-grandmother, "Winter Walk," was published last year. (Photo by Jim Lavrakas / Anchorage Daily News) By MIKE DUNHAM Anchorage Daily News (Published: February 15, 2004) The fourth annual Alaska Indigenous Literature Awards presentation was Tuesday night at the Sheraton Anchorage Hotel. Among the honorees on hand to accept their awards were veteran Tlingit historian, folklorist and playwright Nora Marks Dauenhauer of Juneau and Loretta Outwater Cox, originally from Nome, whose tale of her great-grandmother's harrowing trek for survival, "Winter Walk," was published last year. Sidney Huntington of Galena was honored for his recollections of Interior life, "Shadows of the Koyukuk," which has gone through six printings to date. The spry 89-year-old addressed the awards audience with an impassioned plea for education. Places where, in his youth, fewer than 10 people lived now have hundreds of residents, populations too large to be supported solely by subsistence means, he said. "We can't go back to living what we call 'off the country,' " said the former member of the Alaska Board of Game. "There's no way we can keep taking food out of the woods like we used to do." There's no need to be nostalgic about that, he added, dismissing younger people who romanticize the old way of life. "They don't know what they're talking about! Thank God those days are behind us." Huntington could speak from long experience. He recounted an early trapping trip during which he enountered minus-72-degree cold and barely made it home alive. At that time he promised himself, "If I ever have children, they won't be going through this." Better schooling was the solution, he determined, and he spoke proudly of the achievements of students from Galena, where he served on the school board for many years. Education was also on the mind of another award winner, storyteller Mike Andrews Sr. of Emmonak. He has spent 20 years working with students in the Lower Yukon School District, where he has been a leader in the effort to preserve the Native language and life ways. But he remembered having to wake up at 6 a.m. to fuel stoves in the dimly-lit, two-room mission school at Akulurak. Speaking in Yup'ik, he noted that "today you don't have to freeze in the classroom. Why is it students aren't interested in going to class? In the old days, it was the opposite." In accepting her award, Dauenhauer said it should include the names of her husband and collaborator, Richard, and many other people who have contributed to her life's work. She thought back to when she first began to collect and publish the memoirs of Tlingit elders, creating a ripple that she hoped would spread "farther and farther and farther." "Well, it did," rejoined Joanna Wassillie, who followed Dauenhauer to the podium to introduce Andrews. Wassillie said that as a young Yup'ik student, she was overwhelmed when she first encountered Dauenhauer's books. She had not thought there was such a thing as Native literature, and to discover it was a revelation. Kodiak elder John Pestrikoff, honored along with his late wife, Julia, was unable to make the flight to Anchorage because of a storm. A niece, Anchorage artist Helen Simeonoff, accepted the award on his behalf, observing philosophically, "We know that in Alaska you fly according to weather, not according to reservations." Other honorees included the late Belle Dawson of Grayling and Robert Cleveland of Shungnak, whose stories and oral histories were recorded on tape before their deaths. From lachler at UNM.EDU Sun Feb 15 23:38:21 2004 From: lachler at UNM.EDU (Jordan Lachler) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 14:38:21 -0900 Subject: Berber textbook goes on display Message-ID: Berber textbook goes on display A Berber cultural institute in Morocco says the first textbook aimed at teaching children how to read and write the Berber language will be on display on Sunday at a book fair in Casablanca. The director of the Royal Institute of Berber culture, Dr Ahmad Boukous, told the BBC that although three dialects of Berber were spoken all over the country, not many people knew how to write the script, called tifinagh. The majority of Moroccans are of Berber origin and many speak one of its dialects, but Arabic is still the official language. Activists are demanding Berber should be given official status. Last September the government allowed the language to be taught in schools alongside other languages such as English and French. From the newsroom of the BBC World Service From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Feb 17 22:03:21 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 15:03:21 -0700 Subject: World's languages vanish at 'catastrophic' rate (fwd) Message-ID: World's languages vanish at 'catastrophic' rate By Clive Cookson in Seattle Published: February 17 2004 4:00 http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1075982592589 The world's languages are disappearing at a "catastrophic" rate that makes the extinction of plant and animal species seem sedate, linguists told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Seattle. "It is difficult to overstate the importance to science of documenting endangered languages," said David Harrison, an expert in Siberian languages at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. "Each language that vanishes without being documented leaves an enormous gap in our understanding of some of the many complex structures the human mind is capable of producing." There is no consensus about the number of languages spoken in the world today, because experts cannot agree on the point at which two or more linguistic varieties constitute distinct languages as opposed to dialects of the same language, said Laurence Horn, professor of linguistics at Yale University. The most widely quoted figure of 6,800 comes from the Ethnologue database maintained by SIL International, an organisation with roots in Christian missionary work and Bible translations. Stephen Anderson, also of Yale, said a mainstream estimate was that at least 40 per cent of languages spoken today would die out during this century. Endangered languages are distributed fairly evenly around the world, though there are far fewer in Europe than in other regions. The Ethnologue database lists 417 languages as "nearly extinct", with only a few elderly speakers still living. As an example of what is at stake when a language becomes extinct, Prof Harrison described two peoples living in remote parts of Siberia, the Middle Chulym and the Tofa. In each case younger people speak Russian only and there are about 40 fluent native speakers left in a population of several hundred. He said the Chulym and Tofa languages contained "complex cognitive structures" not found elsewhere. They also embody a highly specialised knowledge of the environment - medicinal plants, animal behaviour, weather signs, hunting and gathering techniques - and a rich pre-literate oral tradition. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 18 15:59:47 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 08:59:47 -0700 Subject: Aboriginal language to be taught at school (fwd) Message-ID: Aboriginal language to be taught at school Wednesday, 18 February 2004 http://lightningridge.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=local&category=general%20news&story_id=286719&y=2004&m=2 Lightning Ridge Central School officially opened its Aboriginal Language and Resource Room last Monday. Aboriginal elders, community members and students met to celebrate the long-awaited opening and the start of the teaching of Aboriginal languages at school. Principal Peter Partridge, Aunty Rose Fernando, Liz Smith and Rhonda Ashby spoke about the importance of learning the Aboriginal language and the infusion of Aboriginal culture into the school. Mr Partridge also introduced the "Dare to Lead" program, which is a commitment to improving the education of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. "It's a group of Australian schools and educational institutions, publicly committed to advancing the cause of reconciliation, between Australia's indigenous and non-indigenous people. In partnership with families and communities we commit ourselves to accelerating improvements in the quality of education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students," Mr Partridge said. "I'm keen to do that because I fully believe our children are only going to be enriched at this school in understanding the way that the Aboriginal people have lived on this land for so many years." In committing to the program the school will be aiming at a 10 per cent improvement in secondary students' attendance and Aboriginal students in the bottom bands in public testing in three years. Mr Partridge also spoke strongly about the attendance records of students and asked the community to help encourage them to come to school. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 18 16:07:13 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 09:07:13 -0700 Subject: Brazilian Indians fear millennial way of life is threatened by development (fwd) Message-ID: Brazilian Indians fear millennial way of life is threatened by development Wednesday, February 18, 2004 By Michael Astor, Associated Press http://www.enn.com/news/2004-02-18/s_13216.asp XINGU NATIONAL PARK, Brazil — Naked children are leaping from mango trees and tumbling into the mild water of the Xingu River without a care. But up by the grass-roofed long houses, the village elders fret that their way of life may come to an end soon. "We're worried for our children and grandchildren," said Rea, a Kayabi Indian woman. "Our Xingu is an island, and if the white man enters with his machines, he'll break it all down in no time." Xingu is Brazil's oldest and probably its most successful Indian reservation — a 2.8-million-hectare (6.92-million-acre) sprawl of pristine rainforest where 14 Indian tribes live much as their people have for thousands of years. The reserve was established in 1961, just a few years after many of the tribes in the region had had their first contact with white civilization. It sat in the middle of a vast undeveloped stretch in the state of Mato Grosso, or "thick forest" in English. Today, the park is surrounded by fields and pasture in the center of Brazil's fastest developing agricultural region. The Indians, whose numbers have nearly doubled to about 5,000 since 1961, say they are feeling the pressure. "In 20 years there won't be enough land for all of us. If you look at the park, it's just a triangle with a little rectangle on top," said Awata, the school teacher at Capivara, one of several Kayabi villages that line the river. In the villages, life goes on much as it always has, but there are signs of the encroachment of white civilization all around. Shiny metal water faucets are now a fixture in most villages, thanks to a well-digging project that aims to protect the Indians from polluted headwaters outside the park. Once-crystalline rivers are muddied from erosion caused by farming and logging up river. "We can no longer fish with bows and arrows so we need to buy fish hooks from the white man," said Mairawe Kayabi, the president of the Xingu Indian Land Association, who like many Indians uses his tribe's name as a last name. The sound of Indians stomping and chanting is still heard in the villages, only now it is as likely to emerge from a cheap tape recorder as it is from a live ceremony. In the Ngojhwere village, the cooking grill is a bicycle wheel with its spokes hammered down. Three metal car wheels turned on their side raise the grill over the wood fire burning on the dirt floor. Breakfast is piraucu, a big, freshly caught river fish. The Indians stew it in water and, when it's ready, wrap it in pieces of a big gummy manioc pancake called beiju with hot pepper and store-bought salt for seasoning. The women now use steel pots instead of clay to fetch water and cook. Satellite dishes sit outside many of the long houses feeding a handful of Brazilian TV channels to generator-powered televisions. "All the stuff on the television puts stuff in the young people's heads," Mairawe said. "They are attracted to whatever comes from outside. This is a cause for a lot of disagreement among the leadership." For ceremonies, the Indians still strip naked and paint their bodies with red powder from ground urucum seeds and the black ink of the jenipapo fruit. But most days they wear Western clothing, the woman preferring long, cotton dresses, the men shorts and T-shirts. Kuiussi, the Suya Indians' chief, wearing a skimpy swimsuit during a journalist's visit, warns visitors not to take pictures of Indians wearing Western clothes. "If people see the pictures, they'll say we're not Indians — that we're mixed (race) — and that's not true," he says. "We are all Indians here." While Kuiussi worries about outside influences, his son, Wetanti, 25, sees no problem keeping a foot in both worlds. He proudly displays a small album that begins with photos of him naked, painted, and feathered and ends with him looking disco-ready in white slacks, a black T-shirt, and wraparound sunglasses. The Suya had their first contact with white people just over 40 years ago, in 1959. Today the village sits on the edge of the Xingu reservation: face to face with white civilization. "Right now, we have to fight to maintain our traditions. The world won't be the same for our children and grandchildren so we have to hold on to what we have as long as we can," Kuiussi said. "Maybe in the future, they'll want to farm or do something with the land to make money, but not in my lifetime." The park owes its existence to the Villas Boas brothers. During a government expedition to Brazil's hinterlands in the 1940s, the pioneering Indian defenders saw first hand the devastating effect that contact with white civilization was having on Indians and their culture. The Villas Boas quartet — Orlando, Claudio, Alvaro, and Leonardo — lobbied the government to set aside land for the reservation and then convinced 14 tribes from around the region to move into it. At the time, wildcat miners, loggers, and farmers were just starting to make their way into the region. "We taught them (the Indians) if they wanted to survive, if they wanted their children to survive, not to let anyone in. We told them if anyone came, to fight them," Orlando Villas Boas, who died last year, said in a 1998 interview. On at least one occasion, Indians took the advice to heart. They killed 11 loggers who refused to leave, Villas Boas said. "No one even thought of coming here after that." Today, the Indians perform joint patrols with the Federal Indian Bureau and Brazil's environmental protection agency. But when there are no officials around, the Indians aren't afraid to put on war paint and pick up bows, arrows, and even hunting rifles to expel invaders. There can be problems among the Indians themselves. Many tribes moved to the park from hundreds of miles (kilometers) away, from places where the terrain was different, and they have had trouble adapting to life in the Xingu. Kayabi elders complain that the materials needed to make traditional objects are not available in the park. "The old people didn't like it when they got here," said Jywapan Kayabi, one of the chiefs at Capivara. "They couldn't find the kind of wood they needed to make their bows and arrows or the kind of grass they used to weave their baskets." Communication is another problem. Because each of the 14 tribes has a distinct language, they can communicate with each other only in Portuguese, a language few Indians speak even today. The Indians in the northern part of the park still don't have much contact with tribes in the southern part, even though they share a more compatible culture and visit each others' villages occasionally for festivals. "If we see their dances we might understand some of what they're singing, but we can't join in the singing," said Ionaluka, who is the rare offspring of a mixed-marriage between Suya and Kayabi parents. Source: Associated Press From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 18 16:09:31 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 09:09:31 -0700 Subject: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca (fwd) Message-ID: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca >From Iyefu Adoba in Abuja http://www.thisdayonline.com/news/20040218news31.html A Director of research programmes from the National Centre for Scientific Research in France, Professor Bernard Caron, has made a case for Pidgin English as a lingua Franca in the country. Speaking in Abuja at a lecture titled "Why Study Minority Languages in Nigeria," Professor Caron, who has been in and out of Nigeria for the past 17 years, regretted that despite Pidgin being an important Lingua Franca, it is hardly mentioned in the language policy of the country. "Why is the language policy silent on Nigerian Pidgin which is used in families and is a first language for many children?" queried the Professor. He noted that English is the de facto official language in the bureaucratic and educational system, while the 3 major languages of Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa remain the major national potential languages. Noting that Pidgin is commonly used in songs, the Professor however observed that very little literature, if any at all, exists in Pidgin and asked if there is any future literary for Pidgin which can be easily read in Nigeria and even outside the country. Caron said Nigeria is a well known country of many languages, adding that there are easily 500 mother tongues in the country, which can be classified under dead, dying, moribund or living languages. The Professor said the study of minority languages helps provide better knowledge of the culture of the people and helps fight illiteracy. From fnkrs at UAF.EDU Fri Feb 20 05:59:31 2004 From: fnkrs at UAF.EDU (Hishinlai') Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 20:59:31 -0900 Subject: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca Message-ID: As we've all experienced from some other time, not too long ago, I think we know a "news article" hardly ever covers the facts. For me, given the gravity of this statement "that there are easily 500 mother tongues in the country, which can be classified under dead, dying, moribund or living languages.", it would be interesting to see how he can back-up a "Pidgin English Lingua Franca." Maybe in the U.S., we could adopt non-standard English that is appropriate regionally. Wow! I wonder what the NCLB initiative would think of that if they had to institute those types of tests in the schools? Hishinlai' >===== Original Message From Indigenous Languages and Technology ===== >Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca > >>>From Iyefu Adoba in Abuja >http://www.thisdayonline.com/news/20040218news31.html > >A Director of research programmes from the National Centre for >Scientific Research in France, Professor Bernard Caron, has made a case >for Pidgin English as a lingua Franca in the country. > >Speaking in Abuja at a lecture titled "Why Study Minority Languages in >Nigeria," Professor Caron, who has been in and out of Nigeria for the >past 17 years, regretted that despite Pidgin being an important Lingua >Franca, it is hardly mentioned in the language policy of the country. > >"Why is the language policy silent on Nigerian Pidgin which is used in >families and is a first language for many children?" queried the >Professor. > >He noted that English is the de facto official language in the >bureaucratic and educational system, while the 3 major languages of >Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa remain the major national potential languages. > >Noting that Pidgin is commonly used in songs, the Professor however >observed that very little literature, if any at all, exists in Pidgin >and asked if there is any future literary for Pidgin which can be >easily read in Nigeria and even outside the country. > >Caron said Nigeria is a well known country of many languages, adding >that there are easily 500 mother tongues in the country, which can be >classified under dead, dying, moribund or living languages. > >The Professor said the study of minority languages helps provide better >knowledge of the culture of the people and helps fight illiteracy. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 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/ Laraa t'ahch'yaa kwaa k'it tr'agwah'in. Nigwiinjik kwaa k'it juu veet'indhan veet'indhan ts'a' nak'arahtii kwaa k'it ch'andzaa. or "Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt, and Dance like you do when nobody's watching." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 20 15:30:21 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 08:30:21 -0700 Subject: UNESCO urges teaching from earliest age in indigenous mother languages (fwd) Message-ID: UNESCO urges teaching from earliest age in indigenous mother languages http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=9832&Cr=UNESCO&Cr1=# 20 February 2004 – With an average of two indigenous languages dying out every month, the United Nations cultural agency has called for national education systems to teach children in mother tongues from the earliest age as a means both of stimulating learning ability and preserving the world’s rich heritage of linguistic diversity. “It is widely acknowledged nowadays that teaching in both the mother tongue and the official national language helps children to obtain better results and stimulates their cognitive development and capacity to learn,” the Director-General of the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Koïchiro Matsuura, said in a message for International Mother Language Day, which is celebrated on 21 February. UNESCO’s General Conference 1999 proclaimed the Day in recognition of the importance of the world’s linguistic diversity and to promote mother tongue languages. But a survey being undertaken by the agency indicates that although the use of mother languages as a medium of instruction is gaining ground, few countries have incorporated the idea into their education systems. The study shows that India is one of the world leaders in the development of multilingual education systems, with about 80 languages being used to teach children at different levels of schooling. But across Africa, where an estimated 2,011 languages are spoken, the languages of the former colonial powers - English, French, Spanish and Portuguese - still dominate education systems. A similar situation prevails in Latin America. According to the “Atlas of the World Languages in Danger of Disappearing” there are more than 6,000 languages spoken in the world today. Ninety five percent of these languages are spoken by only four percent of the population, and an average of two die out each month. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 20 15:34:00 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 08:34:00 -0700 Subject: Parliament gets ready for language conference (fwd) Message-ID: Parliament gets ready for language conference Friday February 20, 2004 11:48 - (SA) http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/zones/sundaytimes/newsst/newsst1077270488.asp Parliament will be hosting its first conference on multilingualism next week - on February 23. "The conference is part of Parliament's initiative to promote linguistic diversity and multilingual education. It is also aimed at raising awareness of the country's linguistic and cultural traditions based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue in post apartheid South Africa," says conference working group chairman David Kgware and chairman of the SA Parliament select committee on education and recreation. "Multilingualism is found in most nations. Throughout the world, some 6,500 to 7,000 languages have been counted. Ten of these languages are spoken on a daily basis by 50% of the world's population," Kgware said. "This indicates that multilingualism is, in fact, a global reality. However, the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation estimates some 3,000 of these languages are now in danger of disappearing." "South Africa is in a particularly unusual position in that it has more official languages at a national level than any other country. Several indigenous languages are spoken across provincial borders and regions in South Africa. These languages are shared by speech communities from different provinces across the country," added Kgware. Some 25 languages are spoken in South Africa. Eleven of these languages have been accorded official status in terms of section 6 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa on the grounds that their usage includes about 98% of the total population. "The constitution obliges government to implement this official language policy status and use the Pan South African Language Board to promote respect for other languages, as well as to promote multilingualism and the development of languages. "This obligation places South Africa at the cutting edge of global language policy developments, which presents an exciting opportunity for the country, particularly for Parliament to oversee this task," said Kgware. Conference speakers include Neville Alexander of the University of Cape Town and the chairperson of the National Council of Provinces Naledi Pandor. From CRANEM at MAIL.ECU.EDU Fri Feb 20 15:54:01 2004 From: CRANEM at MAIL.ECU.EDU (Bizzaro, Resa Crane) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 10:54:01 -0500 Subject: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca Message-ID: Hi, all. As a person who speaks standard English and at least two regional dialects from eastern NC, I'm in favor of incorporating dialects into standardized tests. What would that do to the No Child Left Behind Initiative, which is seriously affecting the schools in my county? :-) Great idea! Resa -----Original Message----- From: Hishinlai' [mailto:fnkrs at UAF.EDU] Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 1:00 AM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca As we've all experienced from some other time, not too long ago, I think we know a "news article" hardly ever covers the facts. For me, given the gravity of this statement "that there are easily 500 mother tongues in the country, which can be classified under dead, dying, moribund or living languages.", it would be interesting to see how he can back-up a "Pidgin English Lingua Franca." Maybe in the U.S., we could adopt non-standard English that is appropriate regionally. Wow! I wonder what the NCLB initiative would think of that if they had to institute those types of tests in the schools? Hishinlai' >===== Original Message From Indigenous Languages and Technology ===== >Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca > >>>From Iyefu Adoba in Abuja >http://www.thisdayonline.com/news/20040218news31.html > >A Director of research programmes from the National Centre for >Scientific Research in France, Professor Bernard Caron, has made a case >for Pidgin English as a lingua Franca in the country. > >Speaking in Abuja at a lecture titled "Why Study Minority Languages in >Nigeria," Professor Caron, who has been in and out of Nigeria for the >past 17 years, regretted that despite Pidgin being an important Lingua >Franca, it is hardly mentioned in the language policy of the country. > >"Why is the language policy silent on Nigerian Pidgin which is used in >families and is a first language for many children?" queried the >Professor. > >He noted that English is the de facto official language in the >bureaucratic and educational system, while the 3 major languages of >Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa remain the major national potential languages. > >Noting that Pidgin is commonly used in songs, the Professor however >observed that very little literature, if any at all, exists in Pidgin >and asked if there is any future literary for Pidgin which can be >easily read in Nigeria and even outside the country. > >Caron said Nigeria is a well known country of many languages, adding >that there are easily 500 mother tongues in the country, which can be >classified under dead, dying, moribund or living languages. > >The Professor said the study of minority languages helps provide better >knowledge of the culture of the people and helps fight illiteracy. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 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/ Laraa t'ahch'yaa kwaa k'it tr'agwah'in. Nigwiinjik kwaa k'it juu veet'indhan veet'indhan ts'a' nak'arahtii kwaa k'it ch'andzaa. or "Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt, and Dance like you do when nobody's watching." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 20 16:01:04 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 09:01:04 -0700 Subject: Administration to modify No Child Left Behind Act (fwd) Message-ID: Administration to modify No Child Left Behind Act By Robert Dodge The Dallas Morning News http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001861633_nochild20.html WASHINGTON — The Department of Education took steps yesterday to make it easier for schools with English-learning students to comply with the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The announcement by Education Secretary Rod Paige comes at a time when about a dozen states are weighing whether to give up federal education money so they do not have to comply with the two-year-old law. Washington state lawmakers have been considering a resolution that would ask President Bush and Congress to make changes in the law, including the modification announced yesterday. Bush administration officials have announced regulatory modifications twice since last year. The most recent would give schools more flexibility in testing students who are less than proficient in English. And schools will be given extra time to show that those students are making adequate yearly progress under the law. Paige said the modifications were designed to give educators flexibility to implement the law and improve the learning performance of students. "Schools are changed by people who are in the building, and that is who we want to hear from and that is who we want to help," he said. The modifications are not expected to have a big impact on the day-to-day life of students. But it could make a big difference to schools that face federal sanctions as early as next year if they do not improve. After testing last year, up to 30 percent of schools nationwide failed to make so-called adequate yearly progress, many because specific groups of students such as special education and English-learners did not have sufficient scores. Specifically, the two-point plan would give states the option of using either of two tests for English-learning students in their first year in U.S. schools. The second regulatory change gives schools an additional year to measure the progress of English-learning students. Previously, students were moved out of the limited-English group when they demonstrated language proficiency. That made it difficult for schools to show the limited-English group was making yearly progress. The new rules allow states to keep students in the limited-English group for an extra year to ensure their annual progress is included in calculations for measuring student progress under the law. Education officials acknowledged yesterday that more changes are on the way. Specifically, they said the department is likely to change provisions that would make it easier for all teachers to become "highly qualified." Information from Seattle Times archives is included in this report. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 20 16:12:33 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 09:12:33 -0700 Subject: New Rules Offer Schools Flexibility on Language (fwd link) Message-ID: New Rules Offer Schools Flexibility on Language U.S. eases guidelines on measuring the progress of students with limited English skills. http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-na-schools20feb20,1,1238466.story?coll=la-news-learning ~~~ [note: the LA Times article is more critical in its coverage of NCLB.] From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Fri Feb 20 19:41:16 2004 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 20:41:16 +0100 Subject: Int'l Mother Language Day 2/21 (Re: UNESCO urges teaching ...) Message-ID: This release is evidently times to coincide with International Mother Language Day (Feb. 21). For more info, see: http://www.unesco.org/education/IMLD2004 (a nice page, but one wishes that it had been publicized earlier!). DZO ----- Original Message ----- From: "phil cash cash" To: Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 4:30 PM Subject: UNESCO urges teaching from earliest age in indigenous mother languages (fwd) UNESCO urges teaching from earliest age in indigenous mother languages http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=9832&Cr=UNESCO&Cr1=# 20 February 2004 - With an average of two indigenous languages dying out every month, the United Nations cultural agency has called for national education systems to teach children in mother tongues from the earliest age as a means both of stimulating learning ability and preserving the world's rich heritage of linguistic diversity. "It is widely acknowledged nowadays that teaching in both the mother tongue and the official national language helps children to obtain better results and stimulates their cognitive development and capacity to learn," the Director-General of the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Koïchiro Matsuura, said in a message for International Mother Language Day, which is celebrated on 21 February. UNESCO's General Conference 1999 proclaimed the Day in recognition of the importance of the world�~Rs linguistic diversity and to promote mother tongue languages. But a survey being undertaken by the agency indicates that although the use of mother languages as a medium of instruction is gaining ground, few countries have incorporated the idea into their education systems. The study shows that India is one of the world leaders in the development of multilingual education systems, with about 80 languages being used to teach children at different levels of schooling. But across Africa, where an estimated 2,011 languages are spoken, the languages of the former colonial powers - English, French, Spanish and Portuguese - still dominate education systems. A similar situation prevails in Latin America. According to the "Atlas of the World Languages in Danger of Disappearing" there are more than 6,000 languages spoken in the world today. Ninety five percent of these languages are spoken by only four percent of the population, and an average of two die out each month. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 20 20:44:58 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 13:44:58 -0700 Subject: UN's Mother Language Day Focuses On Conserving World's Linguistic Heritage (fwd) Message-ID: UN's Mother Language Day Focuses On Conserving World's Linguistic Heritage http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/2/99827E2F-A43E-4298-9F68-450EFC54E99D.html By Charles Carlson UNESCO -- the UN's Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization -- will mark on 23 February the fifth International Mother Language Day, which celebrates the world's nearly 6,000 languages as the "shared heritage of humanity." Linguists warn, however, that at least 40 percent of these languages are expected to die out during this century. Prague, 20 February 2004 (RFE/RL) -- In a statement marking International Mother Language Day, Konchiro Matsuura, the director-general of UNESCO, cited the UN holiday as a way to "celebrate nearly 6,000 languages, all creations of human genius, each expressing in a unique way a vision of the world, a coherent system of values and meanings." He said it is a "genuine challenge" to ensure that these languages -- 95 percent of which are spoken by only 4 percent of the world's population -- continue to be used alongside the world's major languages. By celebrating International Mother Language day, UNESCO is striving to contribute to the protection of the world's cultural diversity. "Every time we lose a language, we lose one vision of the world." David Crystal, one of the world's foremost authorities on language, spoke with RFE/RL recently about the importance of language diversity and the need to preserve languages that are endangered: "Language diversity is the equivalent of human diversity," he said. "The human race has been so successful on the planet because of its ability to adapt to an enormous range of circumstances. I think language is the intellectual equivalent of our biological capabilities. It's so important, first to be able to keep our minds busy, as it were, and one of the ways in which we can do this is by seeing how each language captures a vision of the world in a different way. Every time we lose a language, we lose one vision of the world." UNESCO's Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage -- adopted by the UNESCO General Conference last October -- makes explicit reference to languages as vehicles of the international cultural heritage. There is no consensus about the number of languages spoken in the world today because there is no general agreement on what constitutes a language and what constitutes a dialect. Nicholas Ostler is the president of the Society for Endangered Languages, based in Bath, England. Ostler further alludes to the seriousness of the situation: "The situation of the languages of the world at the moment is a fairly parlous one. There are reckoned to be between 6,000 and 7,000 languages in the world today. And the median size of a language is 6,000 people, which means that most of the languages of the world -- or at least half of them -- have fewer than 6,000 people [speaking them]." It becomes imperative, therefore, that endangered languages at least be documented, if not saved. Ostler: "Some of these languages, maybe half of them, have been contacted by linguists and are known of, are described in various ways. But many more, which would amount to perhaps 2,000 languages in the world, have never been contacted in this way. And so, if they cease to be spoken, it will be as if they had never been. Nobody would know what these languages have been like." It is estimated that, on average, two languages disappear each month. Endangered languages are distributed evenly around the world. An ethnologic database maintained by SIL International, a Christian missionary organization, lists 417 languages as "nearly extinct," with only a few, elderly, speakers still living. Regarding the distribution of these languages, Ostler said: "The situation of languages all over the world is very, very varied. In Europe and in places where Western civilization, such as it is, has been developed over a long period, the languages tend to have literate traditions and to be known about. Even one of the weakest languages in Europe, Cornish, has a literary tradition which goes back many centuries. But in most of the rest of the world -- in Africa, in the Americas, in Asia, and in Austral-Asia -- most languages live in a situation where the written word is not used. There is no literature, and hence, there tends to be no permanent record." Festivities at UNESCO headquarters in Paris will include a keynote speech by Matsuura; songs sung in their local languages by children from Armenia, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Japan, and Madagascar; and the showing of extracts from a documentary on endangered languages called "The Last Word." Activities will also take place in countries throughout the world. From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Fri Feb 20 21:59:03 2004 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 22:59:03 +0100 Subject: UN's Mother Language Day Focuses On Conserving World's Linguistic Heritage (fwd) Message-ID: Interesting - the website (and past observances) have "February 21," but it's great if they can stretch it out until Monday with whatever ceremonies are planned ... ----- Original Message ----- From: "phil cash cash" To: Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 9:44 PM Subject: UN's Mother Language Day Focuses On Conserving World's Linguistic Heritage (fwd) > UN's Mother Language Day Focuses On Conserving World's Linguistic > Heritage > http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/2/99827E2F-A43E-4298-9F68-450EFC54E99D.html > > By Charles Carlson > > UNESCO -- the UN's Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization -- > will mark on 23 February the fifth International Mother Language Day, . . . From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Fri Feb 20 23:24:10 2004 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 00:24:10 +0100 Subject: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca Message-ID: I've been putting off responding to this item because I wanted to reflect on it before responding. First the Webbook of African Languages at http://www.isp.msu.edu/AfrLang/hiermenu.html has a profile of Pidgin along with Krio (navigate the frames to look under the latter or go directly to http://www.isp.msu.edu/AfrLang/Krio_root.html ). Ethnologue of course has something on it - see http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=PCM On Nigerian languages, Ethnologue says "The number of languages listed for Nigeria is 515. Of those, 505 are living languages, 2 are second languages without mother tongue speakers, and 8 are extinct." ( http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=Nigeria ) I have heard (no citation) other estimates of Nigerian languages of ~350. At least part of the discrepancy may be accounted for by how one defines language. Pidgins of course are "contact languages" or "a simplified speech used for communication between people with different languages" (the latter being a Merriam-Webster def.). In some measure I guess there may be a creolization of pidgin in parts of Nigeria (leading to a more or less stable form) but the initial thought is that a pidgin or even a creole has a limited vocabulary and range of expression. All that said, while it certainly makes sense to acknowledge the use of pidgins, I wonder how helpful it would be to raise the status of a pidgin in the way implied by the article. In effect where it exists it is there, but otherwise it adds another layer of language in an already complex situation. For people who may have one maternal language, use another regional one if different from the maternal language (e.g., Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo), and learn English, now they'd have to learn pidgin also. Would promotion of pidgin mainly serve to 1) hasten the disappearance of minority languages and 2) institutionalize "dumbed down" expression in the process? With regard to Resa's comments, one would be tempted to take the point a step further - what about the many indigenous languages, and why raise the status of pidgin more than those? It is funny that I saw this article at about the same time I learned of a statement by an African youth conference in Windhoek last year which called for establishment of a "new panAfrican language." What this and the promotion of pidgin would seem to have in common - however well intended - is to complicate not simplify Africa's multilingual situations. Don Osborn Bisharat.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bizzaro, Resa Crane" To: Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 4:54 PM Subject: Re: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca > Hi, all. As a person who speaks standard English and at least two regional > dialects from eastern NC, I'm in favor of incorporating dialects into > standardized tests. What would that do to the No Child Left Behind > Initiative, which is seriously affecting the schools in my county? :-) > > Great idea! > > Resa > > -----Original Message----- > From: Hishinlai' [mailto:fnkrs at UAF.EDU] > Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 1:00 AM > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > Subject: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca > > > As we've all experienced from some other time, not too long ago, I think we > know a "news article" hardly ever covers the facts. For me, given the > gravity of this statement "that there are easily 500 mother tongues in the > country, which can be classified under dead, dying, moribund or living > languages.", it would be interesting to see how he can back-up a "Pidgin > English Lingua Franca." > > Maybe in the U.S., we could adopt non-standard English that is appropriate > regionally. Wow! I wonder what the NCLB initiative would think of that if > they had to institute those types of tests in the schools? Hishinlai' > > >===== Original Message From Indigenous Languages and Technology > ===== > >Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca > > > >>From Iyefu Adoba in Abuja > >http://www.thisdayonline.com/news/20040218news31.html > > > >A Director of research programmes from the National Centre for > >Scientific Research in France, Professor Bernard Caron, has made a case > >for Pidgin English as a lingua Franca in the country. > > > >Speaking in Abuja at a lecture titled "Why Study Minority Languages in > >Nigeria," Professor Caron, who has been in and out of Nigeria for the > >past 17 years, regretted that despite Pidgin being an important Lingua > >Franca, it is hardly mentioned in the language policy of the country. > > > >"Why is the language policy silent on Nigerian Pidgin which is used in > >families and is a first language for many children?" queried the > >Professor. > > > >He noted that English is the de facto official language in the > >bureaucratic and educational system, while the 3 major languages of > >Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa remain the major national potential languages. > > > >Noting that Pidgin is commonly used in songs, the Professor however > >observed that very little literature, if any at all, exists in Pidgin > >and asked if there is any future literary for Pidgin which can be > >easily read in Nigeria and even outside the country. > > > >Caron said Nigeria is a well known country of many languages, adding > >that there are easily 500 mother tongues in the country, which can be > >classified under dead, dying, moribund or living languages. > > > >The Professor said the study of minority languages helps provide better > >knowledge of the culture of the people and helps fight illiteracy. > > <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> > 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/ > > Laraa t'ahch'yaa kwaa k'it tr'agwah'in. Nigwiinjik kwaa k'it juu veet'indhan > veet'indhan ts'a' nak'arahtii kwaa k'it ch'andzaa. or > > "Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt, and > Dance like you do when nobody's watching." From miakalish at REDPONY.US Sun Feb 22 17:07:03 2004 From: miakalish at REDPONY.US (Mia - Main Red Pony) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 10:07:03 -0700 Subject: Online Conference: Lang. Evol/Thry of Mind Message-ID: Hi, everyone. There is an online conference. in Paris, actually. It is discussing the Evolution of Language and its interaction/interplay/bootstrapping with Theory of Mind. (Theory of Mind is the aware ness that you and others do not share the same "cognitive space", that is, it is a somewhat vaguely defined concept that includes awareness of the individuality of others, awareness of the fact that no two individuals perceive or respond to the same thing in the same way, and awareness that there each has a "mind".) But the people sound pretty good, in general. There are still some archaic artifacts, from Psychology, from Linguistics, and (sigh) from Chomsky. But I think it would be of interest to people working in Language Revitalization. Mia Kalish Tulie "Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Alfred North Whitehead Mia Kalish, M.A. PhD Student, Computer Science Tularosa, New Mexico USA 88352 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Ivy.gif Type: image/gif Size: 5665 bytes Desc: not available URL: From miakalish at REDPONY.US Mon Feb 23 03:06:43 2004 From: miakalish at REDPONY.US (Mia - Main Red Pony) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 20:06:43 -0700 Subject: Link: Online Conference: Lang. Evol/Thry of Mind Message-ID: Sorry, I forgot the link for this. Here it is: http://www.interdisciplines.org/coevolution Mia ----- Original Message ----- From: Mia - Main Red Pony To: Indigenous Languages and Technology Cc: deprees at email.arizona.edu Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2004 10:07 AM Subject: Online Conference: Lang. Evol/Thry of Mind Hi, everyone. There is an online conference. in Paris, actually. It is discussing the Evolution of Language and its interaction/interplay/bootstrapping with Theory of Mind. (Theory of Mind is the aware ness that you and others do not share the same "cognitive space", that is, it is a somewhat vaguely defined concept that includes awareness of the individuality of others, awareness of the fact that no two individuals perceive or respond to the same thing in the same way, and awareness that there each has a "mind".) But the people sound pretty good, in general. There are still some archaic artifacts, from Psychology, from Linguistics, and (sigh) from Chomsky. But I think it would be of interest to people working in Language Revitalization. Mia Kalish Tulie "Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Alfred North Whitehead Mia Kalish, M.A. PhD Student, Computer Science Tularosa, New Mexico USA 88352 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Ivy.gif Type: image/gif Size: 5665 bytes Desc: not available URL: From anguksuar at YAHOO.COM Tue Feb 24 14:09:59 2004 From: anguksuar at YAHOO.COM (Richard LaFortune) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 06:09:59 -0800 Subject: Seattle programs? In-Reply-To: <01e401c3f9ba$141cc950$6400a8c0@computer> Message-ID: hello all a colleague of mine plans to visit Puget Sound/Seattle & is interested in connecting with folks working on language revitalization- any suggestions/contacts that anyone knows about, and would be kind enough to pass along? Thank you Richard LaFortune Minnneapolis __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Feb 24 16:47:40 2004 From: sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Sue Penfield) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 09:47:40 -0700 Subject: Seattle programs? Message-ID: Richard and all, One person to ask would be Dick Demers in the linguistics dept. at the U. of Arizona -- and who has spent a liftetime working with Lummi revitalization efforts. Susan ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard LaFortune" To: Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 7:09 AM Subject: Seattle programs? > hello all > a colleague of mine plans to visit Puget Sound/Seattle > & is interested in connecting with folks working on > language revitalization- any suggestions/contacts that > anyone knows about, and would be kind enough to pass > along? Thank you > Richard LaFortune > Minnneapolis > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. > http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Feb 24 18:16:47 2004 From: sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Sue Penfield) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 11:16:47 -0700 Subject: Paiute-Shoshone Site Message-ID: All, The Owens Valley Career Center Language Program has a nicely developed site showing their use of multi-media work: http://www.ovcdc.com/languageprogram.html S. Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D. Department of English and Indigenous Languages and Technology University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 25 16:53:40 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 09:53:40 -0700 Subject: As native languages are lost in droves, ideas go with them (fwd) Message-ID: [ILAT note: this article may have been previously circulated here.] ~~~ As native languages are lost in droves, ideas go with them http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/8031044.htm BY ALEXANDRA WITZE The Dallas Morning News SEATTLE - (KRT) - A fisherman from Cornwall and an accountant from Houston may have trouble understanding each other, but the English tongue itself is in no danger of disappearing. The same can't be said for many of the world's native languages. "Human languages are vanishing as we speak," says K. David Harrison, a linguist at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. The rate of loss, he adds, "makes the extinction of species look trivial by comparison." Roughly 40 percent of the world's estimated 6,800 languages may disappear within the next century, linguist Stephen Anderson said this month in Seattle at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Chinese, English, Spanish, Hindi, Urdu and Arabic will probably maintain their lock as some of the languages with the most speakers. So why should it matter if a few obscure languages, spoken by a few people in remote corners of the world, vanish forever? "What is lost when a language is lost is a world," said Anderson, of Yale University. Native languages, he said, often convey cultural and sociological information that cannot be articulated in the same way in a different language. A tribe that loses its language may also lose a storehouse of knowledge about its members' history and their environment. Two newly described languages in the Turkic family, documented in Siberia by Harrison, illuminate the challenges facing those who speak an obscure tongue. Last July, Harrison traveled to Siberia to meet with the Chulym people, who live in six isolated villages using traditional means of hunting, gathering and fishing. Only 35 people in the community of 426 - and no one under the age of 52 - could speak the Middle Chulym language fluently, Harrison found. The rest spoke mainly Russian. Middle Chulym is a "moribund" language, destined to disappear soon after its last speaker dies, Harrison reported at the Seattle meeting. "Passive" speakers may continue to use some of the words for a while, but they, too, will inevitably die out, he said. Villagers consider Middle Chulym to be a low-prestige language, so there's no compelling reason for them to preserve it, Dr. Harrison said. Attempts to transliterate it into the Cyrillic alphabet, used in Russian, haven't worked for the same reason. "People don't feel good about speaking these languages," he said. When Middle Chulym goes, the villagers will have lost a rich oral history as well as specific environmental knowledge, such as what plants to harvest, what animals to hunt, and how to read local weather, Harrison said. He is working on a new transliteration to create a children's storybook in Middle Chulym that the villagers can be proud of. In similar straits is another Siberian language called Tofa, spoken by just 40 people in a community of 600. Tofa speakers have a detailed language for their reindeer herds, with specific ways of describing animals on the basis of sex, age, fertility, ride-ability and color. That kind of information just doesn't translate in the same fashion into Russian, Harrison said. Sometimes languages vanish by choice. In the Caucasus, for instance, the relatively complex Ubykh language disappeared partly because of a tradition that a couple, upon marrying, should adopt the more phonetically simple language of the pair, Anderson said. For example, every time an Ubykh-speaking man married a woman who spoke a simpler language, he stopped speaking Ubykh. Several linguistic, conservation and religious groups have devoted themselves to documenting as many of the world's vanishing languages as possible. But working against them is the fact that nobody knows exactly how many languages exist. The Ethnologue database, sponsored by Dallas-based SIL International, catalogs 6,809 languages worldwide. That number represents a "best guess" but is essentially meaningless, linguists argued at the Seattle meeting. For starters, there's the oft-blurred distinction between what constitutes a dialect and what constitutes a language. Languages are sometimes defined by political power rather than by linguistic definitions, said Laurence Horn of Yale. Cantonese and Mandarin are considered dialects of Chinese when they are really distinct languages. Meanwhile, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are more like dialects than separate languages, he said. In the end, perhaps it's best to regard all the world's languages as manifestations of a single language, said David Lightfoot of Georgetown University. And that, he said, could be called simply Human. --- RESOURCES For a survey of the world's estimated 6,800 languages, see www.ethnologue.com For photos from a documentary about the Middle Chulym, visit www.ironboundfilms.com/ironsinthefire.html For a book-length treatment, see "Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's Languages," by Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine (Oxford University Press, 2000) --- From mward at LUNA.CC.NM.US Thu Feb 26 19:08:04 2004 From: mward at LUNA.CC.NM.US (Matthew Ward) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 12:08:04 -0700 Subject: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca Message-ID: I want to make some comments on this discussion, sorry that I'm a bit late on it. First, as Don notes, the article fails to make a distinction between creole and pidgin language. I suspect that, in Nigeria, both are commonly used, but there is a very important difference. Pidgins are very non-standardized forms of communication which indeed hold serious limitations when compared to other human languages. Creoles, however, are what happens when children grow up speaking a pidgin, and something rather amazing happens: when spoken as a native language, the former pidgin suddenly develops the systematic syntax and complete grammatical system that all human languages have. They tend to have somewhat limited vocabularies at first, but, like all natural human languages, they possess the capacity to develop vocabulary, and if they are used for a variety of purposes, they generally do just that. The grammar also tends to be somewhat "simple" by some standards, but if we are to assume that simplicity (always a relative concept when dealing with language) equals limitation, then we would have to conclude that some of the world's biggest native languages (Mandarin Chinese and Malay/Indonesian come to mind) are "limited" as well. Now, if indeed, there are children growing up in Nigeria speaking "pidgin English" as a native language or as one of their natives languages, then what the article is really talking about is an English-based creole. It's not equivilent to non-standard English, it is, in fact, a separate language which would presumably be unintelligible to a native English speaker. Most linguists would classify it as a separate language: not as a form of English, but as a new indigenous language. For example, many estimates of the number of native speakers of various languages in the world do not count Haitian Creole as a form of French, nor do they not count Jamaicans as native speakers of English, but rather as native speakers of their own indigenous languages which happen to derive from colonial languages. Indeed, the Haitian and Jamaican creoles are structurally far more similar to each other than they are to the two colonial language which which they derive. As such, it is important not to stigmitize languages which the popular media refers to as "pidgin," as they may in fact be the indigenous language of an entire society, and the native languages of millions of people. Indeed, creole languages are often stigmitized. I remember reading an article about minorities on the west coast of Nicaragua that face a familiar issue: they live in a country where Spanish is the only official language, yet they have their own traditional native language: an English-based creole. Some schools have experimented with teaching in English, in order to stem growing language shift to Spanish. However, the standard English used in textbooks is, for practical purposes, a foreign language to these people. So, on one side, the creole faces competition from the dominant national language, and on the other side, being mislabled as a variety of English puts it in danger as well. That is a terrible dilemma for a language to find itself in. On the other hand, there is a growing movement to give certain creole languages official status. In Jamaica, for example, the only official language is English, which most Jamaicans can use to some degree, but as noted above, most people speak an indigenous creole which is unintelligible to native speakers of standard English. Because of this, there is now a movement to make Jamaican Creole a second official language. For those who believe that creole languages are somehow incapable of being used officially, we've heard the same arguments in the past about many languages, and the reality has always been that human languages, when used, turn out to be capable of the task they are used for. There are, for example, newspapers in some societies that are written in creole languages, and there are books that are translated from other languages into creoles--"other languages" including the languages that the creoles were originally derived from. So, there is no question that creoles are "good enough" to be used for any purpose. Having said that, I agree with many of you that a society like Nigeria should continue to develop and promote its traditional indigenous languages over English-based pidgins and creoles. But, you can understand their situation: although they contains some of the world's largest native languages, regions tend to be divided linguistically. Some Nigerian indigenous languages have far more native speakers than do European languages like Danish or Finnish, but choosing one to be the national lingua franca might create ethnic tensions. Standard English is supposed to be the lingua franca, but even by liberal estimates, the majority cannot actually speak it. The "pidgin," whether it is actually a pidgin, or a creole, or both, may well in fact be the most common lingua franca already, at least, the one language which is understood to a reasonably wide degree in all of the country's regions. Still, it remains very frustrating that many African languages, even those with tens of millions of native speakers, cannot enjoy the same status that much smaller European languages do. It's one of the most damning legacies of colonialism that I can think of. Nevertheless, I do strongly support countries like Jamaica and Haiti giving their creole languages official status, and developing them in the same way that native languages of other societies are developed. Seeing that the native languages of those countries are, unlike in a place like Nigeria, the only existing indigenous languages that those societies have, it is important to recognize that creole languages are, essentially, no worse than any other kind of human language or dialect. Mattthew Ward Don Osborn wrote: >I've been putting off responding to this item because I wanted to reflect on >it before responding. First the Webbook of African Languages at >http://www.isp.msu.edu/AfrLang/hiermenu.html has a profile of Pidgin along >with Krio (navigate the frames to look under the latter or go directly to >http://www.isp.msu.edu/AfrLang/Krio_root.html ). Ethnologue of course has >something on it - see http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=PCM > >On Nigerian languages, Ethnologue says "The number of languages listed for >Nigeria is 515. Of those, 505 are living languages, 2 are second languages >without mother tongue speakers, and 8 are extinct." ( >http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=Nigeria ) I have heard (no >citation) other estimates of Nigerian languages of ~350. At least part of >the discrepancy may be accounted for by how one defines language. > >Pidgins of course are "contact languages" or "a simplified speech used for >communication between people with different languages" (the latter being a >Merriam-Webster def.). > >In some measure I guess there may be a creolization of pidgin in parts of >Nigeria (leading to a more or less stable form) but the initial thought is >that a pidgin or even a creole has a limited vocabulary and range of >expression. > >All that said, while it certainly makes sense to acknowledge the use of >pidgins, I wonder how helpful it would be to raise the status of a pidgin in >the way implied by the article. In effect where it exists it is there, but >otherwise it adds another layer of language in an already complex situation. >For people who may have one maternal language, use another regional one if >different from the maternal language (e.g., Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo), and learn >English, now they'd have to learn pidgin also. > >Would promotion of pidgin mainly serve to 1) hasten the disappearance of >minority languages and 2) institutionalize "dumbed down" expression in the >process? > >With regard to Resa's comments, one would be tempted to take the point a >step further - what about the many indigenous languages, and why raise the >status of pidgin more than those? > >It is funny that I saw this article at about the same time I learned of a >statement by an African youth conference in Windhoek last year which called >for establishment of a "new panAfrican language." What this and the >promotion of pidgin would seem to have in common - however well intended - >is to complicate not simplify Africa's multilingual situations. > >Don Osborn >Bisharat.net > > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Bizzaro, Resa Crane" >To: >Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 4:54 PM >Subject: Re: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca > > > > >>Hi, all. As a person who speaks standard English and at least two >> >> >regional > > >>dialects from eastern NC, I'm in favor of incorporating dialects into >>standardized tests. What would that do to the No Child Left Behind >>Initiative, which is seriously affecting the schools in my county? :-) >> >>Great idea! >> >>Resa >> >>-----Original Message----- >>From: Hishinlai' [mailto:fnkrs at UAF.EDU] >>Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 1:00 AM >>To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU >>Subject: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca >> >> >>As we've all experienced from some other time, not too long ago, I think >> >> >we > > >>know a "news article" hardly ever covers the facts. For me, given the >>gravity of this statement "that there are easily 500 mother tongues in the >>country, which can be classified under dead, dying, moribund or living >>languages.", it would be interesting to see how he can back-up a "Pidgin >>English Lingua Franca." >> >>Maybe in the U.S., we could adopt non-standard English that is appropriate >>regionally. Wow! I wonder what the NCLB initiative would think of that if >>they had to institute those types of tests in the schools? Hishinlai' >> >> >> >>>===== Original Message From Indigenous Languages and Technology >>> >>> >> ===== >> >> >>>Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca >>> >>>>>From Iyefu Adoba in Abuja >>>http://www.thisdayonline.com/news/20040218news31.html >>> >>>A Director of research programmes from the National Centre for >>>Scientific Research in France, Professor Bernard Caron, has made a case >>>for Pidgin English as a lingua Franca in the country. >>> >>>Speaking in Abuja at a lecture titled "Why Study Minority Languages in >>>Nigeria," Professor Caron, who has been in and out of Nigeria for the >>>past 17 years, regretted that despite Pidgin being an important Lingua >>>Franca, it is hardly mentioned in the language policy of the country. >>> >>>"Why is the language policy silent on Nigerian Pidgin which is used in >>>families and is a first language for many children?" queried the >>>Professor. >>> >>>He noted that English is the de facto official language in the >>>bureaucratic and educational system, while the 3 major languages of >>>Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa remain the major national potential languages. >>> >>>Noting that Pidgin is commonly used in songs, the Professor however >>>observed that very little literature, if any at all, exists in Pidgin >>>and asked if there is any future literary for Pidgin which can be >>>easily read in Nigeria and even outside the country. >>> >>>Caron said Nigeria is a well known country of many languages, adding >>>that there are easily 500 mother tongues in the country, which can be >>>classified under dead, dying, moribund or living languages. >>> >>>The Professor said the study of minority languages helps provide better >>>knowledge of the culture of the people and helps fight illiteracy. >>> >>> >><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> >>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/ >> >>Laraa t'ahch'yaa kwaa k'it tr'agwah'in. Nigwiinjik kwaa k'it juu >> >> >veet'indhan > > >>veet'indhan ts'a' nak'arahtii kwaa k'it ch'andzaa. or >> >>"Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt, and >>Dance like you do when nobody's watching." >> >> > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 27 16:13:30 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 09:13:30 -0700 Subject: RMC official studies Maori language (fwd) Message-ID: RMC official studies Maori language http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?display=rednews/2004/02/27/build/local/40-pease.inc By MARY PICKETT Of The Gazette Staff Rocky Mountain College administrator Janine Pease watched schoolchildren create a skit based on Maori proverbs during a trip to New Zealand earlier this month. After the teacher described the assignment, the children went to work on their skits and discussed their ideas. What made this class special was that everything that was written and said was in Maori, the language of native peoples of New Zealand. Over the last 25 years, Maoris have developed language-immersion schools in which Maori is spoken exclusively by students, teachers and staff. Pease, Rocky's vice president for American Indian affairs, was the coordinator of the trip to New Zealand for 35 representatives of Native American language-immersion programs and private philanthropic foundations. Most of those traveling to New Zealand, were, like Pease, American Indian. Two years ago, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation commissioned Pease to do a study of American Indian language immersion programs. Language immersion programs in the United States are a well-kept secret, Pease said. The 50 programs that exist range from family based learning groups in which two great-grandparents teach their great-grandchildren their native language to multilevel schools in which the entire curriculum - including playground and lunchroom conversations - is taught in a native language. The 16-year-old Piegan Institute on the Blackfeet Reservation in northwestern Montana is an example of the last type. The newer White Clay Language Immersion School at Fort Belknap College is teaching Gros Ventre language to younger children. Darrell Kipp from the Piegan Institute and Linnette Chandler from the White Clay School were among those in New Zealand with Pease. After Pease made her report to a meeting of representatives of about 20 private foundations last year, some representatives wanted more information about how their organizations could become involved in immersion programs. Out of that meeting grew the trip to New Zealand to observe Maori programs, considered the gold standard of immersion education in indigenous languages. The Kellogg and Lannan foundations funded the trip. Immersion schools in New Zealand began about 25 years ago and now encompass schools for children and students from infants through college. Language instruction begins with preschoolers in 700 "language nest" schools. Children learn native music, art and stories as well as other preschool activities. Some language nests are attended by mothers and infants. "No age is too young for a language nest," Pease said. The next level is K-13 schools, which again teach everything in Maori, except for one hour of English a day beginning in the fifth grade. To go on to higher education, New Zealand children have to pass a Form 7 standardized test in their last year of high school. Outside the school, Maori children are English-speaking. Before the immersion system began, only 15 percent of Maori students passed the Form 7 test. In 2003, 85 percent of children going through K-13 immersion schools passed the test in English, making them eligible to go on to colleges and universities. Immersion schools are successful because half of the curriculum teaches material that will appear on the Form 7 test and half teaches Maori culture and language. The emphasis on Maori culture strengthens the students' sense of self-worth. "It provides a world of knowledge that's theirs," Pease said. Critics of the program wonder if immersion education excludes students from the main culture, but their success at the tests shows that that is not true, she said. The curriculum includes subjects such as technology and business so students can get jobs or go on with their education. Three tribal colleges in New Zealand with 35 campuses also teach in the Maori language. Twenty percent of Maori children now are in the immersion K-13 schools, and there are long waiting lists to get into the schools. New Zealand immersion programs began as private programs but now receive public support after a treaty settlement with the 50 Maori tribes 20 years ago. Taking a look at New Zealand immersion schools is important for Americans because Maoris and American Indians both have been threatened with the loss of their language and culture. Maoris were forced to attend centralized boarding schools where they were punished for speaking their language as were American Indians. The number of Maoris speaking the language fluently was down to about 2,000 people in the 1970s. That figure has risen to about 24,000 speakers, thanks to immersion schools. In the United States, only about 20 of the 150 American Indian languages being spoken now are considered healthy, Pease said. Language-immersion programs are a way to save native languages - and, perhaps, students themselves. Only 51 percent of American Indian students across the country finish high school, and 90 percent of 12th grade American Indians fall in the lowest percentile of math and science in standardized tests. Pease called those statistics "alarming" and "shocking." "The model we have in public schools is broken, and most American Indian students can't enter higher education," she said. "We need to examine entire new models." Pease and others who went on the trip will be forming a national group to bring together private foundations and leaders of American immersion programs to support current programs and create new ones. Mary Pickett can be reached at 657-1262 or at mpickett at billingsgazette.com. From pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET Fri Feb 27 18:15:52 2004 From: pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 11:15:52 -0700 Subject: Fwd: What's on and going on at Aboriginal Voices Radio Message-ID: ILAT subscribers, i am forwarding fyi the segment to be aired on Saturday 11am with Indigenous Language Specialist Amos Keye. phil cash cash ILAT, UofA Begin forwarded message: > From: "Aboriginal Voices Radio Network newsletter Radio" > Date: February 27, 2004 11:03:05 AM MST > To: pasxapu at dakotacom.net > Subject: What's on and going on at Aboriginal Voices Radio > > You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed to it at our > website's main page (http://www.aboriginalradio.com). If this is an > error, please see below for unsubscribe information. > > ABORIGINAL VOICES RADIO NEWSLETTER > Published by Aboriginal Voices Radio Inc. > (http://www.aboriginalradio.com) > > -------------------------------------------------- > > HIGHLIGHTS > > * This week on “Nation 2 Nation” > * This week on Patrice Mousseau “in the morning” > * AVR is now airing Earthsongs from AIROS > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------------------- > > SPONSORED LINKS > > AVR would like to thank and welcome its new and continuing sponsors and > advertisers. For details about promotional opportunities please > contact > nadine.stlouis at aboriginalradio.com or bruce.chown at aboriginalradio.com. > A > member of our sales and sponsorship team will reply. > > Have you ever considered a career in Journalism? Radio? Television or > even the Movies? Please join Aboriginal Voices Radio, Spirit Magazine, > New VR, Anishnawbek News, Big Soul Productions and many more during a > MEDIA CAREER FAIR happening on March 27th, 2004 at the HOLIDAY INN in > Barry, ON > It's free! Please visit our website: http://www.aboriginalradio.com > for a registration form. > > Nation 2 Nation (N2N) would like to thank Royal Flush Gaming Ltd, a > First Nation Gaming Supply House, for their financial support. > http://www.royalflushgamingcanada.com > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------------------- > > This week on Nation 2 Nation > > Join "Nation 2 Nation" host Andre Morriseau this coming week, on > Sunday my guest is Indigenous Language Specialist Amos Keye, on > Saturday it’s Playwright Alanis King whose new play the Art Show > premiered on Thursday night at the Art Word Theatre. Monday my > special guest is Toronto Mayor David Miller. All shows are at 11:00 > a.m. So tune it! > Nation 2 Nation is AVR's Aboriginal Public Affairs Program that > explores the lives and issues of people in our Aboriginal world. > > -------------------------------------------------- > > This week on Patrice Mousseau - In the Morning > > Tune in to our regular features Request Tuesdays > (requests at aboriginalradio.com) and -This Day in OUR History- with > Sidd Bobb everyday at 10:15 am. > In the studio on Wednesday we’ll have an interview with playwright > and author , Drew Hayden Taylor . At 10 am that same day, we will be > discussing Traditional Healing on Miino Bimaudzowin “Living a Good > Life” with Traditional Healing Facilitator (osh-ka-be-wis) Myeengun. > Women’s Round Table on Friday at 10 am the topic will be > “Astrology “ with guests Nadine St. Louis (Mi’kmaq/Acadian) and > Shana Seneca (Mohawk). You can join them for discussion and > exploration of tarot and astrology. > This and the best in Aboriginal and Indigenous music from North > America and around the world. Monday to Friday 8 to 11 am. > > -------------------------------------------------- > > AVR is now airing Earthsongs from Kohanic Broadcasting Corporation > > Host Gregg McVicar. This weeks guest is Robert Mirabel, Times are > Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 8:00 PM. (8;00 AM on > Sat and Sun) > > -------------------------------------------------- > > Aboriginal Voices Radio Inc. > Studio City Building > 366 Adelaide St. E., Suite 323 > Toronto, ON, M5A 3X9 > (tel) 416-703-1287 > (fax) 416-703-4328 > > To unsubscribe please reply to this message with the word UNSUBSCRIBE > in the subject field. > > > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 4316 bytes Desc: not available URL: From liko at LEOKI.UHH.HAWAII.EDU Fri Feb 27 19:34:34 2004 From: liko at LEOKI.UHH.HAWAII.EDU (Liko Puha) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 09:34:34 -1000 Subject: AZ AG: public schools not exempt from Prop. 203 Message-ID: AZ AG: public schools not exempt from Prop. 203 By Bill Donovan - Navajo Times WINDOW ROCK - A couple of years ago, educators went on the offensive when Arizona voters went to the polls to decide whether English would be the only language that classes would be taught in. At that time, a compromise was reached that public school educators thought would allow them an exemption so they could provide instruction in Native American languages in the early grades. Boy, were they wrong. Education officials for the state of Arizona are now saying that based on an opinion by the state's attorney general, public schools on the reservation have to comply with the English Only law (Proposition 203). Only Bureau of Indian Affairs schools are exempt. "This is a major step backwards," said Deborah Jackson-Dennison, superintendent of the Window Rock Unified School District. Jackson-Dennison has got President Joe Shirley Jr. involved in her efforts to get the state to change its policy and exempt public schools on reservations that have a large Native American student population. Shirley and other tribal officials were in Phoenix Tuesday meeting with state education officials to get the matter clarified. What's at risk, Jackson-Dennison said, were Navajo language immersion programs like the one at Window Rock where students in the primary grades get instruction in their native language. As they get into higher grades, they receive more and more instruction in English. By doing this, she said, it now appears that school districts will be putting in jeopardy some of their state funding. She said that on many state funding requests, the Arizona Department of Education has placed a new item asking districts if they are complying with the English Only law. "The form gives us only two options - yes or no," said Jackson-Dennison. "There is not a third option labeled 'exempt.'" By filling out the "no" blank, public schools on reservations within the state are taking a definite risk of getting their application denied. If they mark "yes," programs like Window Rock's Navajo Immersion Program will be eliminated. State school officials have made it very clear that classes - all classes - will be taught only in English. Margaret Garcia-Dugan, associate superintendent for the Arizona Department of Education, said that while BIA schools are exempt from complying with Proposition 203, public schools are not. In a written statement, she said that "if a public school has a large Native American student population, it must still adhere to the provisions set forth in Proposition 203 regardless of whether or not that school is on a reservation. "Proposition 203 does allow teaching other languages besides English as an elective (such as Navajo Language and Cultural Instruction)," she said. "All other courses such as history, math, English, and physical education are to be in (English Only) unless the student receives a waiver." This, said Jackson-Dennison, doesn't make a lot of sense since federal statutes contain provisions that protect and encourage the development of native languages such as those offered within the Window Rock school district. "The No Child Left Behind Act also encourages the teaching of native languages," she said. Now, the state is coming in and saying that the school district could lose some of its state funding by following the federal laws and this isn't right, she said. Rosalyn LaPier Piegan Institute www.pieganinstitute.org From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Fri Feb 27 22:35:47 2004 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 23:35:47 +0100 Subject: Regional languages dying in mixed marriages (fwd) Message-ID: Matthew, all, (here's an even slower reply), It is interesting to compare the situation in the Americas with that in Africa. Colonization in the latter - and the slave trade before - however severe in its effects did not decimate the populations & cultures the way that the European invasion of what was for them the "New World" did there. The imposition of French, English and to a lesser degree Portuguese (and in one enclave, Spanish) from the mid-19th century on has not replaced the indigenous languages, but have usurped some functions. One could argue that cultures were sociolinguistically decapitated with the absorbtion of existing elites or creating of separate elites schooled in the colonial tongues, and that that situation has to a large degree continued such that African languages by and large are seen as backward and incapable of expressing scientific concepts. This sort of depreciation no longer has to come from foreigners - I have heard Africans schooled in English or French will offer this opinion (not sure if speakers of Native American languages say similar things), and those not schooled but steeped in their first language(s) away from seats of power and learning don't have the ways or means to argue. The large number of languages in Africa is generally given as a reason to continue to resort to the languages inherited from the colonial period, but this argument really seems to just gloss over a varied linguistic terrain and preclude discussion of alternative solutions. As you mention in your response re pidgin, there are languages in Africa with as many or more speakers than some of the state languages in Europe, but they are being totally or largely neglected in education and language policy (in many cases it seems because the languages cross borders). Part of what got me involved in these questions a few years ago was thinking about facilitating multilingual uses of computers and the internet in Africa, but as time goes by, it seems that some ICT tools may actually be able to help in the revitalization of maternal languages and to lessen some of the inconveniences (relative to advantages) of multiple languages in a society. Don ----- Original Message ----- From: "Matthew Ward" To: Sent: Monday, February 02, 2004 7:23 PM Subject: Re: Regional languages dying in mixed marriages (fwd) > If Native American societies had been allowed to develop as independent > states, then you would probably see this kind of thing happening on a > widespread scale: language shift occuring in the direction of more > powerful indigenous languages, rather than in the direction of colonial > languages. You would still see endangered minority languages, but you > would also have powerful, thriving indigenous languages, as India has. > > The sad thing is that in the American continents, four colonial > languages (Spanish, English, Portuguese and French) are official or > de-facto official in every state, and very few countries have given > either official recognition or widespread official use to indigenous > languages, which has put the latter in a precarious position. > > I personally believe that making indigenous languages the de facto state > languages of various reservations or regions would be one of the most > effective ways to fight back. Some of the Alaskan languages, for > example, are relatively healthy, due to their widespread use in local > government and education. It is easier to maintain a language when using > that language is required in order to participate in a variety of > spheres within a given society. > > To take the article we read about Easter Island for an example, if > Spanish-speaking newcomers to Easter Island had to learn the local > language in order to navigate local government and education, they would > be more likely to learn that language, and the locals would have a > concrete, practical reason for passing the language on to their > children. I have read about Spanish-speaking migrants to Basque country > in Spain who have complained bitterly about having to learn Basque, but, > in my view, the Basques are simply doing what they need to do in order > to maintain their culture. European minority languages like Catatlan and > Basque remain healthy because their speakers have won political battles > which have enabled them to restore their languages' official status and > use. Hopefully, indigenous people in America (meaning, the American > continents) will be able to win similar battles. > [ . . . ] From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Feb 28 11:49:09 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 04:49:09 -0700 Subject: Idaho State University Professor...Help Save Native Language (fwd) Message-ID: Idaho State University Professor Heads to Southern California to Help Save Native Language        POCATELLO, Idaho, Feb. 27 (AScribe Newswire) -- Idaho State University anthropology professor Dr. Christopher Loether, who specializes in the Shoshoni language, has been hired for 18 months to help save the language of the Serrano Indians living in southern California on the San Manuel and Morongo Reservations.        Loether is building on work done by University of California, Los Angeles professor Dr. Ernest Siva, a member of the Morongo Indian tribe who is half Serrano and half Cahuilla. Siva, a Serrano speaker, has worked with the Morongo and San Manuel bands of the Mission Indians for many years.        "Basically, there are only three people left who speak the language," Loether said. "The last woman who spoke only the Serrano language, who was in her 90s, died last year, but we have a lot of material collected from this woman, Dorothy Ramon, who was Siva's aunt."        The San Manuel Reservation is located in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains, just north of the city of Highland, and occupies 740 acres. About 68 adult and 129 children are tribal members, according to Loether.        The 32,000-acre Morongo Indian Reservation is set near the base of the San Gorgonio and San Jacinto Mountains. Tribal membership is about 1,200, according to Loether.        Loether will first learn the Serrano language, then train teachers to teach the language in schools. The language will be taught to pre-school children next fall, then to successively higher grades each year, based on the model of a Hawaiian language program taught on the Hawaiian Islands in every grade from kindergarten to graduate school.        "Different Indian groups are trying to preserve their languages using programs based on the Hawaiian model," Loether said. "One California tribe located south of us, the Pechanga, recently implemented a language program that was very successful."        Loether will also assist Siva in teaching the Serrano language in classes at UCLA next fall. The university will begin offering a two-year certificate in Serrano culture and language.        The Serrano Indian language is a member of the Uto-Aztecan language family, the same as Shoshoni. Paiute is also a member of that language family. Loether learned the Western Mono language while earning his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in anthropology at UCLA. He learned the Eastern Mono language while working on a project in the Owens Valley in California.        While at ISU, Loether has also become a Shoshoni language expert, working with ISU adjunct professor Drusilla Gould. The Shoshoni language program began in 1989, and ISU became one of the first universities to offer a Native American language to fulfill the foreign language general education requirement. Loether and Gould have published a Shoshoni language textbook, "An Introduction to the Shoshoni Language" (University of Utah Press 2002), and 35 to 40 people per year are enrolled in its Shoshoni language courses.        Although the Serrano language is related to the Shoshoni and the Mono languages, learning and teaching Serrano is difficult because of the lack of fluent speakers and written materials on the language.        "Serrano is related to Shoshoni and is as close to Shoshoni, perhaps, as English is to German. They are definitely related but there are a lot of differences between them," Loether said.        There is already a writing system in place for the Serrano language developed by scholar Eric Elliot. The writing system uses the Roman alphabet with a couple of extra signs and "a couple of letters that don't stand for the same thing they do in written English," Loether said. The instructional book of the Serrano language, patterned after Loether and Gould's Shoshoni textbook, will include examples of conversations, dialogues, and interactions.        "We will teach students useful phrases they can put to use interacting with other people in real situations," Loether said. "This method is known as the 'ulpan' method of language immersion and was first developed by the Jews of Palestine to teach Hebrew, when they were revitalizing that language in the early 1900s. It is now used to teach new immigrants to Israel the Hebrew language."        Members of the ISU anthropology department have been active in recent cultural preservation projects. Gould has traveled to Shoshoni reservations throughout the West to help with language projects. Professor Dr. Anthony Stocks has helped a number of Central and South American tribes and indigenous groups acquire and manage lands in critical conservation areas.        ISU is located in Pocatello, Idaho, which is adjacent to the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. The reservation has about 5,000 residents, approximately 3,000 of them are Native American. The Fort Hall tribe has about 3,500 enrolled members. ISU averages about 350 Native American students each semester out of a total enrollment of about 13,500. Shoshoni language courses are well attended, and generally one-third to one-half of those enrolled are Native Americans. Two Shoshoni and one Chippewa Indian are on the ISU anthropology department teaching staff.        "We get people (enrolled in ISU Shoshoni classes) who are just interested in the language and the culture, but the majority of our students are from Fort Hall," Loether said. "However, we've had students from about every Shoshoni Indian reservation in the West over time. Shoshoni from Nevada, Wyoming, and Utah have all attended our classes, as well as Comanche, who speak a dialect of Shoshoni." http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/spew4th.pl?ascribeid=20040227.110659&time=11%2020%20PST&year=2004&public=1 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Feb 29 20:47:20 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 13:47:20 -0700 Subject: Say No More (fwd) Message-ID: Say No More by Jack Hitt Languages die the way many people do -- at home, in silence, attended by loved ones straining to make idle conversation.... http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/29/magazine/29LANGUAGE.html?ex=1078635600&en=31f3796588457b34&ei=5062 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 2 15:33:40 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 08:33:40 -0700 Subject: Dine curriculum guide is a milestone for indigenous lanugages (fwd) Message-ID: >From Farmington Daily Times http://www.daily-times.com/artman/publish/article_8243.shtml Dine curriculum guide is a milestone for indigenous lanugages By Carol Cohea/The Daily Times Feb 2, 2004, 11:04 am FARMINGTON ? Once they walk into the bilingual portable at McKinley Elementary after 3:30 in the afternoon, the pupils are immersed in reading, writing, speaking and listening in Navajo. One recent evening for parents, some pupils were reading and speaking quickly and easily. Some were just beginning to understand the words and wrap their tongues around the glottal stops, dipthongs and high and low nasal tones. Others were struggling. Some were beginning to read words together to make sentences. ?Your jaw muscles have to adjust to Navajo language, the glottal stops and high tones,? explained Carole Yazzie. She and Mary Lou Yazzie are in charge of the Afterschool Bilingual Program. Parents were getting a look at what their youngsters do in the afterschool program. This night children were reading from a worksheet they?d done earlier in the week, introducing themselves by clan, describing their clothing and colors and talking about food. Elthea Charles said daughter Ashlynn Atcitty, 9, considered the class a treat. ?She?s communicating with her grandparents. It?s opening new horizons for her. I feel lucky she?s got the class. She?s picking up a lot of things,? Charles said. ?Last year it was really just an arts and crafts program. This year I see a lot more knowledge coming back,? she said. Linda Jim said she speaks fluent Navajo, but raised her three children speaking English. Her own daughter, Shianne Jim, 9, wrote her a letter asking her permission to come to Navajo class, so she could communicate with her grandmother. ?She loves the class. It?s wonderful. I tell her I?m learning a lot from her. She?s bringing home books and we?re learning to read the language,? Jim said. ?It?s fun. It?s my first time doing this,? Shianne said. Jarred Billy, 10, is enthusiastic about coming to class. ?I want to learn more Navajo words. It helps pull up my grades in regular classes,? he said. ?I like it. I think my son is learning a lot. All we talk is English. He likes coming here and he?s trying to teach me the language,? said mom Lisa Jones. Parent Alfreda Scott said a child?s knowledge of two languages gives the child an ability to look at life more colorfully. ?They can see the world in colors compared to just one way or another. It opens their eyes to other opportunities out there for Navajo language speakers and in society itself. Language gives them a strong background,? she said. In November the Farmington School District became the first district in New Mexico and the U.S. to have an indigenous language curriculum guide which meets the state Department of Education Standards and Benchmarks. The school board approved the kindergarten through grade 12 Dine Bilingual Language Culture and History Curriculum Guide. ?A lot of school districts are asking for it. We are copyrighting it and will offer it for sale at $30 a copy,? said Arlene Kirstine, director of Farmington Schools Bilingual and Indian Education Program. The guide was developed by Bernice Casaus, as curriculum consultant, along with her team of co-developers, Sharon Becenti, Karen Begay, Donna Irvin, Videna John, Jenny Kaye, Herbert Platero, Jennie Platero, Barbara Sorensen, Nellie Storer, Jeanette Wauneka, Betty Williams and Mary Gregori. The guide includes language and culture components on Navajo history, government, fundamental philosophy and parent involvement. It complies with Farmington Schools Education Plan for Student Success, state Department of Education Standards and Benchmarks and the Navajo Nation Education Policy. As lesson plans and materials are developed, they are taken directly to the pupils, in this case the 15 pupils at McKinley Elementary and the program teachers Carole Yazzie and Mary Lou Yazzie. Casaus began her professional career as an English teacher, teaching second language learners how to speak English. For the last 10 years she has taught Navajo language to teachers. Before that she volunteered her time at Swinburne Elementary. ?When my kids started at Swinburne I was a home room mother, making cookies and Koolaid. In the afternoons I volunteered time to work with kids. I?d hear that the language of Navajo kids was not up to par. I decided I would see how I could help. I was going to teach them English,? she said. Over the years she realized that learning Navajo was the way to get the children to learn correct English. ?When kids know both languages they realize the importance of the sound and importance of correct English,? she said. ?If they know two languages, they have something to compare to. The two vocabularies can be compared and they are able to draw from both.? She pointed out that Navajo is written in English phonetics. It takes some children who have had no experience with Navajo a while to get their tongues moving and to begin to verbalize Navajo, she said. Then she and Carole Yazzie and Mary Lou Yazzie begin to introduce them to the high tones and low tones and to mix them up. ?In English, for example, mom is a nasal tone; bank and sky are falling tones, high is a high tone. Once they hear that and get the idea of high and low tones, the speaking and reading will come quickly for them,? Casaus said. Casaus wants to make the lessons meaningful to the children in the area and uses animals and structures they see. Some lessons involve teaching through the use of a plastic diorama of a farm scene with animals and corral fences. It?s used for teaching post positions, prepositions, such as over, under, beside, near, and by. Through the diorama children also learn nouns, placement of objects, handling verbs and names of domestic animals. Colors and numbers are integrated for review. At another time Casaus brings out her back of tricks ? a white flour sack, emptied of flour, now filled with an assortment of stuffed and plastic animals and objects. She pulls these from it, asking the children to name the object in Navajo and say it?s color. She asks questions of them and waits for their responses. ?If you can do hands-on, it sticks. Abstract doesn?t work,? she said. The hour-long after-school class is at the point now where it?s taught almost totally in Navajo. ?The kids are smart. If you?re going to do English translations between the Navajo, the kids are going to wait for the translations,? she said. The work on the lesson plans will continue this summer for upper grades and staff will be trained on how to use it. ?Each level will progress with more detail and more complex thinking,? she said. Carol Cohea: carolc at daily-times.com From mward at LUNA.CC.NM.US Mon Feb 2 18:23:14 2004 From: mward at LUNA.CC.NM.US (Matthew Ward) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 11:23:14 -0700 Subject: Regional languages dying in mixed marriages (fwd) Message-ID: If Native American societies had been allowed to develop as independent states, then you would probably see this kind of thing happening on a widespread scale: language shift occuring in the direction of more powerful indigenous languages, rather than in the direction of colonial languages. You would still see endangered minority languages, but you would also have powerful, thriving indigenous languages, as India has. The sad thing is that in the American continents, four colonial languages (Spanish, English, Portuguese and French) are official or de-facto official in every state, and very few countries have given either official recognition or widespread official use to indigenous languages, which has put the latter in a precarious position. I personally believe that making indigenous languages the de facto state languages of various reservations or regions would be one of the most effective ways to fight back. Some of the Alaskan languages, for example, are relatively healthy, due to their widespread use in local government and education. It is easier to maintain a language when using that language is required in order to participate in a variety of spheres within a given society. To take the article we read about Easter Island for an example, if Spanish-speaking newcomers to Easter Island had to learn the local language in order to navigate local government and education, they would be more likely to learn that language, and the locals would have a concrete, practical reason for passing the language on to their children. I have read about Spanish-speaking migrants to Basque country in Spain who have complained bitterly about having to learn Basque, but, in my view, the Basques are simply doing what they need to do in order to maintain their culture. European minority languages like Catatlan and Basque remain healthy because their speakers have won political battles which have enabled them to restore their languages' official status and use. Hopefully, indigenous people in America (meaning, the American continents) will be able to win similar battles. phil cash cash wrote: > the situation described by the article was quite interesting. in the > southern Columbia Plateau region (OR, WA, ID), an undocumented > language isolate--Cayuse--shifted to Nez Perce in the 18th century and > the last vestiges of the language shift was complete by 1930 with its > last speakers. this language shift event is unique because it is not a > contemporary one like we now know, it is entirely an indigenous > language shift. apparently, the Cayuse and Nez Perce allied themselves > through intermarriage, political, and economic means. but more than > anything, it is likely the intermarriage that facilitated the language > shift. > > phil cash cash (cayuse/nez perce) > UofA, ILAT > > > On Jan 29, 2004, at 4:11 PM, Matthew Ward wrote: > >> It's my understanding that there is indeed language shift going on in >> India, but it is mostly in the direction of Hindi or other major state >> languages. Hindi is now estimated by some to be the native language of >> fully one-third of the population, which means, with the population of >> India having recently passed one billion, that the number of Hindi >> native speakers in the world population (let alone in India) may have >> already caught up with that of English. In fact, in the next century >> Hindi is widely forecasted to pass both English and Spanish to become >> the world's second largest native tongue, second only to Mandarin >> Chinese. >> >> As for language shift to English, it probably does occur to a certain >> degree when you are dealing with people like those described in the >> article: children of members of the small upper-class elite, who are >> are products of mixed marriages, and whose parents both speak minority >> languages and are likely to be fluent in English. But, for the large >> majority of Indians who are not members of this elite, mixed marriages >> are far more likely to favor dominant indigenous languages like Hindi. >> At any rates, even liberal estimates put the native-English speaking >> population of India at a tiny fraction. >> >> A personal observation: for some reason, there are a number of Indian >> students in Las Vegas, New Mexico, where I am living, and although they >> come from a variety of Indian states and speak a variety of Indian >> languages, they use Hindi as their lingua franca, although they are >> living in an English-speaking country and studying in English. Were two >> such people to marry, it seems clear that their children would be >> hearing mostly Hindi at home. >> >> There is also quite a large anti-English movement in India, and there >> have been a growing number of states which have eliminated English as >> one of their official languages in recent years. This is, in my mind, a >> positive development, but I have also read articles that argue that the >> focus on containing the national role of English sometimes obscures a >> more pressing issue: the widespread loss of minority languages to more >> dominant Indian languages. In the more populated north, especially, >> where most languages are related to Hindi, the spread of Hindi as the >> national languages has met with little resistance, as it is not seen as >> an alien language. Consequently, it puts minority languages at a great >> deal of risk. In the south, where people speak completely unrelated >> languages, there is more resistance to Hindi, which has allowed English >> to remain a lingua franca to a greater degree, arguably a negative >> development, but it also reduces the likehood that local languages will >> be replaced by Hindi. Certainly, it is a very good thing indeed that >> India has chosen for their national language an indigenous language over >> a colonial language, and I agree that they should continue to expand the >> role of Hindi at the expense of English, but it does necessarily make >> the position of minority languages any more secure. >> For an extreme example of this kind of thing, I think of France, which >> speaks one of the most dominant languages in the world. All of the >> French paranoia about English loan words (which have about as much >> potential of "harming" French as tens of thousands of French loan-words >> have "harmed" English) have obscured the reality that French-only >> policies, some of the most conservative in any modern democracy, have >> put traditional languages like Breton in great danger. >> >> I think that the world in general, and not only the people who live in >> the major English-speaking countries, have a good reason to be wary of >> the English language, but it is not good to let that wariness draw >> attention away from the reality that most of the endangered minority >> languages in the world are not being replaced by English. >> >> Don Osborn wrote: >> >>> It would seem in principle that the same techniques used by >>> international >>> bilingual couples to impart the languages of both to their children >>> could be >>> used by interethnic couples within a country to do the same. The >>> situation >>> described in the article is probably widespread in multilingual >>> societies. >>> In West Africa my impression is that there is not a systematic >>> approach to >>> teaching languages to the very young before school (rather laissez >>> faire, >>> with kids picking up language from family, neighbors, friends), >>> except in >>> isolated(?) cases where parents may insist on speaking French or >>> English >>> only at home in the belief this will somehow help their children. So in >>> linguistically mixed marriages it's catch as catch can for the kids' >>> language education, especially in the cities. >>> >>> Don Osborn >>> Bisharat.net >>> >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>> From: "Phil Cash-Cash" >>> To: >>> Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 6:27 PM >>> Subject: Regional languages dying in mixed marriages (fwd) >>> >>> >>> Regional languages dying in mixed marriages >>> SANDHYA IYER >>> >>> The Times of India >>> TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2004 05:55:13 AM ] >>> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/438291.cms >>> >>> When two mothertongues meet, the result is a third language. In the >>> bargain, both the regional languages are forgotten. >>> >>> Sociologists are calling it a linguistic cultural quandary, that may >>> not >>> be ideal for those keen on a sense of identity and rootedness. But >>> there seems to be little room for mother-tongues in today s global >>> village. >>> >>> Mixed marriages are breeding children who speak neither the >>> mother-tongue of the dad or the local lingo of their mom s hometown. >>> >>> Says event manager, Namita Shibad, who has two children aged 15 and 10, >>> "My father was from Mangalore and my mother from Punjab . So they >>> mostly stuck to speaking English,which is why I couldn t even gather a >>> smattering of either languages. There is a regret, in the sense that >>> there is no native element to look up to. At the same time, it isn t >>> so bad to shed regionality and adopt a very global approach towards >>> life," she reasons. >>> >>> Sociologist Sujata Patel, however, warns, "The urban upper-class >>> populace faces this threat most of all. It is very important for >>> children to know a regional language. >>> >>> Primarily, because a mothertongue brings along with it an entire >>> cultural ethos. Any kind of diversity and richness only comes when a >>> regional language is encouraged. >>> >>> To be able to attain a certain level of stability, it is important that >>> a special effort is made towards retaining a regional essence," she >>> opines. >>> >>> That essence is a fast disappearing flavour with each passing >>> generation >>> in families where the parents are from different regions. >>> >>> Jyotsna and Vighnesh Shahane are another couple who admit that their >>> five-year-old son Ishaan cannot speak either Marathi or Kannada. >>> >>> "There s little we can do about it. My husband is constantly >>> travelling, >>> so he gets very little time with Ishaan. >>> >>> I m am not too good with my Kannada, so I prefer sticking to English. >>> The only time my son really listens to Marathi is when his grandparents >>> come over," says Jyotsna. >>> >>> Many parents feel that the challenge is greater when there is no >>> support >>> system, in terms of extended family or grand-parents. >>> >>> Ashish and Shweta Khandelwal, are very keen that their kids speak both >>> mothertongues. Says Ashish, "My elder daughter Vanshika can speak >>> Marwari quite well. >>> >>> But it took some effort. My wife Shweta is from the North and doesn t >>> speak Marwari at all. So it was primarily left to me to teach her the >>> language. >>> >>>> From the beginning, I was very clear that I didn t want her talking >>>> only >>> >>> in English. That attitude will make regional languages completely fade >>> away," he warns. >>> >>> >>> >> > From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Wed Feb 4 00:40:01 2004 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 16:40:01 -0800 Subject: More Rapa Nui Info Message-ID: 02/02/2004 - EASTER ISLAND ASSOCIATED PRESS Evelyn Hucke wants her son to speak in the language of the king who settled this remote island more than a millennium ago, the same Polynesian tongue spoken by the people who carved the totemic statues that rise above the powder-blue waters of the South Pacific. Hucke, 30, grew up speaking that language, known as Rapa Nui. But as she walks the streets of Hanga Roa, Easter Island's only town, she hears the Polynesian-faced children chattering and arguing in Spanish, the language of the island's current rulers, the Chileans. Every day is a linguistic battle for Hucke as she fights the cartoons beamed in from South America, the Spanish repartee at the grocery store and in the island's only schoolyard. "Ko ai a Hotu Matu'a?" she asks her 7-year-old. Obediently, he answers in the same language: "He was the first king who came here." Often called the loneliest place on Earth, Easter Island is now caught up in the swirling changes of globalization and is on the front line of a broader effort to preserve the world's endangered languages. Every year, more languages pass into extinction. In the Chilean archipelago north of the Strait of Magellan, the last dozen or so speakers of the Kawesqar Indian language are aged. Inevitably, Kawesqar will join Kunza and Selknam on the list of Chile's dead languages. Only an end to "Chileanization," local leaders here say, can rescue Rapa Nui -- the term applies to the language, the 2,000 people who speak it and the island itself. Rapa Nui leaders want political autonomy from Chile or independence so they can control the migration