From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Wed Jun 2 02:26:54 2004 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Wed, 2 Jun 2004 02:26:54 -0000 Subject: Fwd: Innovate Call for Manuscripts Message-ID: FYI... looks like this journal might have space for IT related topics on multi/bilingual literacy and pedagogy, and indigenous language education. DZO --- In DigAfrica at yahoogroups.com, RWalker949 at a... wrote: Subj: Innovate Call for Manuscripts Date: 05/18/2004 2:13:04 PM Central Daylight Time From: morrison at u... (James L. Morrison) To: rwalker949 at a... Innovate is a bimonthly, peer-reviewed, online periodical published by Nova Southeastern University. It focuses on the creative use of information technology (IT) to enhance educational processes in all sectors (K-12, college and university, corporate, government). Innovate is dedicated to presenting articles via the most dynamic, interactive technology that is available. For each article, the journal provides an online discussion forum, an interactive webcast that connects authors and readers, and a "read-related" feature that links visitors to articles on similar topics. A multimedia classifieds section and journal editions in multiple languages are both in the planning stages. Theory, practice, vision, and commentary all have a place in Innovate. Articles generally fall into one of four main categories. * Applied Research and Assessment: Evidence related to the extent, effectiveness, and/or impact of IT use in educational and professional settings * Practice: Reports on innovative uses of IT in specific environments, with notable results * Development: Advance information on the newest IT projects, programs, tools, and trends * Commentary: Critical reflections on the changing nature of teaching, learning, and training with IT in the twenty-first century If you would like to submit a manuscript for publication consideration, please review our submission guidelines at http://horizon.unc.edu/innovate/guidelines/ and let me know if you intend to submit a manuscript. Also, please forward this announcement to colleagues who may want to submit manuscripts. The initial issue of Innovate will be published in July 2004. Sign up for our mailing list at http://horizon.unc.edu/innovate/ Many thanks. Jim ---- James L. Morrison Editor-in-Chief, Innovate http://horizon.unc.edu/innovate/guidelines/ Professor Emeritus of Educational Leadership UNC-Chapel Hill http://horizon.unc.edu --- End forwarded message --- From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jun 2 15:06:06 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 2 Jun 2004 08:06:06 -0700 Subject: New life for languages in Whitehorse school (fwd) Message-ID: New life for languages in Whitehorse school WebPosted Jun 1 2004 10:33 AM CDT http://north.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=yuk-gwitchinschool01062004 WHITEHORSE A Whitehorse school council wants to bring Gwich'in and Tlingit languages into the classroom. School councillors, parents and students from F.H. Collins high school started working on the idea a few months ago after Yukon's minister of education announced funding for more native language instructor trainees. "There are many First Nations in the Yukon and we think this enriches the school environment and is very important for language and culture," says Heather McFadgen, chair of the school council at F.H. Collins. McFadgen says the idea for the new language programs came from interested parents and students. The details of the courses are still being worked out. However, this isn't dampening enthusiasm. Joe Linklater, Chief of the Vuntut Gwich'in First Nation, says there is a lot of interest among Old Crow students living in the Yukon capital. "Our children, when they move to Whitehorse, lose that opportunity to learn the basics of the language in school. So we're happy to hear the opportunity is there so that they can continue to learn," said Linklater. McFadgen is optimistic the courses will be offered as early as this autumn. The school's principal is asking students about the idea and working with the education department. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jun 3 15:27:15 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2004 08:27:15 -0700 Subject: Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation (fwd) Message-ID: Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation A number of Amazonian groups face extinction as their space to live away from the modern world disappears. http://www.un.org/events/tenstories/story.asp?storyID=200# Far from the eyes of the world, some sixty-four indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation in Amazonian Ecuador, Peru, Brazil and Bolivia – the Tagaeri, Huaorani, Taromenane, Corubo, Amamhuaca, Mascho, Kineri, Nanti, Nahua and Kugapakori, among others – are condemned to gradual extinction. These tribes remain mysterious, avoiding all contact with strangers and preferring the isolated existence they have maintained for centuries. What little is known about them has been gleaned from other indigenous groups and from chance encounters with developers and rights groups. But what is clear is that their numbers are rapidly dwindling: the Coruba now number only 40; and the number of Mascho speakers is estimated to be between 20 and 100. The Amamhuaca language, it is thought, is spoken only by 720 people: 500 in Peru and 220 in Brazil. Attempts to learn more about these groups can prove fatal. The last known report of contact with the Tagaeri, the indigenous group with the strictest self-imposed isolation, was in July 1987, when two missionaries whose attempt to convince the tribe to allow oil extractors to enter their territory led to their deaths. The Tagaeri subsequently abandoned their homes and disappeared deeper into dense forests, demonstrating their rejection of co-existence with the modern world. Gas and oil companies, loggers, miners and entrepreneurs are viewed by indigenous groups as “ghosts of death” for the toxic legacy they can leave behind and which can poison rivers and forests considered as a source of life for these communities. These indigenous groups have developed their own health care and food gathering systems, but which are fragile and easily threatened by damage to the ecosystems wherein they live. All too often contact with outsiders results in the transfer of disease, resulting in epidemics since the indigenous peoples have no immunities to what are common and treatable diseases elsewhere. Governments around the world have increasingly acknowledged the rights of indigenous peoples. In part, this has been the result of a process of empowerment by such groups, who have pressed their demands on governments. In the case of groups living in isolation, preferring to avoid contact with government representatives and other communities, responding to their needs is far more difficult. The Brazilian Government was among the first to take steps to adopt a policy of creating territorial reserves for people living in voluntary isolation that are “no-go zones” to extractive industries and migrants. Colombia, Ecuador and Peru are also looking at similar action. The challenge facing the impoverished governments of the region is to balance the further exploitation of the riches of the Amazonian belt in the name of development, and the protection of these fragile indigenous groups, and the cultural heritage they represent. For further information: Mr. John Scott, Social Affairs Officer UN Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Tel: (1 917) 326-5798; E-mail: scott9 at un.org From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jun 3 15:35:30 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2004 08:35:30 -0700 Subject: News Excerpt (fwd) Message-ID: June 02, 2004 Upper Sioux tribe working to advance on economic ladder http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/gaming/2004/jun/02/516953244.html Excerpt from news article on the Upper Sioux in Minnesota... Like many other bands, the Upper Sioux worry about maintaining their culture. Only 10 of their elders remain who are fluent in the language of the Upper Sioux, the youngest in her 70s. One of them, 74-year-old Carolynn Cavender Schommer, holds weekly language classes that attract a handful of children at the community center. Surrounded by drawings of bison, owl, snake and turtle, with their Dakota names, Schommer described how some Dakota words cannot be translated into English. "You might know the culture, but if you don't know the language, how do you understand your culture?" she said. From language-labs at UCHICAGO.EDU Thu Jun 3 20:15:02 2004 From: language-labs at UCHICAGO.EDU (Language Laboratories and Archives) Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2004 15:15:02 -0500 Subject: Introduction and request for assistance Message-ID: Greetings! My name is Barbara Need and I am a manager of the University of Chicago Language Laboratories and Archives (LLA). I have been an interested eavesdropper on this list from some months now, being both computer support and archivist for the Labs. Part of the LLA's collection is nearly 350 hours of recordings of Meso-American languages done in the 1930s and 1950s. Much of this material is on open-reel tapes, which, of course, are deteriorating. Last year the LLA submitted a proposal to the NEH to digitize this material and make it available on-line to researchers and interested members of the communities where the recordings were made. Our proposal was turned down, but we are trying to revise it to submit again. I am hoping that this community can assist me with addressing some of the concerns expressed by the reviewers. 1) One of the concerns expressed was the lack of letters of support from outside the University. If any of you would be willing to write such a letter, please let me know. I can certainly provide you with more information about the collection 2) Another concern related to the fact that we have no field notes (or none that I know of--I have some queries out) accompanying the recordings. one reviewer asked how researchers unfamiliar with the original interviewer make use of "often highly personal" interviews fifty years (or more) after they were done. Our PI will be addressing this from the perspective of a phonologist/phonetician, but if any of you have any suggestions, it would be much appreciated. Barbara Need Manager (LLA) University of Chicago Language Laboratories and Archives From pmeyer at SDCOE.K12.CA.US Fri Jun 4 00:03:13 2004 From: pmeyer at SDCOE.K12.CA.US (Paula Meyer) Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2004 17:03:13 -0700 Subject: Introduction and request for assistance Message-ID: Does your collection contain languages from Baja California, Mexico? If it does (outside chance), I can write about the need here to have recordings from the 30's and 50's. Paula Meyer ----- Original Message ----- From: "Language Laboratories and Archives" To: Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2004 1:15 PM Subject: Introduction and request for assistance > Greetings! My name is Barbara Need and I am a manager of the > University of Chicago Language Laboratories and Archives (LLA). I > have been an interested eavesdropper on this list from some months > now, being both computer support and archivist for the Labs. Part of > the LLA's collection is nearly 350 hours of recordings of > Meso-American languages done in the 1930s and 1950s. Much of this > material is on open-reel tapes, which, of course, are deteriorating. > Last year the LLA submitted a proposal to the NEH to digitize this > material and make it available on-line to researchers and interested > members of the communities where the recordings were made. Our > proposal was turned down, but we are trying to revise it to submit > again. I am hoping that this community can assist me with addressing > some of the concerns expressed by the reviewers. > > 1) One of the concerns expressed was the lack of letters of support > from outside the University. If any of you would be willing to write > such a letter, please let me know. I can certainly provide you with > more information about the collection > > 2) Another concern related to the fact that we have no field notes > (or none that I know of--I have some queries out) accompanying the > recordings. one reviewer asked how researchers unfamiliar with the > original interviewer make use of "often highly personal" interviews > fifty years (or more) after they were done. Our PI will be addressing > this from the perspective of a phonologist/phonetician, but if any of > you have any suggestions, it would be much appreciated. > > Barbara Need > Manager (LLA) > University of Chicago > Language Laboratories and Archives > From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Fri Jun 4 02:28:28 2004 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 02:28:28 -0000 Subject: Fwd: "Bilingual Aesthetics: A New Sentimental Education" Message-ID: Of possible interest... DZO --- In code-switching at yahoogroups.com, Doris Sommer wrote: Dear Code Switching list, May I call your attention to my new book, Bilingual Aesthetics: A New Sentimental Education (Duke UP, 2004) It argues for the aesthetic, political, philosophical and psychological enhancements of living in more than one language, in an effort to develop more interest among monolinguals and to reinforce the option of "partial assimilation," that is acquiring a new culture without banishing another. Than you, Doris Sommer At 04:53 AM 6/2/2004 +0000, you wrote: >This item from the Linguist list may be of interest... > >Don Osborn >Bisharat.net > >------------------------- >Date: Tue, 1 Jun 2004 11:08:09 -0400 (EDT) >From: Angela Bartens >Subject: Languages in Contact: The Partial Restructuring of >Vernaculars > > >Holm, John (2004) Languages in Contact: The Partial Restructuring of >Vernaculars, Cambridge University Press. > >Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-527.html > > . . . From language-labs at UCHICAGO.EDU Fri Jun 4 14:16:26 2004 From: language-labs at UCHICAGO.EDU (Language Laboratories and Archives) Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 09:16:26 -0500 Subject: Introduction and request for assistance In-Reply-To: <005201c449c7$55501e10$d63fa8c0@paulaklm5qo59p> Message-ID: >Does your collection contain languages from Baja California, Mexico? >If it does (outside chance), I can write about the need here to have >recordings from the 30's and 50's. >Paula Meyer Alas no. It is mostly Yucatan and Southern Mexico. However, on the off chance, can you give me a few language names for me to check? Barbara >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Language Laboratories and Archives" >To: >Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2004 1:15 PM >Subject: Introduction and request for assistance > > >> Greetings! My name is Barbara Need and I am a manager of the >> University of Chicago Language Laboratories and Archives (LLA). I >> have been an interested eavesdropper on this list from some months >> now, being both computer support and archivist for the Labs. Part of >> the LLA's collection is nearly 350 hours of recordings of >> Meso-American languages done in the 1930s and 1950s. Much of this >> material is on open-reel tapes, which, of course, are deteriorating. >> Last year the LLA submitted a proposal to the NEH to digitize this >> material and make it available on-line to researchers and interested >> members of the communities where the recordings were made. Our >> proposal was turned down, but we are trying to revise it to submit >> again. I am hoping that this community can assist me with addressing >> some of the concerns expressed by the reviewers. >> >> 1) One of the concerns expressed was the lack of letters of support >> from outside the University. If any of you would be willing to write >> such a letter, please let me know. I can certainly provide you with >> more information about the collection >> >> 2) Another concern related to the fact that we have no field notes >> (or none that I know of--I have some queries out) accompanying the >> recordings. one reviewer asked how researchers unfamiliar with the >> original interviewer make use of "often highly personal" interviews >> fifty years (or more) after they were done. Our PI will be addressing >> this from the perspective of a phonologist/phonetician, but if any of >> you have any suggestions, it would be much appreciated. >> >> Barbara Need >> Manager (LLA) >> University of Chicago >> Language Laboratories and Archives >> From pmeyer at SDCOE.K12.CA.US Fri Jun 4 23:38:25 2004 From: pmeyer at SDCOE.K12.CA.US (Paula Meyer) Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 16:38:25 -0700 Subject: Introduction and request for assistance Message-ID: Languages in Baja California are: Kumeyaay/Diegueno, sometimes referred to as Cochimi; Pa'ipai/Paipai; Kiliwa; Cocopa Paula ----- Original Message ----- From: "Language Laboratories and Archives" To: Sent: Friday, June 04, 2004 7:16 AM Subject: Re: Introduction and request for assistance > >Does your collection contain languages from Baja California, Mexico? > >If it does (outside chance), I can write about the need here to have > >recordings from the 30's and 50's. > >Paula Meyer > > Alas no. It is mostly Yucatan and Southern Mexico. However, on the > off chance, can you give me a few language names for me to check? > > Barbara > > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: "Language Laboratories and Archives" > >To: > >Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2004 1:15 PM > >Subject: Introduction and request for assistance > > > > > >> Greetings! My name is Barbara Need and I am a manager of the > >> University of Chicago Language Laboratories and Archives (LLA). I > >> have been an interested eavesdropper on this list from some months > >> now, being both computer support and archivist for the Labs. Part of > >> the LLA's collection is nearly 350 hours of recordings of > >> Meso-American languages done in the 1930s and 1950s. Much of this > >> material is on open-reel tapes, which, of course, are deteriorating. > >> Last year the LLA submitted a proposal to the NEH to digitize this > >> material and make it available on-line to researchers and interested > >> members of the communities where the recordings were made. Our > >> proposal was turned down, but we are trying to revise it to submit > >> again. I am hoping that this community can assist me with addressing > >> some of the concerns expressed by the reviewers. > >> > >> 1) One of the concerns expressed was the lack of letters of support > >> from outside the University. If any of you would be willing to write > >> such a letter, please let me know. I can certainly provide you with > >> more information about the collection > >> > >> 2) Another concern related to the fact that we have no field notes > >> (or none that I know of--I have some queries out) accompanying the > >> recordings. one reviewer asked how researchers unfamiliar with the > >> original interviewer make use of "often highly personal" interviews > >> fifty years (or more) after they were done. Our PI will be addressing > >> this from the perspective of a phonologist/phonetician, but if any of > >> you have any suggestions, it would be much appreciated. > >> > >> Barbara Need > >> Manager (LLA) > >> University of Chicago > >> Language Laboratories and Archives > >> > From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jun 6 16:05:57 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2004 09:05:57 -0700 Subject: Conferences focus on saving native languages (fwd) Message-ID: Conferences focus on saving native languages By Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations | 04 June 2004 http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/06/04_chocenyo.shtml BERKELEY – Chochenyo, the language of the Muwekma Ohlone people, has been silent since the 1930s, but a handful of tribal members working with mentors from the University of California, Berkeley's linguistics department are bringing it back to life. Today, Chochenyo is being heard once again in conversation and song, and can be seen in written communications and a guidebook being prepared to help teach others. Tribal chair Rosemary Cambra and Monica Arellano, co-chair of the Muwekma Ohlone Language Committee, will share the Muwekma Ohlone success story at the "Breath of Life: Silent No More" conference at UC Berkeley as it opens this Saturday, June 5. The five-day program is for California Indians determined to revitalize their dormant and endangered languages. "I feel very privileged to have been allowed the opportunity to be a part of the awakening of our native Chochenyo language. It has truly been a very fulfilling experience," said Arellano, also vice chair of the Muwekma Ohlone tribe. [Professor Juliette Blevins, shown wearing a Yurok cap, is working with members of the Muwekma Ohlone tribe to revive their language, Chochenyo. (Photo by J.P. Blevins)]   "The Chochenyo experience gives us all great hope," said Juliette Blevins, a visiting professor and researcher at UC Berkeley's Department of Linguistics, who has been leading weekly Chochenyo lessons with Muwekma Ohlone hailing from Richmond to San Jose. Leanne Hinton, chair of the linguistics department, which is in the College of Letters & Science, said she is always excited by the Breath of Life conference, which every year draws more interest. This year's conference is attracting approximately 60 people from about a dozen tribes from throughout California - others were turned away as organizers were unable to accommodate everyone interested. Beginning Thursday, June 10, over 300 language educators and others will attend the four-day "Language is Life: the 11th Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Conference" that also is being held on campus. The Muwekma Ohlone, the indigenous people of the San Francisco Bay Area, will be featured guests at both conferences. At the second event, they will offer a Chochenyo welcome to conference attendees from across the United States and Canada, and as far away as Taiwan and Australia, who want to learn more about how to revitalize indigenous languages in their states and countries. An important chapter of the Muwekma story got underway in Blevins' undergraduate course, "Languages of North America." Student Jon Rodney wanted to translate a Chochenyo song on a recording from the Smithsonian Institution. To do so, he relied on linguistics anthropologist J.P. Harrington's field notes, replete with information about California Indians, including Spanish and English translations of their languages as spoken around the beginning of the 20th century. When Rodney finished his paper, he shared it with several Muwekma Ohlones. "He got a wonderful response, saying they just started a language committee and wanted to revive Chochenyo," Blevins said, "And, could he help?" "The recordings of Chochenyo contain only songs, many without words," she said. "So, when this all started, there was a very hard question to answer: What does the spoken language actually sound like?" To help put the puzzle together, Blevins tapped Harrington's notes, his good ear for language and penchant for phonetic detail, and listened to all of his Chochenyo recordings. Blevins then listened to all Miwok and Yokut recordings available at the Berkeley Language Center, because their sounds and structures are believed to be similar to Chochenyo. To develop a concrete sense of Harrington's phonetic symbols for Chochenyo sounds, she compared these with the ones he used for another California Indian language, Yurok, which she knows well. Like most indigenous languages, Chochenyo never had its own written system - until last year, when the Muwekma Ohlone Language Committee adopted the new Chochenyo alphabet. Another important resource in the Chochenyo saga is The Bancroft Library, repository of some of the oldest written records about such Coastanoan languages as Chochenyo, Mutsun and Rumsien. The library has original manuscripts from the 1800s, including Father Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta's impressive transcriptions of hundreds of Mutsun sentences. Blevins and Rodney officially launched their language lessons last spring at a Muwekma Ohlone cultural campout at Del Valle Regional Park near Pleasanton, sharing a Chochenyo word list and giving simple group language lessons. "There was a lot of enthusiasm after that, and the tribe asked if I would give weekly language lessons," Blevins said. "I agreed, but only by insisting that we were in this together, that we would all be learning together." Those lessons began in July 2003, and are still going strong. Five to eight dedicated students attend the weekly three-hour evening sessions, with attendance at quarterly tribal language workshops ranging from 30 to 50. "I think they've made amazing progress in terms of being able to speak the language," said Blevins. "Everyone has basic conversation skills, and some have more. They can talk about their family and home life. Because of the gaps in vocabulary, what you'll often hear is a Chochenyo sentence with a few English words mixed in, but with the appropriate grammatical structure for Chochenyo." The Chochenyo database being developed by the tribe contains from 1,000 to 2,000 basic words. To fill in vocabulary gaps, the Muwekma Ohlone Language Committee is creating new words. An example is the new Chochenyo word for minute, "ikka," formed with their own word for "dust" and used for a small unit of time. The next step, Blevins said, is to expand outreach in the Muwekma Ohlone community, possibly through language classes in area schools and community centers. Through the Master Apprentice Program conceived through UC Berkeley's Linguistics Department and the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, a California native organization devoted to revitalizing the state's indigenous languages, about 70 teens have learned approximately 25 native Californian languages. They've had help from mentors working with them 10 to 20 hours a week over the past three years. Of the 175 indigenous languages in the United States, children are speaking fewer than 20 of them at home, said Hinton, and the demand for help to save endangered languages is outpacing the resources. "Speaking a heritage language isn't just a form of communication," she said. "It's a deep part of a person's identity and view of the universe." There also is an increasing awareness among tribes of the resources available - like those at UC Berkeley - to help save endangered languages, said Hinton. "Interest in language revitalization is something that's growing around the world," said Hinton, author of "How to Keep Your Language Alive" (Heyday Books, 2002). "Nationalism and globalization are constant and growing threats to the existence of indigenous societies, and partly as a response to that, there is more and more movement by indigenous people to maintain their identities and not get melted into the big melting pot." The Muwekma Ohlone say it this way: "Mak-muwekma mak-noono ya roote 'innutka, mak-'uyyaki_, Nuhu, mak pekre ne tuuxi, 'At mak roote 'innutka hu_i_tak." "Our culture and our language are the way to our past, >From it we embrace the present, And follow the road to the future." ### NOTE: Leanne Hinton can be reached at hinton at socrates.berkeley.edu. Juliette Blevins can be reached at jblevins at uclink.berkeley.edu. For more details about the "Breath of Life" conference, visit http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/lingdept/Current/research/bol.html. For more information about the "Language is Life" event, see http://www.aicls.org/pages/04SILC.html. The Muwekma Ohlone webpage is at www.muwekma.org. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jun 6 21:48:18 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2004 14:48:18 -0700 Subject: Honduran island risks losing a language (fwd) Message-ID: Los Angeles Daily News Honduran island risks losing a language By Wilson Ring Associated Press http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20954~2194846,00.html# Saturday, June 05, 2004 - PUNTA GORDA, Honduras -- When Reina Martinez speaks to her 14-year-old granddaughter she uses Garifuna, the language of her youth in this colorful island village. But when Cassandra Ballesteros answers, it's not in Garifuna. "I understand, but I don't speak it," she said. "I can't." Instead, she responds in Honduran Spanish, the language she learns in school, and the one she's more likely to hear on the dirt roads that run through her centuries-old village tucked between dense mangroves and vast coral reefs on the island of Roatan. Martinez, 52, and her companion Celso Zapata, 59, are two of the older residents of Punta Gorda. Over the years, the couple has watched their Garifuna traditions fade into memory as the world has reached into their community of about 1,000. Now they are watching their language disappear, too. Children "don't want to speak Garifuna anymore," said Zapata, who runs Punta Gorda's public water system. "You've got to blame the parents. We parents, we've got to teach the kids." When he wanders through the community on the north side of the 40-mile-long island, Zapata is as likely to speak Spanish or even a dialect of English Creole to his neighbors as he is Garifuna (pronounced gah-RHEE-foo-nah). "Even the old people, you find many of them who don't want to speak Garifuna," he said. Linguist Genevieve Escure laments what is happening to "a complicated and beautiful language," with roots in the Amazonian tongues of Arawak and Carib still spoken in parts of northeastern South America. So she is recording the Garifuna, hoping to spark their interest so they will work to keep their language alive. Still, some of Roatan's leaders argue it isn't the language that is in danger. "It's not disappearing," said Arad Rochez, a Garifuna who is vice mayor of Santos Guardiola, including Punta Gorda. "What is disappearing is how we used to live in the past." When Martinez and Zapata were young the Garifuna lived in mud houses with thatched roofs. Men fished from dugout canoes and steamed, rather than fried, their catch. Traditional folk dances were set to the rhythm of African-styled drums. Slowly Garifuna men started leaving Roatan to find jobs on the Honduran mainland or to work on freighters and cruise ships. Dugout canoes that once sustained the community were abandoned on shore. The Garifuna are no longer dependent on the fish, lobster and conch that are plentiful in the coral reefs. In the late 1980s, the Honduran government started developing the island, bringing tourists, retirees and developers attracted by the balmy temperatures year-round. A main road now runs across the spine of the island, from the western end of Roatan, with its luxury beach hotels and exclusive waterfront homes, past Punta Gorda to the still, nearly pristine east end. The hurricanes that belt the island every generation or so -- Fifi in 1974 and Mitch in 1998 -- also brought change, blowing away the thatched-roof homes of the Garifuna. The villagers rebuilt, first with wood and then cement blocks with tin roofs. Thousands of Central American Garifuna now live in the United States and the money they send home helps their families buy luxuries like televisions and refrigerators that would otherwise be beyond reach. "We don't hardly live how we used to live," Martinez said. And their language is receding along with their old lifestyle. Linguists estimate 190,000 people across the western Caribbean speak Garifuna. But when a language isn't being used by young people, the numbers can drop fast. "Everybody agrees we are going to lose half of the world's languages. Some say 90 percent," said Lenore Grenoble, a Dartmouth College professor and chairwoman of the Linguistic Society of America's Committee for Endangered Languages and their Preservation. Linguists estimate the world at one time had about 10,000 languages. Today, there are about 6,800, Grenoble said. Four years ago, Escure gave tape recorders to some Punta Gorda residents and asked them to record family and friends as they spoke Garifuna. Most of her work is with older people because few Garifuna under 40 speak the language. Even when they do, more and more English and Spanish words find their way into the conversation. "Spanish is dominant. It is the language you need to be successful in life," said Escure, who is based at the University of Minnesota. "That's how a language disappears. The speaker doesn't see any benefit in speaking it. They'd rather switch to Spanish or English Creole." One afternoon earlier this year Escure and Martinez had a discussion about the Garifuna word for cassava, the root crop that is a dietary staple throughout Latin America and much of the developing world. " 'The pot with which I cooked cassava,' OK, how do you say that...?"' Escure asked. "O-yay lay idabway nobowa yucca," Martinez answered. The hard Bs, Gs, Us and Ps make it easy to distinguish Garifuna from Spanish, English and even the lyrical sweetness of French, all of which make up significant elements of Garifuna. Escure repeats and dissects every phrase, looking for the origins of the words, the way the verbs are conjugated and how the sentences are put together. She's also trying to assemble a vocabulary, get a better understanding of the way the Garifuna use prefixes and suffixes, the way plurals and possessives are formed and how it all fits together. These are ancient sounds. The Garifuna are an extraordinary mix of Arawak Indians who migrated from the Amazon to the Caribbean 1,500 years ago, and Africans who escaped when two Spanish slave ships wrecked off the island of St. Vincent in 1635. Their language is a kind of living history, studded with relics of their encounters with other peoples. Now, it seems to be slipping away. Escure says she alone cannot keep Garifuna alive. "I am trying to describe the language as it is now," she said. "You cannot impose a language. It has to come from the community." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jun 8 15:48:52 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 08:48:52 -0700 Subject: Once-dying Chinook language finds future in voices of children (fwd0 Message-ID: Once-dying Chinook language finds future in voices of children By Nancy Bartley Seattle Times staff reporter GRANDE RONDE RESERVATION, Ore. — To Tony Johnson, the Chinook jargon widely spoken by his ancestors was not just a second-class language used for trade but a language of tribal rituals, family gatherings and courtship. Until recently, it was almost extinct. Now, due largely to the 33-year-old Johnson, who regards each word of his ancestral tongue as an heirloom, the jargon also known as "Chinuk-wawa" has become a language of the future. In the seven years he has worked for the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde to revitalize the language, Johnson, who grew up in Raymond on Willapa Bay, has developed a teaching program that has become a model for tribes around the region. He has been "vital to the language having any future," said Portland linguist Henry Zenk, with whom Johnson created a written Chinuk-wawa alphabet. What makes the program successful is the traditional master-and-apprentice approach, in which students learn from elders, then become teachers themselves. That's coupled with the more modern-day concept of language immersion, in which students speak Chinuk-wawa in and outside the classroom. When tribal spokesman Brent Merrill, 43, was growing up, Chinuk-wawa was a language elders would use with one another when they didn't want younger people to know what they were saying. Now the Grand Ronde program is so successful, he said, children here use Chinuk-wawa to keep secrets from adults. "When they don't want parents to hear about something, they switch over," he said. On a bookshelf in his office, Johnson displays a teaching certificate issued to him recently by the state of Oregon, making him the first licensed teacher of the uniquely expressive language, which was spoken two centuries ago by 100,000 tribal members, traders and explorers from Northern California to Southern Alaska. Three other licenses also have been issued — one to Zenk, the other two to tribal members here who learned Chinuk-wawa through adult-education classes taught by Johnson on the reservation. "It wasn't long ago — about 20 years — that the last of our elders who spoke it was passing away," said tribal teacher Bobby Mercier. "We are bringing a lot of our elders back by teaching the language. It's our identity." Teaching 4-year-olds Johnson, the son of a tribal chairman, has found that preserving a language must be undertaken on many fronts. In addition to creating an alphabet, he has designed a computer program so the Chinuk-wawa characters can be typed. He teaches 4-year-olds at the tribal day-care center and has shared meals with the few remaining tribal elders who still remember the language, gleaning from them Chinook words like taqwfla, (hazelnuts), salt-tsfqw (salt water) and tilixaN (friend). And each of the past six years, he has organized a Chinuk-wawa workshop that draws linguists, historians and tribal members. Johnson wishes he could teach the language to the surviving Chinooks, but the tribe of 2,000, which once thrived near Chinook, Pacific County, has no money for such programs. The lucrative Spirit Mountain Casino, on the Grand Ronde Reservation, makes the language program affordable. Other tribes with casino money frequently inquire about the tribe's success, but the program is a commitment not just of money, but of time and tenacity, Johnson said. Still, he hopes other tribes will want to learn Chinuk-wawa, and that students he's teaching now will "grow up and marry each other and raise Chinuk-wawa-speaking households. Or become linguists and come back here and do what we're doing." Johnson was so determined that Chinuk-wawa would live on through his own son, Sammy, that he began talking to Sammy and singing him Chinuk-wawa lullabies even before the baby was born. [photo inset - STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Teacher Jackie Whisler records Chinuk-wawa words spoken by Lauren Lucio, 5, at the Twah Sunchako preschool.] To lose one's language is to lose one's culture, Johnson said. Once a strong tribe The Chinooks were once a strong tribe with related bands located near the mouth of the Columbia River, from Pacific County east to the Cascades. For thousands of years, they fished and traded with other tribes using two languages — one a jargon for trade, the other pure Chinookan. In the late 1700s, when ships began stopping in the harbors and trading with the Chinooks, English and French words were added to the trade language, which became known as Chinuk-wawa, or Chinook jargon. It was this language Lewis and Clark encountered when they arrived at the Columbia River in 1805 and were greeted by Chinooks offering boiled roots, dried sturgeon and potatoes. "What they were experiencing was clearly Chinuk-wawa," Johnson said. Though Lewis made notations of words in his journal, the field notes, believed to include an entire vocabulary, did not survive the trip back. Contact with whites exposed the Chinooks to deadly diseases, and by the mid-1800s the remaining Chinooks were sent to reservations. By the 1850s, when many tribes were gaining federal recognition, the Chinooks were overlooked. Many went to the Grand Ronde, where they were among at least 20 other bands with 20 different dialects. There, Chinuk-wawa became no longer just a trade language but one necessary for day-to-day communication among the diverse bands — the first language of those born on the reservation. "It was the language used when someone courted their mate, when someone went to the post office, when someone went to the sweat lodge," Johnson said. It took on the unique elements of the Grand Ronde culture, Johnson said, from how tribal members viewed nature, their spiritual life and their health. While the phrase "I have a backache" almost implies in English an ownership of the condition, in Chinuk-wawa the words mean "there is a sickness living in my back," implying "an animosity to illness," Johnson said. And the simple greeting, "How are you?" is more a question of the condition of your spirit than a casual inquiry. Listened to father's stories Johnson grew up with his parents and a brother in a two-story house in Raymond, off the reservation. As a young man, he sailed and fished in Willapa Bay and listened to his father tell stories of the past. But he had little of his culture except the few words in Chinuk-wawa he learned from his elders or could recall from his past. "Hum-upuch," his grandmother called him when he was a toddler. "Stinky pants." Johnson graduated with degrees in anthropology and silversmithing from Central Washington University in Ellensburg. Now divorced, he is raising 4-year-old Sammy in a small, gray rambler in Sheridan, a few miles east of the reservation. Since Sammy was a toddler, Johnson has taken him to the homes of the few tribal elders he knew who spoke the language. When Sammy utters the word "dret" — an expression similar to uh-huh — Johnson remembers the now-deceased woman they once visited. "It pleases me so much to hear the voice of our elders in our children." Each day, he and Sammy go to the reservation's Twah Sunchako preschool — Chinook jargon for "A Bright Day is Coming." In a classroom in the sprawling, gray education building, parents drop off their preschoolers for a half-day of language immersion. A no-English rule is observed by all — even the youngest preschoolers correct each other when someone lapses into English. [photo inset - STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Tony Johnson, son of a Chinook tribal chairman, holds his son, Sammy, 4, who is a fluent speaker of the Chinuk-wawa language taught to him by his dad.] The room was filled with signs identifying common classroom objects — clock, drum and fish in the aquarium — as tiktik, pumpum and phish. "When these kids get old, they'll be fluent speakers," said teacher Bobby Mercier, who was first exposed to Chinuk-wawa as a child. Now not only is he fluent, so is his 6-year-old son; his 2-year-old son also is learning the language. The reservation's other licensed Chinuk-wawa teacher is Jackie Whisler, whose dream was to carry on a conversation completely in Chinuk-wawa before her grandmother died. Now her own granddaughter and a niece are among the preschool students, and her daughter is in the adult-education class. Johnson and Sammy share the language in daily rituals of their own. Each morning when Sammy gets up, he talks about his dreams in Chinuk-wawa. And before he goes to bed, he tells his father the condition of his heart. "Nayka qat mayka, papa," he says. "Nayka qat mayka, Sammy," Johnson replies. Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522, or nbartley at seattletimes.com -inset- Listen to Chinuk-wawa One-minute conversation Approximate translation: Tony Johnson: How are you? Bobby Mercier: I am good. Crystal Szczepanski: Good. Jackie Whisler: I am good. How are you? T.J.: Good, but I have a lot to do. J.W.: It is always that way, isn't it. T.J.: It is exactly that way. B.M.: What should we do? J.W.: Well, the kids are gone; we should clean the school, right? T.J.: Yes. Who made a mess up on the loft? C.S.: I don't know who did that. J.W.: Where do we want to eat? B.M.: We should eat together at the casino. T.J.: That's good with me, what do you think? C.S.: Good. J.W.: We should go. T.J.: This language we are speaking now, they named it Chinuk Wawa. J.W.: Our old people used to speak this language really well. B.M.: Now we teach it. T.J.: We wish that it will be strong again. C.S.: We hope so. -- -inset- Glossary of Chinuk-wawa words and phrases In Chinuk-wawa, capital letters are sometimes found in the middle or at the end of words. Exact pronunciations are sometimes difficult to duplicate with the English alphabet. QHata Nayka: How are you? Lush nayka: I am good LaXayfN nayka shiks: Hello my friend Nayka qat mayka: I love you Salt-tsfqw: Ocean or saltwater Taqwfla: Hazelnuts, or nuts of any kind PHaya-TsikTsik: Automobile (literally, fire wagon) TilixaN: People, friend or family Source: Tony Johnson -- From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jun 8 15:57:28 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 08:57:28 -0700 Subject: Once-dying Chinook language finds future in voices of children (fwd0 In-Reply-To: <1086709732.5d1e0bfe5d4cb@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Tony, Nice article! I am glad to see that your efforts to revitalize Chinook-Wawa are being recognized. Phil Cash Cash UofA, ILAT > ----- Message from cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU --------- > Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 08:48:52 -0700 > From: phil cash cash > Reply-To: Indigenous Languages and Technology > Subject: Once-dying Chinook language finds future in voices of children (fwd0 > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > > Once-dying Chinook language finds future in voices of children > > By Nancy Bartley > Seattle Times staff reporter > > GRANDE RONDE RESERVATION, Ore. — To Tony Johnson, the Chinook jargon > widely spoken by his ancestors was not just a second-class language > used for trade but a language of tribal rituals, family gatherings > and > courtship. Until recently, it was almost extinct. > > Now, due largely to the 33-year-old Johnson, who regards each word of > his ancestral tongue as an heirloom, the jargon also known as > "Chinuk-wawa" has become a language of the future. > > In the seven years he has worked for the Confederated Tribes of the > Grand Ronde to revitalize the language, Johnson, who grew up in > Raymond > on Willapa Bay, has developed a teaching program that has become a > model for tribes around the region. > > He has been "vital to the language having any future," said Portland > linguist Henry Zenk, with whom Johnson created a written Chinuk-wawa > alphabet. > > What makes the program successful is the traditional > master-and-apprentice approach, in which students learn from elders, > then become teachers themselves. That's coupled with the more > modern-day concept of language immersion, in which students speak > Chinuk-wawa in and outside the classroom. > > When tribal spokesman Brent Merrill, 43, was growing up, Chinuk-wawa > was > a language elders would use with one another when they didn't want > younger people to know what they were saying. > > Now the Grand Ronde program is so successful, he said, children here > use > Chinuk-wawa to keep secrets from adults. > > "When they don't want parents to hear about something, they switch > over," he said. > > On a bookshelf in his office, Johnson displays a teaching certificate > issued to him recently by the state of Oregon, making him the first > licensed teacher of the uniquely expressive language, which was > spoken > two centuries ago by 100,000 tribal members, traders and explorers > from > Northern California to Southern Alaska. > > Three other licenses also have been issued — one to Zenk, the other > two > to tribal members here who learned Chinuk-wawa through > adult-education > classes taught by Johnson on the reservation. > > "It wasn't long ago — about 20 years — that the last of our elders > who > spoke it was passing away," said tribal teacher Bobby Mercier. "We > are > bringing a lot of our elders back by teaching the language. It's our > identity." > > Teaching 4-year-olds > > Johnson, the son of a tribal chairman, has found that preserving a > language must be undertaken on many fronts. In addition to creating > an > alphabet, he has designed a computer program so the Chinuk-wawa > characters can be typed. > > He teaches 4-year-olds at the tribal day-care center and has shared > meals with the few remaining tribal elders who still remember the > language, gleaning from them Chinook words like taqwfla, (hazelnuts), > salt-tsfqw (salt water) and tilixaN (friend). > > And each of the past six years, he has organized a Chinuk-wawa > workshop > that draws linguists, historians and tribal members. Johnson wishes > he > could teach the language to the surviving Chinooks, but the tribe of > 2,000, which once thrived near Chinook, Pacific County, has no money > for such programs. > > The lucrative Spirit Mountain Casino, on the Grand Ronde Reservation, > makes the language program affordable. > > Other tribes with casino money frequently inquire about the tribe's > success, but the program is a commitment not just of money, but of > time > and tenacity, Johnson said. > > Still, he hopes other tribes will want to learn Chinuk-wawa, and that > students he's teaching now will "grow up and marry each other and > raise > Chinuk-wawa-speaking households. Or become linguists and come back > here > and do what we're doing." > > Johnson was so determined that Chinuk-wawa would live on through his > own > son, Sammy, that he began talking to Sammy and singing him > Chinuk-wawa > lullabies even before the baby was born. > > [photo inset - STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES > Teacher Jackie Whisler records Chinuk-wawa words spoken by Lauren > Lucio, > 5, at the Twah Sunchako preschool.] > > To lose one's language is to lose one's culture, Johnson said. > > Once a strong tribe > > The Chinooks were once a strong tribe with related bands located near > the mouth of the Columbia River, from Pacific County east to the > Cascades. For thousands of years, they fished and traded with other > tribes using two languages — one a jargon for trade, the other pure > Chinookan. > > In the late 1700s, when ships began stopping in the harbors and > trading > with the Chinooks, English and French words were added to the trade > language, which became known as Chinuk-wawa, or Chinook jargon. > > It was this language Lewis and Clark encountered when they arrived at > the Columbia River in 1805 and were greeted by Chinooks offering > boiled > roots, dried sturgeon and potatoes. > > "What they were experiencing was clearly Chinuk-wawa," Johnson said. > Though Lewis made notations of words in his journal, the field notes, > believed to include an entire vocabulary, did not survive the trip > back. > > Contact with whites exposed the Chinooks to deadly diseases, and by > the > mid-1800s the remaining Chinooks were sent to reservations. By the > 1850s, when many tribes were gaining federal recognition, the > Chinooks > were overlooked. Many went to the Grand Ronde, where they were among > at > least 20 other bands with 20 different dialects. > > There, Chinuk-wawa became no longer just a trade language but one > necessary for day-to-day communication among the diverse bands — the > first language of those born on the reservation. > > "It was the language used when someone courted their mate, when > someone > went to the post office, when someone went to the sweat lodge," > Johnson > said. > > It took on the unique elements of the Grand Ronde culture, Johnson > said, > from how tribal members viewed nature, their spiritual life and their > health. While the phrase "I have a backache" almost implies in > English > an ownership of the condition, in Chinuk-wawa the words mean "there > is > a sickness living in my back," implying "an animosity to illness," > Johnson said. > > And the simple greeting, "How are you?" is more a question of the > condition of your spirit than a casual inquiry. > > Listened to father's stories > > Johnson grew up with his parents and a brother in a two-story house > in > Raymond, off the reservation. > > As a young man, he sailed and fished in Willapa Bay and listened to > his > father tell stories of the past. But he had little of his culture > except the few words in Chinuk-wawa he learned from his elders or > could > recall from his past. > > "Hum-upuch," his grandmother called him when he was a toddler. > "Stinky > pants." > > Johnson graduated with degrees in anthropology and silversmithing > from > Central Washington University in Ellensburg. Now divorced, he is > raising 4-year-old Sammy in a small, gray rambler in Sheridan, a few > miles east of the reservation. > > Since Sammy was a toddler, Johnson has taken him to the homes of the > few > tribal elders he knew who spoke the language. When Sammy utters the > word "dret" — an expression similar to uh-huh — Johnson remembers the > now-deceased woman they once visited. > > "It pleases me so much to hear the voice of our elders in our > children." > > Each day, he and Sammy go to the reservation's Twah Sunchako > preschool — > Chinook jargon for "A Bright Day is Coming." > > In a classroom in the sprawling, gray education building, parents > drop > off their preschoolers for a half-day of language immersion. A > no-English rule is observed by all — even the youngest preschoolers > correct each other when someone lapses into English. > > [photo inset - STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES > Tony Johnson, son of a Chinook tribal chairman, holds his son, Sammy, > 4, > who is a fluent speaker of the Chinuk-wawa language taught to him by > his dad.] > > The room was filled with signs identifying common classroom objects — > clock, drum and fish in the aquarium — as tiktik, pumpum and phish. > > "When these kids get old, they'll be fluent speakers," said teacher > Bobby Mercier, who was first exposed to Chinuk-wawa as a child. Now > not > only is he fluent, so is his 6-year-old son; his 2-year-old son also > is > learning the language. > > The reservation's other licensed Chinuk-wawa teacher is Jackie > Whisler, > whose dream was to carry on a conversation completely in Chinuk-wawa > before her grandmother died. Now her own granddaughter and a niece > are > among the preschool students, and her daughter is in the > adult-education class. > > Johnson and Sammy share the language in daily rituals of their own. > > Each morning when Sammy gets up, he talks about his dreams in > Chinuk-wawa. And before he goes to bed, he tells his father the > condition of his heart. > > "Nayka qat mayka, papa," he says. > > "Nayka qat mayka, Sammy," Johnson replies. > > Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522, or nbartley at seattletimes.com > > > -inset- > Listen to Chinuk-wawa > > One-minute conversation > > Approximate translation: > Tony Johnson: How are you? > Bobby Mercier: I am good. > Crystal Szczepanski: Good. > Jackie Whisler: I am good. How are you? > T.J.: Good, but I have a lot to do. > J.W.: It is always that way, isn't it. > T.J.: It is exactly that way. > > B.M.: What should we do? > J.W.: Well, the kids are gone; we should clean the school, right? > T.J.: Yes. Who made a mess up on the loft? > C.S.: I don't know who did that. > > J.W.: Where do we want to eat? > B.M.: We should eat together at the casino. > T.J.: That's good with me, what do you think? > C.S.: Good. > J.W.: We should go. > > T.J.: This language we are speaking now, they named it Chinuk Wawa. > J.W.: Our old people used to speak this language really well. > B.M.: Now we teach it. > T.J.: We wish that it will be strong again. > C.S.: We hope so. > -- > > -inset- > Glossary of Chinuk-wawa words and phrases > > In Chinuk-wawa, capital letters are sometimes found in the middle or > at > the end of words. Exact pronunciations are sometimes difficult to > duplicate with the English alphabet. > > QHata Nayka: How are you? > > Lush nayka: I am good > > LaXayfN nayka shiks: Hello my friend > > Nayka qat mayka: I love you > > Salt-tsfqw: Ocean or saltwater > > Taqwfla: Hazelnuts, or nuts of any kind > > PHaya-TsikTsik: Automobile (literally, fire wagon) > > TilixaN: People, friend or family > > Source: Tony Johnson > -- > > > ----- End message from cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU ----- From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jun 14 15:24:28 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 08:24:28 -0700 Subject: WCC calls for an International Year of Indigenous Languages in 2006 (fwd) Message-ID: WCC NEWS - A call for an International Year of Indigenous >From "WCC Media" Date Mon, 14 Jun 2004 10:36:54 +0200 World Council of Churches 7 Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 14/06/2004 - pr-04-08 WCC calls for an International Year of Indigenous Languages in 2006 A delegation from the World Council of Churches' (WCC) Indigenous Peoples Programme has called for a UN-sponsored "International Year of Indigenous Languages" in 2006. As part of the Indigenous Caucus attending the Third UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues taking place 10-21 May in New York, the WCC delegation stressed the value of languages to Indigenous cultures and the urgency of pro-active strategies for their revitalization. Dr Richard A. Grounds of the Yuchi nation in Oklahoma, USA, who is a member of the WCC Central Committee, emphasized the urgency of saving the world's languages at a presentation to the UN Forum. A member of the United Methodist Church in the US, he pointed out that over three-fourths of the world's linguistic diversity is carried by Indigenous peoples, and reiterated the assessment of linguists that unless something is done about it, up to 90% of the world's 6,800 languages will fall silent by the end of this century. According to UNESCO statistics, one language is lost every two weeks on average. "Half of the world's languages are facing immediate loss in the next two decades," says Ole Henrik Magga, chair of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. An International Year of Indigenous Languages would "call attention to this largely silent issue, generating both public awareness, and greater realization on the part of Indigenous people themselves, who often are not clear about the extent of language loss within their own communities," explains Grounds. With the help of the United Nations and its member states, an International Year would "highlight the critical status of our languages, providing both education about the value of our languages and effective strategies for revitalization," the Indigenous Caucus participants emphasized. They recommended "the development of clear strategies for effective intervention in the process of Indigenous language loss" as well as "funding from states for language revitalization programmes". Grounds points out that it is also important to redress the "oppression and legal measures that continue to be used against minority and Indigenous languages". In a joint statement, the participants at the Indigenous Caucus made reference to the inestimable value of Indigenous languages as "the basis of our spirituality and ceremonial life, the source of Indigenous knowledge, the core of our identity as Indigenous peoples, the bearer of our unwritten histories, the source for the proper use and codification of our medicinal knowledge, the heart of our rich heritage and as a gift from the Creator". In order to promote the call for an International Year of Indigenous Languages, the delegation gathered signatures of support from over 60 different Indigenous organizations attending the Permanent Forum. The International Year of Indigenous Languages will need to be proclaimed by the UN General Assembly. Therefore, one of the member states must raise it for consideration. If it passes through the voting process, the year will be enacted. The New Zealand government is being approached to propose the International Year to the UN in time for the activities to be programmed to begin in 2006. Visit the Indigenous Peoples' Programme pages on the WCC website: http://wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/jpc/indig.html For more information contact : Richard Grounds, +1 918 224 6481, richard-grounds at utulsa.edu For more information contact: Media Relations Office: tel: (+41 22) 791 64 21 / 61 53 e-mail:media at wcc-coe.org - http://www.wcc-coe.org The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 342, in more than 120 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works cooperatively with the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly, which meets approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its staff is headed by general secretary Samuel Kobia from the Methodist church in Kenya. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Mon Jun 14 19:21:20 2004 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 12:21:20 -0700 Subject: Wintu Words (language) Message-ID: http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/8913180.htm?1c State's Indians uncover the past By Jack Chang CONTRA COSTA TIMES BERKELEY - In front of hundreds of indigenous people and linguists from around the world, California Indian Bill Combs held a sheet of paper in front of him Friday and nervously spoke the lost language of his ancestors. While his cousin Norma Yeager translated, he read the Wintun words for frog, deer and other animals, complete with the glottal stops, or deep-throated clicking sounds, that he had practiced all week. The 34-year-old man wearing a T-shirt and shorts finished his presentation by looking up at the audience gathered in UC Berkeley's Pauley Ballroom and telling them in Wintun what he had recently learned to do after being denied the opportunity all his life. "I am speaking my language." Since last weekend, the university's linguistics department has been helping about 50 California Indians learn to read, write and speak their languages, many of which have not been used for decades and are considered "dead languages." For many "Breath of Life" conference participants, the experience has been emotional as they dig through the university's archive of language recordings to find traces of their lost tongues. In some cases, they have come across recordings of grandparents and other family members speaking their languages decades ago into the microphones of UC Berkeley anthropologists. Some have become the first people to speak their ancestral languages since the early 20th century. Mike Lincoln, who lives on the Round Valley Indian Reservation on the edge of the Sacramento Valley, said he hopes to raise from the dead the language of his father's tribe, the Nomelaki. "I look at it as something missing," Lincoln said. "(The U.S. government) took it away from us. They didn't let us have it. It's part of our culture. Without it, you're lost." Throughout the 20th century, the federal government aggressively tried to stamp out the languages, sending Indian children to boarding schools where only English was permitted and prohibiting the teaching of the languages in public schools. Mamie Elsie Powell, a 72-year-old resident of the Grindstone Indian Rancheria in Glenn County, said she grew up without speaking her native tongue of Nomelaki, although she remembered hearing her father and other relatives speak it while growing up. As it turns out, her father who died at age 101 in 1987 was aware of the importance of his language and made hours of recordings of himself speaking it. "I am one of the few people around who remember what my language sounds like," Powell said. "I have my father's tapes." Lincoln pointed to Powell, who was sitting next to him in a UC Berkeley cafeteria. "She is going to help us a lot to learn our language," Lincoln said. Since the 1980s, the campaign to rescue dying or dead languages has become a movement among American Indians, said Leanne Hinton, chairwoman of UC Berkeley's linguistics department. Language has become an integral part of American Indians shedding harsh stereotypes imposed on them and rediscovering their heritages, Hinton said. "The languages had been crushed so badly," she said. "Only in a more tolerant era on the part of the government has this opportunity to rediscover arrived." Still, many California Indians remain apathetic about their culture, and getting them excited about it is often an uphill battle, said Yeager, also from Grindstone. "If they show interest, we'll teach them," he said. On Thursday, UC Berkeley launched a companion conference, "Stabilizing Indigenous Languages," drawing several hundred indigenous people and linguists from around the country and the world to learn how to rescue their own fragile languages. The two conferences merged Friday morning, and Californians such as Combs and Yeager nervously climbed onto the Pauley Ballroom stage to show what they had learned during the week to the international audience. Among the crowd were young people such as 26-year-old Michelle Martin, an Aborigine from northwest Australia who said she has been trying to preserve some of the 25 indigenous languages spoken in her part of the world. Her motivations were the same as the California Indians'. "It's who we are," Martin said. "You can say you're an Aborigine, but what it really means is your culture and your language." Martin said many of her elders still speak the old languages although few try to pass on their knowledge. That's why Martin is working to preserve the languages while there's still time by recording them onto tape and creating dictionaries for them. In that way, what she has seen so far in California has been a warning to her. "If my people don't take an interest now," she said, "we'll be in the same situation as you." Some Nomelaki words Transcribed by California Indian Norma Yeager and UC Berkeley graduate student Jenny Lederer. Nomelaki was spoken among Northern Californian natives. tree -- mee deer -- nopoom flowers -- kalal bear -- waymahl jaybird -- chiek-chiek rabbit -- patkeelee Part of a Nomelaki prayer using the words: Hlesin mem mee nopoom kalal way Hlesin mem waymahl chiek-chiek patkeelee From Tony.Johnson at GRANDRONDE.ORG Mon Jun 14 21:28:38 2004 From: Tony.Johnson at GRANDRONDE.ORG (Tony Johnson) Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 14:28:38 -0700 Subject: Once-dying