of Spanish-speaking "Continentals" to the island. Saving Rapa Nui has become an obsession for a handful of people here, including a pair of California linguists who've spent nearly three decades helping create a Rapa Nui literature, and a former medical worker who became a schoolteacher and launched the island's first Rapa Nui "immersion" program. "You realize something of your people is being lost, the spirit of our people," says Virginia Haoa, who runs the immersion classes for students from kindergarten through fourth grade. For Haoa and others, saving Rapa Nui means saving Easter Island's uniqueness -- "our culture, our cosmology, our way of being," Haoa says. If Rapa Nui dies, so will a living connection to ancestors who built an exotic, mysterious civilization on an island just a few miles wide in a vast, otherwise empty stretch of the Pacific, 2,300 miles from the South American mainland. For now, there are still Easter Islanders who can tell you, in Rapa Nui, stories that have been passed down for generations about Hotu Matu'a, who, around A.D. 400, arrived with seven explorers from the land called Hiva to settle this place. You can still talk to people whose grandfathers were part of the Birdman cult that raised one of the last of the island's 800 famed, imposing "moai" statues. It was later shipped off to the British Museum in London. "What we've kept alive (of our culture) has been entirely on our own initiative," says Alfonso Rapu, 61, who in the 1960s led one of the most important protests against Chilean rule, escaping an arrest warrant by hiding in the island's caves. Intermarriage with Chilean Continentals, he says, might soon do away with many of the 39 surnames associated with the island's tribes. Chile has ruled the island since one of its admirals arrived here in 1888, signing a treaty with its last king, who residents believe was later poisoned in the Chilean city of Valparaiso. Until recently, geographic isolation kept alive the Rapa Nui language -- a rhythmic tongue with few hard consonants -- despite the small number of people speaking it. But these days, the peak of tourist season brings four flights weekly from Santiago, Chile's capital. Taxi drivers who've relocated from Santiago cruise up and down Atamu Tekena Avenue in Hanga Roa, in search of fares. "Word has gotten out in Chile that you can make dollars easy on Easter Island," explains Hucke, a member of the self-appointed "Rapa Nui parliament," which is pushing to have the island's status placed on the agenda of a United Nations committee on colonization. "They come to try their luck. They aren't interested when we tell them our culture is being destroyed." Chileans are currently as free to come to Easter Island as Americans are to move to Hawaii. "The Constitution of Chile is killing my culture and my identity," says Petero Edmunds, the mayor of Hanga Roa and the island's only popularly elected official. "We are a millenarian culture that existed long before Chile did. And the only way to protect that culture is by regulating migration." Edmunds and other leaders head to Santiago several times a year to negotiate autonomy with the authorities. Islanders hope to eventually achieve a status similar to their oceanic neighbors in French Polynesia, which was granted self-rule in 1984. "We are Polynesians," says activist Mario Tuki Hey, expressing an opinion shared by most anthropologists. "It's only an accident that makes us part of Chile." There is a growing consensus on the mainland that Easter Island deserves a different status from other isolated corners of the Chilean state. "There is unanimity in the idea that certain places, like an island located in the middle of the Pacific, should receive special treatment," said Sen. Jaime Orpis, a member of the conservative Independent Democratic Union who was part of a Chilean Senate commission that visited the island in September. "They should have autonomy." Sen. Carlos Ominami of the Socialist Party said such a status would probably be based on that of the Galapagos Islands, which are allowed to control migration from Ecuador and charge a visitors' fee to raise money for development. The Easter Island negotiations have dragged on for at least a year. For the time being, the island remains simply another administrative subdivision of the city of Valparaiso, Chile's main Pacific port. "We are as far from Valparaiso as Los Angeles is from Miami," Edmunds says. "It does not make sense that I have to call Valparaiso to get the money to fill a pothole or to have a Chilean bureaucrat tell me in what language I should educate my children." In fact, the island's school established its Rapa Nui immersion program four years ago in defiance of Chile's education laws, which mandate instruction primarily in Spanish. The educators and linguists behind the program say Rapa Nui was in such desperate straits, they couldn't afford to wait any longer. "For anyone under 25, Rapa Nui is not their primary language," says Nancy Weber, a linguist who has worked on the island with her husband, Robert, since the mid-1970s. Back then, things were different. "When we came, probably the greatest percentage of Rapa Nui children spoke Rapa Nui as their primary language," she says. Television arrived on Easter Island about the same time the Webers did. In those days, the linguists had great fun listening to the island's schoolchildren talk -- in Rapa Nui -- about the strange and exotic happenings on shows such as "Daniel Boone." The beaver-capped explorers and tomahawk-wielding Indians on the series were speaking dubbed Spanish, and the children weren't entirely sure what they were saying or doing. "None of them agreed with each other about what they had seen on TV the night before," Robert says. "And none of their stories seemed to match the `Daniel Boone' I had seen." At the same time, the Webers set out to create Rapa Nui texts, inviting local residents to writing workshops and publishing mimeographed anthologies of poetry and family narratives. If Rapa Nui was to be taught in school, they felt, it needed a literature -- writing that reflected its cultural reality. "People were moved to tears when they produced their first books," Nancy recalls. Rapa Nui, it seemed, was on the rebound. But as time passed, Rapa Nui began to slip behind Spanish, especially after Chilean TV expanded to a daylong schedule. By 1997, a sociolinguistic survey of the school found that no exclusive Rapa Nui speakers were left and that only a handful of students were "coordinate bilingual," or equally fluent in Spanish and Rapa Nui. The Chileans are only the most recent in a long line of Europeans and South Americans to control the island. For centuries, colonialists and slavers decimated the population. The small group of elders who could read Easter Island's rongo rongo writing system -- preserved in 28 carved wooden tablets -- all died as slaves in 19th century Peru. By the time the Chileans arrived, the Rapa Nui people numbered fewer than 200. In the 20th century, Chile ruled the island with a mixture of paternalism and benign neglect. Older residents remember an island without electricity or running water, run by Chilean naval officers "as if the island were a ship and we were all sailors." Chilean educators encouraged the parents of Easter Island's "best and brightest" to send their children to mainland boarding schools. Haoa, the Rapa Nui teacher, was sent off to Chile when she was 9. She suffered an unbearable loneliness for months on end, rarely hearing a word of her native language. "The nuns told my parents I was too smart, that it would be a waste to let me stay on the island," she says. As an adult with a Chilean university degree, she returned to the island to work at the local clinic -- until the day her oldest daughter started kindergarten at Easter Island's elementary school. "I had always spoken to her in Rapa Nui because I knew when she grew up there would be pressure to speak in Spanish," Haoa remembers. After that first day of kindergarten, Haoa discovered that Rapa Nui was being treated "like an alien language" in her daughter's class, which was conducted entirely in Spanish. Soon Haoa was volunteering to organize Rapa Nui workshops at the school. Eventually, she became a full-time teacher there. "It was urgent that we have our children speaking our language," she says. Related Links http://www.alphabets-world.com/rapanui.html http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=PBA From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 4 16:08:51 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 09:08:51 -0700 Subject: Broadband Internet services expected for most Washington state reservations (fwd) Message-ID: Broadband Internet services expected for most Washington state reservations Posted: February 02, 2004 - 2:53pm EST by: James May / Indian Country Today SEATTLE - There is a common half-serious joke making its way around Indian country that says American Indians invented wireless technology with smoke signals. Though smoke signals were more common on the clear and open plains than the rainy and varied landscape of the Pacific Northwest, modern technology has found a way to compensate. A partnership between tribal organizations and business is bringing broadband Internet service to rural Washington state tribes. Around the middle of February, 20 families on the Sauk-Suiattle reservation, located about 80 miles through difficult terrain northeast of Seattle, will receive high-powered computers as the first step toward having a broadband Internet service. A broadband service is a wireless Internet connection that emanates from a transmitting source like radio or television. The tribe will also have the ability to be an Internet Service Provider to not just tribal members but others in the surrounding rural community. The project is a joint plan by Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians Economic Development Corporation (ATNI-EDC) and Verizon Avenue, formerly a small time local carrier or "ma bell" that was bought by the larger cell phone company. ATNI-EDC is a non-profit organization representing 54 Pacific Northwest tribes. "We hope this project will act as a model for other major telecom corporations, who have overlooked bringing new technology and expanded service to rural areas," said ATNI-EDC President Dave Tovey in a press release. Also contributing to the plan were separate foundations set up by Microsoft pioneers Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who contributed grant funding for the feasibility studies on Washington state reservations. Sometimes compared to the 1930s Rural Electrification Act, this project stems from a provision in the 1996 Telecommunications Act that asked that federal subsidies to be given to telecommunications companies that would provide services to rural areas. This has proven to be especially valuable for tribes as most are located in rural areas. The Sauk-Suiattle tribe is the first of several tribes that is due for a telecommunications make over. Already plans are under way to provide similar broadband service for the Lummi, Makah and Lower Elwah tribes in addition to several others. ? Over the next few years, all 29 of Washington state?s tribes are supposed to at least have broadband projects on the drawing board. Elstun Lauesen, ATNI-EDC technology director, said both his organization and Verizon Avenue are following a strict protocol. Tribal councils of the prospective tribes are consulted before the plan is laid out and both the tribal government and tribal members are being consulted before both allowing the project to proceed and designing a network that works best for both individual tribal members and the tribal government. "This is a locally-driven project," said Lawrence Spotted Bird who runs a tribal technology consulting firm that is working on the project. "We don?t come in with an established vision." Spotted Bird noted how quickly the Sauk-Suiattle project came together. It was only last November that the feasibility study was done and the project has a tentative Feb. 10 start date. Sources close to the project say that Verizon Avenue became involved in the project largely because 90 percent of the metropolitan market is already sewn up by the telecommunications giant. Verizon Avenue apparently still has retained its old "ma bell" staff who are described by one source as "a lot of younger people who wanted to capitalize on the open rural markets." Verizon Avenue realized that the rural market was the best way to expand business and the 1996 Act helped put the federal funding in place to make this a reality. Opening service on the reservations allows the company a foothold in rural areas of Washington state and reservations will serve as de facto field posts for Verizon Avenue as Internet Service Providers. The subsidies allow Verizon Avenue to provide a lower cost installation and thus lower costs on the tribal members who are expected to pay only $10 to $12 a month for Internet service. Unlike analog telephone service the broadband, coupled with a high-speed digital connection does not price its service according to time. Since the tribes will also have the option of being their own Internet Service Provider with the ability to sell low cost service this adds an additional form of revenue for the project. Though, as in the case of the Sauk-Suiattle reservation, it will be necessary in many instances to install additional land-based lines to service the area which can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars, Verizon Avenue is expected to recoup their costs within three to five years. A similar, though unrelated project was done a few years ago on the Suquamish reservation close to Seattle. Bob Gemmell, a Suquamish tribal member who worked on that project said it was easier for them to do their project because of the nearness of an existing fiber cable. Suquamish, located immediately across the Puget Sound from Seattle, benefited from its proximity to that city and thus eliminated the difficulty of having to install a new line, a luxury many of the state?s more remote tribes do not have. In fact, ATNI-EDC Technology Director Lauesen said that many of the tribes in Washington state are reliant on antiquated phone lines. "Some of those phone lines have become so degraded that (only a low speed connection) could be made. Now the tribes will have the fastest and most modern connections." This article can be found at http://IndianCountry.com/?1075751806 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 4 16:14:10 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 09:14:10 -0700 Subject: What people call things around them (fwd) Message-ID: What people call things around them John Craig - Staff writer http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=020304&ID=s1482520&cat=section.Tribal_news [subscription] While Kalispel tribal leaders try to preserve their language by teaching young people, tribal natural resources director Deane Osterman is generating public interest one fish at a time. Osterman, who is not Native American, has been studying the Interior Salish languages in this region for 15 years as a means of understanding the relationship between culture and biology. "The best way to do that is through language," according to Osterman, who recently lectured on the Kalispel language in Newport, Wash. What people call the things around them says a lot about the importance they attach to those things, Osterman said. Fish must be important to people who have names even for sculpin so scrawny you'd need a half-dozen to make a sandwich. "They knew this resource like the back of their hand," Osterman said. "There's a lot of specificity in their fish nomenclature." For example, he said there are three names for varieties of sculpin, all referring in some way to the barbels, or whiskers, on their upper lips. To begin to appreciate the names, one must understand that Salish words -- both nouns and verbs -- are formed by tacking prefixes and suffixes onto descriptive roots, Osterman said. Plurals are formed by doubling the root. Thus, a "hairy-mouthed" fish has "upup" (pronounced oop-oop), or more than one hair, as part of its name. It is remarkable how similar the Kalispel fish classification system is to modern scientific designations, Osterman said. Kalispel and other Salish names "all key in on how these animals look," he said. That kind of insight is why Newport-area resident John Stuart was among some 15 people who turned out for the WSU/Pend Oreille Cooperative Extension program last week at the CREATE arts center in Newport. Stuart is active in a conservation group and hoped to learn shades of meaning from Kalispel animal and plant names. His adult son, Tighe Stuart, shared that motive as well as an interest in linguistics, having visited some Latin American countries after studying Spanish in high school. Tighe Stuart said one of his friends is an avid linguist, and "knowing someone else is excited about it makes you wonder what's there." Cathy Stolarik, manager of a Newport title insurance office, said she has always been fascinated by languages and attended Osterman's lecture as a way "to further humble me." She was humbled when Osterman discussed the sounds used in the Kalispel language and the parts of the mouth used to produce them. "What do you do with that thing in the back of your mouth?" Stolarik asked. "Oh, that sound," she said, prompting laughter, when Osterman attempted to demonstrate a sound that doesn't come naturally to non-native speakers. Osterman knows all the international phonetic symbols used to represent Kalispel and other American Indian languages and recognizes the sounds when he hears them. But some of the sounds in the "consonant-rich" language just won't come out of his mouth, he said. Sue Finley has the opposite problem. She's one of only 10 or so tribal members who still speak Kalispel, but some of the symbols used to write the language still elude her. "Just to sit down and write a letter in Indian, I couldn't do that," Finley said in an interview from the tribe's cultural office. Despite the difficulty, she translated eight children's books last year as part of the tribe's effort to teach its language to schoolchildren during summer breaks. Pronouncing the words seems "pretty simple" to Finley, who didn't learn English until she started grade school at the Indian Day School on the reservation across the Pend Oreille River from Cusick, Wash. But, she acknowledges, "a lot of people tell me it's hard." To help beginners learn some of the unfamiliar sounds, Finley resorts to instructions such as, "Make the sound like you're going to cough or you're clearing your throat or something like that." Osterman's instruction began with a year of classes from Spokane tribal elder Pauline Flett at Eastern Washington University, where he earned a master's degree combining anthropology, biology and linguistics in 1994. The Spokanes have an "R" sound that the Kalispels don't have and they pronounce some words differently, but native speakers of both tribes as well as the Montana Flatheads can communicate easily. Those tribes speak dialects of the same language, according to Raymond Brinkman, director of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe's language program. Brinkman wasn't surprised that Finley sometimes can and sometimes can't understand native speakers from the Coeur d'Alene Tribe. The Coeur d'Alenes have a separate Salish language, as distinct from Kalispel as Portuguese is from Spanish, he said. Since the 19th century, the Coeur d'Alenes and other tribes throughout the region have used Kalispel as a lingua franca, or trade language, when they want to be more widely understood, Brinkman said. Still, all the Salish languages in the Inland Northwest have much in common. That's why Rathdrum, Idaho, resident Laura Hunter felt at home when Osterman listed the four words Kalispels use for grandparents -- words that mean mother's mother, mother's father, father's mother and father's father. Hunter is a member of the Colville Confederated Tribes, and the Arrow Lakes Band words her father taught her were essentially the same. She said she is interested in learning more of her tribal language. Hunter's 14-year-old son, Zach, said he didn't get much from Osterman's lecture. He may have wished he had. "We home-school," Laura Hunter said. "There might be a little quiz tomorrow." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Feb 5 18:09:18 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 11:09:18 -0700 Subject: Native Americans focus on preservation of language (fwd) Message-ID: Native Americans focus on preservation of language By Walter Rubel/Santa Fe Bureau Chief Feb 4, 2004, 04:25 pm http://www.daily-times.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=276&num=8315 SANTA FE ? Christine Sims of Acoma Pueblo and Lt. Gov. Diane Denish were both honored Tuesday for their work with American Indian children during a Senate committee hearing held as part of Native American Day at the Legislature. Sims was honored for her work in preserving native languages. ?The Indian nation is not going to survive if we don?t have our language and culture,? said Carlotta Penny Bird, assistant secretary for Indian Education, in introducing Sims. Sims said that of the 300 to 400 native languages once in existence, only about 175 remain, and only about 20 or 30 of those are still being taught to children. ?I hope we have the support of the Legislature, tribal leaders and people in the community to ensure a new generation of speakers of these languages,? Sims said. ?These languages cannot go on without producing speakers in our communities. We can?t replenish the supply without teaching within our communities. We have to generate new generations of speakers.? Sims said they are still dealing with the legacy of their elders being told they could no longer speak their native languages. ?We?re hoping to reverse that, but it takes a long time,? she said. Denish was honored for her work in heading the new Mexico Children?s Cabinet, which is working to deal with several issues involving children. She said the committee has talked with Native and non-Native residents throughout the state. ?What we found was, for the most part, we share common problems and we share common dreams for our state,? she said. Leaders from the Navajo, Zuni and Mescalero Apache nations each addressed the Legislature. Frank Dayish, Jr., vice president of the Navajo Nation, said the Navajo were working to stimulate their economy in three areas ? agriculture, mining and manufacturing. ?Today we don?t have a lot of manufacturing in our area, but we want to explore those opportunities,? he said. He said that health care was a major concern for the nation, and urged the Legislature not to make cuts in the Medicaid program that have been suggested by Gov. Bill Richardson. ?I?d like to appeal to the Legislature to help us and to not limit the resources in that area,? Dayish said. Walter Rubel: wrubel at lcsun-news.com. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Feb 5 18:29:13 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 11:29:13 -0700 Subject: Second picture dictionary aims to save Indigenous language (fwd) Message-ID: [This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/central/news/200402/s1038240.htm] Second picture dictionary aims to save Indigenous language Thursday, 5 February 2004 A project to address poor literacy levels in Aboriginal communities will be launched in Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory today. The Kaytete Picture Dictionary is the second of a series of dictionaries being developed for central Australian communities. The Institute of Aboriginal Development project will be used as a learning resource in the Neutral Junction school, Barrow Creek, Tara and Stirling. The institute's Josie Douglas says the picture dictionary aims to encourage more people to speak Kaytetye. "There are only a few hundred speakers of the Kaytetye language and by any definition that number ... means that this language is considered to be endangered and I suppose that all languages in central Australia ... there's a great need for language maintenance," she said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 6 16:24:11 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 09:24:11 -0700 Subject: Maori 'leader' in native tongue development (fwd) Message-ID: Maori 'leader' in native tongue development http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2807481a7694,00.html SATURDAY , 07 FEBRUARY 2004 Maori lead the world in indigenous language development, a visiting Native American academic says. Rocky Mountain College American Indian Affairs vice-president Janine Pease was one of 30 indigenous people from 11 North American and Canadian Indian nations visiting celebrations to mark the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi at Hamilton's Innes Common yesterday. The group is visiting Maori language schools to help develop total immersion programmes for their people. "What is going on here is revolutionary, with Maori language immersion from infancy to doctorate level. "Maori are world leaders in indigenous educational rights," she said. "American Indians are at square one; on a scale of one to 10 Maori are a 10." Ms Pease said her people in the late 1800s signed the Laramie Treaty, which was equivalent to the Treaty of Waitangi. She said the Crow experienced a similar erosion of rights to Maori since that treaty was signed. That decline has seen the original reservation size shrink from 15,000 sq km to 3000 sq km today. "We have seen our rights diminish based on trials and the court." She said there was not a state celebration of the treaty signing but her people gathered each year to celebrate the event. There, 10,000 people stay in 1600 teepees and dance, race horses and feast. British Columbia Carrier tribe representative Murphy Patrick said there was no national treaty signing celebration in Canada either. It was good to see Maori fighting for sovereignty and cultural rights. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 6 16:32:34 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 09:32:34 -0700 Subject: New program seeks to revitalize aboriginal languages (fwd) Message-ID: New program seeks to revitalize aboriginal languages http://communications.uvic.ca/ring/04feb04/features/aborginal-language.html by Patty Pitts As a child attending the Duncan Indian School, Hul'qumi'num linguistic consultant Ruby Peter would sit on the swings and secretly spin tales. "I used to tell the younger kids Indian stories in my language. But we had to keep a look out for the teachers. If they caught me speaking Indian, I'd be punished." Peter no longer has to hide her pride in her language and, thanks to a new Community University Research Alliance (CURA) partnership with UVic, she'll join other members of the Hul'qumi'num Treaty Group (representing six communities), the First People's Cultural Foundation (FPCF), the First Peoples' Heritage language and Culture Council and the Saanich Native Heritage Society (representing seven communities) in studying and revitalizing their native languages. The five-year, $901,720 CURA grant, funded through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, will link UVic researchers with First Nations community members and elders. Together, they'll create new programs, evaluate current ones and set up systems to keep the revitalized languages thriving in the future. "This CURA responds to a passionate need and desire on behalf of the communities to help their languages live again," says linguist Dr. Ewa Czaykowska-Higgins, the project's lead researcher. "The researchers will be directed by the communities. The CURA will assess the community needs and determine how all the partners can best work together." All the First Nations partners have various projects underway. Collaborating with UVic linguists and others, the Hul'qumi'num have developed a dictionary and a written system for their oral language. The Saanich Native Heritage Society, with assistance from the FPCF, is ready to have the Saanich language, SEN?O?EN, available online as part of the Foundation's First Voices project. The researchers and partners will use the CURA to co-ordinate existing community projects and identify opportunities for new programs. Some of the proposals being considered include language camps, language fairs and mentoring programs involving elders. "I'm looking forward to being able to work with UVic linguistic experts along with our own SEN?O?EN experts to be able to complete some of the work we started here on the grammar of SEN?O?EN," says John Elliott, a teacher at the Saanich Tribal School and chairman of the Saanich Native Heritage Society. In addition to making the Saanich language available online, the society is developing a dictionary and refining a curriculum guide. Some of the first children taught SEN?O?EN at the school are now young parents, teaching the language to their own youngsters. Hul'qumi'num elder and language teacher Florence James of the Penelakut Tribe hopes the project will expand opportunities to teach adults their own history in their own language. "Part of my work is to introduce the oral history, the way we learned when we were kids. This is what the students really enjoy. Most don't learn their history in the traditional way and then the chance to pass it along to their children is lost." Czaykowska-Higgins says the CURA project will revitalize more than words. "Language is tied to culture. You can't separate the two. When a language thrives, so does the culture." From CRANEM at MAIL.ECU.EDU Fri Feb 6 18:23:50 2004 From: CRANEM at MAIL.ECU.EDU (Bizzaro, Resa Crane) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 13:23:50 -0500 Subject: Predoctoral fellowship Message-ID: Hi, everyone. The message below came to me from another list. Please share this info with anyone who might be eligible. Resa The Graduate School & the American Indian Studies Program of Michigan State University invite applications for the 2004-2005 Pre-Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship Award in American Indian Studies. The fellowship award provides office space, access to Michigan State University's outstanding library and computing facilities and to the faculty involved in the American Indian Studies Program, benefits for the year, and a considerable stipend. Applicants must be finished with all doctoral work but the dissertation, actively working in American Indian Studies, and committed to a career in Native Studies. It is fully expected that the Fellow will complete the dissertation during the award year. Applicants may be pursuing the Ph.D. degree in any discipline or area offered at Michigan State University. (More information about the university's offerings is available at the university website, http://www.msu.edu .) The successful applicant will be required to teach one course each semester in either the College of Arts and Letters or the College of Social Science and will affiliate him/herself with a department or program in one of the university's colleges. The Fellow must reside in East Lansing, Michigan, for the duration of the fellowship. Michigan State University is very interested in bringing in American Indian Studies scholars who are serious about teaching, researching, and publishing. Application Deadline: April 15, 2004 Award Period: MSU Fiscal Year - July 1, 2004-June 30, 2005 MSU is an affirmative-action, equal-opportunity institution. Persons with disabilities may request and receive reasonable accommodation. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Feb 7 16:25:24 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 09:25:24 -0700 Subject: Sacred dance essay prompts tribal banishment (fwd) Message-ID: Sacred dance essay prompts tribal banishment TAOS PUEBLO, New Mexico (AP) --A college professor has been banned from a New Mexico Indian community after writing an essay about a sacred tribal dance that was published in a newspaper. The banishment means Tito Naranjo, 66, could be arrested if he enters Taos Pueblo, which has about 1,200 tribal members near the city of Taos, about 110 miles northeast of Albuquerque. Many tribes prohibit sacred dances from being recorded in stories or photographs because they believe doing so detracts from the ritual's spiritual significance. Naranjo, who lives in nearby Mora, said he was inspired by the "deer dance" and submitted a short essay to a newspaper writing contest. The essay, published December 21, took first place in the adult category and earned Naranjo $100. Leaders of Taos Pueblo accused Naranjo of using tribal religious activity "for self promotion by writing an essay of a sensitive activity for publication." Naranjo, a professor of Native American studies at the University of New Mexico at Taos, said the only way to preserve the tribe's oral traditions is to write them down and record the sounds of the dance. "Young tribal members are watching television instead of doing community work," he said. "CD-ROM will record the entire language of the elders and preserve precise intonations and authenticity of the language for future generations." The order banishing Naranjo says he "caused irreparable harm to the sensible nature of the religious activity through exploitation." Taos Pueblo Gov. John Mirabal declined to comment. Naranjo hopes the banishment will be lifted, but he acknowledges he considered the consequences before writing the essay. Naranjo is married to a Taos Pueblo woman whose father lives in the community. "I thought immediately, Taos Pueblo is going to disagree," he said. "Am I going to be a wimp, or am I going to write about this?" Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Find this article at: http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Southwest/02/06/tribal.banishment.ap From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 9 16:32:18 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 09:32:18 -0700 Subject: Students learn Blackfeet (fwd) Message-ID: Students learn Blackfeet CMR, GFH language curriculum opens 'window to another culture' http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/20040209/localnews/380816.html By PETER JOHNSON Tribune Staff Writer Tribune Photo by Stuart S. White [photo insert] Instructor Klane King writes a conversation during his Blackfeet language class at Great Falls High. Students in Klane King's Great Falls language classes enjoy reciting everyday phrases they've learned in Blackfeet and listen eagerly as their teacher tells them how Native American songs, games and dances came to be. It's a heady experience for King, who learned Blackfeet from his parents as a preschooler in southern Alberta, only to have boarding school teachers try to drum it out of him by whacking his wrists with a yardstick. "I almost forgot the basics of my native tongue," he said. But King had the last say. After college, he came home to the Blood Reserve, as reservations are known in Canada, and started a video production company that specialized in features about Blackfeet elders and legends. Teachers used many of those videos in classrooms of the reservation schools, which had reformed and stressed the importance of Blackfeet culture and language. Since mid-January King has been teaching an introductory Blackfeet class at both Great Falls and C.M. Russell high schools. It's the only Indian language class being taught at a nonreservation Montana high school. The Great Falls district offered a similar intro class to the Cree language three years ago. It was dropped after three semesters when enrollment tapered off. This semester, 23 GFH students and 11 CMR students are taking the class. There are 1,243 Indian students in the Great Falls public schools, about 11 percent of the total, said Assistant Superintendent Dick Kuntz, who was instrumental in starting and renewing the Indian language classes. The district has reduced its Native American dropout rate from a sky-high 80 percent to a state low 10 percent in the 30 years it has had an Indian Education Program featuring tutoring and home counseling, Kuntz said. But that's still about four times the dropout rate for the entire student body. "Any way you can help Native American kids identify with their culture, you've given them another incentive to stay in school," Kuntz said. "And if we get them coming to school every day, they'll do better in their other subjects, too." Great Falls High School Principal Fred Anderson said school officials hope to sustain interest this time by adding more advanced classes if enough students want to keep going. "I think it's an excellent class that will provide an opportunity for both Native American and other students to increase their cultural awareness," Anderson said. He was enthralled after hearing King describe the Blackfeet's original territory, which sprawled from present-day Edmonton to Yellowstone Park, between the Rockies and eastern Montana. "Window to another culture" "The Blackfeet language is a window to another culture," agreed Deanne Leader, director of the Indian Education Program. "Without the words, you can't understand a group's customs and beliefs." The new language class is not all that the district is doing. This year Great Falls sophomores are required to take a Montana civics class divided evenly between tribal government and nontribal government. Next fall high school students can take an optional class that gives an overview of the history and culture of Montana's 11 Indian tribes. "I'm glad to see them start teaching the language here," said Jewell Snell, 65, who with her husband, Frank, is raising four school-age grandchildren. "A lot of people my age never had the chance. The government sent us from the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana to a boarding school in Oregon where nobody spoke our language." "I learned a little bit of Blackfeet from my mother and aunts, but not a lot," said parent Mary Marceau, 37. "I think Indian kids should be able to learn their language and cultural background, but it's harder in an urban setting off the reservation." "I knew a few Blackfeet words, but am learning a lot more," said her son, GFH sophomore Ch? Marceau, 15. "It's easy the way Mr. King teaches with repetition and stories." "I've spent half my time growing up in Great Falls and half in Browning, so I learned a few basic words from my grandparents," said GFH junior Roger Cruz, 17. "I wanted to learn more about my culture, and the class is already helping. It's the class I most look forward to every day." "I grew up in Great Falls and didn't know any Blackfeet," said freshman Virginia Yazzie, 16. "I'm looking forward to going to a powwow some time and striking up a conversation in Blackfeet." GFH senior Joe Eagleman, 17, is a senior of Chippewa-Cree descent. "This (Blackfeet class) is learning about another Indian culture that is like mine in some ways but different," he said. "It can be hard starting from scratch with an unwritten language." One-quarter of the Blackfeet language students at both schools are non-Indian. Exchange student interested One is Hanneke Stubbe, 18, a Dutch exchange student at GFH. "I really like languages and in Europe we're required to take four," she said. "I want to become an anthropologist and this class is great, because I'm learning about a culture I knew nothing about." GFH senior Josh Werkheiser, 17, also is a language buff, and said it's not hard to learn a new language once you realize that internal English rules do not apply. "It's definitely been fun to start learning the Blackfeet language and culture," he said. King stressed that Blackfeet should be spoken "in a flat and low tone, with no musical lilts up and down." There are other differences between English and Blackfeet, too, he said. "In the United States and Canada people almost seem to panic when there is a lapse in conversation," he said. "In Blackfeet, it's common to pause every now and then, maybe take a swig of coffee, and let companions absorb what's been said." King also thinks the Blackfeet language has more specific nouns, with some words taking the place of whole sentences in English. For instance, the word "iniwa" means buffalo. When Blackfeet add a long, tongue-twisting suffix, the word signifies "the buffalo are rumbling toward you with their back, dew claws clicking." You can almost feel the dust and better scramble for cover. But King, 50, was at the tail end of the similar Canadian and U.S. government practices of sending Native American kids to boarding schools where they were directly or indirectly discouraged from using their own language. Starting at age 6, he spent weekdays at a boarding school across the reservation from his home. Teachers demanded that students speaking Blackfeet place their hands on the table and smacked their wrists. He said they drove the colorful language from his lips, and almost from his memory, but not from his heart. King attended college in Edmonton, picking up degrees in Canadian studies and Native communication, including broadcast and video production skills. But the instructors who spoke a Native language were Cree, he said. When he returned home he remembered how rich his native tongue and traditions were when he began making videos of tribal elders. King moved to Great Falls in 2000, where he has been a volunteer cameraman for the public access television channel and a disk jockey for KGPR, the public radio station. Offer to teach King jumped at the chance to teach Blackfeet when Kuntz approached him. He demonstrated he was fluent in the language to Blackfeet tribal officials, a requirement to get his education certificate from the state. King has several goals for his students. He wants to teach them enough conversational Blackfeet so they can walk up to tribal elders and politely chat. He also will teach them a few Blackfeet meditations, thanking the Creator and asking for blessings. Last week, King chanted his brief, eloquent personal song for the students, suggesting if they listen carefully they can catch a rhythm and make their own song to see them through adversity. "Mine is a really sweet and calming little ditty that came to me one time," he said, quipping: "And there's no copyright infringement worries to prevent me from singing it over and over." Johnson can be reached by e-mail at pejohnso at greatfal.gannett.com, or by phone at (406) 791-1476 or (800) 438-6600. Originally published Monday, February 9, 2004 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 9 16:37:19 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 09:37:19 -0700 Subject: Tribes work to restore `critically endangered' Lakota language (fwd) Message-ID: Tribes work to restore `critically endangered' Lakota language http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/7906913.htm Associated Press OGLALA, S.D. - The Lakota language, once spoken exclusively in most American Indian homes and communities on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, is no longer learned at a rate that keeps up with the death of fluent-speaking elders. "Nationally, it's critically endangered," said Wayne H. Evans, a professor in the school of education at the University of South Dakota. "The Lakota language status is critical to the point of being lost," added Stephanie Charging Eagle, graduate department director at Oglala Lakota College. At Loneman School on the reservation, students speak, think and learn almost entirely in English, a dramatic change from just a couple of decades ago, according to officials. "Twenty-six years ago, 90 percent of the student body were fluent speakers," said Leonard Little Finger, cultural resource educator at Loneman. "Today those statistics have flip- flopped." One reason for the decline is the language is no longer valued, said Deborah Bordeaux, principal at Loneman School. As an administrator, she works to achieve federal and educational standards of a Bureau of Indian Affairs school. But keeping and maintaining the Lakota language isn't one of those standards, she said. "We as a people need to validate that. We need to value the language to save it," she said. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization estimates 6,000 members of South Dakota's American Indian tribes are fluent speakers of Lakota. But because English is the language of education, business and government, interest in learning the Lakota language has dwindled, said Little Finger. At a recent Oglala Sioux Tribal Council meeting, council members debated agenda items, talked about financial reforms and agreed to sell its tribal farm and ranch - all while speaking entirely in English. "Only about half of the council speaks Lakota," said Lyman Red Cloud Sr., a council official who is bilingual. Even though an Oglala Sioux Tribal Council resolution states that the Lakota language is the official language of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, speaking Lakota at council meetings is the exception rather than the rule. "That's why we have difficulty with the council talking to the people in their districts," said Red Cloud. The older population is more comfortable speaking in their native language, and also have limited understanding of English, he said. Little Finger said his first language was Lakota, but education drew him off the reservation and eventually into a career that took him throughout the United States. "If you can't speak English, you're out," Little Finger said. "That's our struggle." Yet the loss of native language includes a loss of cultural history, and to lose the language is to lose understanding of a unique people, he said. The Lakota language encompasses not only culture but a spiritual belief system, said Charging Eagle. "Usually healers, spiritual leaders and specialized healers will acquire their power through a dream or vision," she said. Today, more of those healers are not speaking the language and it is not being passed down from healer to healer, Charging Eagle said. "We're losing our spiritual strength," she said. While fluent conversations in Lakota still take place at social gatherings, a revitalization of the language is needed in the areas of education, governmental affairs and business, said Charging Eagle. Evans said he was able to maintain fluency in Lakota even after his family moved off the reservation when he completed eighth grade. But he realizes that keeping up with Lakota has become increasingly difficult for young people. "There has to be a sustained environment; there has to be a need to use the language," he said. Computer games, books, movies, magazines, radio, music and TV saturate the lives of Lakota youth in English, he said. "From the time you get up and every time you turn around, you're bombarded by it," Evans said. Both the Pine Ridge and Cheyenne River Sioux reservations have started projects aimed at keeping Lakota alive. But time is running out for students to learn Lakota from native speakers, officials say. If any the language classes have produced fluent speakers, Evans isn't aware of them. "I don't see the results of that," he said. Information from: The Rapid City Journal From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 9 18:43:58 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 11:43:58 -0700 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?b?Tvz8bfw=?= Yadoha Language program seeks applications (fwd) Message-ID: Please forward this job description to any interested applicants. Call for Applicants for the Coordinator of Second Language Acquisition for the Owens Valley Paiute-Shoshone Reservation. The N??m? Yadoha Language program seeks applications for a full time position as Coordinator of Second Language Acquisition. Applicants must have a BA or BS in linguistics, education, anthropology or a related field with a documented emphasis in second language acquisition or language instruction. Applicants with an MA or PhD in one of the above fields of study or the equivalent number of years of practical experience are preferred. Candidates with experience or a specialization in early childhood development/language acquisition/instruction will be given special consideration. Additionally, candidates with experience in Native American education and/or languages will be given priority status. The annual salary for this position is $45,000 plus benefits. Applicants will be expected to perform the following tasks as Coordinator of Second Language Acquisition: (1) Provide instructors with training and strategies for language instruction, including methods for teaching students of different abilities and learning strategies; (2) Provide (or coordinate) monthly seminars and workshops on core elements of language instruction as well as weekly evaluation and one-on-one instruction with the language teachers (topics of particular concern are: creating effective lesson plans, evaluation methods and early childhood development and language acquisition); (3) Aid instructors in developing and coordinating a beginning-level curriculum for their language with a focus on a curriculum suitable for pre-K?1st grade (although assistance with curriculum for adult programs will be expected). Above all, it is essential that the applicant be able to creatively adapt his or her understanding of language instruction and acquisition to produce curricula and teaching methods that are specific to instructors? needs, specific to the language and culturally appropriate. The N??m? Yadoha Language program is a department of the Owens Valley Career Development center, located on the Bishop Paiute-Shoshone Reservation in Bishop, California. The N??m? Yadoha Language program is dedicated to preserving the various dialects of the Owens Valley Paiute language and teaching them in a community setting. There are currently ten instructors working on three dialects of Owens Valley Paiute. These instructors have access to the most current video and audio recording technology and have been trained to use it effectively. Applicants for this position must be able to coordinate planning and curriculum development for the N??m? Yadoha Language program. We seek a highly motivated individual to coordinate teacher training and curriculum development for this language revitalization and instruction program. The Owens Valley Career Development Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to programs designed to assist Native Americans in achieving their educational and career goals. Benefits include health/dental/life insurance, retirement, 13 paid holidays and generous paid vacation and sick leave. OVCDC offers competitive salaries, employee training and support for continuing education. OVCDC is an Equal Opportunity Employer within the confines of the Indian Preference Act. Log on to www.ovcdc.com or e-mail tallen at ovcdc.com to receive an application and a complete job description or call 1-800-924- 8091 ext.109. Application deadline is March 15, 2004. Sky Vasquez, OVCDC Recruiter P.O. Box 1467, Bishop, CA 93515 760-873-5107 ext.246 Fax: 760-873-8882 (svasquez at ovcdc.com) From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Feb 10 20:16:36 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 13:16:36 -0700 Subject: Students incorporating Navajo language into studies (fwd) Message-ID: Students incorporating Navajo language into studies Farmington school provides culture to education http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=3781 FARMINGTON NM Candice Adson 2/10/2004 Students at McKinley Elementary are spending an hour each afternoon submersing themselves in Navajo language, history and culture. This comes after the Farmington School District approved a bilingual language and culture guide in November. Bernice Casaus, and a team of co-developers developed the Dine Bilingual Language, Culture and History Curriculum Guide. The guide complies with Farmington Schools Education Plan for Student Success, state Department of Education standards and Benchmarks and the Navajo Nation Education Policy. The guide?s approval made Farmington the first school district in New Mexico to have an indigenous language guide that meets state standards. Recently, parents were able to sit in on a session of the class and see how the curriculum has affected their children. Elthea Charles said that her daughter, Ashlynn has considers herself lucky to be enrolled in the class. ?She?s communicating with her grandparents. It?s opening new horizons for her. She?s picking up a lot of things,? said Charles. Pupils reported different reasons for participating in the curriculum. Some say it is a way for them to communicate with their grandparents, and other tribal elders who primarily speak Navajo, and some said that it has helped to improve their marks in other classes. Mary Lou Yazzie and Carol Yazzie have been chosen to instruct the class, along with Casaus. Presently, the class is taught almost completely in Navajo. They use a mostly hands-on approach with the children. ?If you do hands-on, it sticks. Abstract doesn?t work,? said Casaus. From anguksuar at YAHOO.COM Tue Feb 10 20:48:49 2004 From: anguksuar at YAHOO.COM (Richard LaFortune) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 12:48:49 -0800 Subject: Boarding schools & language funding In-Reply-To: <1076444196.30ddfab9fb489@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: I'm not quite sure what to make of this web posting from Assembly of First Nations, Canada, but I do check on updates on their whole boarding school resolution process. The information below appears on AFN's website today, and it's significant because, contrary to a press release from the Federal Government in Ottawa last August, the overview posted below regarding languages appears to be less defined. I met with Chief Fontaine a couple of months ago regarding the proposed Resolution Framework settlement figure, which for language was scheduled at $172.5 million over 10 years. This update from their website gives the appearance that the offer by Canada and the Churches has not been accepted by the tribes. In that case, the logical negotiating movement would be upward from the $172.5M figure. All of this is interesting because in the US Native language programs officially have only $2M a year scheduled for about 200+ languages. In Canada, with the proposed settlement for the Residential School Resolution Framework, the tribes would have about $47.5M a year for language revitalization for 55 Aboriginal languages. If $47.5M is federally spent on 55 languages, that averages out to $863,636 per language annually in Canada If equivalent support in US for 200+ languages, the annual overall federal support would be $172,727,200 -However, current annual language spending under Native American Languages Act is authorized at a regular level of only $2M for 250 languages, or (drum roll) a whopping $8,000 a year per Native language in the US. (That would be $8,000 a year for all Ojibwe language programs in the Uniited States, $8,000 for all Navajo language programs in the United States, etc.) Canada is scheduled to receive one hundred times more language revitalization support per language, per year than the US. Canada's GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is $774.7 Billion a year vs. the US $9,963 Trillion (yes, that is the letter T), so the differential is represented thus: 774,700,000,000 GDP and a national population of 31 million people (Canada) 9,963,000,000,000 GDP and a national population of 280.5 million people (US) This means that the overall population of the US is 9 times that of Canada, and the overall US GDP is almost 13 times larger than Canada's. Yet, Canada is spending 100 times more per Native language than the US. US boarding school and Native language eradication policy history can be found in the new position paper, "Living Water, A Cooperative Mapping Project for Native Communities and Language Revitalization". It is available by request at: tele 612/331-9995 fax 612/331-9862 email: hotess at ties2.net The paper is referenced in the preface to this month's Tribal College Journal, which is devoted to language revitalization: http://www.tribalcollegejournal.org/ Peace Richard LaFortune * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * http://www.afn.ca/ AFN Indian Residential Schools Unit Update Overview of Key Accomplishments The federal government Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) process will be implemented in the Fall of 2004. The AFN Working Group has recommended that the ADR must not include the signing off of claims based on loss of language and culture. The Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada (IRSRC) office has announced a $1.720 billion fund for the settlement of claims through the ADR process. Settlement for language and culture claims is still not on the governments agenda. The ADR includes the use of adjudicators for settling claims. The AFN Survivor Working Group is pleased that the IRSRC has agreed to expedite residential school claims for the sick and elderly. Current Activities The Prime Minister has announced that Mr. Mario Dion, is the new Deputy Minister of IRSRC, effective April 2003. Vice-Chief Kenneth Young has met with Mr Dion and was given the new ADR document for our review and perusal. Mr. Dion has agreed to further meetings with Mr.Young to negotiate and update the AFN on any movement on the Residential School file. Information and updates on the residential school issues are also provided by attending as many residential school conferences as possible throughout Canada. Networking with survivor groups, individuals, healing circles, and Aboriginal Healing Foundation funded projects is also underway. Key Planned Activities To develop and share information with survivors. The AFN Survivor Working Group will meet in June and July 2004 with the Plaintiffs and Churches Lawyers. The Director of the Residential Schools Unit will also continue to attend meetings with the IRSRC to ensure that the survivors~R voice is heard. The Director will also attend survivor meetings as requested by survivor groups. A new work-plan for the AFN Residential School Unit has been prepared. The AFN Residential School Unit~Rs workplan will include establishment of a data-base, communications strategy, researcher, and conferences as requested by survivors. Issues - Challenges ~V Opportunities The AFN Survivor Working Group will continue to offer their assistance to the IRSRC in finding a fair and just resolution for residential school survivors. The Residential Schools Unit will make best efforts to inform all residential school survivors of their legal and non-legal options in reaching a fair and just settlement through the development of an effective communication strategy. The AFN Survivor Working Group recommends that a working relationship be established with the churches to enhance communication to address the need for fair and just settlement for residential school survivor claims. The AFN Working Group must also begin the healing process and lead the way through national healing conferences. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From anguksuar at YAHOO.COM Wed Feb 11 17:52:26 2004 From: anguksuar at YAHOO.COM (Richard LaFortune) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 09:52:26 -0800 Subject: NCLB & NALA/OLA In-Reply-To: <1076444196.30ddfab9fb489@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Under NALA, I believe there is the basis of a legal challenge to NCLB. Here follows some abbreviated and highlighted textual citations with added commentary from Public Law 101-477. NALA may be regarded as a living document. It is an Act of Congress and therefore carries the same weight in international law as treaties, which are the Supreme Law of the Land, over and above the Constitution, according to the Constitution. Richard LaFortune (Yupik) Native Language Researcher Minneapolis * * * * * * * * * * SEC. 101. This title may be cited as the "Native American Languages Act". FINDINGS SEC. 102. The Congress finds that~W (6) there is convincing evidence that student achievement and performance, community and school pride, and educational opportunity is clearly and directly tied to respect for, and support of, the first language of the child or student; (7) it is clearly in the interests of the United States, individual States, and territories to encourage the full academic and human potential achievements of all students and citizens and to take steps to realize these ends; (8) acts of suppression and extermination directed against Native American languages and cultures are in conflict with the United States policy of self-determination for Native Americans; SEC. 104. It is the policy of the United States to-- (1) preserve, protect, and promote the rights and freedom of Native Americans to use, practice, and develop Native American languages; No Child Left Behind, and attempts by the federal government to abridge funding to Native language programs, appears to represent an internal conflict of federal education funding, and funding to programs directed to and for the benefit of Native people under the provisions of NALA. Proper exceptions for Native Language programs operating under the provisions of NALA must be articulated apropos of NCLB. Furthermore, the provisions of NALA and the Official Languages Act (OLA) of Canada must undergo comparative review under the terms of the United Nations Draft Declaration of Rights of Indigenous People, to assure Native people in the United States and Canada, operating language programs under the provisions of OLA and NALA, that no recent or pending legislation will interfere with the resources or operations of language programs. [RL] (2) allow exceptions to teacher certification requirements for Federal programs, and programs funded in whole or in part by the Federal Government, for instruction in Native American languages when such teacher certification requirements hinder the employment of qualified teachers who teach in Native American languages, and to encourage State and territorial governments to make similar exceptions; It is the policy of the United States to-- (3) encourage and support the use of Native American languages as a medium of instruction in order to encourage and support-- (4) encourage State and local education programs to work with Native American parents, educator, Indian tribes, and other Native American governing bodies in the implementation of programs to put this policy into effect; (5) recognize the right of Indian tribes and other Native American governing bodies to use the Native American languages as a medium of instruction in all schools funded by the Secretary of the Interior; (6) fully recognize the inherent right of Indian tribes and other Native American governing bodies, States, territories, and possessions of the United States to take action on, and give official status to, their Native American languages for the purpose of conducting their own business; (7) support the granting of comparable proficiency achieved through course work in a Native American language the same academic credit as comparable proficiency achieved through course work in a foreign language, with recognition of such Native American language proficiency by institutions of higher education as fulfilling foreign language entrance or degree requirements; and (8) encourage all institutions of elementary, secondary and higher education, where appropriate, to include Native American languages in the curriculum in the same manner as foreign languages and to grant proficiency in Native American languages the same full academic credit as proficiency in foreign languages. EVALUATIONS Sec. 106. (a) The President shall direct the heads of the various Federal departments, agencies, and instrumentalities to-- (1) Evaluate their policies and procedures in consultation with Indian tribes and other Native American governing bodies as well as traditional leaders and educators in order to determine and implement changes needed to bring the policies and procedures into compliance with the provisions of this title; I believe this means that a perfunctory reading of No Child Left Behind must be reviewed by Native American governing bodies to make sure that it is not in conflict with NALA. [RL] (2) give the greatest effect possible in making such evaluations, absent a clear specific Federal statutory requirement to the contrary, to the policies and procedures which will give the broadest effect to the provisions of this title; and ie No Child Left Behind must be read in the context of NALA, and it must be read liberally to benefit the Native. [RL] (3) evaluate the laws which they administer and make recommendations to the President on amendments needed to bring such laws into compliance with the provisions of this title. This means that Native language immersion programs and education cannot be summarily dismissed by No Child Left Behind. Such a decision must receive exhaustive review by Native governing bodies, and this precludes any prohibitions or timelines separately established by NCLB. [RL] Date: Mon Jan 26, 2004 2:04:59 PM US/Central > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > Subject: No Rich Child Left Behind (language) > Reply-To: Indigenous Languages and Technology > > > 01/24/2004 - JUNEAU AK > By Mike Chambers, Associated Press Writer > > Some western Alaska schools that for decades have taught and helped > preserve the Native Yupik language are in a quandary over meeting new > federal testing requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act. > > In the Lower Kuskokwim School District, third grade children taught > almost exclusively in the Yupik language may be required to pass > federal tests written in English. > > In Alaska, where Natives speak 20 aboriginal languages and dialects, > meeting a uniform federal law could ultimately be too expensive, > conflict with Native cultural traditions as well as the local control > that the rural villages treasure. > > "Not many states face the issues that we do," said state Education > Commissioner Roger Sampson. > > Under the federal law, students would be tested annually from grades > 3-8 and again in high school. > > States could make accommodations for language barriers, but after > three years in U.S. public schools the children would be required to > take English-only tests. > > Aside from the Heritage Language programs in more than 30 rural > public schools, Alaska's largest city of Anchorage has more than 93 > languages spoken by students, Sampson said. > > Already cash strapped, the state can little afford to translate tests > into more than 100 languages, education officials said. > > And even if it could, the Yupik language, though spoken by thousands > of Alaska Natives from Norton Sound to Bristol Bay, does not > translate as completely as Spanish or other European languages. > > For instance, mathematics to American children is based on units of > 10, where increments of 20 are used in Yupik math and numerous > English words have no Yupik counterparts. > > The Lower Kuskokwim School District, which oversees schools in Bethel > and surrounding villages has had an intensive Yupik language program > for about 30 years, said Superintendent Bill Ferguson. > > A similar program instituted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in > earlier years was seen as a progressive way to assimilate Native > children into English fluency. > > Since then, it's become a way for Yupik-speaking Natives to sustain > their language and culture just as other Alaska Native languages > dwindle. > > "I feel strongly that our kids should speak Yupik fluently," said > state Rep. Mary Kapsner, of Bethel. "I really feel this isn't just an > academic issue about benchmark tests, but about cultural and social > well being." > > Beginning in kindergarten and extending to third grade, students > enrolled in the Yupik language program are taught a Western > curriculum similar to those found in Lower 48 classrooms. > > But teachers speak Yupik and students read from Yupik textbooks, > produced by the district by permission of their English-language > publishers. > > While most children speak some English, those enrolled in the > programs don't begin formal academic training in the language until > fourth grade. > > Sampson wants permission from federal education officials to delay > testing these Heritage Language students until sixth grade. At that > time, the students would have had three years of English-speaking > instruction. > > Already, schools in the district are failing to meet "adequate yearly > progress" set out by the federal law, and much of that is attributed > to the language barrier, Ferguson said. > > Alaska educators hold little hope that Yupik-speaking students will > fare well in third-grade testing in the 2005-2006 school year when > all schools are expected to have such tests in place. > > Ultimately, Alaska may seek a waiver under the federal law to > accommodate its language barrier, Sampson said. The state Board of > Education will to take up the issue Jan. 29. > > Winning an exemption from some parts of No Child Left Behind from > Education Secretary Rod Paige will be difficult. > > "Secretary Paige has made some very strong statements regarding the > fact that he doesn't anticipate the state's being exempted from any > requirement under NCLB," said U.S. Department of Education spokesman > Zollie Stevenson. > > States could seek federal funds to pay for translating testing > materials, Stevenson said, but he acknowledged enough money may not > be available to meet Alaska's varied dialects. > > On the Net: > No Child Left Behind: http://www.nochildleftbehind.gov/ > > State Department of Education and Early Development: > http://www.eed.state.ak.us/ > ? Lower Kuskokwim School District: http://www.lksd.org/ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Wed Feb 11 19:13:01 2004 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 11:13:01 -0800 Subject: Grammer Work (language) Message-ID: Karuk Language Program Special Events Karuk Grammar Workshops with William Bright, Linguist Tuesday February 24, 2004 12:00 to 1:00 PM At the Karuk Council Chambers Happy Camp, CA Wednesday February 25, 2004 6:30 to 8:30 PM At the A-Frame next to Orleans Elementary School Highway 96, Orleans, CA William Bright will also be at the Karuk Tribal Council Meeting in Orleans on Thursday, February 26 to give a brief presentation. A Yreka event is proposed for late spring or summer. In 1955 William Bright received his doctorate in linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley, where his dissertation was a grammar of the Karuk language. From 1959 to 1988 he taught linguistics and anthropology at UCLA; now he is Professor Adjoint in Linguistics, University of Colorado, Boulder. He has helped with Karuk language revitalization efforts for many years. For more information, you can call Susan Gehr, Karuk Language Program Director at (800) 505-2785 extension 2205. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Wed Feb 11 21:16:32 2004 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 13:16:32 -0800 Subject: Small Languages? Message-ID: Dear sirs, new on the list, I should like to present myself and the site I am working on. My name is Patrick-Henri Burgaud. I was born in France but I have been living for years in the Netherlands, where I studied linguistics. I am working on a web site called THE HOUSE OF THE SMALL LANGUAGES: http://www.houseofthesmalllanguages.org a virtual monument devoted to the seriously endangered languages, all over the world. It is "a work in progress", in permanent evolution. Keywords are: strong social engagement and participation. The functions of the web site is to let know about the existence of dying languages to the largest possible audience and to create and increase the possibility of a permanent contact with and between all native speakers of endangered languages. My wish is to create for every language a separate own page, with various information about the language, a sound sample of it, a picture of one or more speakers nd/or a link with an already existing home page in or about this language. It will become a tremendous huge site. The House of the Small Languages is mirrored to by the West Virginian University (it is at the moment under constuction). I try to update it with accurate information, which is very difficult to get. Information about dying or recently died languages looks like military secrets, it is very hard to get. I am very glad to have heard about the list and to become a member. friendly yours with regards To know more about me and my interests, please visit the site http://home.tiscali.nl/burgaud/ruine/entree.htm ----------------------------------------------- drs. Patrick-Henri Burgaud Zypendaalseweg 75 6814 CE Arnhem http://houseofthesmalllanguages.org -- Andr? Cramblit: andre.p.cramblit.86 at alum.dartmouth.org is the Operations Director Northern California Indian Development Council NCIDC (http://www.ncidc.org) is a non-profit that meets the development needs of American Indians To subscribe to a news letter of interest to Natives send an email to: IndigenousNewsNetwork-subscribe at topica.com or go to: http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/?location=listinfo From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Feb 12 15:49:17 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 08:49:17 -0700 Subject: CAHUILLA: Two sisters pass on their knowledge to students (fwd) Message-ID: CAHUILLA: Two sisters pass on their knowledge to students http://www.pe.com/digitalextra/metro/tribes/vt_stories/PE_News_Local_hclass11.e647.html 08:03 AM PST on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 By HAN KWAK / The Press-Enterprise SAN JACINTO - The instructors were about namekwana minutes late. That's five minutes for those who don't speak Cahuilla. Sisters Lorina Duro and Virginia Duenaz, who are liaisons with the Soboba Cultural Center on the Soboba Indian Reservation, are passing on what they know of the language to students at San Jacinto Valley Academy."I thought maybe we might not be able to keep their attention," Duro said of the students, who range from the second to sixth grade. DeeAnn Bradley / The Press-Enterprise [photo insert] Xochiquetzal Medina, 10, identifies a fork and plate in Cahuilla with laughing teacher Virginia Duenaz in back. But the students are active in class. On a recent day, their hands shot up when Duro asked for the name of numerous objects used as visual aids. Donna Buck, principal of the charter school, said the idea was pitched by a graduating student last year who wanted to learn Luise?o as a second language. Luise?o is spoken by members of the Soboba Band of Luise?o Indians. "We value a second language at our school," Buck said, adding that Spanish is offered to all students, but that a handful study other languages as well, such as Hebrew. However, the school could not locate a fluent Luise?o speaker to teach the class. So Duenaz, whose grandson Angel Casarez attends the school, offered to teach the Cahuilla language instead. "I wanted to try it out, to see what response we get from the children," Duenaz said. Interested, Buck offered a 10-week class to the school's students as an elective. Twenty-one students signed up for the class. About half are non-Indian students, Buck said. "A lot of them seemed to pick it up quick," Duro said of the non-Indian children. Many of the students have taken Spanish classes, so the pronunciation of Cahuilla words comes easier because the languages share similar sounds, Duro said. Fourth-grader Ryan Reid said he enjoyed learning Spanish and wanted to take on another language. He said he practices the vocabulary at home to the confusion of his family. "They have no clue what I'm talking about," Ryan said. Duro said she is learning the Cahuilla language herself as a master apprentice under her mother-in-law, Kathleen Duro. Although the sisters' mother was from the Cahuilla reservation near Anza and spoke to the girls with a mix of Spanish, English and Cahuilla, Duro said they are not fluent speakers. "I'm definitely not a fluent speaker," Duro said. "But what I've learned I'm giving it." Duro said she tries to teach the students as her mother-in-law teaches her: by using repetition and visual aids. Sometimes the lessons Duro learns are done in an everyday setting through conversation. "We just sat around and had lunch," Duro said of one session she had with her teacher. Those lessons are brought to the classroom in the form of song and games such as Cahuilla bingo, a game that familiarizes students with the translation of numbers. Many of the children said they signed up for the class out of curiosity but a few said they want to continue the studies. "There's only a few people speaking it and I want to be one of those people," said sixth-grader Anyssa Baca. Reach Han Kwak at (909) 763-3456 or hkwak at pe.com From anguksuar at YAHOO.COM Thu Feb 12 21:56:32 2004 From: anguksuar at YAHOO.COM (Richard LaFortune) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 13:56:32 -0800 Subject: First People Cultural Foundation In-Reply-To: <1076600957.4a53653655a0d@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Here's an amazing Canadian language and technology organization, the First Peoples' Cultural Foundation. http://www.fpcf.ca/ The First Peoples' Cultural Foundation is a not-for-profit charitable public organization that generates support to raise awareness and funding for Aboriginal language revitalization. The Foundation works with its sister organization, the First Peoples~R Heritage, Language and Culture Council to ensure fair and equal access for all funds raised and to all programs available. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET Sat Feb 14 15:48:46 2004 From: pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 08:48:46 -0700 Subject: Accuracy of Internet academic (fwd) Message-ID: Accuracy of Internet academic 'Like trying to pull a library book without the Dewey Decimal system' http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/artslife/story.html? id=35deb42a-93e2-4cbc-befe-59b5f8ce483 Siri Agrell National Post Saturday, February 14, 2004 Laura Buszard-Welcher thought she had found the perfect source to support her PhD research on endangered languages. The anthropologist was completing her doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, when she discovered the Web site of someone who spoke the obscure and threatened dialect she was investigating. She referred to the site in her research, which was later published as a book. Months later, when she revisited the site, she discovered her research now cited something quite different. "It took me to some porno site," says Buszard-Welcher, now a professor at Wayne State University in Michigan and one of a growing population of anthropologists who have logged on to the Internet as a way to study human society. Cyberanthropology is a growing area of study. Through the Web, anthropologists are discovering societies that reveal themselves online while remaining submerged in the world at large. But, as Buszard-Welcher and others have found, cyberanthropology requires the navigation of many pitfalls -- issues of accuracy, credibility and professional esteem -- even as it unearths communities at the click of a button. "I'm finding a lot more language information than I would otherwise have had access to," Buszard-Welcher says. "But you have to be critical. Just like picking up a book off the library shelf, you have to decide how important it's going to be." As an undergraduate, Buszard-Welcher knew she wanted to explore endangered languages and the tools used to protect them. At first, she studied a native dialect (a form of Ojibwa) which was local to the area of Michigan where she grew up. But she soon began to look farther afield and her curiosity led her online. When her computer started speaking Potawatomi, a language spoken by only about 50 people, she had found her thesis. "People have created Web sites to promote this language, to learn this language again, bring it back to widespread use," she says. "People from these far-flung communities are becoming integrated in ways that they couldn't have before because of physical distances." Online language preservation is now her specialty. When not studying Potawatomi, she is collecting URLs for other language projects, monitoring the different techniques people are using to protect their traditional tongues. But as any Web browser knows, surfing the Internet often becomes a struggle to stay afloat in a sea of spam. Looking for an academically useful online source is like finding a library book without the Dewey Decimal system. But anthropologists are patient. "There are all these resources out there that people haven't learned to share," Buszard-Welcher says. "I think if people start making their information available on the Web, it's going to have a huge impact on our field." She fantasizes about the world of information that will be at her fingertips as soon as someone thinks to upload it. Right now, someone could be building the site she has been looking for all her scholarly life. When she does unearth a useful site, she is confronted with issues of credibility. "It's a problem of figuring out whether a site is authoritative," she says. "That's a problem in academia in general." Though most universities have their own standards for citing the Internet, following The Chicago Manual of Style, there is still resistance to its use as a primary or even secondary source. The Internet is frowned upon because of the very traits that make it effective for the public: an utter lack of controls. Academic journals are rigorously researched, cited and peer-reviewed, a level of oversight that is currently impossible for cyberanthropologists. "If you do it anyway, it's going to impact you negatively in terms of tenure decisions and that kind of thing," Buszard-Welcher says of citing online material. "I would be very happy if people in my profession would change their attitude and accept it as more valuable than it's particularly seen to be." David Zeitlyn, an anthropologist at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, says there are valid reasons to distrust Internet research. "There's a lot of what I perceive as bad anthropology that uses the Internet," he says. "People say they're doing the ethnography of the Internet by sitting at their desk and playing around in [chat rooms]. "For me, the whole point of anthropology is that you're not looking at one little part of society, you're looking at how all the parts interconnect. So, you might start or end up with how people are using the Internet. But as an anthropologist, I want to look at a whole load of other things." The Internet reveals little about human behaviour, he says, because it does not explain why people are doing what they are doing. Resources such as the Google Zeitgeist -- a yearly compilation of search trends -- should be used as an index, not an encyclopedia, he says. "It's a starting point. It raises questions," Zeitlyn says of the feature. "But taking those patterns by themselves doesn't do enough. Questions can only be answered by doing weird things like talking to people. And I don't mean sending them an e-mail." Zeitlyn is a leading voice on the Internet's impact on society. It is an interesting jump from his anthropological area of expertise: the methods of divination in rural Cameroon -- how tribes interpret the signs and omens around them. He sees the Web as a harbinger of things to come, but does not believe the patterns of its use can be read like chicken bones to divine the past or the future. For him, the Internet is a way "to do classic anthropology better" -- to access more research, monitor more communities and keep in constant touch with the world. Already, he sees ways to make the Internet a more authoritative research tool. Through Google's cached pages -- photographs of every page created -- such researchers as Buszard-Welcher can find expired sources without being redirected to HOT TEEN GIRLS.com. "There are ways of turning the clock back," he says. "There's loads of unreliable stuff printed on paper, too. The critical thing is being critical." Zeitlyn doubts that the Internet can be sharpened into the primary tool for anthropologists, but his research partner and co-author, Michael Fischer, who also spoke to me from the University of Kent, says, "Things could change over the next decade. There could be pervasive network connections that will make our broadband seem like teletype. It'll look like we're just standing still right now." He believes the Internet is already "pretty authoritative" as a source and is limited only by perception, not content. "Just like in real life, some people misrepresent themselves," he says of online content. "But you have to know an awful lot to misrepresent yourself successfully. "I suspect [most people are] being more themselves," he says of the online individual. "Part of what society and culture do is force you to present yourself in a way that is appropriate to the parties that are observing you, not to do what you want to do." But relevant human voices are being drowned out by corporate or private interests on the Internet, he says. Such search engines as Google are quickly becoming redundant as people learn to manipulate the system. Type the words "Miserable Failure" into a Google search and the first link delivered is the White House biography of President George W. Bush. The Google algorithm rates sites by the number of other pages that link to them. The more sites that connect the phrase "miserable failure" to the White House, the higher its ranking becomes. A search of "Santorum," the last name of U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, brings up his own Web site but also references to the sexual by-product of a homosexual act, named for the Senator by a syndicated columnist outraged by his anti-gay remarks. This sort of "Google Bombing" is so pervasive that it is impossible to know if search results are clean. "Google is only adaptive in terms of popularity," Fischer says. "And popularity doesn't always result in the highest quality." While Google is busy developing commercial and pop-culture applications, the less advanced sites, such as Hot Bot and Lycos, are more useful for authoritative searches, he says. "The net was actually at its most useful for academics between '95 and '98, because the rest of you weren't on it." In the early days, the Internet was the domain of dorks and doyennes only. "At that time, most of it was actually people trying to use this as an alternative medium to get stuff out there," he says. "Now it's gotten much harder to find information. Google ... but it doesn't promote depth. On the other hand, most people don't want depth; they want to buy a TV and it's really good for that." For academics, the Great Byte Hope is called the "Grid." The U.K. government is funding Zeitlyn and Fischer to try out a new subscription-based information-sharing system. The Grid is for research organizations, accessible by invitation only. "It's the so-called eScience grid," Fischer says. "It's actually built around the notion of people having to have credentials to know things." The Grid is privately controlled, expensive to get into and extremely interesting to academics, private research groups and governments. Unlike conventional networks that accommodate communication between machines, grid computing harnesses the unused processing capacity of all computers in a network to solve problems too intensive for any one machine. It feeds on a network of communal resources, sucking its power like a matrix. "They need all the power to analyze all the material that's out there in the public," Fischer says. With Zeitlyn, Fischer has long used the Internet to track human behaviour. Now he is considering writing a book about ways to avoid online monitoring, or "data mining" as he calls it. As an anthropologist, he has learned to embrace the Internet as a tool to study, but as a person, he thinks applications such as the Grid have frightening Big Brother potential. "Am I trying to sabotage the Internet's effectiveness in terms of monitoring human behaviour?" he asks. "Absolutely. Once it becomes effective, you're going to have to." ??National Post 2004 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 10943 bytes Desc: not available URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Feb 15 17:20:28 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 10:20:28 -0700 Subject: Native Tongue (fwd) Message-ID: http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?display=rednews/2004/02/15/build/state/50-nativetongue.inc Native Tongue: Falls schools offer unique opportunity Associated Press GREAT FALLS - Students in Klane King's language classes here enjoy reciting everyday phrases they've learned in Blackfeet and listen eagerly as their teacher tells them how American Indian songs, games and dances came to be. It's a heady experience for King, who learned Blackfeet from his parents as a preschooler in southern Alberta, only to have boarding school teachers try to drum it out of him. "I almost forgot the basics of my native tongue," he said. Sharing the language But King had the last say. After college, he came home to the Blood Reserve, as reservations are known in Canada, and started a video production company specializing in features about Blackfeet elders and legends. Teachers used many of those videos in classrooms of the reservation schools, which had reformed and stressed the importance of Blackfeet culture and language. Since mid-January King has been teaching an introductory Blackfeet class at both Great Falls and C.M. Russell high schools. It is believed to be the only Indian language class being taught at a nonreservation Montana high school. The Great Falls district offered a similar introductory class to the Cree language three years ago. It was dropped after three semesters when enrollment tapered off. This semester, 23 GFH students and 11 CMR students are taking the Blackfeet language class. "Any way you can help Native American kids identify with their culture, you've given them another incentive to stay in school," said Assistant Superintendent Dick Kuntz. "And if we get them coming to school every day, they'll do better in their other subjects, too." The district has reduced its Indian dropout rate from a sky-high 80 percent to a state low 10 percent in the 30 years it has had an Indian Education Program featuring tutoring and home counseling, Kuntz said. But that's still about four times the dropout rate for the entire student body. Great Falls High School Principal Fred Anderson said school officials hope to sustain interest this time by adding more advanced classes if enough students want to keep going. "I think it's an excellent class that will provide an opportunity for both Native American and other students to increase their cultural awareness," Anderson said. "The Blackfeet language is a window to another culture," added Deanne Leader, director of the Indian Education Program. "Without the words, you can't understand a group's customs and beliefs." Just the beginning The new language class is not all that the district is doing. This year, Great Falls sophomores are required to take a Montana civics class divided evenly between tribal government and nontribal government. Next fall, high school students can take an optional class that gives an overview of the history and culture of Montana's 11 Indian tribes. "I'm glad to see them start teaching the language here," said Jewell Snell, 65, who with her husband, Frank, is raising four school-age grandchildren. "A lot of people my age never had the chance." "I learned a little bit of Blackfeet from my mother and aunts, but not a lot," said parent Mary Marceau, 37. "I think Indian kids should be able to learn their language and cultural background, but it's harder in an urban setting off the reservation." Her son, Great Falls High sophomore Chi Marceau, 15, is among the students taking the language class. "I knew a few Blackfeet words, but am learning a lot more," Chi said. "It's easy the way Mr. King teaches with repetition and stories." Learning the differences One-quarter of the Blackfeet language students at both schools are non-Indian. One is Hanneke Stubbe, 18, a Dutch exchange student at GFH. "I really like languages and in Europe we're required to take four," she said. "I want to become an anthropologist and this class is great, because I'm learning about a culture I knew nothing about." GFH senior Josh Werkheiser, 17, also is a language buff, and said it's not hard to learn a new language once you realize that internal English rules do not apply. King stressed that Blackfeet should be spoken "in a flat and low tone, with no musical lilts up and down." There are other differences between English and Blackfeet, too, he said. "In the United States and Canada people almost seem to panic when there is a lapse in conversation," he said. "In Blackfeet, it's common to pause every now and then, maybe take a swig of coffee, and let companions absorb what's been said." King also thinks the Blackfeet language has more specific nouns, with some words taking the place of whole sentences in English. For instance, the word "iniwa" means buffalo. When Blackfeet add a long, tongue-twisting suffix, the word signifies "the buffalo are rumbling toward you with their back, dew claws clicking." You can almost feel the dust and better scramble for cover. Reviving one's native tongue But King, 50, was at the tail end of the similar Canadian and U.S. government practices of sending Indian kids to boarding schools where they were directly or indirectly discouraged from using their own language. Starting when he was 6, he spent weekdays at a boarding school across the reservation from his home. Teachers demanded that students speaking Blackfeet place their hands on the table, where their wrists were smacked with rulers. He said they drove the colorful language from his lips, and almost from his memory, but not from his heart. King attended college in Edmonton, Alberta, picking up degrees in Canadian studies and native communication, including broadcast and video production skills. But the instructors who spoke a native language were Cree, he said. When he returned home, he remembered how rich his native tongue and traditions were when he began making videos of tribal elders. King moved to Great Falls in 2000, where he has been a volunteer cameraman for the public access television channel and a disk jockey for KGPR, the public radio station. He jumped at the chance to teach Blackfeet when Kuntz approached him. He demonstrated he was fluent in the language to Blackfeet tribal officials, a requirement to get his education certificate from the state. King has several goals for his students. He wants to teach them enough conversational Blackfeet so they can walk up to tribal elders and politely chat. He also will teach them a few Blackfeet meditations, thanking the Creator and asking for blessings. Last week, King chanted his brief, eloquent personal song for the students, suggesting if they listen carefully they can catch a rhythm and make their own song to see them through adversity. "Mine is a really sweet and calming little ditty that came to me one time," he said, quipping: "And there's no copyright infringement worries to prevent me from singing it over and over." Copyright ? 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Feb 15 17:28:22 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 10:28:22 -0700 Subject: Cox, Dauenhauer among winners of Indigenous Literature Awards (fwd) Message-ID: Cox, Dauenhauer among winners of Indigenous Literature Awards http://www.adn.com/life/story/4746196p-4692929c.html [photo insert] Loretta Outwater Cox speaks during an Alaska Federation of Natives workshop in October as her parents listen. Her book about her great-grandmother, "Winter Walk," was published last year. (Photo by Jim Lavrakas / Anchorage Daily News) By MIKE DUNHAM Anchorage Daily News (Published: February 15, 2004) The fourth annual Alaska Indigenous Literature Awards presentation was Tuesday night at the Sheraton Anchorage Hotel. Among the honorees on hand to accept their awards were veteran Tlingit historian, folklorist and playwright Nora Marks Dauenhauer of Juneau and Loretta Outwater Cox, originally from Nome, whose tale of her great-grandmother's harrowing trek for survival, "Winter Walk," was published last year. Sidney Huntington of Galena was honored for his recollections of Interior life, "Shadows of the Koyukuk," which has gone through six printings to date. The spry 89-year-old addressed the awards audience with an impassioned plea for education. Places where, in his youth, fewer than 10 people lived now have hundreds of residents, populations too large to be supported solely by subsistence means, he said. "We can't go back to living what we call 'off the country,' " said the former member of the Alaska Board of Game. "There's no way we can keep taking food out of the woods like we used to do." There's no need to be nostalgic about that, he added, dismissing younger people who romanticize the old way of life. "They don't know what they're talking about! Thank God those days are behind us." Huntington could speak from long experience. He recounted an early trapping trip during which he enountered minus-72-degree cold and barely made it home alive. At that time he promised himself, "If I ever have children, they won't be going through this." Better schooling was the solution, he determined, and he spoke proudly of the achievements of students from Galena, where he served on the school board for many years. Education was also on the mind of another award winner, storyteller Mike Andrews Sr. of Emmonak. He has spent 20 years working with students in the Lower Yukon School District, where he has been a leader in the effort to preserve the Native language and life ways. But he remembered having to wake up at 6 a.m. to fuel stoves in the dimly-lit, two-room mission school at Akulurak. Speaking in Yup'ik, he noted that "today you don't have to freeze in the classroom. Why is it students aren't interested in going to class? In the old days, it was the opposite." In accepting her award, Dauenhauer said it should include the names of her husband and collaborator, Richard, and many other people who have contributed to her life's work. She thought back to when she first began to collect and publish the memoirs of Tlingit elders, creating a ripple that she hoped would spread "farther and farther and farther." "Well, it did," rejoined Joanna Wassillie, who followed Dauenhauer to the podium to introduce Andrews. Wassillie said that as a young Yup'ik student, she was overwhelmed when she first encountered Dauenhauer's books. She had not thought there was such a thing as Native literature, and to discover it was a revelation. Kodiak elder John Pestrikoff, honored along with his late wife, Julia, was unable to make the flight to Anchorage because of a storm. A niece, Anchorage artist Helen Simeonoff, accepted the award on his behalf, observing philosophically, "We know that in Alaska you fly according to weather, not according to reservations." Other honorees included the late Belle Dawson of Grayling and Robert Cleveland of Shungnak, whose stories and oral histories were recorded on tape before their deaths. From lachler at UNM.EDU Sun Feb 15 23:38:21 2004 From: lachler at UNM.EDU (Jordan Lachler) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 14:38:21 -0900 Subject: Berber textbook goes on display Message-ID: Berber textbook goes on display A Berber cultural institute in Morocco says the first textbook aimed at teaching children how to read and write the Berber language will be on display on Sunday at a book fair in Casablanca. The director of the Royal Institute of Berber culture, Dr Ahmad Boukous, told the BBC that although three dialects of Berber were spoken all over the country, not many people knew how to write the script, called tifinagh. The majority of Moroccans are of Berber origin and many speak one of its dialects, but Arabic is still the official language. Activists are demanding Berber should be given official status. Last September the government allowed the language to be taught in schools alongside other languages such as English and French. From the newsroom of the BBC World Service From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Feb 17 22:03:21 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 15:03:21 -0700 Subject: World's languages vanish at 'catastrophic' rate (fwd) Message-ID: World's languages vanish at 'catastrophic' rate By Clive Cookson in Seattle Published: February 17 2004 4:00 http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1075982592589 The world's languages are disappearing at a "catastrophic" rate that makes the extinction of plant and animal species seem sedate, linguists told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Seattle. "It is difficult to overstate the importance to science of documenting endangered languages," said David Harrison, an expert in Siberian languages at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. "Each language that vanishes without being documented leaves an enormous gap in our understanding of some of the many complex structures the human mind is capable of producing." There is no consensus about the number of languages spoken in the world today, because experts cannot agree on the point at which two or more linguistic varieties constitute distinct languages as opposed to dialects of the same language, said Laurence Horn, professor of linguistics at Yale University. The most widely quoted figure of 6,800 comes from the Ethnologue database maintained by SIL International, an organisation with roots in Christian missionary work and Bible translations. Stephen Anderson, also of Yale, said a mainstream estimate was that at least 40 per cent of languages spoken today would die out during this century. Endangered languages are distributed fairly evenly around the world, though there are far fewer in Europe than in other regions. The Ethnologue database lists 417 languages as "nearly extinct", with only a few elderly speakers still living. As an example of what is at stake when a language becomes extinct, Prof Harrison described two peoples living in remote parts of Siberia, the Middle Chulym and the Tofa. In each case younger people speak Russian only and there are about 40 fluent native speakers left in a population of several hundred. He said the Chulym and Tofa languages contained "complex cognitive structures" not found elsewhere. They also embody a highly specialised knowledge of the environment - medicinal plants, animal behaviour, weather signs, hunting and gathering techniques - and a rich pre-literate oral tradition. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 18 15:59:47 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 08:59:47 -0700 Subject: Aboriginal language to be taught at school (fwd) Message-ID: Aboriginal language to be taught at school Wednesday, 18 February 2004 http://lightningridge.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=local&category=general%20news&story_id=286719&y=2004&m=2 Lightning Ridge Central School officially opened its Aboriginal Language and Resource Room last Monday. Aboriginal elders, community members and students met to celebrate the long-awaited opening and the start of the teaching of Aboriginal languages at school. Principal Peter Partridge, Aunty Rose Fernando, Liz Smith and Rhonda Ashby spoke about the importance of learning the Aboriginal language and the infusion of Aboriginal culture into the school. Mr Partridge also introduced the "Dare to Lead" program, which is a commitment to improving the education of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. "It's a group of Australian schools and educational institutions, publicly committed to advancing the cause of reconciliation, between Australia's indigenous and non-indigenous people. In partnership with families and communities we commit ourselves to accelerating improvements in the quality of education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students," Mr Partridge said. "I'm keen to do that because I fully believe our children are only going to be enriched at this school in understanding the way that the Aboriginal people have lived on this land for so many years." In committing to the program the school will be aiming at a 10 per cent improvement in secondary students' attendance and Aboriginal students in the bottom bands in public testing in three years. Mr Partridge also spoke strongly about the attendance records of students and asked the community to help encourage them to come to school. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 18 16:07:13 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 09:07:13 -0700 Subject: Brazilian Indians fear millennial way of life is threatened by development (fwd) Message-ID: Brazilian Indians fear millennial way of life is threatened by development Wednesday, February 18, 2004 By Michael Astor, Associated Press http://www.enn.com/news/2004-02-18/s_13216.asp XINGU NATIONAL PARK, Brazil?? Naked children are leaping from mango trees and tumbling into the mild water of the Xingu River without a care. But up by the grass-roofed long houses, the village elders fret that their way of life may come to an end soon. "We're worried for our children and grandchildren," said Rea, a Kayabi Indian woman. "Our Xingu is an island, and if the white man enters with his machines, he'll break it all down in no time." Xingu is Brazil's oldest and probably its most successful Indian reservation???a 2.8-million-hectare (6.92-million-acre) sprawl of pristine rainforest where 14 Indian tribes live much as their people have for thousands of years. The reserve was established in 1961, just a few years after many of the tribes in the region had had their first contact with white civilization. It sat in the middle of a vast undeveloped stretch in the state of Mato Grosso, or "thick forest" in English. Today, the park is surrounded by fields and pasture in the center of Brazil's fastest developing agricultural region. The Indians, whose numbers have nearly doubled to about 5,000 since 1961, say they are feeling the pressure. "In 20 years there won't be enough land for all of us. If you look at the park, it's just a triangle with a little rectangle on top," said Awata, the school teacher at Capivara, one of several Kayabi villages that line the river. In the villages, life goes on much as it always has, but there are signs of the encroachment of white civilization all around. Shiny metal water faucets are now a fixture in most villages, thanks to a well-digging project that aims to protect the Indians from polluted headwaters outside the park. Once-crystalline rivers are muddied from erosion caused by farming and logging up river. "We can no longer fish with bows and arrows so we need to buy fish hooks from the white man," said Mairawe Kayabi, the president of the Xingu Indian Land Association, who like many Indians uses his tribe's name as a last name. The sound of Indians stomping and chanting is still heard in the villages, only now it is as likely to emerge from a cheap tape recorder as it is from a live ceremony. In the Ngojhwere village, the cooking grill is a bicycle wheel with its spokes hammered down. Three metal car wheels turned on their side raise the grill over the wood fire burning on the dirt floor. Breakfast is piraucu, a big, freshly caught river fish. The Indians stew it in water and, when it's ready, wrap it in pieces of a big gummy manioc pancake called beiju with hot pepper and store-bought salt for seasoning. The women now use steel pots instead of clay to fetch water and cook. Satellite dishes sit outside many of the long houses feeding a handful of Brazilian TV channels to generator-powered televisions. "All the stuff on the television puts stuff in the young people's heads," Mairawe said. "They are attracted to whatever comes from outside. This is a cause for a lot of disagreement among the leadership." For ceremonies, the Indians still strip naked and paint their bodies with red powder from ground urucum seeds and the black ink of the jenipapo fruit. But most days they wear Western clothing, the woman preferring long, cotton dresses, the men shorts and T-shirts. Kuiussi, the Suya Indians' chief, wearing a skimpy swimsuit during a journalist's visit, warns visitors not to take pictures of Indians wearing Western clothes. "If people see the pictures, they'll say we're not Indians???that we're mixed (race)???and that's not true," he says. "We are all Indians here." While Kuiussi worries about outside influences, his son, Wetanti, 25, sees no problem keeping a foot in both worlds. He proudly displays a small album that begins with photos of him naked, painted, and feathered and ends with him looking disco-ready in white slacks, a black T-shirt, and wraparound sunglasses. The Suya had their first contact with white?people just over 40 years ago, in 1959. Today the village sits on the edge of the Xingu reservation: face to face with white civilization. "Right now, we have to fight to maintain our traditions. The world won't be the same for our children and grandchildren so we have to hold on to what we have as long as we can," Kuiussi said. "Maybe in the future, they'll want to farm or do something with the land to make money, but not in my lifetime." The park owes its existence to the Villas Boas brothers. During a government expedition to Brazil's hinterlands in the 1940s, the pioneering Indian defenders saw first hand the devastating effect that contact with white civilization was having on Indians and their culture. The Villas Boas quartet???Orlando, Claudio, Alvaro, and Leonardo???lobbied the government to set aside land for the reservation and then convinced 14 tribes from around the region to move into it. At the time, wildcat miners, loggers, and farmers were just starting to make their way into the region. "We taught them (the Indians) if they wanted to survive, if they wanted their children to survive, not to let anyone in. We told them if anyone came, to fight them," Orlando Villas Boas, who died last year, said in a 1998 interview. On at least one occasion, Indians took the advice to heart. They killed 11 loggers who refused to leave, Villas Boas said. "No one even thought of coming here after that." Today, the Indians perform joint patrols with the Federal Indian Bureau and Brazil's environmental protection agency. But when there are no officials around, the Indians aren't afraid to put on war paint and pick up bows, arrows, and even hunting rifles to expel invaders. There can be problems among the Indians themselves. Many tribes moved to the park from hundreds of miles (kilometers) away, from places where the terrain was different, and they have had trouble adapting to life in the Xingu. Kayabi elders complain that the materials needed to make traditional objects are not available in the park. "The old people didn't like it when they got here," said Jywapan Kayabi, one of the chiefs at Capivara. "They couldn't find the kind of wood they needed to make their bows and arrows or the kind of grass they used to weave their baskets." Communication is another problem. Because each of the 14 tribes has a distinct language, they can communicate with each other only in Portuguese, a language few Indians speak even today. The Indians in the northern part of the park still don't have much contact with tribes in the southern part, even though they share a more compatible culture and visit each others' villages occasionally for festivals. "If we see their dances we might understand some of what they're singing, but we can't join in the singing," said Ionaluka, who is the rare offspring of a mixed-marriage between Suya and Kayabi parents. Source: Associated Press From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 18 16:09:31 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 09:09:31 -0700 Subject: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca (fwd) Message-ID: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca >From Iyefu Adoba in Abuja http://www.thisdayonline.com/news/20040218news31.html A Director of research programmes from the National Centre for Scientific Research in France, Professor Bernard Caron, has made a case for Pidgin English as a lingua Franca in the country. Speaking in Abuja at a lecture titled "Why Study Minority Languages in Nigeria," Professor Caron, who has been in and out of Nigeria for the past 17 years, regretted that despite Pidgin being an important Lingua Franca, it is hardly mentioned in the language policy of the country. "Why is the language policy silent on Nigerian Pidgin which is used in families and is a first language for many children?" queried the Professor. He noted that English is the de facto official language in the bureaucratic and educational system, while the 3 major languages of Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa remain the major national potential languages. Noting that Pidgin is commonly used in songs, the Professor however observed that very little literature, if any at all, exists in Pidgin and asked if there is any future literary for Pidgin which can be easily read in Nigeria and even outside the country. Caron said Nigeria is a well known country of many languages, adding that there are easily 500 mother tongues in the country, which can be classified under dead, dying, moribund or living languages. The Professor said the study of minority languages helps provide better knowledge of the culture of the people and helps fight illiteracy. From fnkrs at UAF.EDU Fri Feb 20 05:59:31 2004 From: fnkrs at UAF.EDU (Hishinlai') Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 20:59:31 -0900 Subject: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca Message-ID: As we've all experienced from some other time, not too long ago, I think we know a "news article" hardly ever covers the facts. For me, given the gravity of this statement "that there are easily 500 mother tongues in the country, which can be classified under dead, dying, moribund or living languages.", it would be interesting to see how he can back-up a "Pidgin English Lingua Franca." Maybe in the U.S., we could adopt non-standard English that is appropriate regionally. Wow! I wonder what the NCLB initiative would think of that if they had to institute those types of tests in the schools? Hishinlai' >===== Original Message From Indigenous Languages and Technology ===== >Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca > >>>From Iyefu Adoba in Abuja >http://www.thisdayonline.com/news/20040218news31.html > >A Director of research programmes from the National Centre for >Scientific Research in France, Professor Bernard Caron, has made a case >for Pidgin English as a lingua Franca in the country. > >Speaking in Abuja at a lecture titled "Why Study Minority Languages in >Nigeria," Professor Caron, who has been in and out of Nigeria for the >past 17 years, regretted that despite Pidgin being an important Lingua >Franca, it is hardly mentioned in the language policy of the country. > >"Why is the language policy silent on Nigerian Pidgin which is used in >families and is a first language for many children?" queried the >Professor. > >He noted that English is the de facto official language in the >bureaucratic and educational system, while the 3 major languages of >Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa remain the major national potential languages. > >Noting that Pidgin is commonly used in songs, the Professor however >observed that very little literature, if any at all, exists in Pidgin >and asked if there is any future literary for Pidgin which can be >easily read in Nigeria and even outside the country. > >Caron said Nigeria is a well known country of many languages, adding >that there are easily 500 mother tongues in the country, which can be >classified under dead, dying, moribund or living languages. > >The Professor said the study of minority languages helps provide better >knowledge of the culture of the people and helps fight illiteracy. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 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/ Laraa t'ahch'yaa kwaa k'it tr'agwah'in. Nigwiinjik kwaa k'it juu veet'indhan veet'indhan ts'a' nak'arahtii kwaa k'it ch'andzaa. or "Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt, and Dance like you do when nobody's watching." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 20 15:30:21 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 08:30:21 -0700 Subject: UNESCO urges teaching from earliest age in indigenous mother languages (fwd) Message-ID: UNESCO urges teaching from earliest age in indigenous mother languages http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=9832&Cr=UNESCO&Cr1=# 20 February 2004 ? With an average of two indigenous languages dying out every month, the United Nations cultural agency has called for national education systems to teach children in mother tongues from the earliest age as a means both of stimulating learning ability and preserving the world?s rich heritage of linguistic diversity. ?It is widely acknowledged nowadays that teaching in both the mother tongue and the official national language helps children to obtain better results and stimulates their cognitive development and capacity to learn,? the Director-General of the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Ko?chiro Matsuura, said in a message for International Mother Language Day, which is celebrated on 21 February. UNESCO?s General Conference 1999 proclaimed the Day in recognition of the importance of the world?s linguistic diversity and to promote mother tongue languages. But a survey being undertaken by the agency indicates that although the use of mother languages as a medium of instruction is gaining ground, few countries have incorporated the idea into their education systems. The study shows that India is one of the world leaders in the development of multilingual education systems, with about 80 languages being used to teach children at different levels of schooling. But across Africa, where an estimated 2,011 languages are spoken, the languages of the former colonial powers - English, French, Spanish and Portuguese - still dominate education systems. A similar situation prevails in Latin America. According to the ?Atlas of the World Languages in Danger of Disappearing? there are more than 6,000 languages spoken in the world today. Ninety five percent of these languages are spoken by only four percent of the population, and an average of two die out each month. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 20 15:34:00 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 08:34:00 -0700 Subject: Parliament gets ready for language conference (fwd) Message-ID: Parliament gets ready for language conference Friday February 20, 2004 11:48 - (SA) http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/zones/sundaytimes/newsst/newsst1077270488.asp Parliament will be hosting its first conference on multilingualism next week - on February 23. "The conference is part of Parliament's initiative to promote linguistic diversity and multilingual education. It is also aimed at raising awareness of the country's linguistic and cultural traditions based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue in post apartheid South Africa," says conference working group chairman David Kgware and chairman of the SA Parliament select committee on education and recreation. "Multilingualism is found in most nations. Throughout the world, some 6,500 to 7,000 languages have been counted. Ten of these languages are spoken on a daily basis by 50% of the world's population," Kgware said. "This indicates that multilingualism is, in fact, a global reality. However, the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation estimates some 3,000 of these languages are now in danger of disappearing." "South Africa is in a particularly unusual position in that it has more official languages at a national level than any other country. Several indigenous languages are spoken across provincial borders and regions in South Africa. These languages are shared by speech communities from different provinces across the country," added Kgware. Some 25 languages are spoken in South Africa. Eleven of these languages have been accorded official status in terms of section 6 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa on the grounds that their usage includes about 98% of the total population. "The constitution obliges government to implement this official language policy status and use the Pan South African Language Board to promote respect for other languages, as well as to promote multilingualism and the development of languages. "This obligation places South Africa at the cutting edge of global language policy developments, which presents an exciting opportunity for the country, particularly for Parliament to oversee this task," said Kgware. Conference speakers include Neville Alexander of the University of Cape Town and the chairperson of the National Council of Provinces Naledi Pandor. From CRANEM at MAIL.ECU.EDU Fri Feb 20 15:54:01 2004 From: CRANEM at MAIL.ECU.EDU (Bizzaro, Resa Crane) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 10:54:01 -0500 Subject: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca Message-ID: Hi, all. As a person who speaks standard English and at least two regional dialects from eastern NC, I'm in favor of incorporating dialects into standardized tests. What would that do to the No Child Left Behind Initiative, which is seriously affecting the schools in my county? :-) Great idea! Resa -----Original Message----- From: Hishinlai' [mailto:fnkrs at UAF.EDU] Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 1:00 AM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca As we've all experienced from some other time, not too long ago, I think we know a "news article" hardly ever covers the facts. For me, given the gravity of this statement "that there are easily 500 mother tongues in the country, which can be classified under dead, dying, moribund or living languages.", it would be interesting to see how he can back-up a "Pidgin English Lingua Franca." Maybe in the U.S., we could adopt non-standard English that is appropriate regionally. Wow! I wonder what the NCLB initiative would think of that if they had to institute those types of tests in the schools? Hishinlai' >===== Original Message From Indigenous Languages and Technology ===== >Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca > >>>From Iyefu Adoba in Abuja >http://www.thisdayonline.com/news/20040218news31.html > >A Director of research programmes from the National Centre for >Scientific Research in France, Professor Bernard Caron, has made a case >for Pidgin English as a lingua Franca in the country. > >Speaking in Abuja at a lecture titled "Why Study Minority Languages in >Nigeria," Professor Caron, who has been in and out of Nigeria for the >past 17 years, regretted that despite Pidgin being an important Lingua >Franca, it is hardly mentioned in the language policy of the country. > >"Why is the language policy silent on Nigerian Pidgin which is used in >families and is a first language for many children?" queried the >Professor. > >He noted that English is the de facto official language in the >bureaucratic and educational system, while the 3 major languages of >Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa remain the major national potential languages. > >Noting that Pidgin is commonly used in songs, the Professor however >observed that very little literature, if any at all, exists in Pidgin >and asked if there is any future literary for Pidgin which can be >easily read in Nigeria and even outside the country. > >Caron said Nigeria is a well known country of many languages, adding >that there are easily 500 mother tongues in the country, which can be >classified under dead, dying, moribund or living languages. > >The Professor said the study of minority languages helps provide better >knowledge of the culture of the people and helps fight illiteracy. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 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/ Laraa t'ahch'yaa kwaa k'it tr'agwah'in. Nigwiinjik kwaa k'it juu veet'indhan veet'indhan ts'a' nak'arahtii kwaa k'it ch'andzaa. or "Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt, and Dance like you do when nobody's watching." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 20 16:01:04 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 09:01:04 -0700 Subject: Administration to modify No Child Left Behind Act (fwd) Message-ID: Administration to modify No Child Left Behind Act By Robert Dodge The Dallas Morning News http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001861633_nochild20.html WASHINGTON ? The Department of Education took steps yesterday to make it easier for schools with English-learning students to comply with the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The announcement by Education Secretary Rod Paige comes at a time when about a dozen states are weighing whether to give up federal education money so they do not have to comply with the two-year-old law. Washington state lawmakers have been considering a resolution that would ask President Bush and Congress to make changes in the law, including the modification announced yesterday. Bush administration officials have announced regulatory modifications twice since last year. The most recent would give schools more flexibility in testing students who are less than proficient in English. And schools will be given extra time to show that those students are making adequate yearly progress under the law. Paige said the modifications were designed to give educators flexibility to implement the law and improve the learning performance of students. "Schools are changed by people who are in the building, and that is who we want to hear from and that is who we want to help," he said. The modifications are not expected to have a big impact on the day-to-day life of students. But it could make a big difference to schools that face federal sanctions as early as next year if they do not improve. After testing last year, up to 30 percent of schools nationwide failed to make so-called adequate yearly progress, many because specific groups of students such as special education and English-learners did not have sufficient scores. Specifically, the two-point plan would give states the option of using either of two tests for English-learning students in their first year in U.S. schools. The second regulatory change gives schools an additional year to measure the progress of English-learning students. Previously, students were moved out of the limited-English group when they demonstrated language proficiency. That made it difficult for schools to show the limited-English group was making yearly progress. The new rules allow states to keep students in the limited-English group for an extra year to ensure their annual progress is included in calculations for measuring student progress under the law. Education officials acknowledged yesterday that more changes are on the way. Specifically, they said the department is likely to change provisions that would make it easier for all teachers to become "highly qualified." Information from Seattle Times archives is included in this report. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 20 16:12:33 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 09:12:33 -0700 Subject: New Rules Offer Schools Flexibility on Language (fwd link) Message-ID: New Rules Offer Schools Flexibility on Language U.S. eases guidelines on measuring the progress of students with limited English skills. http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-na-schools20feb20,1,1238466.story?coll=la-news-learning ~~~ [note: the LA Times article is more critical in its coverage of NCLB.] From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Fri Feb 20 19:41:16 2004 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 20:41:16 +0100 Subject: Int'l Mother Language Day 2/21 (Re: UNESCO urges teaching ...) Message-ID: This release is evidently times to coincide with International Mother Language Day (Feb. 21). For more info, see: http://www.unesco.org/education/IMLD2004 (a nice page, but one wishes that it had been publicized earlier!). DZO ----- Original Message ----- From: "phil cash cash" To: Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 4:30 PM Subject: UNESCO urges teaching from earliest age in indigenous mother languages (fwd) UNESCO urges teaching from earliest age in indigenous mother languages http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=9832&Cr=UNESCO&Cr1=# 20 February 2004 - With an average of two indigenous languages dying out every month, the United Nations cultural agency has called for national education systems to teach children in mother tongues from the earliest age as a means both of stimulating learning ability and preserving the world's rich heritage of linguistic diversity. "It is widely acknowledged nowadays that teaching in both the mother tongue and the official national language helps children to obtain better results and stimulates their cognitive development and capacity to learn," the Director-General of the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Ko??chiro Matsuura, said in a message for International Mother Language Day, which is celebrated on 21 February. UNESCO's General Conference 1999 proclaimed the Day in recognition of the importance of the world?~Rs linguistic diversity and to promote mother tongue languages. But a survey being undertaken by the agency indicates that although the use of mother languages as a medium of instruction is gaining ground, few countries have incorporated the idea into their education systems. The study shows that India is one of the world leaders in the development of multilingual education systems, with about 80 languages being used to teach children at different levels of schooling. But across Africa, where an estimated 2,011 languages are spoken, the languages of the former colonial powers - English, French, Spanish and Portuguese - still dominate education systems. A similar situation prevails in Latin America. According to the "Atlas of the World Languages in Danger of Disappearing" there are more than 6,000 languages spoken in the world today. Ninety five percent of these languages are spoken by only four percent of the population, and an average of two die out each month. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 20 20:44:58 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 13:44:58 -0700 Subject: UN's Mother Language Day Focuses On Conserving World's Linguistic Heritage (fwd) Message-ID: UN's Mother Language Day Focuses On Conserving World's Linguistic Heritage http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/2/99827E2F-A43E-4298-9F68-450EFC54E99D.html By Charles Carlson UNESCO -- the UN's Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization -- will mark on 23 February the fifth International Mother Language Day, which celebrates the world's nearly 6,000 languages as the "shared heritage of humanity." Linguists warn, however, that at least 40 percent of these languages are expected to die out during this century. Prague, 20 February 2004 (RFE/RL) -- In a statement marking International Mother Language Day, Konchiro Matsuura, the director-general of UNESCO, cited the UN holiday as a way to "celebrate nearly 6,000 languages, all creations of human genius, each expressing in a unique way a vision of the world, a coherent system of values and meanings." He said it is a "genuine challenge" to ensure that these languages -- 95 percent of which are spoken by only 4 percent of the world's population -- continue to be used alongside the world's major languages. By celebrating International Mother Language day, UNESCO is striving to contribute to the protection of the world's cultural diversity. "Every time we lose a language, we lose one vision of the world." David Crystal, one of the world's foremost authorities on language, spoke with RFE/RL recently about the importance of language diversity and the need to preserve languages that are endangered: "Language diversity is the equivalent of human diversity," he said. "The human race has been so successful on the planet because of its ability to adapt to an enormous range of circumstances. I think language is the intellectual equivalent of our biological capabilities. It's so important, first to be able to keep our minds busy, as it were, and one of the ways in which we can do this is by seeing how each language captures a vision of the world in a different way. Every time we lose a language, we lose one vision of the world." UNESCO's Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage -- adopted by the UNESCO General Conference last October -- makes explicit reference to languages as vehicles of the international cultural heritage. There is no consensus about the number of languages spoken in the world today because there is no general agreement on what constitutes a language and what constitutes a dialect. Nicholas Ostler is the president of the Society for Endangered Languages, based in Bath, England. Ostler further alludes to the seriousness of the situation: "The situation of the languages of the world at the moment is a fairly parlous one. There are reckoned to be between 6,000 and 7,000 languages in the world today. And the median size of a language is 6,000 people, which means that most of the languages of the world -- or at least half of them -- have fewer than 6,000 people [speaking them]." It becomes imperative, therefore, that endangered languages at least be documented, if not saved. Ostler: "Some of these languages, maybe half of them, have been contacted by linguists and are known of, are described in various ways. But many more, which would amount to perhaps 2,000 languages in the world, have never been contacted in this way. And so, if they cease to be spoken, it will be as if they had never been. Nobody would know what these languages have been like." It is estimated that, on average, two languages disappear each month. Endangered languages are distributed evenly around the world. An ethnologic database maintained by SIL International, a Christian missionary organization, lists 417 languages as "nearly extinct," with only a few, elderly, speakers still living. Regarding the distribution of these languages, Ostler said: "The situation of languages all over the world is very, very varied. In Europe and in places where Western civilization, such as it is, has been developed over a long period, the languages tend to have literate traditions and to be known about. Even one of the weakest languages in Europe, Cornish, has a literary tradition which goes back many centuries. But in most of the rest of the world -- in Africa, in the Americas, in Asia, and in Austral-Asia -- most languages live in a situation where the written word is not used. There is no literature, and hence, there tends to be no permanent record." Festivities at UNESCO headquarters in Paris will include a keynote speech by Matsuura; songs sung in their local languages by children from Armenia, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Japan, and Madagascar; and the showing of extracts from a documentary on endangered languages called "The Last Word." Activities will also take place in countries throughout the world. From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Fri Feb 20 21:59:03 2004 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 22:59:03 +0100 Subject: UN's Mother Language Day Focuses On Conserving World's Linguistic Heritage (fwd) Message-ID: Interesting - the website (and past observances) have "February 21," but it's great if they can stretch it out until Monday with whatever ceremonies are planned ... ----- Original Message ----- From: "phil cash cash" To: Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 9:44 PM Subject: UN's Mother Language Day Focuses On Conserving World's Linguistic Heritage (fwd) > UN's Mother Language Day Focuses On Conserving World's Linguistic > Heritage > http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/2/99827E2F-A43E-4298-9F68-450EFC54E99D.html > > By Charles Carlson > > UNESCO -- the UN's Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization -- > will mark on 23 February the fifth International Mother Language Day, . . . From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Fri Feb 20 23:24:10 2004 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 00:24:10 +0100 Subject: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca Message-ID: I've been putting off responding to this item because I wanted to reflect on it before responding. First the Webbook of African Languages at http://www.isp.msu.edu/AfrLang/hiermenu.html has a profile of Pidgin along with Krio (navigate the frames to look under the latter or go directly to http://www.isp.msu.edu/AfrLang/Krio_root.html ). Ethnologue of course has something on it - see http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=PCM On Nigerian languages, Ethnologue says "The number of languages listed for Nigeria is 515. Of those, 505 are living languages, 2 are second languages without mother tongue speakers, and 8 are extinct." ( http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=Nigeria ) I have heard (no citation) other estimates of Nigerian languages of ~350. At least part of the discrepancy may be accounted for by how one defines language. Pidgins of course are "contact languages" or "a simplified speech used for communication between people with different languages" (the latter being a Merriam-Webster def.). In some measure I guess there may be a creolization of pidgin in parts of Nigeria (leading to a more or less stable form) but the initial thought is that a pidgin or even a creole has a limited vocabulary and range of expression. All that said, while it certainly makes sense to acknowledge the use of pidgins, I wonder how helpful it would be to raise the status of a pidgin in the way implied by the article. In effect where it exists it is there, but otherwise it adds another layer of language in an already complex situation. For people who may have one maternal language, use another regional one if different from the maternal language (e.g., Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo), and learn English, now they'd have to learn pidgin also. Would promotion of pidgin mainly serve to 1) hasten the disappearance of minority languages and 2) institutionalize "dumbed down" expression in the process? With regard to Resa's comments, one would be tempted to take the point a step further - what about the many indigenous languages, and why raise the status of pidgin more than those? It is funny that I saw this article at about the same time I learned of a statement by an African youth conference in Windhoek last year which called for establishment of a "new panAfrican language." What this and the promotion of pidgin would seem to have in common - however well intended - is to complicate not simplify Africa's multilingual situations. Don Osborn Bisharat.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bizzaro, Resa Crane" To: Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 4:54 PM Subject: Re: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca > Hi, all. As a person who speaks standard English and at least two regional > dialects from eastern NC, I'm in favor of incorporating dialects into > standardized tests. What would that do to the No Child Left Behind > Initiative, which is seriously affecting the schools in my county? :-) > > Great idea! > > Resa > > -----Original Message----- > From: Hishinlai' [mailto:fnkrs at UAF.EDU] > Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 1:00 AM > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > Subject: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca > > > As we've all experienced from some other time, not too long ago, I think we > know a "news article" hardly ever covers the facts. For me, given the > gravity of this statement "that there are easily 500 mother tongues in the > country, which can be classified under dead, dying, moribund or living > languages.", it would be interesting to see how he can back-up a "Pidgin > English Lingua Franca." > > Maybe in the U.S., we could adopt non-standard English that is appropriate > regionally. Wow! I wonder what the NCLB initiative would think of that if > they had to institute those types of tests in the schools? Hishinlai' > > >===== Original Message From Indigenous Languages and Technology > ===== > >Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca > > > >>From Iyefu Adoba in Abuja > >http://www.thisdayonline.com/news/20040218news31.html > > > >A Director of research programmes from the National Centre for > >Scientific Research in France, Professor Bernard Caron, has made a case > >for Pidgin English as a lingua Franca in the country. > > > >Speaking in Abuja at a lecture titled "Why Study Minority Languages in > >Nigeria," Professor Caron, who has been in and out of Nigeria for the > >past 17 years, regretted that despite Pidgin being an important Lingua > >Franca, it is hardly mentioned in the language policy of the country. > > > >"Why is the language policy silent on Nigerian Pidgin which is used in > >families and is a first language for many children?" queried the > >Professor. > > > >He noted that English is the de facto official language in the > >bureaucratic and educational system, while the 3 major languages of > >Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa remain the major national potential languages. > > > >Noting that Pidgin is commonly used in songs, the Professor however > >observed that very little literature, if any at all, exists in Pidgin > >and asked if there is any future literary for Pidgin which can be > >easily read in Nigeria and even outside the country. > > > >Caron said Nigeria is a well known country of many languages, adding > >that there are easily 500 mother tongues in the country, which can be > >classified under dead, dying, moribund or living languages. > > > >The Professor said the study of minority languages helps provide better > >knowledge of the culture of the people and helps fight illiteracy. > > <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> > 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/ > > Laraa t'ahch'yaa kwaa k'it tr'agwah'in. Nigwiinjik kwaa k'it juu veet'indhan > veet'indhan ts'a' nak'arahtii kwaa k'it ch'andzaa. or > > "Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt, and > Dance like you do when nobody's watching." From miakalish at REDPONY.US Sun Feb 22 17:07:03 2004 From: miakalish at REDPONY.US (Mia - Main Red Pony) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 10:07:03 -0700 Subject: Online Conference: Lang. Evol/Thry of Mind Message-ID: Hi, everyone. There is an online conference. in Paris, actually. It is discussing the Evolution of Language and its interaction/interplay/bootstrapping with Theory of Mind. (Theory of Mind is the aware ness that you and others do not share the same "cognitive space", that is, it is a somewhat vaguely defined concept that includes awareness of the individuality of others, awareness of the fact that no two individuals perceive or respond to the same thing in the same way, and awareness that there each has a "mind".) But the people sound pretty good, in general. There are still some archaic artifacts, from Psychology, from Linguistics, and (sigh) from Chomsky. But I think it would be of interest to people working in Language Revitalization. Mia Kalish Tulie "Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Alfred North Whitehead Mia Kalish, M.A. PhD Student, Computer Science Tularosa, New Mexico USA 88352 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Ivy.gif Type: image/gif Size: 5665 bytes Desc: not available URL: From miakalish at REDPONY.US Mon Feb 23 03:06:43 2004 From: miakalish at REDPONY.US (Mia - Main Red Pony) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 20:06:43 -0700 Subject: Link: Online Conference: Lang. Evol/Thry of Mind Message-ID: Sorry, I forgot the link for this. Here it is: http://www.interdisciplines.org/coevolution Mia ----- Original Message ----- From: Mia - Main Red Pony To: Indigenous Languages and Technology Cc: deprees at email.arizona.edu Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2004 10:07 AM Subject: Online Conference: Lang. Evol/Thry of Mind Hi, everyone. There is an online conference. in Paris, actually. It is discussing the Evolution of Language and its interaction/interplay/bootstrapping with Theory of Mind. (Theory of Mind is the aware ness that you and others do not share the same "cognitive space", that is, it is a somewhat vaguely defined concept that includes awareness of the individuality of others, awareness of the fact that no two individuals perceive or respond to the same thing in the same way, and awareness that there each has a "mind".) But the people sound pretty good, in general. There are still some archaic artifacts, from Psychology, from Linguistics, and (sigh) from Chomsky. But I think it would be of interest to people working in Language Revitalization. Mia Kalish Tulie "Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Alfred North Whitehead Mia Kalish, M.A. PhD Student, Computer Science Tularosa, New Mexico USA 88352 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Ivy.gif Type: image/gif Size: 5665 bytes Desc: not available URL: From anguksuar at YAHOO.COM Tue Feb 24 14:09:59 2004 From: anguksuar at YAHOO.COM (Richard LaFortune) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 06:09:59 -0800 Subject: Seattle programs? In-Reply-To: <01e401c3f9ba$141cc950$6400a8c0@computer> Message-ID: hello all a colleague of mine plans to visit Puget Sound/Seattle & is interested in connecting with folks working on language revitalization- any suggestions/contacts that anyone knows about, and would be kind enough to pass along? Thank you Richard LaFortune Minnneapolis __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Feb 24 16:47:40 2004 From: sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Sue Penfield) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 09:47:40 -0700 Subject: Seattle programs? Message-ID: Richard and all, One person to ask would be Dick Demers in the linguistics dept. at the U. of Arizona -- and who has spent a liftetime working with Lummi revitalization efforts. Susan ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard LaFortune" To: Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 7:09 AM Subject: Seattle programs? > hello all > a colleague of mine plans to visit Puget Sound/Seattle > & is interested in connecting with folks working on > language revitalization- any suggestions/contacts that > anyone knows about, and would be kind enough to pass > along? Thank you > Richard LaFortune > Minnneapolis > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. > http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Feb 24 18:16:47 2004 From: sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Sue Penfield) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 11:16:47 -0700 Subject: Paiute-Shoshone Site Message-ID: All, The Owens Valley Career Center Language Program has a nicely developed site showing their use of multi-media work: http://www.ovcdc.com/languageprogram.html S. Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D. Department of English and Indigenous Languages and Technology University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 25 16:53:40 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 09:53:40 -0700 Subject: As native languages are lost in droves, ideas go with them (fwd) Message-ID: [ILAT note: this article may have been previously circulated here.] ~~~ As native languages are lost in droves, ideas go with them http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/8031044.htm BY ALEXANDRA WITZE The Dallas Morning News SEATTLE - (KRT) - A fisherman from Cornwall and an accountant from Houston may have trouble understanding each other, but the English tongue itself is in no danger of disappearing. The same can't be said for many of the world's native languages. "Human languages are vanishing as we speak," says K. David Harrison, a linguist at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. The rate of loss, he adds, "makes the extinction of species look trivial by comparison." Roughly 40 percent of the world's estimated 6,800 languages may disappear within the next century, linguist Stephen Anderson said this month in Seattle at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Chinese, English, Spanish, Hindi, Urdu and Arabic will probably maintain their lock as some of the languages with the most speakers. So why should it matter if a few obscure languages, spoken by a few people in remote corners of the world, vanish forever? "What is lost when a language is lost is a world," said Anderson, of Yale University. Native languages, he said, often convey cultural and sociological information that cannot be articulated in the same way in a different language. A tribe that loses its language may also lose a storehouse of knowledge about its members' history and their environment. Two newly described languages in the Turkic family, documented in Siberia by Harrison, illuminate the challenges facing those who speak an obscure tongue. Last July, Harrison traveled to Siberia to meet with the Chulym people, who live in six isolated villages using traditional means of hunting, gathering and fishing. Only 35 people in the community of 426 - and no one under the age of 52 - could speak the Middle Chulym language fluently, Harrison found. The rest spoke mainly Russian. Middle Chulym is a "moribund" language, destined to disappear soon after its last speaker dies, Harrison reported at the Seattle meeting. "Passive" speakers may continue to use some of the words for a while, but they, too, will inevitably die out, he said. Villagers consider Middle Chulym to be a low-prestige language, so there's no compelling reason for them to preserve it, Dr. Harrison said. Attempts to transliterate it into the Cyrillic alphabet, used in Russian, haven't worked for the same reason. "People don't feel good about speaking these languages," he said. When Middle Chulym goes, the villagers will have lost a rich oral history as well as specific environmental knowledge, such as what plants to harvest, what animals to hunt, and how to read local weather, Harrison said. He is working on a new transliteration to create a children's storybook in Middle Chulym that the villagers can be proud of. In similar straits is another Siberian language called Tofa, spoken by just 40 people in a community of 600. Tofa speakers have a detailed language for their reindeer herds, with specific ways of describing animals on the basis of sex, age, fertility, ride-ability and color. That kind of information just doesn't translate in the same fashion into Russian, Harrison said. Sometimes languages vanish by choice. In the Caucasus, for instance, the relatively complex Ubykh language disappeared partly because of a tradition that a couple, upon marrying, should adopt the more phonetically simple language of the pair, Anderson said. For example, every time an Ubykh-speaking man married a woman who spoke a simpler language, he stopped speaking Ubykh. Several linguistic, conservation and religious groups have devoted themselves to documenting as many of the world's vanishing languages as possible. But working against them is the fact that nobody knows exactly how many languages exist. The Ethnologue database, sponsored by Dallas-based SIL International, catalogs 6,809 languages worldwide. That number represents a "best guess" but is essentially meaningless, linguists argued at the Seattle meeting. For starters, there's the oft-blurred distinction between what constitutes a dialect and what constitutes a language. Languages are sometimes defined by political power rather than by linguistic definitions, said Laurence Horn of Yale. Cantonese and Mandarin are considered dialects of Chinese when they are really distinct languages. Meanwhile, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are more like dialects than separate languages, he said. In the end, perhaps it's best to regard all the world's languages as manifestations of a single language, said David Lightfoot of Georgetown University. And that, he said, could be called simply Human. --- RESOURCES For a survey of the world's estimated 6,800 languages, see www.ethnologue.com For photos from a documentary about the Middle Chulym, visit www.ironboundfilms.com/ironsinthefire.html For a book-length treatment, see "Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's Languages," by Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine (Oxford University Press, 2000) --- From mward at LUNA.CC.NM.US Thu Feb 26 19:08:04 2004 From: mward at LUNA.CC.NM.US (Matthew Ward) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 12:08:04 -0700 Subject: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca Message-ID: I want to make some comments on this discussion, sorry that I'm a bit late on it. First, as Don notes, the article fails to make a distinction between creole and pidgin language. I suspect that, in Nigeria, both are commonly used, but there is a very important difference. Pidgins are very non-standardized forms of communication which indeed hold serious limitations when compared to other human languages. Creoles, however, are what happens when children grow up speaking a pidgin, and something rather amazing happens: when spoken as a native language, the former pidgin suddenly develops the systematic syntax and complete grammatical system that all human languages have. They tend to have somewhat limited vocabularies at first, but, like all natural human languages, they possess the capacity to develop vocabulary, and if they are used for a variety of purposes, they generally do just that. The grammar also tends to be somewhat "simple" by some standards, but if we are to assume that simplicity (always a relative concept when dealing with language) equals limitation, then we would have to conclude that some of the world's biggest native languages (Mandarin Chinese and Malay/Indonesian come to mind) are "limited" as well. Now, if indeed, there are children growing up in Nigeria speaking "pidgin English" as a native language or as one of their natives languages, then what the article is really talking about is an English-based creole. It's not equivilent to non-standard English, it is, in fact, a separate language which would presumably be unintelligible to a native English speaker. Most linguists would classify it as a separate language: not as a form of English, but as a new indigenous language. For example, many estimates of the number of native speakers of various languages in the world do not count Haitian Creole as a form of French, nor do they not count Jamaicans as native speakers of English, but rather as native speakers of their own indigenous languages which happen to derive from colonial languages. Indeed, the Haitian and Jamaican creoles are structurally far more similar to each other than they are to the two colonial language which which they derive. As such, it is important not to stigmitize languages which the popular media refers to as "pidgin," as they may in fact be the indigenous language of an entire society, and the native languages of millions of people. Indeed, creole languages are often stigmitized. I remember reading an article about minorities on the west coast of Nicaragua that face a familiar issue: they live in a country where Spanish is the only official language, yet they have their own traditional native language: an English-based creole. Some schools have experimented with teaching in English, in order to stem growing language shift to Spanish. However, the standard English used in textbooks is, for practical purposes, a foreign language to these people. So, on one side, the creole faces competition from the dominant national language, and on the other side, being mislabled as a variety of English puts it in danger as well. That is a terrible dilemma for a language to find itself in. On the other hand, there is a growing movement to give certain creole languages official status. In Jamaica, for example, the only official language is English, which most Jamaicans can use to some degree, but as noted above, most people speak an indigenous creole which is unintelligible to native speakers of standard English. Because of this, there is now a movement to make Jamaican Creole a second official language. For those who believe that creole languages are somehow incapable of being used officially, we've heard the same arguments in the past about many languages, and the reality has always been that human languages, when used, turn out to be capable of the task they are used for. There are, for example, newspapers in some societies that are written in creole languages, and there are books that are translated from other languages into creoles--"other languages" including the languages that the creoles were originally derived from. So, there is no question that creoles are "good enough" to be used for any purpose. Having said that, I agree with many of you that a society like Nigeria should continue to develop and promote its traditional indigenous languages over English-based pidgins and creoles. But, you can understand their situation: although they contains some of the world's largest native languages, regions tend to be divided linguistically. Some Nigerian indigenous languages have far more native speakers than do European languages like Danish or Finnish, but choosing one to be the national lingua franca might create ethnic tensions. Standard English is supposed to be the lingua franca, but even by liberal estimates, the majority cannot actually speak it. The "pidgin," whether it is actually a pidgin, or a creole, or both, may well in fact be the most common lingua franca already, at least, the one language which is understood to a reasonably wide degree in all of the country's regions. Still, it remains very frustrating that many African languages, even those with tens of millions of native speakers, cannot enjoy the same status that much smaller European languages do. It's one of the most damning legacies of colonialism that I can think of. Nevertheless, I do strongly support countries like Jamaica and Haiti giving their creole languages official status, and developing them in the same way that native languages of other societies are developed. Seeing that the native languages of those countries are, unlike in a place like Nigeria, the only existing indigenous languages that those societies have, it is important to recognize that creole languages are, essentially, no worse than any other kind of human language or dialect. Mattthew Ward Don Osborn wrote: >I've been putting off responding to this item because I wanted to reflect on >it before responding. First the Webbook of African Languages at >http://www.isp.msu.edu/AfrLang/hiermenu.html has a profile of Pidgin along >with Krio (navigate the frames to look under the latter or go directly to >http://www.isp.msu.edu/AfrLang/Krio_root.html ). Ethnologue of course has >something on it - see http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=PCM > >On Nigerian languages, Ethnologue says "The number of languages listed for >Nigeria is 515. Of those, 505 are living languages, 2 are second languages >without mother tongue speakers, and 8 are extinct." ( >http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=Nigeria ) I have heard (no >citation) other estimates of Nigerian languages of ~350. At least part of >the discrepancy may be accounted for by how one defines language. > >Pidgins of course are "contact languages" or "a simplified speech used for >communication between people with different languages" (the latter being a >Merriam-Webster def.). > >In some measure I guess there may be a creolization of pidgin in parts of >Nigeria (leading to a more or less stable form) but the initial thought is >that a pidgin or even a creole has a limited vocabulary and range of >expression. > >All that said, while it certainly makes sense to acknowledge the use of >pidgins, I wonder how helpful it would be to raise the status of a pidgin in >the way implied by the article. In effect where it exists it is there, but >otherwise it adds another layer of language in an already complex situation. >For people who may have one maternal language, use another regional one if >different from the maternal language (e.g., Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo), and learn >English, now they'd have to learn pidgin also. > >Would promotion of pidgin mainly serve to 1) hasten the disappearance of >minority languages and 2) institutionalize "dumbed down" expression in the >process? > >With regard to Resa's comments, one would be tempted to take the point a >step further - what about the many indigenous languages, and why raise the >status of pidgin more than those? > >It is funny that I saw this article at about the same time I learned of a >statement by an African youth conference in Windhoek last year which called >for establishment of a "new panAfrican language." What this and the >promotion of pidgin would seem to have in common - however well intended - >is to complicate not simplify Africa's multilingual situations. > >Don Osborn >Bisharat.net > > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Bizzaro, Resa Crane" >To: >Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 4:54 PM >Subject: Re: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca > > > > >>Hi, all. As a person who speaks standard English and at least two >> >> >regional > > >>dialects from eastern NC, I'm in favor of incorporating dialects into >>standardized tests. What would that do to the No Child Left Behind >>Initiative, which is seriously affecting the schools in my county? :-) >> >>Great idea! >> >>Resa >> >>-----Original Message----- >>From: Hishinlai' [mailto:fnkrs at UAF.EDU] >>Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 1:00 AM >>To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU >>Subject: Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca >> >> >>As we've all experienced from some other time, not too long ago, I think >> >> >we > > >>know a "news article" hardly ever covers the facts. For me, given the >>gravity of this statement "that there are easily 500 mother tongues in the >>country, which can be classified under dead, dying, moribund or living >>languages.", it would be interesting to see how he can back-up a "Pidgin >>English Lingua Franca." >> >>Maybe in the U.S., we could adopt non-standard English that is appropriate >>regionally. Wow! I wonder what the NCLB initiative would think of that if >>they had to institute those types of tests in the schools? Hishinlai' >> >> >> >>>===== Original Message From Indigenous Languages and Technology >>> >>> >> ===== >> >> >>>Make Pidgin English Lingua Franca >>> >>>>>From Iyefu Adoba in Abuja >>>http://www.thisdayonline.com/news/20040218news31.html >>> >>>A Director of research programmes from the National Centre for >>>Scientific Research in France, Professor Bernard Caron, has made a case >>>for Pidgin English as a lingua Franca in the country. >>> >>>Speaking in Abuja at a lecture titled "Why Study Minority Languages in >>>Nigeria," Professor Caron, who has been in and out of Nigeria for the >>>past 17 years, regretted that despite Pidgin being an important Lingua >>>Franca, it is hardly mentioned in the language policy of the country. >>> >>>"Why is the language policy silent on Nigerian Pidgin which is used in >>>families and is a first language for many children?" queried the >>>Professor. >>> >>>He noted that English is the de facto official language in the >>>bureaucratic and educational system, while the 3 major languages of >>>Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa remain the major national potential languages. >>> >>>Noting that Pidgin is commonly used in songs, the Professor however >>>observed that very little literature, if any at all, exists in Pidgin >>>and asked if there is any future literary for Pidgin which can be >>>easily read in Nigeria and even outside the country. >>> >>>Caron said Nigeria is a well known country of many languages, adding >>>that there are easily 500 mother tongues in the country, which can be >>>classified under dead, dying, moribund or living languages. >>> >>>The Professor said the study of minority languages helps provide better >>>knowledge of the culture of the people and helps fight illiteracy. >>> >>> >><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> >>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/ >> >>Laraa t'ahch'yaa kwaa k'it tr'agwah'in. Nigwiinjik kwaa k'it juu >> >> >veet'indhan > > >>veet'indhan ts'a' nak'arahtii kwaa k'it ch'andzaa. or >> >>"Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt, and >>Dance like you do when nobody's watching." >> >> > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 27 16:13:30 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 09:13:30 -0700 Subject: RMC official studies Maori language (fwd) Message-ID: RMC official studies Maori language http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?display=rednews/2004/02/27/build/local/40-pease.inc By MARY PICKETT Of The Gazette Staff Rocky Mountain College administrator Janine Pease watched schoolchildren create a skit based on Maori proverbs during a trip to New Zealand earlier this month. After the teacher described the assignment, the children went to work on their skits and discussed their ideas. What made this class special was that everything that was written and said was in Maori, the language of native peoples of New Zealand. Over the last 25 years, Maoris have developed language-immersion schools in which Maori is spoken exclusively by students, teachers and staff. Pease, Rocky's vice president for American Indian affairs, was the coordinator of the trip to New Zealand for 35 representatives of Native American language-immersion programs and private philanthropic foundations. Most of those traveling to New Zealand, were, like Pease, American Indian. Two years ago, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation commissioned Pease to do a study of American Indian language immersion programs. Language immersion programs in the United States are a well-kept secret, Pease said. The 50 programs that exist range from family based learning groups in which two great-grandparents teach their great-grandchildren their native language to multilevel schools in which the entire curriculum - including playground and lunchroom conversations - is taught in a native language. The 16-year-old Piegan Institute on the Blackfeet Reservation in northwestern Montana is an example of the last type. The newer White Clay Language Immersion School at Fort Belknap College is teaching Gros Ventre language to younger children. Darrell Kipp from the Piegan Institute and Linnette Chandler from the White Clay School were among those in New Zealand with Pease. After Pease made her report to a meeting of representatives of about 20 private foundations last year, some representatives wanted more information about how their organizations could become involved in immersion programs. Out of that meeting grew the trip to New Zealand to observe Maori programs, considered the gold standard of immersion education in indigenous languages. The Kellogg and Lannan foundations funded the trip. Immersion schools in New Zealand began about 25 years ago and now encompass schools for children and students from infants through college. Language instruction begins with preschoolers in 700 "language nest" schools. Children learn native music, art and stories as well as other preschool activities. Some language nests are attended by mothers and infants. "No age is too young for a language nest," Pease said. The next level is K-13 schools, which again teach everything in Maori, except for one hour of English a day beginning in the fifth grade. To go on to higher education, New Zealand children have to pass a Form 7 standardized test in their last year of high school. Outside the school, Maori children are English-speaking. Before the immersion system began, only 15 percent of Maori students passed the Form 7 test. In 2003, 85 percent of children going through K-13 immersion schools passed the test in English, making them eligible to go on to colleges and universities. Immersion schools are successful because half of the curriculum teaches material that will appear on the Form 7 test and half teaches Maori culture and language. The emphasis on Maori culture strengthens the students' sense of self-worth. "It provides a world of knowledge that's theirs," Pease said. Critics of the program wonder if immersion education excludes students from the main culture, but their success at the tests shows that that is not true, she said. The curriculum includes subjects such as technology and business so students can get jobs or go on with their education. Three tribal colleges in New Zealand with 35 campuses also teach in the Maori language. Twenty percent of Maori children now are in the immersion K-13 schools, and there are long waiting lists to get into the schools. New Zealand immersion programs began as private programs but now receive public support after a treaty settlement with the 50 Maori tribes 20 years ago. Taking a look at New Zealand immersion schools is important for Americans because Maoris and American Indians both have been threatened with the loss of their language and culture. Maoris were forced to attend centralized boarding schools where they were punished for speaking their language as were American Indians. The number of Maoris speaking the language fluently was down to about 2,000 people in the 1970s. That figure has risen to about 24,000 speakers, thanks to immersion schools. In the United States, only about 20 of the 150 American Indian languages being spoken now are considered healthy, Pease said. Language-immersion programs are a way to save native languages - and, perhaps, students themselves. Only 51 percent of American Indian students across the country finish high school, and 90 percent of 12th grade American Indians fall in the lowest percentile of math and science in standardized tests. Pease called those statistics "alarming" and "shocking." "The model we have in public schools is broken, and most American Indian students can't enter higher education," she said. "We need to examine entire new models." Pease and others who went on the trip will be forming a national group to bring together private foundations and leaders of American immersion programs to support current programs and create new ones. Mary Pickett can be reached at 657-1262 or at mpickett at billingsgazette.com. From pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET Fri Feb 27 18:15:52 2004 From: pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 11:15:52 -0700 Subject: Fwd: What's on and going on at Aboriginal Voices Radio Message-ID: ILAT subscribers, i am forwarding fyi the segment to be aired on Saturday 11am with Indigenous Language Specialist Amos Keye. phil cash cash ILAT, UofA Begin forwarded message: > From: "Aboriginal Voices Radio Network newsletter Radio" > Date: February 27, 2004 11:03:05 AM MST > To: pasxapu at dakotacom.net > Subject: What's on and going on at Aboriginal Voices Radio > > You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed to it at our > website's main page (http://www.aboriginalradio.com). If this is an > error, please see below for unsubscribe information. > > ABORIGINAL VOICES RADIO NEWSLETTER > Published by Aboriginal Voices Radio Inc. > (http://www.aboriginalradio.com) > > -------------------------------------------------- > > HIGHLIGHTS > > * This week on ???Nation 2 Nation??? > * This week on Patrice Mousseau ???in the morning??? > * AVR is now airing Earthsongs from AIROS > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------------------- > > SPONSORED LINKS > > AVR would like to thank and welcome its new and continuing sponsors and > advertisers. For details about promotional opportunities please > contact > nadine.stlouis at aboriginalradio.com or bruce.chown at aboriginalradio.com. > A > member of our sales and sponsorship team will reply. > > Have you ever considered a career in Journalism? Radio? Television or > even the Movies? Please join Aboriginal Voices Radio, Spirit Magazine, > New VR, Anishnawbek News, Big Soul Productions and many more during a > MEDIA CAREER FAIR happening on March 27th, 2004 at the HOLIDAY INN in > Barry, ON > It's free! Please visit our website: http://www.aboriginalradio.com > for a registration form. > > Nation 2 Nation (N2N) would like to thank Royal Flush Gaming Ltd, a > First Nation Gaming Supply House, for their financial support. > http://www.royalflushgamingcanada.com > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------------------- > > This week on Nation 2 Nation > > Join "Nation 2 Nation" host Andre Morriseau this coming week, on > Sunday my guest is Indigenous Language Specialist Amos Keye, on > Saturday it???s Playwright Alanis King whose new play the Art Show > premiered on Thursday night at the Art Word Theatre. Monday my > special guest is Toronto Mayor David Miller. All shows are at 11:00 > a.m. So tune it! > Nation 2 Nation is AVR's Aboriginal Public Affairs Program that > explores the lives and issues of people in our Aboriginal world. > > -------------------------------------------------- > > This week on Patrice Mousseau - In the Morning > > Tune in to our regular features Request Tuesdays > (requests at aboriginalradio.com) and -This Day in OUR History- with > Sidd Bobb everyday at 10:15 am. > In the studio on Wednesday we???ll have an interview with playwright > and author , Drew Hayden Taylor . At 10 am that same day, we will be > discussing Traditional Healing on Miino Bimaudzowin ???Living a Good > Life??? with Traditional Healing Facilitator (osh-ka-be-wis) Myeengun. > Women???s Round Table on Friday at 10 am the topic will be > ???Astrology ??? with guests Nadine St. Louis (Mi???kmaq/Acadian) and > Shana Seneca (Mohawk). You can join them for discussion and > exploration of tarot and astrology. > This and the best in Aboriginal and Indigenous music from North > America and around the world. Monday to Friday 8 to 11 am. > > -------------------------------------------------- > > AVR is now airing Earthsongs from Kohanic Broadcasting Corporation > > Host Gregg McVicar. This weeks guest is Robert Mirabel, Times are > Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 8:00 PM. (8;00 AM on > Sat and Sun) > > -------------------------------------------------- > > Aboriginal Voices Radio Inc. > Studio City Building > 366 Adelaide St. E., Suite 323 > Toronto, ON, M5A 3X9 > (tel) 416-703-1287 > (fax) 416-703-4328 > > To unsubscribe please reply to this message with the word UNSUBSCRIBE > in the subject field. > > > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 4316 bytes Desc: not available URL: From liko at LEOKI.UHH.HAWAII.EDU Fri Feb 27 19:34:34 2004 From: liko at LEOKI.UHH.HAWAII.EDU (Liko Puha) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 09:34:34 -1000 Subject: AZ AG: public schools not exempt from Prop. 203 Message-ID: AZ AG: public schools not exempt from Prop. 203 By Bill Donovan - Navajo Times WINDOW ROCK - A couple of years ago, educators went on the offensive when Arizona voters went to the polls to decide whether English would be the only language that classes would be taught in. At that time, a compromise was reached that public school educators thought would allow them an exemption so they could provide instruction in Native American languages in the early grades. Boy, were they wrong. Education officials for the state of Arizona are now saying that based on an opinion by the state's attorney general, public schools on the reservation have to comply with the English Only law (Proposition 203). Only Bureau of Indian Affairs schools are exempt. "This is a major step backwards," said Deborah Jackson-Dennison, superintendent of the Window Rock Unified School District. Jackson-Dennison has got President Joe Shirley Jr. involved in her efforts to get the state to change its policy and exempt public schools on reservations that have a large Native American student population. Shirley and other tribal officials were in Phoenix Tuesday meeting with state education officials to get the matter clarified. What's at risk, Jackson-Dennison said, were Navajo language immersion programs like the one at Window Rock where students in the primary grades get instruction in their native language. As they get into higher grades, they receive more and more instruction in English. By doing this, she said, it now appears that school districts will be putting in jeopardy some of their state funding. She said that on many state funding requests, the Arizona Department of Education has placed a new item asking districts if they are complying with the English Only law. "The form gives us only two options - yes or no," said Jackson-Dennison. "There is not a third option labeled 'exempt.'" By filling out the "no" blank, public schools on reservations within the state are taking a definite risk of getting their application denied. If they mark "yes," programs like Window Rock's Navajo Immersion Program will be eliminated. State school officials have made it very clear that classes - all classes - will be taught only in English. Margaret Garcia-Dugan, associate superintendent for the Arizona Department of Education, said that while BIA schools are exempt from complying with Proposition 203, public schools are not. In a written statement, she said that "if a public school has a large Native American student population, it must still adhere to the provisions set forth in Proposition 203 regardless of whether or not that school is on a reservation. "Proposition 203 does allow teaching other languages besides English as an elective (such as Navajo Language and Cultural Instruction)," she said. "All other courses such as history, math, English, and physical education are to be in (English Only) unless the student receives a waiver." This, said Jackson-Dennison, doesn't make a lot of sense since federal statutes contain provisions that protect and encourage the development of native languages such as those offered within the Window Rock school district. "The No Child Left Behind Act also encourages the teaching of native languages," she said. Now, the state is coming in and saying that the school district could lose some of its state funding by following the federal laws and this isn't right, she said. Rosalyn LaPier Piegan Institute www.pieganinstitute.org From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Fri Feb 27 22:35:47 2004 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 23:35:47 +0100 Subject: Regional languages dying in mixed marriages (fwd) Message-ID: Matthew, all, (here's an even slower reply), It is interesting to compare the situation in the Americas with that in Africa. Colonization in the latter - and the slave trade before - however severe in its effects did not decimate the populations & cultures the way that the European invasion of what was for them the "New World" did there. The imposition of French, English and to a lesser degree Portuguese (and in one enclave, Spanish) from the mid-19th century on has not replaced the indigenous languages, but have usurped some functions. One could argue that cultures were sociolinguistically decapitated with the absorbtion of existing elites or creating of separate elites schooled in the colonial tongues, and that that situation has to a large degree continued such that African languages by and large are seen as backward and incapable of expressing scientific concepts. This sort of depreciation no longer has to come from foreigners - I have heard Africans schooled in English or French will offer this opinion (not sure if speakers of Native American languages say similar things), and those not schooled but steeped in their first language(s) away from seats of power and learning don't have the ways or means to argue. The large number of languages in Africa is generally given as a reason to continue to resort to the languages inherited from the colonial period, but this argument really seems to just gloss over a varied linguistic terrain and preclude discussion of alternative solutions. As you mention in your response re pidgin, there are languages in Africa with as many or more speakers than some of the state languages in Europe, but they are being totally or largely neglected in education and language policy (in many cases it seems because the languages cross borders). Part of what got me involved in these questions a few years ago was thinking about facilitating multilingual uses of computers and the internet in Africa, but as time goes by, it seems that some ICT tools may actually be able to help in the revitalization of maternal languages and to lessen some of the inconveniences (relative to advantages) of multiple languages in a society. Don ----- Original Message ----- From: "Matthew Ward" To: Sent: Monday, February 02, 2004 7:23 PM Subject: Re: Regional languages dying in mixed marriages (fwd) > If Native American societies had been allowed to develop as independent > states, then you would probably see this kind of thing happening on a > widespread scale: language shift occuring in the direction of more > powerful indigenous languages, rather than in the direction of colonial > languages. You would still see endangered minority languages, but you > would also have powerful, thriving indigenous languages, as India has. > > The sad thing is that in the American continents, four colonial > languages (Spanish, English, Portuguese and French) are official or > de-facto official in every state, and very few countries have given > either official recognition or widespread official use to indigenous > languages, which has put the latter in a precarious position. > > I personally believe that making indigenous languages the de facto state > languages of various reservations or regions would be one of the most > effective ways to fight back. Some of the Alaskan languages, for > example, are relatively healthy, due to their widespread use in local > government and education. It is easier to maintain a language when using > that language is required in order to participate in a variety of > spheres within a given society. > > To take the article we read about Easter Island for an example, if > Spanish-speaking newcomers to Easter Island had to learn the local > language in order to navigate local government and education, they would > be more likely to learn that language, and the locals would have a > concrete, practical reason for passing the language on to their > children. I have read about Spanish-speaking migrants to Basque country > in Spain who have complained bitterly about having to learn Basque, but, > in my view, the Basques are simply doing what they need to do in order > to maintain their culture. European minority languages like Catatlan and > Basque remain healthy because their speakers have won political battles > which have enabled them to restore their languages' official status and > use. Hopefully, indigenous people in America (meaning, the American > continents) will be able to win similar battles. > [ . . . ] From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Feb 28 11:49:09 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 04:49:09 -0700 Subject: Idaho State University Professor...Help Save Native Language (fwd) Message-ID: Idaho State University Professor Heads to Southern California to Help Save Native Language ?????? POCATELLO, Idaho, Feb. 27 (AScribe Newswire) -- Idaho State University anthropology professor Dr. Christopher Loether, who specializes in the Shoshoni language, has been hired for 18 months to help save the language of the Serrano Indians living in southern California on the San Manuel and Morongo Reservations. ?????? Loether is building on work done by University of California, Los Angeles professor Dr. Ernest Siva, a member of the Morongo Indian tribe who is half Serrano and half Cahuilla. Siva, a Serrano speaker, has worked with the Morongo and San Manuel bands of the Mission Indians for many years. ?????? "Basically, there are only three people left who speak the language," Loether said. "The last woman who spoke only the Serrano language, who was in her 90s, died last year, but we have a lot of material collected from this woman, Dorothy Ramon, who was Siva's aunt." ?????? The San Manuel Reservation is located in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains, just north of the city of Highland, and occupies 740 acres. About 68 adult and 129 children are tribal members, according to Loether. ?????? The 32,000-acre Morongo Indian Reservation is set near the base of the San Gorgonio and San Jacinto Mountains. Tribal membership is about 1,200, according to Loether. ?????? Loether will first learn the Serrano language, then train teachers to teach the language in schools. The language will be taught to pre-school children next fall, then to successively higher grades each year, based on the model of a Hawaiian language program taught on the Hawaiian Islands in every grade from kindergarten to graduate school. ?????? "Different Indian groups are trying to preserve their languages using programs based on the Hawaiian model," Loether said. "One California tribe located south of us, the Pechanga, recently implemented a language program that was very successful." ?????? Loether will also assist Siva in teaching the Serrano language in classes at UCLA next fall. The university will begin offering a two-year certificate in Serrano culture and language. ?????? The Serrano Indian language is a member of the Uto-Aztecan language family, the same as Shoshoni. Paiute is also a member of that language family. Loether learned the Western Mono language while earning his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in anthropology at UCLA. He learned the Eastern Mono language while working on a project in the Owens Valley in California. ?????? While at ISU, Loether has also become a Shoshoni language expert, working with ISU adjunct professor Drusilla Gould. The Shoshoni language program began in 1989, and ISU became one of the first universities to offer a Native American language to fulfill the foreign language general education requirement. Loether and Gould have published a Shoshoni language textbook, "An Introduction to the Shoshoni Language" (University of Utah Press 2002), and 35 to 40 people per year are enrolled in its Shoshoni language courses. ?????? Although the Serrano language is related to the Shoshoni and the Mono languages, learning and teaching Serrano is difficult because of the lack of fluent speakers and written materials on the language. ?????? "Serrano is related to Shoshoni and is as close to Shoshoni, perhaps, as English is to German. They are definitely related but there are a lot of differences between them," Loether said. ?????? There is already a writing system in place for the Serrano language developed by scholar Eric Elliot. The writing system uses the Roman alphabet with a couple of extra signs and "a couple of letters that don't stand for the same thing they do in written English," Loether said. The instructional book of the Serrano language, patterned after Loether and Gould's Shoshoni textbook, will include examples of conversations, dialogues, and interactions. ?????? "We will teach students useful phrases they can put to use interacting with other people in real situations," Loether said. "This method is known as the 'ulpan' method of language immersion and was first developed by the Jews of Palestine to teach Hebrew, when they were revitalizing that language in the early 1900s. It is now used to teach new immigrants to Israel the Hebrew language." ?????? Members of the ISU anthropology department have been active in recent cultural preservation projects. Gould has traveled to Shoshoni reservations throughout the West to help with language projects. Professor Dr. Anthony Stocks has helped a number of Central and South American tribes and indigenous groups acquire and manage lands in critical conservation areas. ?????? ISU is located in Pocatello, Idaho, which is adjacent to the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. The reservation has about 5,000 residents, approximately 3,000 of them are Native American. The Fort Hall tribe has about 3,500 enrolled members. ISU averages about 350 Native American students each semester out of a total enrollment of about 13,500. Shoshoni language courses are well attended, and generally one-third to one-half of those enrolled are Native Americans. Two Shoshoni and one Chippewa Indian are on the ISU anthropology department teaching staff. ?????? "We get people (enrolled in ISU Shoshoni classes) who are just interested in the language and the culture, but the majority of our students are from Fort Hall," Loether said. "However, we've had students from about every Shoshoni Indian reservation in the West over time. Shoshoni from Nevada, Wyoming, and Utah have all attended our classes, as well as Comanche, who speak a dialect of Shoshoni." http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/spew4th.pl?ascribeid=20040227.110659&time=11%2020%20PST&year=2004&public=1 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Feb 29 20:47:20 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 13:47:20 -0700 Subject: Say No More (fwd) Message-ID: Say No More by Jack Hitt Languages die the way many people do -- at home, in silence, attended by loved ones straining to make idle conversation.... http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/29/magazine/29LANGUAGE.html?ex=1078635600&en=31f3796588457b34&ei=5062