Chinook language finds future in voices of children (fwd0 Message-ID: Thanks Phil. I, as usual, am a little frustrated with the press' ability to get facts straight, but all-in-all I think it is good for our efforts. I loved her writing that our way of saying how someone is sick implies "animosity" to the sickness (I told her it implies "animacy"). How are you these days? I do hope all is well--Tony >>> cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU 06/08/2004 8:57:28 AM >>> Tony, Nice article! I am glad to see that your efforts to revitalize Chinook-Wawa are being recognized. Phil Cash Cash UofA, ILAT > ----- Message from cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU --------- > Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 08:48:52 -0700 > From: phil cash cash > Reply-To: Indigenous Languages and Technology > Subject: Once-dying Chinook language finds future in voices of children (fwd0 > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > > Once-dying Chinook language finds future in voices of children > > By Nancy Bartley > Seattle Times staff reporter > > GRANDE RONDE RESERVATION, Ore. * To Tony Johnson, the Chinook jargon > widely spoken by his ancestors was not just a second-class language > used for trade but a language of tribal rituals, family gatherings > and > courtship. Until recently, it was almost extinct. > > Now, due largely to the 33-year-old Johnson, who regards each word of > his ancestral tongue as an heirloom, the jargon also known as > "Chinuk-wawa" has become a language of the future. > > In the seven years he has worked for the Confederated Tribes of the > Grand Ronde to revitalize the language, Johnson, who grew up in > Raymond > on Willapa Bay, has developed a teaching program that has become a > model for tribes around the region. > > He has been "vital to the language having any future," said Portland > linguist Henry Zenk, with whom Johnson created a written Chinuk-wawa > alphabet. > > What makes the program successful is the traditional > master-and-apprentice approach, in which students learn from elders, > then become teachers themselves. That's coupled with the more > modern-day concept of language immersion, in which students speak > Chinuk-wawa in and outside the classroom. > > When tribal spokesman Brent Merrill, 43, was growing up, Chinuk-wawa > was > a language elders would use with one another when they didn't want > younger people to know what they were saying. > > Now the Grand Ronde program is so successful, he said, children here > use > Chinuk-wawa to keep secrets from adults. > > "When they don't want parents to hear about something, they switch > over," he said. > > On a bookshelf in his office, Johnson displays a teaching certificate > issued to him recently by the state of Oregon, making him the first > licensed teacher of the uniquely expressive language, which was > spoken > two centuries ago by 100,000 tribal members, traders and explorers > from > Northern California to Southern Alaska. > > Three other licenses also have been issued * one to Zenk, the other > two > to tribal members here who learned Chinuk-wawa through > adult-education > classes taught by Johnson on the reservation. > > "It wasn't long ago * about 20 years * that the last of our elders > who > spoke it was passing away," said tribal teacher Bobby Mercier. "We > are > bringing a lot of our elders back by teaching the language. It's our > identity." > > Teaching 4-year-olds > > Johnson, the son of a tribal chairman, has found that preserving a > language must be undertaken on many fronts. In addition to creating > an > alphabet, he has designed a computer program so the Chinuk-wawa > characters can be typed. > > He teaches 4-year-olds at the tribal day-care center and has shared > meals with the few remaining tribal elders who still remember the > language, gleaning from them Chinook words like taqwfla, (hazelnuts), > salt-tsfqw (salt water) and tilixaN (friend). > > And each of the past six years, he has organized a Chinuk-wawa > workshop > that draws linguists, historians and tribal members. Johnson wishes > he > could teach the language to the surviving Chinooks, but the tribe of > 2,000, which once thrived near Chinook, Pacific County, has no money > for such programs. > > The lucrative Spirit Mountain Casino, on the Grand Ronde Reservation, > makes the language program affordable. > > Other tribes with casino money frequently inquire about the tribe's > success, but the program is a commitment not just of money, but of > time > and tenacity, Johnson said. > > Still, he hopes other tribes will want to learn Chinuk-wawa, and that > students he's teaching now will "grow up and marry each other and > raise > Chinuk-wawa-speaking households. Or become linguists and come back > here > and do what we're doing." > > Johnson was so determined that Chinuk-wawa would live on through his > own > son, Sammy, that he began talking to Sammy and singing him > Chinuk-wawa > lullabies even before the baby was born. > > [photo inset - STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES > Teacher Jackie Whisler records Chinuk-wawa words spoken by Lauren > Lucio, > 5, at the Twah Sunchako preschool.] > > To lose one's language is to lose one's culture, Johnson said. > > Once a strong tribe > > The Chinooks were once a strong tribe with related bands located near > the mouth of the Columbia River, from Pacific County east to the > Cascades. For thousands of years, they fished and traded with other > tribes using two languages * one a jargon for trade, the other pure > Chinookan. > > In the late 1700s, when ships began stopping in the harbors and > trading > with the Chinooks, English and French words were added to the trade > language, which became known as Chinuk-wawa, or Chinook jargon. > > It was this language Lewis and Clark encountered when they arrived at > the Columbia River in 1805 and were greeted by Chinooks offering > boiled > roots, dried sturgeon and potatoes. > > "What they were experiencing was clearly Chinuk-wawa," Johnson said. > Though Lewis made notations of words in his journal, the field notes, > believed to include an entire vocabulary, did not survive the trip > back. > > Contact with whites exposed the Chinooks to deadly diseases, and by > the > mid-1800s the remaining Chinooks were sent to reservations. By the > 1850s, when many tribes were gaining federal recognition, the > Chinooks > were overlooked. Many went to the Grand Ronde, where they were among > at > least 20 other bands with 20 different dialects. > > There, Chinuk-wawa became no longer just a trade language but one > necessary for day-to-day communication among the diverse bands * the > first language of those born on the reservation. > > "It was the language used when someone courted their mate, when > someone > went to the post office, when someone went to the sweat lodge," > Johnson > said. > > It took on the unique elements of the Grand Ronde culture, Johnson > said, > from how tribal members viewed nature, their spiritual life and their > health. While the phrase "I have a backache" almost implies in > English > an ownership of the condition, in Chinuk-wawa the words mean "there > is > a sickness living in my back," implying "an animosity to illness," > Johnson said. > > And the simple greeting, "How are you?" is more a question of the > condition of your spirit than a casual inquiry. > > Listened to father's stories > > Johnson grew up with his parents and a brother in a two-story house > in > Raymond, off the reservation. > > As a young man, he sailed and fished in Willapa Bay and listened to > his > father tell stories of the past. But he had little of his culture > except the few words in Chinuk-wawa he learned from his elders or > could > recall from his past. > > "Hum-upuch," his grandmother called him when he was a toddler. > "Stinky > pants." > > Johnson graduated with degrees in anthropology and silversmithing > from > Central Washington University in Ellensburg. Now divorced, he is > raising 4-year-old Sammy in a small, gray rambler in Sheridan, a few > miles east of the reservation. > > Since Sammy was a toddler, Johnson has taken him to the homes of the > few > tribal elders he knew who spoke the language. When Sammy utters the > word "dret" * an expression similar to uh-huh * Johnson remembers the > now-deceased woman they once visited. > > "It pleases me so much to hear the voice of our elders in our > children." > > Each day, he and Sammy go to the reservation's Twah Sunchako > preschool * > Chinook jargon for "A Bright Day is Coming." > > In a classroom in the sprawling, gray education building, parents > drop > off their preschoolers for a half-day of language immersion. A > no-English rule is observed by all * even the youngest preschoolers > correct each other when someone lapses into English. > > [photo inset - STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES > Tony Johnson, son of a Chinook tribal chairman, holds his son, Sammy, > 4, > who is a fluent speaker of the Chinuk-wawa language taught to him by > his dad.] > > The room was filled with signs identifying common classroom objects * > clock, drum and fish in the aquarium * as tiktik, pumpum and phish. > > "When these kids get old, they'll be fluent speakers," said teacher > Bobby Mercier, who was first exposed to Chinuk-wawa as a child. Now > not > only is he fluent, so is his 6-year-old son; his 2-year-old son also > is > learning the language. > > The reservation's other licensed Chinuk-wawa teacher is Jackie > Whisler, > whose dream was to carry on a conversation completely in Chinuk-wawa > before her grandmother died. Now her own granddaughter and a niece > are > among the preschool students, and her daughter is in the > adult-education class. > > Johnson and Sammy share the language in daily rituals of their own. > > Each morning when Sammy gets up, he talks about his dreams in > Chinuk-wawa. And before he goes to bed, he tells his father the > condition of his heart. > > "Nayka qat mayka, papa," he says. > > "Nayka qat mayka, Sammy," Johnson replies. > > Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522, or nbartley at seattletimes.com > > > -inset- > Listen to Chinuk-wawa > > One-minute conversation > > Approximate translation: > Tony Johnson: How are you? > Bobby Mercier: I am good. > Crystal Szczepanski: Good. > Jackie Whisler: I am good. How are you? > T.J.: Good, but I have a lot to do. > J.W.: It is always that way, isn't it. > T.J.: It is exactly that way. > > B.M.: What should we do? > J.W.: Well, the kids are gone; we should clean the school, right? > T.J.: Yes. Who made a mess up on the loft? > C.S.: I don't know who did that. > > J.W.: Where do we want to eat? > B.M.: We should eat together at the casino. > T.J.: That's good with me, what do you think? > C.S.: Good. > J.W.: We should go. > > T.J.: This language we are speaking now, they named it Chinuk Wawa. > J.W.: Our old people used to speak this language really well. > B.M.: Now we teach it. > T.J.: We wish that it will be strong again. > C.S.: We hope so. > -- > > -inset- > Glossary of Chinuk-wawa words and phrases > > In Chinuk-wawa, capital letters are sometimes found in the middle or > at > the end of words. Exact pronunciations are sometimes difficult to > duplicate with the English alphabet. > > QHata Nayka: How are you? > > Lush nayka: I am good > > LaXayfN nayka shiks: Hello my friend > > Nayka qat mayka: I love you > > Salt-tsfqw: Ocean or saltwater > > Taqwfla: Hazelnuts, or nuts of any kind > > PHaya-TsikTsik: Automobile (literally, fire wagon) > > TilixaN: People, friend or family > > Source: Tony Johnson > -- > > > ----- End message from cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU ----- From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jun 15 15:43:32 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 08:43:32 -0700 Subject: Emergency measures needed to preserve aboriginal languages (fwd) Message-ID: Emergency measures needed to preserve aboriginal languages Saskatchewan News Network; Regina Leader-Post Monday, June 14, 2004 http://www.canada.com/saskatoon/starphoenix/news/local/story.html?id=48267ac9-7cfc-4ab4-8f84-1b130de28831 REGINA (SNN) -- Only three of 60 aboriginal languages will survive in Canada unless emergency measures are taken, said the chair of a federal task force on the preservation of languages. "The loss of an aboriginal language represents the death of a part of Canada," said Ron Ignace, chair of the Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures. The group was in Fort Qu'Appelle Saturday, discussing the future of First Nations languages in Saskatchewan with 15 invited guests. Ignace said the objective of the task force is to make policy recommendations for sustaining aboriginal languages to the federal minister of heritage. The task force is holding 13 focus group hearings across Canada to gather information. The group is consulting with aboriginal people, federal ministries, and provincial and territorial governments. Florence Carrier, from the Piapot First Nations, was invited to speak with the task force. She said younger generations do not undertand the importance of her Cree language. "Our language is our foundation as a First Nation," said Carrier. She explained that the leadership of the province and country needs to take a greater interest in retaining languages, not just with adolescents, but also with adults. "Teaching language in the school environment is not going to solve our problem. We have to have it at home. So there have to be programs within the community that we can enrich that," said Carrier. In December 2002, the federal government allocated more than $160 million for the preservation of First Nations languages. Ignace said the task force will also make recommendations for the creation of a not-for-profit corporate entity that will manage the money. The task force will also make recommendations for the creation of an aboriginal languages and cultural centre. Ignace said that it will not be a bricks and mortar building, but will be a centralized location of information that can be shared. "What we will be looking at is electronic means, to websites so we can exchange best practices for the preservation of language and culture," said Ignace. The recommendations are due Sept. 15, but Ignace said an extension has been requested. © The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2004 From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Tue Jun 15 20:48:05 2004 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 13:48:05 -0700 Subject: Pimachamxwliki Tiinmami Wayxtit (Rise of the People Run) Message-ID: Carrying a staff draped with eagle feathers, Ron Peters Jr. broke away from the smoke and singing of a prayer circle Monday morning and headed at a run toward Mount Adams. Peters was the first runner sent out on the inaugural Pimachamxwliki Tiinmami Wayxtit (Rise of the People Run), an event highlighting the importance of retaining traditional language and culture. Full Story @: http://www.yakima-herald.com/?storyid=289747637666476 From sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jun 16 23:59:12 2004 From: sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Sue Penfield) Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2004 16:59:12 -0700 Subject: Fw: Seeking poems by Native Americans Message-ID: All, I don't usually post things like this on ILAT, but thought some of you might be interested... Susan ----- Original Message ----- From: "Arts" Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 11:34 AM Subject: Fw: Seeking poems by Native Americans > A general FYI, > ----- > Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 6:39 AM > Subject: Seeking poems by Native Americans > > > Subject: poems by Native Americans sought > > > > > SHENANDOAH TO PUBLISH POETRY BY NATIVE AMERICANS > > *Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee University Review* will publish a > special selection of poetry by Native American writers in its Winter, > 2004 issue. The selection will include approximately 40 pages of poetry > and one essay. All poets of Native American origin are eligible to send > work for consideration. Send manuscript, along with bio notes, to > Shenandoah, Special Issues Editor/Native American Poetry, Mattingly > House, 2 Lee Avenue, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA > 24450-0303. Submissions must be received by August 15, 2004. General > writer's?T guidelines and other information about Shenandoah are > available on our web site: > > http://shenandoah.wlu.edu > > > > From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jun 17 15:49:46 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 08:49:46 -0700 Subject: Saving native languages on Akaitcho agenda (fwd) Message-ID: Saving native languages on Akaitcho agenda WebPosted Jun 17 2004 10:30 AM CDT http://north.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=nwt-akaitcholanguage06172004 YELLOWKNIFE People attending the Akaitcho Assembly say they want to improve aboriginal language services in their N.W.T. communities. They say a lack of money and a cumbersome bureaucracy interferes with getting more people fluent in their native languages. Elders are often considered great teachers, but many of them aren't paid as such when they help children learn their native language, the assembly heard. N'Dilo chief Darrell Beaulieu wants the territorial Education Department to recognize them and pay them as teachers. "But the N.W.T. Education Act says, 'no, your elders have to have a university degree to teach the language.' There is no university that teaches our elders their language," says Beaulieu. "The elders are probably the professors in this area here." The discussion concerning the importance of saving native languages lasted for hours at the Akaitcho Assembly. Some delegates spoke about teaching people syllabics as well as how to speak it. George Marlow of Lutsel'Ke, says on his travels he found that syllabics form much of the curriculum among the Dene communities in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. "I'm really happy when the little kids, real small kids speak Chipewyan. Nobody talks English. In Lutsel'Ke everybody talks English. It's not right by me,"says Marlow. Toni Heron, from the Salt River First Nation in Fort Smith, wants the Akaitcho to control government money earmarked for language and culture. Some representatives say a lack of funding is one of the major challenges in the battle to preserve language. The Akaitcho government's language co-ordinator works part time and community programs that already exist have limited resources. Some people at this meeting say pressuring schools to bring in a stronger language curriculum may help. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu Jun 17 21:24:46 2004 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 14:24:46 -0700 Subject: NWT Message-ID: Akaitcho delegates suggested paying elders and teaching syllabics They say a lack of money and a cumbersome bureaucracy interferes with getting more people fluent in their native languages. Elders are often considered great teachers, but many of them aren't paid as such when they help children learn their native language, the assembly heard. N'Dilo chief Darrell Beaulieu wants the territorial Education Department to recognize them and pay them as teachers. "But the N.W.T. Education Act says, 'no, your elders have to have a university degree to teach the language.' There is no university that teaches our elders their language," says Beaulieu. "The elders are probably the professors in this area here." The discussion concerning the importance of saving native languages lasted for hours at the Akaitcho Assembly. Some delegates spoke about teaching people syllabics as well as how to speak it. George Marlow of Lutsel'Ke, says on his travels he found that syllabics form much of the curriculum among the Dene communities in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. "I'm really happy when the little kids, real small kids speak Chipewyan. Nobody talks English. In Lutsel'Ke everybody talks English. It's not right by me,"says Marlow. Toni Heron, from the Salt River First Nation in Fort Smith, wants the Akaitcho to control government money earmarked for language and culture. Some representatives say a lack of funding is one of the major challenges in the battle to preserve language. The Akaitcho government's language co-ordinator works part time and community programs that already exist have limited resources. Some people at this meeting say pressuring schools to bring in a stronger language curriculum may help. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Fri Jun 18 22:44:53 2004 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:44:53 -0700 Subject: Wow! (language resources) Message-ID: http://www.native-languages.org/linguistics.htm From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jun 21 17:02:51 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 10:02:51 -0700 Subject: Grant Opportunities for Native Organizations in Humboldt County (fwd) Message-ID: Grant Opportunities for Native Organizations in Humboldt County Native Cultures Fund Deadline: August 2, 2004 The Native Cultures Fund, a program of the Humboldt Area Foundation, has two grant programs—Fellowships for Cultural Participation and Native Community Technology Initiative. The former provides grants to Native individuals and organizations for theater production, script development, the training of apprentices to learn cultural skills and traditional arts, the creation of contemporary visual arts and exhibitions as well as the building of traditional dance houses. Grants range from $5,000—$10,000. The Native Community Technology Initiative provides technology and training grants to Native organizations for education and advocacy. Advocacy grants support the use of technology as a tool in protecting sacred sites and river systems. Education grants support the creation of digital cultural curriculum based on Native languages as well as the exploration of digital arts forms including storytelling. Grants range from $5,000—$15,000. You can learn more about each grant by visiting the Humboldt Area Foundation’s website: http://www.hafoundation.org/ Or call Rebecca Lowry at (707) 442-2993 for more information. From liko at LEOKI.UHH.HAWAII.EDU Mon Jun 21 17:36:32 2004 From: liko at LEOKI.UHH.HAWAII.EDU (Liko Puha) Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 07:36:32 -1000 Subject: Grant Opportunities for Native Organizations in Humboldt County (fwd) Message-ID: I mea e ÿike ai ÿoe, ÿaÿole au ma ka hana mai ka lä 20 a i ka lä 27 o Iune. Inä he nïnau käu no ka Leokï, e leka iä Keola Donaghy. I will be out of the office June 21-27. If you have a Leokï related issue, please e-mail Keola Donaghy. Mahalo, Liko From delancey at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU Mon Jun 21 18:06:12 2004 From: delancey at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU (Scott DeLancey) Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 11:06:12 -0700 Subject: FW: Message from the Premier (fwd) Message-ID: From the Government of the Northwest Territories (Canada): ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Messenger /YK /PWS Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2004 4:22 PM Subject: Message from the Premier To all GNWT Employees: Monday June 21st is a statutory holiday in celebration of National Aboriginal Day. Our jurisdiction remains the only one in the country to mark Aboriginal Day in this manner. It represents a benchmark for all of Canada and something that I believe all of us, as Northerners and NWT residents can be very proud of. National Aboriginal Day is an opportunity to pay tribute to the many Aboriginal friends and colleagues with whom we live and work daily - and to acknowledge the countless ways in which their lives enrich our own. Take a look around. In our government, schools, businesses and communities, the symbols, values and traditions of the Dene, Métis and Inuvialuit people are displayed and embraced. Aboriginal history, language, arts and cultural customs are an integral part of who we are as Canada's northern people. Our celebration of National Aboriginal day, and the manner in which we have chosen to embrace it, reflects the unique and multicultural identity that distinguishes us all as residents of the Northwest Territories. I encourage you all to take time on June 21st to participate in National Aboriginal Day celebrations in your community. Joseph L Handley Premier From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jun 27 16:01:34 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2004 09:01:34 -0700 Subject: Class helps preserve Dena'ina heritage (fwd) Message-ID: Class helps preserve Dena'ina heritage By JENNY NEYMAN Sunday, June 27, 2004 - Peninsula Clarion http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113~7244~2238671,00.html# KENAI--A group of about 30 people gather around a campfire near the Kenai River and spend the morning telling stories, laughing, swatting mosquitoes and speaking to each other in Dena'ina about adding more wood to the fire and the tea they are brewing. In that respect, the scene is one that could have happened hundreds of years ago. Upon closer inspection, however, the cell phones and tape recorders the people are carrying, the manufactured clothing they are wearing and the cars parked not far from the fire pit make it clear the scene is not a part of history. The point of the gathering was to recapture history, preserve it and make it a part of modern culture. The gathering was part of a Dena'ina language class at Kenai Peninsula College in late May and early June and sponsored by the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The purpose of it is to preserve a language nearing extinction. "The language has very few speakers," said Gary Holton, assistant professor with the language center and an organizer of the institute. "Basically the people don't have enough opportunity to speak it." Holton said Dena'ina, like many Athabascan languages, has been disappearing because in many cases the only people who know it are elderly. As they die, the knowledge of the language dies with them. Many of the elders, when they were young, attended government schools under a Bureau of Indian Affairs policy to "Americanize" Natives, including eradicating their language. Gladys Evanoff traveled from Nondalton, where she has lived since 1950, to attend the class. She grew up in Pedro Bay hearing her grandmother speak Dena'ina and said her husband was fluent in the language, but they didn't use it. "No one really speaks it in Nondalton," she said. "They don't even understand it. My own kids don't speak it. And whose fault is that? It's the parents' fault. "... We never taught it to our kids because when (my husband) went to school, he was kept from speaking it. ... That's why so many people don't want to speak it now, because they were held back from their own language and culture." That's where the language class comes in. It evolved out of the Athabascan Language Development Institute, a program started in Fairbanks in 1998 that brought together Athabascan speakers from around the state to teach and learn their languages. Organizers decided to make the program more regional, so last summer language classes were held in areas where the languages were traditionally spoken. The willingness of Kenai Peninsula College and the Kenaitze Indian Tribe to help host the event led to the choice of Soldotna for the Dena'ina language class, Holton said. The first year it was held at the college, eight people registered for it. This year about 30 people attended from all over the widespread Dena'ina region, including Tyonek, Nondalton, Lime Village and Pedro Bay on the west side of Cook Inlet, the Kenai Peninsula and Chickaloon, northeast of Palmer. "The nice thing about having it here is a lot of people are here from all over the region," Holton said. "To hear the language spoken here again is something that hasn't been heard in many years. ... For these speakers to get an opportunity to come to this region where famous people lived, like Peter Kalifornsky, is very powerful to them because they know those connections and respect them." Morning sessions like the fireside gathering on the grounds of Alaska Christian College were spent in conversation, generally where one person said a phrase in Dena'ina and everyone took turns repeating it. Though usually one person leads or facilitates the session, the learning environment is collaborative with participants looking to each other--usually the elders--for help with pronunciation. "We didn't have established instructors. Many people who are teaching are learning it themselves," Holton said. "We can't afford to wait 10 years to train teachers." Afternoon sessions were more lecture-oriented and covered grammar and other linguistic elements of the language. The learning didn't end when classes were over. Participants spent one evening making birch bark baskets. "They're spending all their time together here. In a way, six hours of formal classes is only part of what's going on," Holton said. The connections the people make are equally, if not more, important than the classes because it means their conversations can continue throughout the year, Holton said. The class has brought together a diverse group of participants. There are elders who learned the language as children and have come to pass on their knowledge, traditional college students who are taking the class to complete a degree and others of Dena'ina descent who want to learn the language as a way to be more in touch with their heritage. Ages range from teens to one man in his 90s, as well as the children some of the participants bring along. "These kids, they're learning. They want to be here. I'm happy that they're learning," said Helen Dick of Lime Village. She didn't speak the language for a long time or teach it to her children because her husband was white, she said. After coming to the class, Dick said, she wants to start teaching her granddaughter Dena'ina words whenever she talks to her on the phone. Shauna Sagmoen, originally from Stony River, said she took the class because some of her older relatives can speak Dena'ina and she wanted to communicate with them. She is 19 now and moved to Anchorage when she was in eighth grade, where she said she got "citified." After taking last summer's class she was able to say "I am Dena'ina" to her relatives. This year, she learned more, but it is a slow process. "I didn't think it would be as hard as it is," Sagmoen said. Trying to learn Dena'ina, or any Athabascan language, coming from an English background is challenging. "It's undeniably very different from English," Holton said. "There is nothing like it. There is nothing similar at all." Just speaking Dena'ina words requires making sounds not used in English and verb use in Dena'ina is more complicated than in English. In Dena'ina, for instance, the verb used to describe someone carrying something changes depending on what the person is carrying. "Dena'ina really describes the environment and world and forces you to describe the environment in great detail," Holton said. "Not that you can't do that in English, but you can get away with not doing it. Dena'ina really forces you to describe your world." Now that Sagmoen has started to learn the language, she has become interested in learning more about other areas of the culture. "When I first started, I just thought I would learn how to communicate. In the process of learning, you kind of pick up a lot of outdoor cultural practices," she said. "... It's all interconnected. You can do stuff without the language but it's so interconnected." That's why it's so important to preserve the language, because it does play such an integral part in Dena'ina culture, Holton said. "So much is tied up in language--the way we think, the way we feel, the way we express ourselves is filtered through our language," he said. In that respect, the move to preserve the Dena'ina language is interconnected with a move to revitalize Dena'ina culture, he said. "I think it's very important," Evanoff from Nondalton said. "It makes us strong. It makes us proud of who we are. We are Dena'ina people. We should be able to speak it and understand it and to be proud of it." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jun 27 16:07:34 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2004 09:07:34 -0700 Subject: 2004 COMPUTERWORLD EXCELLENCE AWARDS (fwd) Message-ID: Monday, 28 June, 2004 And the winners are ... 2004 COMPUTERWORLD EXCELLENCE AWARDS IDG Staff, Auckland http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/0/6C696179245321F5CC256EBD006E50BC?OpenDocument Excellence in the Use of IT in Government – sponsored by Unisys · Te Taura Whiri i Te Reo Mäori (Maori Language Commission) for the Mätäpuna Dictionary System: Mätäpuna is the web-based open source system MLC has built for a Mäori dictionary being compiled by contributors from all over New Zealand. The dictionary is written entirely in Mäori and is a first for an indigenous language. Mätäpuna has been made available under general public licence, so that other groups may use it for their own languages. From coyotez at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU Sun Jun 27 18:07:07 2004 From: coyotez at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU (David Lewis) Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2004 11:07:07 -0700 Subject: [Fwd: NEH Landmarks of American History Workshops] Message-ID: -------- Original Message -------- Subject: NEH Landmarks of American History Workshops Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2004 07:44:46 -0700 From: H-AmIndian (Joyce Ann Kievit) Reply-To: H-Net List for American Indian Studies To: H-AMINDIAN at H-NET.MSU.EDU Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2004 15:50:35 -0400 From: "Serventi, Jennifer" Subject: NEH Landmarks of American History NEH Landmarks of American History Workshops The Division of Education Programs of the National Endowment for the Humanities seeks applications for Landmarks of American History: Workshops for School Teachers and the new Landmarks of American History: Workshops for Community College Faculty. These grant opportunities are part of the "We the People" initiative, which is designed to enhance the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture. Landmarks of American History workshops bring groups of K-12 teachers or community college faculty together for intensive, one-week, residence-based workshops at or near significant American historical sites. Eligible applicants include museums, libraries, cultural and learned societies, state humanities councils, colleges and universities, schools and school districts. Collaborative programs are encouraged. For details about the program, some sample projects, and application guidelines, go to http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/landmarks.html (Workshops for School Teachers) or http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/landmarkscc.html (Workshops for Community College Faculty). Current Landmarks of American History: Workshops for School Teachers are described at http://www.neh.gov/projects/landmarks.html. Note that the deadline is fast approaching: August 6th! As always, Division of Education program officers are available to help out, whether it's to discuss your ideas or to read a draft proposal. Here are their names and contact information: Thomas Adams, 202-606-8396, tadams at neh.gov Douglas Arnold, 202-606-8225, darnold at neh.gov Barbara Ashbrook, 202-606-8388, bashbrook at neh.gov Sonia Feigenbaum, 202-606-8490, sfeigenbaum at neh.gov Gary Henrickson, 202-606-8241, ghenrickson at neh.gov Judy Jeffrey Howard, 202-606-8398, jhoward at neh.gov Robert Sayers, 202-606-8215, rsayers at neh.gov From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jun 28 15:42:38 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2004 08:42:38 -0700 Subject: Lakota: School hopes to keep Lakota language alive (fwd) Message-ID: Lakota: School hopes to keep Lakota language alive By Mike Corpos http://www.unpo.org/news_detail.php?arg=35&par=842 The Wakpala School is putting the finishing touches on implementing a $400,000 government grant it hopes will help save a language from extinction. The grant, to promote bi-lingual learning, was used to create classroom tools, mostly computer-based, to help students and teachers keep alive the Lakota language. They will begin using the tools when classes start in August. Project Director Earl Bullhead said the school, located on the Standing Rock Indian reservation, was able to develop a series of computer graphics and interactive programs to assist in the learning and preservation of the Lakota language and culture. "We will have CD-ROMs available and students can work with them on the computer screen," Bullhead said. "You click on a graphic and it tells you the Lakota word with the pronunciation." Bullhead said students will be quizzed on what they learn. Teachers will also have access to the programs so they can learn the language along with students. Written materials on Lakota are also part of the programs. Bullhead said the grant money has nearly all been spent on purchasing and implementing the technology needed to develop the programs. He said more money is needed to further improve the school's Lakota curriculum. "So much more needs to be done," he said. Bullhead said the school used local people to help implement the programs instead of contracting services from outside sources. The school plans a public unveiling of the new technology and materials at 2 p.m. Tuesday. That will include speakers and entertainment, Bullhead said. "It won't be the final product we'll show there, but it's close," Bullhead said. "We have some small details to take care of - corrections and such. It's tedious, but it's worth it." Bullhead said the most important thing in the whole program is that students are able to retain their identity through learning Lakota. "The grant was a very valuable experience - it helps promote awareness of culture and language." Source: Aberdeen News From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jun 28 15:56:23 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2004 08:56:23 -0700 Subject: Keepers of a Lost Language (fwd link) Message-ID: [fwd from Mother Jones magazine - requires subscription] Keepers of a Lost Language An 82-year-old linguist and his young protégé are among the last speakers of a native California language — and its final chance. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/07/06_400.html From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jun 29 15:25:18 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 08:25:18 -0700 Subject: Bands focus on preservation (fwd) Message-ID: Posted on Mon, Jun. 28, 2004 Bands focus on preservation LANGUAGE REVITALIZATION:Groups work to save Minnesota's first languages and cultures. BY STEVE KUCHERA NEWS TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/9034294.htm Minnesota's very name comes from a Dakota word meaning "sky-tinted waters." Yet fewer than 30 fully fluent Dakota speakers remain in the state, according to the Dakota Ojibwe Language Revitalization Alliance. Things are little better for speakers of the Ojibwe language. A 1995 survey of reservations in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan found 418 fluent Ojibwemowin speakers, none younger than 45. Most were elders. Alliance members want the numbers of fluent Dakota and Ojibwemowin speakers to grow. "We really need our language and culture," alliance member Jennifer Bendickson said. "If children don't know their culture and their language, then they become lost because they are missing that part of themselves." The Twin Cities-based alliance -- a gathering of elders, fluent Dakota and Ojibwemowin speakers, educators and others from Minnesota's tribes -- was formed last June at the Fond du Lac Reservation. It met Friday with language educators and other interested people from Fond du Lac, Leech Lake and Grand Portage. "We're going to different communities to find out what is going on... and what we can do to support them," Bendickson said. "Any effort that is being made to preserve language is good, because we need that." Linguists estimate that 500 years ago, American Indians in the continental U.S. area spoke more than 300 languages. About half survive. Some were lost when tribes that spoke them were exterminated. Others faded as schools and missionaries worked to quash native languages and cultures. Despite the oppression, there have always been people interested in preserving Indian languages, said Rosemary Christensen, a Mole Lake Ojibwe who grew up on Bad River. She was involved in the 1995 Ojibwe language survey and teaches American Indian studies at University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Today, however, there is more overt interest and action, she said. "Now that the tribes have money, they are putting their money where their mouth is," Christensen said. "Right now is the heyday of Indian tribes trying various things to become successful in how to teach language to fluency." "The Mille Lacs Band, for example, has spent an incredible amount on language," she said. "Even before they had a casino, they were spending money to preserve and strengthen their language." Many Mille Lacs Band youth experience Ojibwe traditions almost daily. At the band's Nay Ah Shing Schools, courses in Ojibwe language, history and culture are part of the curriculum. And in 2000, the band opened the Ojibwe Language and Cultural Awareness Grounds near Rutledge. Program director Larry Smallwood said it's important to preserve Ojibwemowin because the language and Ojibwe culture are interconnected. "We need to do our ceremonies in our language, because that's the way it was given to us by the Creator," he said. "And we believe we do not only need it in this world, but also after we leave here and go to the spirit world." Smallwood has seen a growing interest in Ojibwe language and culture, especially among those in their late teens and early 20s. "People are starting to get back to their own identity," he said. "Something woke them up and said 'Hey, I'm an Indian person, and I better get back to my own identity,' because for a while they were pretty well lost." The Mille Lacs band is not the only regional group working to preserve Ojibwemowin. In Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Native American Center has held a language immersion camp each of the past two summers at Red Cliff, and offers another this week. Lac Courte Oreilles sponsors a similar camp. The Fond du Lac Band also is working to expand its language preservation efforts. It offers regular language instruction at centers in Cloquet, Old Sawyer and Brookston. "If you put together all those little groups of people, then you have a really large group of people trying to revitalize their language," Bendickson said. "That is very encouraging." STEVE KUCHERA is an education reporter. He can be reached weekdays at (218) 279-5503 or (877) 269-9672, or by e-mail at skuchera at duluthsuperior.com. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Tue Jun 29 22:48:20 2004 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 15:48:20 -0700 Subject: Map Data Center (language) Message-ID: There are nine speakers of Navajo in Maine. Alaska and Arizona have the most speakers of Native languages than any other state. And more people speak Native languages than Hebrew. These are some of the interesting bits of information found at a new website that maps language use in the United States. Based on data from the most recent Census, the Modern Language Association (MLA) has created a tool that give surfers a graphical look at 37 languages and language groups. With a few clicks of the mouse, the Language Map Data Center (http://www.mla.org/resources/census_main) creates maps detailing where and how many people speak a particular language. The maps can be focused by state, county and even zip code, and for those seeking the raw data, there's a tool that spits out information in table form. The site groups 160 Native languages into one category so it's not possible, for now, to find out how many people speak Cherokee. People curious about that statistic can turn to the U.S. Census Bureau. The agency has compiled a two-volume report (http://www.census.gov/census2000/pubs/phc-5.html) that breaks down tribal affiliation and language use. But the MLA site does include data on the use of Navajo because it is one of the more commonly spoken languages in the country. Not surprisingly, the map shows that most speakers of Dineh live in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, the three states where the Navajo Nation is located. At 178,014 speakers, more people speak Navajo than Scandinavian languages, Thai or Hungarian. And it is pervasive -- every state, plus Puerto Rico (7) the District of Columbia (4), has people who use Navajo. Even without detailed information on other Native languages, the MLA site still provides invaluable statistics. According to the site, the top 10 states where most Native speakers live are the following: Alaska - 30,121 Arizona - 30,109 New Mexico - 26,880 Oklahoma - 18,871 South Dakota - 11,246 Montana - 9,234 California - 6,729 Minnesota - 5,862 Mississippi - 5,654 Wisconsin - 4,210 According to the data, there are 203,466 people who speak Native languages. If Navajo is added to this number, more people use Native languages than Greek, Hindi, Armenian or Hebrew. In Alaska, Native languages are the second most commonly-used in the state. Alaska Natives make up about 16 percent of the population. In Arizona, Navajo is the third most commonly-used language after English and Spanish. The state's Native population is about 6 percent. Going by age, the data shows that most speakers of Native languages are adults over the age of 18. Most language experts say fewer and fewer young people are learning their tribal languages. From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Wed Jun 30 17:50:51 2004 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 17:50:51 -0000 Subject: Fwd: Monolingual literacy in Venezuela? Message-ID: Does anyone have further info on the literacy campaign in Venezuela, and whether the focus on Spanish is having a negative effect on indigenous languages? TIA... DZO --- In Multilingual_Literacy at yahoogroups.com, "Don Osborn" wrote: The following item was forwarded by Karen Chung to the Linguist list - and it seems to suggest a literacy campaign in Venezuela that focuses only on one language. Can anyone comment more on the situation there? DZO In Venezuela, Words Spread Far and Wide By Carol J. Williams, Times Staff Writer A literacy program teaches Spanish, the nation's official language, in isolated indigenous villages ISLA PEDRO CAMEJO, Venezuela -- ...Teacher, handyman and rare link with the modern world, Fernandez pops in a cassette for the community's first Spanish-language instruction, which begins with a slogan from Cuban liberation hero Jose Marti: "To be cultured is to be free." This remote island in the Orinoco River is one of the last and most isolated enclaves targeted in Venezuela's vaunted campaign against illiteracy, which in less than a year has taught 1.2 million people, from the slums and the jungles, to read and write in the national language. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg- literacy13jun13.story Registration (it's free) is required to access the articles. --- End forwarded message --- From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Wed Jun 2 02:26:54 2004 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Wed, 2 Jun 2004 02:26:54 -0000 Subject: Fwd: Innovate Call for Manuscripts Message-ID: FYI... looks like this journal might have space for IT related topics on multi/bilingual literacy and pedagogy, and indigenous language education. DZO --- In DigAfrica at yahoogroups.com, RWalker949 at a... wrote: Subj: Innovate Call for Manuscripts Date: 05/18/2004 2:13:04 PM Central Daylight Time From: morrison at u... (James L. Morrison) To: rwalker949 at a... Innovate is a bimonthly, peer-reviewed, online periodical published by Nova Southeastern University. It focuses on the creative use of information technology (IT) to enhance educational processes in all sectors (K-12, college and university, corporate, government). Innovate is dedicated to presenting articles via the most dynamic, interactive technology that is available. For each article, the journal provides an online discussion forum, an interactive webcast that connects authors and readers, and a "read-related" feature that links visitors to articles on similar topics. A multimedia classifieds section and journal editions in multiple languages are both in the planning stages. Theory, practice, vision, and commentary all have a place in Innovate. Articles generally fall into one of four main categories. * Applied Research and Assessment: Evidence related to the extent, effectiveness, and/or impact of IT use in educational and professional settings * Practice: Reports on innovative uses of IT in specific environments, with notable results * Development: Advance information on the newest IT projects, programs, tools, and trends * Commentary: Critical reflections on the changing nature of teaching, learning, and training with IT in the twenty-first century If you would like to submit a manuscript for publication consideration, please review our submission guidelines at http://horizon.unc.edu/innovate/guidelines/ and let me know if you intend to submit a manuscript. Also, please forward this announcement to colleagues who may want to submit manuscripts. The initial issue of Innovate will be published in July 2004. Sign up for our mailing list at http://horizon.unc.edu/innovate/ Many thanks. Jim ---- James L. Morrison Editor-in-Chief, Innovate http://horizon.unc.edu/innovate/guidelines/ Professor Emeritus of Educational Leadership UNC-Chapel Hill http://horizon.unc.edu --- End forwarded message --- From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jun 2 15:06:06 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 2 Jun 2004 08:06:06 -0700 Subject: New life for languages in Whitehorse school (fwd) Message-ID: New life for languages in Whitehorse school WebPosted Jun 1 2004 10:33 AM CDT http://north.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=yuk-gwitchinschool01062004 WHITEHORSE A Whitehorse school council wants to bring Gwich'in and Tlingit languages into the classroom. School councillors, parents and students from F.H. Collins high school started working on the idea a few months ago after Yukon's minister of education announced funding for more native language instructor trainees. "There are many First Nations in the Yukon and we think this enriches the school environment and is very important for language and culture," says Heather McFadgen, chair of the school council at F.H. Collins. McFadgen says the idea for the new language programs came from interested parents and students. The details of the courses are still being worked out. However, this isn't dampening enthusiasm. Joe Linklater, Chief of the Vuntut Gwich'in First Nation, says there is a lot of interest among Old Crow students living in the Yukon capital. "Our children, when they move to Whitehorse, lose that opportunity to learn the basics of the language in school. So we're happy to hear the opportunity is there so that they can continue to learn," said Linklater. McFadgen is optimistic the courses will be offered as early as this autumn. The school's principal is asking students about the idea and working with the education department. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jun 3 15:27:15 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2004 08:27:15 -0700 Subject: Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation (fwd) Message-ID: Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation A number of Amazonian groups face extinction as their space to live away from the modern world disappears. http://www.un.org/events/tenstories/story.asp?storyID=200# Far from the eyes of the world, some sixty-four indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation in Amazonian Ecuador, Peru, Brazil and Bolivia ? the Tagaeri, Huaorani, Taromenane, Corubo, Amamhuaca, Mascho, Kineri, Nanti, Nahua and Kugapakori, among others ? are condemned to gradual extinction. These tribes remain mysterious, avoiding all contact with strangers and preferring the isolated existence they have maintained for centuries. What little is known about them has been gleaned from other indigenous groups and from chance encounters with developers and rights groups. But what is clear is that their numbers are rapidly dwindling: the Coruba now number only 40; and the number of Mascho speakers is estimated to be between 20 and 100. The Amamhuaca language, it is thought, is spoken only by 720 people: 500 in Peru and 220 in Brazil. Attempts to learn more about these groups can prove fatal. The last known report of contact with the Tagaeri, the indigenous group with the strictest self-imposed isolation, was in July 1987, when two missionaries whose attempt to convince the tribe to allow oil extractors to enter their territory led to their deaths. The Tagaeri subsequently abandoned their homes and disappeared deeper into dense forests, demonstrating their rejection of co-existence with the modern world. Gas and oil companies, loggers, miners and entrepreneurs are viewed by indigenous groups as ?ghosts of death? for the toxic legacy they can leave behind and which can poison rivers and forests considered as a source of life for these communities. These indigenous groups have developed their own health care and food gathering systems, but which are fragile and easily threatened by damage to the ecosystems wherein they live. All too often contact with outsiders results in the transfer of disease, resulting in epidemics since the indigenous peoples have no immunities to what are common and treatable diseases elsewhere. Governments around the world have increasingly acknowledged the rights of indigenous peoples. In part, this has been the result of a process of empowerment by such groups, who have pressed their demands on governments. In the case of groups living in isolation, preferring to avoid contact with government representatives and other communities, responding to their needs is far more difficult. The Brazilian Government was among the first to take steps to adopt a policy of creating territorial reserves for people living in voluntary isolation that are ?no-go zones? to extractive industries and migrants. Colombia, Ecuador and Peru are also looking at similar action. The challenge facing the impoverished governments of the region is to balance the further exploitation of the riches of the Amazonian belt in the name of development, and the protection of these fragile indigenous groups, and the cultural heritage they represent. For further information: Mr. John Scott, Social Affairs Officer UN Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Tel: (1 917) 326-5798; E-mail: scott9 at un.org From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jun 3 15:35:30 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2004 08:35:30 -0700 Subject: News Excerpt (fwd) Message-ID: June 02, 2004 Upper Sioux tribe working to advance on economic ladder http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/gaming/2004/jun/02/516953244.html Excerpt from news article on the Upper Sioux in Minnesota... Like many other bands, the Upper Sioux worry about maintaining their culture. Only 10 of their elders remain who are fluent in the language of the Upper Sioux, the youngest in her 70s. One of them, 74-year-old Carolynn Cavender Schommer, holds weekly language classes that attract a handful of children at the community center. Surrounded by drawings of bison, owl, snake and turtle, with their Dakota names, Schommer described how some Dakota words cannot be translated into English. "You might know the culture, but if you don't know the language, how do you understand your culture?" she said. From language-labs at UCHICAGO.EDU Thu Jun 3 20:15:02 2004 From: language-labs at UCHICAGO.EDU (Language Laboratories and Archives) Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2004 15:15:02 -0500 Subject: Introduction and request for assistance Message-ID: Greetings! My name is Barbara Need and I am a manager of the University of Chicago Language Laboratories and Archives (LLA). I have been an interested eavesdropper on this list from some months now, being both computer support and archivist for the Labs. Part of the LLA's collection is nearly 350 hours of recordings of Meso-American languages done in the 1930s and 1950s. Much of this material is on open-reel tapes, which, of course, are deteriorating. Last year the LLA submitted a proposal to the NEH to digitize this material and make it available on-line to researchers and interested members of the communities where the recordings were made. Our proposal was turned down, but we are trying to revise it to submit again. I am hoping that this community can assist me with addressing some of the concerns expressed by the reviewers. 1) One of the concerns expressed was the lack of letters of support from outside the University. If any of you would be willing to write such a letter, please let me know. I can certainly provide you with more information about the collection 2) Another concern related to the fact that we have no field notes (or none that I know of--I have some queries out) accompanying the recordings. one reviewer asked how researchers unfamiliar with the original interviewer make use of "often highly personal" interviews fifty years (or more) after they were done. Our PI will be addressing this from the perspective of a phonologist/phonetician, but if any of you have any suggestions, it would be much appreciated. Barbara Need Manager (LLA) University of Chicago Language Laboratories and Archives From pmeyer at SDCOE.K12.CA.US Fri Jun 4 00:03:13 2004 From: pmeyer at SDCOE.K12.CA.US (Paula Meyer) Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2004 17:03:13 -0700 Subject: Introduction and request for assistance Message-ID: Does your collection contain languages from Baja California, Mexico? If it does (outside chance), I can write about the need here to have recordings from the 30's and 50's. Paula Meyer ----- Original Message ----- From: "Language Laboratories and Archives" To: Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2004 1:15 PM Subject: Introduction and request for assistance > Greetings! My name is Barbara Need and I am a manager of the > University of Chicago Language Laboratories and Archives (LLA). I > have been an interested eavesdropper on this list from some months > now, being both computer support and archivist for the Labs. Part of > the LLA's collection is nearly 350 hours of recordings of > Meso-American languages done in the 1930s and 1950s. Much of this > material is on open-reel tapes, which, of course, are deteriorating. > Last year the LLA submitted a proposal to the NEH to digitize this > material and make it available on-line to researchers and interested > members of the communities where the recordings were made. Our > proposal was turned down, but we are trying to revise it to submit > again. I am hoping that this community can assist me with addressing > some of the concerns expressed by the reviewers. > > 1) One of the concerns expressed was the lack of letters of support > from outside the University. If any of you would be willing to write > such a letter, please let me know. I can certainly provide you with > more information about the collection > > 2) Another concern related to the fact that we have no field notes > (or none that I know of--I have some queries out) accompanying the > recordings. one reviewer asked how researchers unfamiliar with the > original interviewer make use of "often highly personal" interviews > fifty years (or more) after they were done. Our PI will be addressing > this from the perspective of a phonologist/phonetician, but if any of > you have any suggestions, it would be much appreciated. > > Barbara Need > Manager (LLA) > University of Chicago > Language Laboratories and Archives > From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Fri Jun 4 02:28:28 2004 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 02:28:28 -0000 Subject: Fwd: "Bilingual Aesthetics: A New Sentimental Education" Message-ID: Of possible interest... DZO --- In code-switching at yahoogroups.com, Doris Sommer wrote: Dear Code Switching list, May I call your attention to my new book, Bilingual Aesthetics: A New Sentimental Education (Duke UP, 2004) It argues for the aesthetic, political, philosophical and psychological enhancements of living in more than one language, in an effort to develop more interest among monolinguals and to reinforce the option of "partial assimilation," that is acquiring a new culture without banishing another. Than you, Doris Sommer At 04:53 AM 6/2/2004 +0000, you wrote: >This item from the Linguist list may be of interest... > >Don Osborn >Bisharat.net > >------------------------- >Date: Tue, 1 Jun 2004 11:08:09 -0400 (EDT) >From: Angela Bartens >Subject: Languages in Contact: The Partial Restructuring of >Vernaculars > > >Holm, John (2004) Languages in Contact: The Partial Restructuring of >Vernaculars, Cambridge University Press. > >Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-527.html > > . . . From language-labs at UCHICAGO.EDU Fri Jun 4 14:16:26 2004 From: language-labs at UCHICAGO.EDU (Language Laboratories and Archives) Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 09:16:26 -0500 Subject: Introduction and request for assistance In-Reply-To: <005201c449c7$55501e10$d63fa8c0@paulaklm5qo59p> Message-ID: >Does your collection contain languages from Baja California, Mexico? >If it does (outside chance), I can write about the need here to have >recordings from the 30's and 50's. >Paula Meyer Alas no. It is mostly Yucatan and Southern Mexico. However, on the off chance, can you give me a few language names for me to check? Barbara >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Language Laboratories and Archives" >To: >Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2004 1:15 PM >Subject: Introduction and request for assistance > > >> Greetings! My name is Barbara Need and I am a manager of the >> University of Chicago Language Laboratories and Archives (LLA). I >> have been an interested eavesdropper on this list from some months >> now, being both computer support and archivist for the Labs. Part of >> the LLA's collection is nearly 350 hours of recordings of >> Meso-American languages done in the 1930s and 1950s. Much of this >> material is on open-reel tapes, which, of course, are deteriorating. >> Last year the LLA submitted a proposal to the NEH to digitize this >> material and make it available on-line to researchers and interested >> members of the communities where the recordings were made. Our >> proposal was turned down, but we are trying to revise it to submit >> again. I am hoping that this community can assist me with addressing >> some of the concerns expressed by the reviewers. >> >> 1) One of the concerns expressed was the lack of letters of support >> from outside the University. If any of you would be willing to write >> such a letter, please let me know. I can certainly provide you with >> more information about the collection >> >> 2) Another concern related to the fact that we have no field notes >> (or none that I know of--I have some queries out) accompanying the >> recordings. one reviewer asked how researchers unfamiliar with the >> original interviewer make use of "often highly personal" interviews >> fifty years (or more) after they were done. Our PI will be addressing >> this from the perspective of a phonologist/phonetician, but if any of >> you have any suggestions, it would be much appreciated. >> >> Barbara Need >> Manager (LLA) >> University of Chicago >> Language Laboratories and Archives >> From pmeyer at SDCOE.K12.CA.US Fri Jun 4 23:38:25 2004 From: pmeyer at SDCOE.K12.CA.US (Paula Meyer) Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 16:38:25 -0700 Subject: Introduction and request for assistance Message-ID: Languages in Baja California are: Kumeyaay/Diegueno, sometimes referred to as Cochimi; Pa'ipai/Paipai; Kiliwa; Cocopa Paula ----- Original Message ----- From: "Language Laboratories and Archives" To: Sent: Friday, June 04, 2004 7:16 AM Subject: Re: Introduction and request for assistance > >Does your collection contain languages from Baja California, Mexico? > >If it does (outside chance), I can write about the need here to have > >recordings from the 30's and 50's. > >Paula Meyer > > Alas no. It is mostly Yucatan and Southern Mexico. However, on the > off chance, can you give me a few language names for me to check? > > Barbara > > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: "Language Laboratories and Archives" > >To: > >Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2004 1:15 PM > >Subject: Introduction and request for assistance > > > > > >> Greetings! My name is Barbara Need and I am a manager of the > >> University of Chicago Language Laboratories and Archives (LLA). I > >> have been an interested eavesdropper on this list from some months > >> now, being both computer support and archivist for the Labs. Part of > >> the LLA's collection is nearly 350 hours of recordings of > >> Meso-American languages done in the 1930s and 1950s. Much of this > >> material is on open-reel tapes, which, of course, are deteriorating. > >> Last year the LLA submitted a proposal to the NEH to digitize this > >> material and make it available on-line to researchers and interested > >> members of the communities where the recordings were made. Our > >> proposal was turned down, but we are trying to revise it to submit > >> again. I am hoping that this community can assist me with addressing > >> some of the concerns expressed by the reviewers. > >> > >> 1) One of the concerns expressed was the lack of letters of support > >> from outside the University. If any of you would be willing to write > >> such a letter, please let me know. I can certainly provide you with > >> more information about the collection > >> > >> 2) Another concern related to the fact that we have no field notes > >> (or none that I know of--I have some queries out) accompanying the > >> recordings. one reviewer asked how researchers unfamiliar with the > >> original interviewer make use of "often highly personal" interviews > >> fifty years (or more) after they were done. Our PI will be addressing > >> this from the perspective of a phonologist/phonetician, but if any of > >> you have any suggestions, it would be much appreciated. > >> > >> Barbara Need > >> Manager (LLA) > >> University of Chicago > >> Language Laboratories and Archives > >> > From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jun 6 16:05:57 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2004 09:05:57 -0700 Subject: Conferences focus on saving native languages (fwd) Message-ID: Conferences focus on saving native languages By Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations | 04 June 2004 http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/06/04_chocenyo.shtml BERKELEY ? Chochenyo, the language of the Muwekma Ohlone people, has been silent since the 1930s, but a handful of tribal members working with mentors from the University of California, Berkeley's linguistics department are bringing it back to life. Today, Chochenyo is being heard once again in conversation and song, and can be seen in written communications and a guidebook being prepared to help teach others. Tribal chair Rosemary Cambra and Monica Arellano, co-chair of the Muwekma Ohlone Language Committee, will share the Muwekma Ohlone success story at the "Breath of Life: Silent No More" conference at UC Berkeley as it opens this Saturday, June 5. The five-day program is for California Indians determined to revitalize their dormant and endangered languages. "I feel very privileged to have been allowed the opportunity to be a part of the awakening of our native Chochenyo language. It has truly been a very fulfilling experience," said Arellano, also vice chair of the Muwekma Ohlone tribe. [Professor Juliette Blevins, shown wearing a Yurok cap, is working with members of the Muwekma Ohlone tribe to revive their language, Chochenyo. (Photo by J.P. Blevins)] ? "The Chochenyo experience gives us all great hope," said Juliette Blevins, a visiting professor and researcher at UC Berkeley's Department of Linguistics, who has been leading weekly Chochenyo lessons with Muwekma Ohlone hailing from Richmond to San Jose. Leanne Hinton, chair of the linguistics department, which is in the College of Letters & Science, said she is always excited by the Breath of Life conference, which every year draws more interest. This year's conference is attracting approximately 60 people from about a dozen tribes from throughout California - others were turned away as organizers were unable to accommodate everyone interested. Beginning Thursday, June 10, over 300 language educators and others will attend the four-day "Language is Life: the 11th Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Conference" that also is being held on campus. The Muwekma Ohlone, the indigenous people of the San Francisco Bay Area, will be featured guests at both conferences. At the second event, they will offer a Chochenyo welcome to conference attendees from across the United States and Canada, and as far away as Taiwan and Australia, who want to learn more about how to revitalize indigenous languages in their states and countries. An important chapter of the Muwekma story got underway in Blevins' undergraduate course, "Languages of North America." Student Jon Rodney wanted to translate a Chochenyo song on a recording from the Smithsonian Institution. To do so, he relied on linguistics anthropologist J.P. Harrington's field notes, replete with information about California Indians, including Spanish and English translations of their languages as spoken around the beginning of the 20th century. When Rodney finished his paper, he shared it with several Muwekma Ohlones. "He got a wonderful response, saying they just started a language committee and wanted to revive Chochenyo," Blevins said, "And, could he help?" "The recordings of Chochenyo contain only songs, many without words," she said. "So, when this all started, there was a very hard question to answer: What does the spoken language actually sound like?" To help put the puzzle together, Blevins tapped Harrington's notes, his good ear for language and penchant for phonetic detail, and listened to all of his Chochenyo recordings. Blevins then listened to all Miwok and Yokut recordings available at the Berkeley Language Center, because their sounds and structures are believed to be similar to Chochenyo. To develop a concrete sense of Harrington's phonetic symbols for Chochenyo sounds, she compared these with the ones he used for another California Indian language, Yurok, which she knows well. Like most indigenous languages, Chochenyo never had its own written system - until last year, when the Muwekma Ohlone Language Committee adopted the new Chochenyo alphabet. Another important resource in the Chochenyo saga is The Bancroft Library, repository of some of the oldest written records about such Coastanoan languages as Chochenyo, Mutsun and Rumsien. The library has original manuscripts from the 1800s, including Father Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta's impressive transcriptions of hundreds of Mutsun sentences. Blevins and Rodney officially launched their language lessons last spring at a Muwekma Ohlone cultural campout at Del Valle Regional Park near Pleasanton, sharing a Chochenyo word list and giving simple group language lessons. "There was a lot of enthusiasm after that, and the tribe asked if I would give weekly language lessons," Blevins said. "I agreed, but only by insisting that we were in this together, that we would all be learning together." Those lessons began in July 2003, and are still going strong. Five to eight dedicated students attend the weekly three-hour evening sessions, with attendance at quarterly tribal language workshops ranging from 30 to 50. "I think they've made amazing progress in terms of being able to speak the language," said Blevins. "Everyone has basic conversation skills, and some have more. They can talk about their family and home life. Because of the gaps in vocabulary, what you'll often hear is a Chochenyo sentence with a few English words mixed in, but with the appropriate grammatical structure for Chochenyo." The Chochenyo database being developed by the tribe contains from 1,000 to 2,000 basic words. To fill in vocabulary gaps, the Muwekma Ohlone Language Committee is creating new words. An example is the new Chochenyo word for minute, "ikka," formed with their own word for "dust" and used for a small unit of time. The next step, Blevins said, is to expand outreach in the Muwekma Ohlone community, possibly through language classes in area schools and community centers. Through the Master Apprentice Program conceived through UC Berkeley's Linguistics Department and the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, a California native organization devoted to revitalizing the state's indigenous languages, about 70 teens have learned approximately 25 native Californian languages. They've had help from mentors working with them 10 to 20 hours a week over the past three years. Of the 175 indigenous languages in the United States, children are speaking fewer than 20 of them at home, said Hinton, and the demand for help to save endangered languages is outpacing the resources. "Speaking a heritage language isn't just a form of communication," she said. "It's a deep part of a person's identity and view of the universe." There also is an increasing awareness among tribes of the resources available - like those at UC Berkeley - to help save endangered languages, said Hinton. "Interest in language revitalization is something that's growing around the world," said Hinton, author of "How to Keep Your Language Alive" (Heyday Books, 2002). "Nationalism and globalization are constant and growing threats to the existence of indigenous societies, and partly as a response to that, there is more and more movement by indigenous people to maintain their identities and not get melted into the big melting pot." The Muwekma Ohlone say it this way: "Mak-muwekma mak-noono ya roote 'innutka, mak-'uyyaki_, Nuhu, mak pekre ne tuuxi, 'At mak roote 'innutka hu_i_tak." "Our culture and our language are the way to our past, >From it we embrace the present, And follow the road to the future." ### NOTE: Leanne Hinton can be reached at hinton at socrates.berkeley.edu. Juliette Blevins can be reached at jblevins at uclink.berkeley.edu. For more details about the "Breath of Life" conference, visit http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/lingdept/Current/research/bol.html. For more information about the "Language is Life" event, see http://www.aicls.org/pages/04SILC.html. The Muwekma Ohlone webpage is at www.muwekma.org. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jun 6 21:48:18 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2004 14:48:18 -0700 Subject: Honduran island risks losing a language (fwd) Message-ID: Los Angeles Daily News Honduran island risks losing a language By Wilson Ring Associated Press http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20954~2194846,00.html# Saturday, June 05, 2004 - PUNTA GORDA, Honduras -- When Reina Martinez speaks to her 14-year-old granddaughter she uses Garifuna, the language of her youth in this colorful island village. But when Cassandra Ballesteros answers, it's not in Garifuna. "I understand, but I don't speak it," she said. "I can't." Instead, she responds in Honduran Spanish, the language she learns in school, and the one she's more likely to hear on the dirt roads that run through her centuries-old village tucked between dense mangroves and vast coral reefs on the island of Roatan. Martinez, 52, and her companion Celso Zapata, 59, are two of the older residents of Punta Gorda. Over the years, the couple has watched their Garifuna traditions fade into memory as the world has reached into their community of about 1,000. Now they are watching their language disappear, too. Children "don't want to speak Garifuna anymore," said Zapata, who runs Punta Gorda's public water system. "You've got to blame the parents. We parents, we've got to teach the kids." When he wanders through the community on the north side of the 40-mile-long island, Zapata is as likely to speak Spanish or even a dialect of English Creole to his neighbors as he is Garifuna (pronounced gah-RHEE-foo-nah). "Even the old people, you find many of them who don't want to speak Garifuna," he said. Linguist Genevieve Escure laments what is happening to "a complicated and beautiful language," with roots in the Amazonian tongues of Arawak and Carib still spoken in parts of northeastern South America. So she is recording the Garifuna, hoping to spark their interest so they will work to keep their language alive. Still, some of Roatan's leaders argue it isn't the language that is in danger. "It's not disappearing," said Arad Rochez, a Garifuna who is vice mayor of Santos Guardiola, including Punta Gorda. "What is disappearing is how we used to live in the past." When Martinez and Zapata were young the Garifuna lived in mud houses with thatched roofs. Men fished from dugout canoes and steamed, rather than fried, their catch. Traditional folk dances were set to the rhythm of African-styled drums. Slowly Garifuna men started leaving Roatan to find jobs on the Honduran mainland or to work on freighters and cruise ships. Dugout canoes that once sustained the community were abandoned on shore. The Garifuna are no longer dependent on the fish, lobster and conch that are plentiful in the coral reefs. In the late 1980s, the Honduran government started developing the island, bringing tourists, retirees and developers attracted by the balmy temperatures year-round. A main road now runs across the spine of the island, from the western end of Roatan, with its luxury beach hotels and exclusive waterfront homes, past Punta Gorda to the still, nearly pristine east end. The hurricanes that belt the island every generation or so -- Fifi in 1974 and Mitch in 1998 -- also brought change, blowing away the thatched-roof homes of the Garifuna. The villagers rebuilt, first with wood and then cement blocks with tin roofs. Thousands of Central American Garifuna now live in the United States and the money they send home helps their families buy luxuries like televisions and refrigerators that would otherwise be beyond reach. "We don't hardly live how we used to live," Martinez said. And their language is receding along with their old lifestyle. Linguists estimate 190,000 people across the western Caribbean speak Garifuna. But when a language isn't being used by young people, the numbers can drop fast. "Everybody agrees we are going to lose half of the world's languages. Some say 90 percent," said Lenore Grenoble, a Dartmouth College professor and chairwoman of the Linguistic Society of America's Committee for Endangered Languages and their Preservation. Linguists estimate the world at one time had about 10,000 languages. Today, there are about 6,800, Grenoble said. Four years ago, Escure gave tape recorders to some Punta Gorda residents and asked them to record family and friends as they spoke Garifuna. Most of her work is with older people because few Garifuna under 40 speak the language. Even when they do, more and more English and Spanish words find their way into the conversation. "Spanish is dominant. It is the language you need to be successful in life," said Escure, who is based at the University of Minnesota. "That's how a language disappears. The speaker doesn't see any benefit in speaking it. They'd rather switch to Spanish or English Creole." One afternoon earlier this year Escure and Martinez had a discussion about the Garifuna word for cassava, the root crop that is a dietary staple throughout Latin America and much of the developing world. " 'The pot with which I cooked cassava,' OK, how do you say that...?"' Escure asked. "O-yay lay idabway nobowa yucca," Martinez answered. The hard Bs, Gs, Us and Ps make it easy to distinguish Garifuna from Spanish, English and even the lyrical sweetness of French, all of which make up significant elements of Garifuna. Escure repeats and dissects every phrase, looking for the origins of the words, the way the verbs are conjugated and how the sentences are put together. She's also trying to assemble a vocabulary, get a better understanding of the way the Garifuna use prefixes and suffixes, the way plurals and possessives are formed and how it all fits together. These are ancient sounds. The Garifuna are an extraordinary mix of Arawak Indians who migrated from the Amazon to the Caribbean 1,500 years ago, and Africans who escaped when two Spanish slave ships wrecked off the island of St. Vincent in 1635. Their language is a kind of living history, studded with relics of their encounters with other peoples. Now, it seems to be slipping away. Escure says she alone cannot keep Garifuna alive. "I am trying to describe the language as it is now," she said. "You cannot impose a language. It has to come from the community." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jun 8 15:48:52 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 08:48:52 -0700 Subject: Once-dying Chinook language finds future in voices of children (fwd0 Message-ID: Once-dying Chinook language finds future in voices of children By Nancy Bartley Seattle Times staff reporter GRANDE RONDE RESERVATION, Ore. ? To Tony Johnson, the Chinook jargon widely spoken by his ancestors was not just a second-class language used for trade but a language of tribal rituals, family gatherings and courtship. Until recently, it was almost extinct. Now, due largely to the 33-year-old Johnson, who regards each word of his ancestral tongue as an heirloom, the jargon also known as "Chinuk-wawa" has become a language of the future. In the seven years he has worked for the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde to revitalize the language, Johnson, who grew up in Raymond on Willapa Bay, has developed a teaching program that has become a model for tribes around the region. He has been "vital to the language having any future," said Portland linguist Henry Zenk, with whom Johnson created a written Chinuk-wawa alphabet. What makes the program successful is the traditional master-and-apprentice approach, in which students learn from elders, then become teachers themselves. That's coupled with the more modern-day concept of language immersion, in which students speak Chinuk-wawa in and outside the classroom. When tribal spokesman Brent Merrill, 43, was growing up, Chinuk-wawa was a language elders would use with one another when they didn't want younger people to know what they were saying. Now the Grand Ronde program is so successful, he said, children here use Chinuk-wawa to keep secrets from adults. "When they don't want parents to hear about something, they switch over," he said. On a bookshelf in his office, Johnson displays a teaching certificate issued to him recently by the state of Oregon, making him the first licensed teacher of the uniquely expressive language, which was spoken two centuries ago by 100,000 tribal members, traders and explorers from Northern California to Southern Alaska. Three other licenses also have been issued ? one to Zenk, the other two to tribal members here who learned Chinuk-wawa through adult-education classes taught by Johnson on the reservation. "It wasn't long ago ? about 20 years ? that the last of our elders who spoke it was passing away," said tribal teacher Bobby Mercier. "We are bringing a lot of our elders back by teaching the language. It's our identity." Teaching 4-year-olds Johnson, the son of a tribal chairman, has found that preserving a language must be undertaken on many fronts. In addition to creating an alphabet, he has designed a computer program so the Chinuk-wawa characters can be typed. He teaches 4-year-olds at the tribal day-care center and has shared meals with the few remaining tribal elders who still remember the language, gleaning from them Chinook words like taqwfla, (hazelnuts), salt-tsfqw (salt water) and tilixaN (friend). And each of the past six years, he has organized a Chinuk-wawa workshop that draws linguists, historians and tribal members. Johnson wishes he could teach the language to the surviving Chinooks, but the tribe of 2,000, which once thrived near Chinook, Pacific County, has no money for such programs. The lucrative Spirit Mountain Casino, on the Grand Ronde Reservation, makes the language program affordable. Other tribes with casino money frequently inquire about the tribe's success, but the program is a commitment not just of money, but of time and tenacity, Johnson said. Still, he hopes other tribes will want to learn Chinuk-wawa, and that students he's teaching now will "grow up and marry each other and raise Chinuk-wawa-speaking households. Or become linguists and come back here and do what we're doing." Johnson was so determined that Chinuk-wawa would live on through his own son, Sammy, that he began talking to Sammy and singing him Chinuk-wawa lullabies even before the baby was born. [photo inset - STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Teacher Jackie Whisler records Chinuk-wawa words spoken by Lauren Lucio, 5, at the Twah Sunchako preschool.] To lose one's language is to lose one's culture, Johnson said. Once a strong tribe The Chinooks were once a strong tribe with related bands located near the mouth of the Columbia River, from Pacific County east to the Cascades. For thousands of years, they fished and traded with other tribes using two languages ? one a jargon for trade, the other pure Chinookan. In the late 1700s, when ships began stopping in the harbors and trading with the Chinooks, English and French words were added to the trade language, which became known as Chinuk-wawa, or Chinook jargon. It was this language Lewis and Clark encountered when they arrived at the Columbia River in 1805 and were greeted by Chinooks offering boiled roots, dried sturgeon and potatoes. "What they were experiencing was clearly Chinuk-wawa," Johnson said. Though Lewis made notations of words in his journal, the field notes, believed to include an entire vocabulary, did not survive the trip back. Contact with whites exposed the Chinooks to deadly diseases, and by the mid-1800s the remaining Chinooks were sent to reservations. By the 1850s, when many tribes were gaining federal recognition, the Chinooks were overlooked. Many went to the Grand Ronde, where they were among at least 20 other bands with 20 different dialects. There, Chinuk-wawa became no longer just a trade language but one necessary for day-to-day communication among the diverse bands ? the first language of those born on the reservation. "It was the language used when someone courted their mate, when someone went to the post office, when someone went to the sweat lodge," Johnson said. It took on the unique elements of the Grand Ronde culture, Johnson said, from how tribal members viewed nature, their spiritual life and their health. While the phrase "I have a backache" almost implies in English an ownership of the condition, in Chinuk-wawa the words mean "there is a sickness living in my back," implying "an animosity to illness," Johnson said. And the simple greeting, "How are you?" is more a question of the condition of your spirit than a casual inquiry. Listened to father's stories Johnson grew up with his parents and a brother in a two-story house in Raymond, off the reservation. As a young man, he sailed and fished in Willapa Bay and listened to his father tell stories of the past. But he had little of his culture except the few words in Chinuk-wawa he learned from his elders or could recall from his past. "Hum-upuch," his grandmother called him when he was a toddler. "Stinky pants." Johnson graduated with degrees in anthropology and silversmithing from Central Washington University in Ellensburg. Now divorced, he is raising 4-year-old Sammy in a small, gray rambler in Sheridan, a few miles east of the reservation. Since Sammy was a toddler, Johnson has taken him to the homes of the few tribal elders he knew who spoke the language. When Sammy utters the word "dret" ? an expression similar to uh-huh ? Johnson remembers the now-deceased woman they once visited. "It pleases me so much to hear the voice of our elders in our children." Each day, he and Sammy go to the reservation's Twah Sunchako preschool ? Chinook jargon for "A Bright Day is Coming." In a classroom in the sprawling, gray education building, parents drop off their preschoolers for a half-day of language immersion. A no-English rule is observed by all ? even the youngest preschoolers correct each other when someone lapses into English. [photo inset - STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Tony Johnson, son of a Chinook tribal chairman, holds his son, Sammy, 4, who is a fluent speaker of the Chinuk-wawa language taught to him by his dad.] The room was filled with signs identifying common classroom objects ? clock, drum and fish in the aquarium ? as tiktik, pumpum and phish. "When these kids get old, they'll be fluent speakers," said teacher Bobby Mercier, who was first exposed to Chinuk-wawa as a child. Now not only is he fluent, so is his 6-year-old son; his 2-year-old son also is learning the language. The reservation's other licensed Chinuk-wawa teacher is Jackie Whisler, whose dream was to carry on a conversation completely in Chinuk-wawa before her grandmother died. Now her own granddaughter and a niece are among the preschool students, and her daughter is in the adult-education class. Johnson and Sammy share the language in daily rituals of their own. Each morning when Sammy gets up, he talks about his dreams in Chinuk-wawa. And before he goes to bed, he tells his father the condition of his heart. "Nayka qat mayka, papa," he says. "Nayka qat mayka, Sammy," Johnson replies. Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522, or nbartley at seattletimes.com -inset- Listen to Chinuk-wawa One-minute conversation Approximate translation: Tony Johnson: How are you? Bobby Mercier: I am good. Crystal Szczepanski: Good. Jackie Whisler: I am good. How are you? T.J.: Good, but I have a lot to do. J.W.: It is always that way, isn't it. T.J.: It is exactly that way. B.M.: What should we do? J.W.: Well, the kids are gone; we should clean the school, right? T.J.: Yes. Who made a mess up on the loft? C.S.: I don't know who did that. J.W.: Where do we want to eat? B.M.: We should eat together at the casino. T.J.: That's good with me, what do you think? C.S.: Good. J.W.: We should go. T.J.: This language we are speaking now, they named it Chinuk Wawa. J.W.: Our old people used to speak this language really well. B.M.: Now we teach it. T.J.: We wish that it will be strong again. C.S.: We hope so. -- -inset- Glossary of Chinuk-wawa words and phrases In Chinuk-wawa, capital letters are sometimes found in the middle or at the end of words. Exact pronunciations are sometimes difficult to duplicate with the English alphabet. QHata Nayka: How are you? Lush nayka: I am good LaXayfN nayka shiks: Hello my friend Nayka qat mayka: I love you Salt-tsfqw: Ocean or saltwater Taqwfla: Hazelnuts, or nuts of any kind PHaya-TsikTsik: Automobile (literally, fire wagon) TilixaN: People, friend or family Source: Tony Johnson -- From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jun 8 15:57:28 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 08:57:28 -0700 Subject: Once-dying Chinook language finds future in voices of children (fwd0 In-Reply-To: <1086709732.5d1e0bfe5d4cb@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Tony, Nice article! I am glad to see that your efforts to revitalize Chinook-Wawa are being recognized. Phil Cash Cash UofA, ILAT > ----- Message from cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU --------- > Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 08:48:52 -0700 > From: phil cash cash > Reply-To: Indigenous Languages and Technology > Subject: Once-dying Chinook language finds future in voices of children (fwd0 > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > > Once-dying Chinook language finds future in voices of children > > By Nancy Bartley > Seattle Times staff reporter > > GRANDE RONDE RESERVATION, Ore. ? To Tony Johnson, the Chinook jargon > widely spoken by his ancestors was not just a second-class language > used for trade but a language of tribal rituals, family gatherings > and > courtship. Until recently, it was almost extinct. > > Now, due largely to the 33-year-old Johnson, who regards each word of > his ancestral tongue as an heirloom, the jargon also known as > "Chinuk-wawa" has become a language of the future. > > In the seven years he has worked for the Confederated Tribes of the > Grand Ronde to revitalize the language, Johnson, who grew up in > Raymond > on Willapa Bay, has developed a teaching program that has become a > model for tribes around the region. > > He has been "vital to the language having any future," said Portland > linguist Henry Zenk, with whom Johnson created a written Chinuk-wawa > alphabet. > > What makes the program successful is the traditional > master-and-apprentice approach, in which students learn from elders, > then become teachers themselves. That's coupled with the more > modern-day concept of language immersion, in which students speak > Chinuk-wawa in and outside the classroom. > > When tribal spokesman Brent Merrill, 43, was growing up, Chinuk-wawa > was > a language elders would use with one another when they didn't want > younger people to know what they were saying. > > Now the Grand Ronde program is so successful, he said, children here > use > Chinuk-wawa to keep secrets from adults. > > "When they don't want parents to hear about something, they switch > over," he said. > > On a bookshelf in his office, Johnson displays a teaching certificate > issued to him recently by the state of Oregon, making him the first > licensed teacher of the uniquely expressive language, which was > spoken > two centuries ago by 100,000 tribal members, traders and explorers > from > Northern California to Southern Alaska. > > Three other licenses also have been issued ? one to Zenk, the other > two > to tribal members here who learned Chinuk-wawa through > adult-education > classes taught by Johnson on the reservation. > > "It wasn't long ago ? about 20 years ? that the last of our elders > who > spoke it was passing away," said tribal teacher Bobby Mercier. "We > are > bringing a lot of our elders back by teaching the language. It's our > identity." > > Teaching 4-year-olds > > Johnson, the son of a tribal chairman, has found that preserving a > language must be undertaken on many fronts. In addition to creating > an > alphabet, he has designed a computer program so the Chinuk-wawa > characters can be typed. > > He teaches 4-year-olds at the tribal day-care center and has shared > meals with the few remaining tribal elders who still remember the > language, gleaning from them Chinook words like taqwfla, (hazelnuts), > salt-tsfqw (salt water) and tilixaN (friend). > > And each of the past six years, he has organized a Chinuk-wawa > workshop > that draws linguists, historians and tribal members. Johnson wishes > he > could teach the language to the surviving Chinooks, but the tribe of > 2,000, which once thrived near Chinook, Pacific County, has no money > for such programs. > > The lucrative Spirit Mountain Casino, on the Grand Ronde Reservation, > makes the language program affordable. > > Other tribes with casino money frequently inquire about the tribe's > success, but the program is a commitment not just of money, but of > time > and tenacity, Johnson said. > > Still, he hopes other tribes will want to learn Chinuk-wawa, and that > students he's teaching now will "grow up and marry each other and > raise > Chinuk-wawa-speaking households. Or become linguists and come back > here > and do what we're doing." > > Johnson was so determined that Chinuk-wawa would live on through his > own > son, Sammy, that he began talking to Sammy and singing him > Chinuk-wawa > lullabies even before the baby was born. > > [photo inset - STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES > Teacher Jackie Whisler records Chinuk-wawa words spoken by Lauren > Lucio, > 5, at the Twah Sunchako preschool.] > > To lose one's language is to lose one's culture, Johnson said. > > Once a strong tribe > > The Chinooks were once a strong tribe with related bands located near > the mouth of the Columbia River, from Pacific County east to the > Cascades. For thousands of years, they fished and traded with other > tribes using two languages ? one a jargon for trade, the other pure > Chinookan. > > In the late 1700s, when ships began stopping in the harbors and > trading > with the Chinooks, English and French words were added to the trade > language, which became known as Chinuk-wawa, or Chinook jargon. > > It was this language Lewis and Clark encountered when they arrived at > the Columbia River in 1805 and were greeted by Chinooks offering > boiled > roots, dried sturgeon and potatoes. > > "What they were experiencing was clearly Chinuk-wawa," Johnson said. > Though Lewis made notations of words in his journal, the field notes, > believed to include an entire vocabulary, did not survive the trip > back. > > Contact with whites exposed the Chinooks to deadly diseases, and by > the > mid-1800s the remaining Chinooks were sent to reservations. By the > 1850s, when many tribes were gaining federal recognition, the > Chinooks > were overlooked. Many went to the Grand Ronde, where they were among > at > least 20 other bands with 20 different dialects. > > There, Chinuk-wawa became no longer just a trade language but one > necessary for day-to-day communication among the diverse bands ? the > first language of those born on the reservation. > > "It was the language used when someone courted their mate, when > someone > went to the post office, when someone went to the sweat lodge," > Johnson > said. > > It took on the unique elements of the Grand Ronde culture, Johnson > said, > from how tribal members viewed nature, their spiritual life and their > health. While the phrase "I have a backache" almost implies in > English > an ownership of the condition, in Chinuk-wawa the words mean "there > is > a sickness living in my back," implying "an animosity to illness," > Johnson said. > > And the simple greeting, "How are you?" is more a question of the > condition of your spirit than a casual inquiry. > > Listened to father's stories > > Johnson grew up with his parents and a brother in a two-story house > in > Raymond, off the reservation. > > As a young man, he sailed and fished in Willapa Bay and listened to > his > father tell stories of the past. But he had little of his culture > except the few words in Chinuk-wawa he learned from his elders or > could > recall from his past. > > "Hum-upuch," his grandmother called him when he was a toddler. > "Stinky > pants." > > Johnson graduated with degrees in anthropology and silversmithing > from > Central Washington University in Ellensburg. Now divorced, he is > raising 4-year-old Sammy in a small, gray rambler in Sheridan, a few > miles east of the reservation. > > Since Sammy was a toddler, Johnson has taken him to the homes of the > few > tribal elders he knew who spoke the language. When Sammy utters the > word "dret" ? an expression similar to uh-huh ? Johnson remembers the > now-deceased woman they once visited. > > "It pleases me so much to hear the voice of our elders in our > children." > > Each day, he and Sammy go to the reservation's Twah Sunchako > preschool ? > Chinook jargon for "A Bright Day is Coming." > > In a classroom in the sprawling, gray education building, parents > drop > off their preschoolers for a half-day of language immersion. A > no-English rule is observed by all ? even the youngest preschoolers > correct each other when someone lapses into English. > > [photo inset - STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES > Tony Johnson, son of a Chinook tribal chairman, holds his son, Sammy, > 4, > who is a fluent speaker of the Chinuk-wawa language taught to him by > his dad.] > > The room was filled with signs identifying common classroom objects ? > clock, drum and fish in the aquarium ? as tiktik, pumpum and phish. > > "When these kids get old, they'll be fluent speakers," said teacher > Bobby Mercier, who was first exposed to Chinuk-wawa as a child. Now > not > only is he fluent, so is his 6-year-old son; his 2-year-old son also > is > learning the language. > > The reservation's other licensed Chinuk-wawa teacher is Jackie > Whisler, > whose dream was to carry on a conversation completely in Chinuk-wawa > before her grandmother died. Now her own granddaughter and a niece > are > among the preschool students, and her daughter is in the > adult-education class. > > Johnson and Sammy share the language in daily rituals of their own. > > Each morning when Sammy gets up, he talks about his dreams in > Chinuk-wawa. And before he goes to bed, he tells his father the > condition of his heart. > > "Nayka qat mayka, papa," he says. > > "Nayka qat mayka, Sammy," Johnson replies. > > Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522, or nbartley at seattletimes.com > > > -inset- > Listen to Chinuk-wawa > > One-minute conversation > > Approximate translation: > Tony Johnson: How are you? > Bobby Mercier: I am good. > Crystal Szczepanski: Good. > Jackie Whisler: I am good. How are you? > T.J.: Good, but I have a lot to do. > J.W.: It is always that way, isn't it. > T.J.: It is exactly that way. > > B.M.: What should we do? > J.W.: Well, the kids are gone; we should clean the school, right? > T.J.: Yes. Who made a mess up on the loft? > C.S.: I don't know who did that. > > J.W.: Where do we want to eat? > B.M.: We should eat together at the casino. > T.J.: That's good with me, what do you think? > C.S.: Good. > J.W.: We should go. > > T.J.: This language we are speaking now, they named it Chinuk Wawa. > J.W.: Our old people used to speak this language really well. > B.M.: Now we teach it. > T.J.: We wish that it will be strong again. > C.S.: We hope so. > -- > > -inset- > Glossary of Chinuk-wawa words and phrases > > In Chinuk-wawa, capital letters are sometimes found in the middle or > at > the end of words. Exact pronunciations are sometimes difficult to > duplicate with the English alphabet. > > QHata Nayka: How are you? > > Lush nayka: I am good > > LaXayfN nayka shiks: Hello my friend > > Nayka qat mayka: I love you > > Salt-tsfqw: Ocean or saltwater > > Taqwfla: Hazelnuts, or nuts of any kind > > PHaya-TsikTsik: Automobile (literally, fire wagon) > > TilixaN: People, friend or family > > Source: Tony Johnson > -- > > > ----- End message from cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU ----- From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jun 14 15:24:28 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 08:24:28 -0700 Subject: WCC calls for an International Year of Indigenous Languages in 2006 (fwd) Message-ID: WCC NEWS - A call for an International Year of Indigenous >From "WCC Media" Date Mon, 14 Jun 2004 10:36:54 +0200 World Council of Churches 7 Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 14/06/2004 - pr-04-08 WCC calls for an International Year of Indigenous Languages in 2006 A delegation from the World Council of Churches' (WCC) Indigenous Peoples Programme has called for a UN-sponsored "International Year of Indigenous Languages" in 2006. As part of the Indigenous Caucus attending the Third UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues taking place 10-21 May in New York, the WCC delegation stressed the value of languages to Indigenous cultures and the urgency of pro-active strategies for their revitalization. Dr Richard A. Grounds of the Yuchi nation in Oklahoma, USA, who is a member of the WCC Central Committee, emphasized the urgency of saving the world's languages at a presentation to the UN Forum. A member of the United Methodist Church in the US, he pointed out that over three-fourths of the world's linguistic diversity is carried by Indigenous peoples, and reiterated the assessment of linguists that unless something is done about it, up to 90% of the world's 6,800 languages will fall silent by the end of this century. According to UNESCO statistics, one language is lost every two weeks on average. "Half of the world's languages are facing immediate loss in the next two decades," says Ole Henrik Magga, chair of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. An International Year of Indigenous Languages would "call attention to this largely silent issue, generating both public awareness, and greater realization on the part of Indigenous people themselves, who often are not clear about the extent of language loss within their own communities," explains Grounds. With the help of the United Nations and its member states, an International Year would "highlight the critical status of our languages, providing both education about the value of our languages and effective strategies for revitalization," the Indigenous Caucus participants emphasized. They recommended "the development of clear strategies for effective intervention in the process of Indigenous language loss" as well as "funding from states for language revitalization programmes". Grounds points out that it is also important to redress the "oppression and legal measures that continue to be used against minority and Indigenous languages". In a joint statement, the participants at the Indigenous Caucus made reference to the inestimable value of Indigenous languages as "the basis of our spirituality and ceremonial life, the source of Indigenous knowledge, the core of our identity as Indigenous peoples, the bearer of our unwritten histories, the source for the proper use and codification of our medicinal knowledge, the heart of our rich heritage and as a gift from the Creator". In order to promote the call for an International Year of Indigenous Languages, the delegation gathered signatures of support from over 60 different Indigenous organizations attending the Permanent Forum. The International Year of Indigenous Languages will need to be proclaimed by the UN General Assembly. Therefore, one of the member states must raise it for consideration. If it passes through the voting process, the year will be enacted. The New Zealand government is being approached to propose the International Year to the UN in time for the activities to be programmed to begin in 2006. Visit the Indigenous Peoples' Programme pages on the WCC website: http://wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/jpc/indig.html For more information contact : Richard Grounds, +1 918 224 6481, richard-grounds at utulsa.edu For more information contact: Media Relations Office: tel: (+41 22) 791 64 21 / 61 53 e-mail:media at wcc-coe.org - http://www.wcc-coe.org The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 342, in more than 120 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works cooperatively with the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly, which meets approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its staff is headed by general secretary Samuel Kobia from the Methodist church in Kenya. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Mon Jun 14 19:21:20 2004 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 12:21:20 -0700 Subject: Wintu Words (language) Message-ID: http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/8913180.htm?1c State's Indians uncover the past By Jack Chang CONTRA COSTA TIMES BERKELEY - In front of hundreds of indigenous people and linguists from around the world, California Indian Bill Combs held a sheet of paper in front of him Friday and nervously spoke the lost language of his ancestors. While his cousin Norma Yeager translated, he read the Wintun words for frog, deer and other animals, complete with the glottal stops, or deep-throated clicking sounds, that he had practiced all week. The 34-year-old man wearing a T-shirt and shorts finished his presentation by looking up at the audience gathered in UC Berkeley's Pauley Ballroom and telling them in Wintun what he had recently learned to do after being denied the opportunity all his life. "I am speaking my language." Since last weekend, the university's linguistics department has been helping about 50 California Indians learn to read, write and speak their languages, many of which have not been used for decades and are considered "dead languages." For many "Breath of Life" conference participants, the experience has been emotional as they dig through the university's archive of language recordings to find traces of their lost tongues. In some cases, they have come across recordings of grandparents and other family members speaking their languages decades ago into the microphones of UC Berkeley anthropologists. Some have become the first people to speak their ancestral languages since the early 20th century. Mike Lincoln, who lives on the Round Valley Indian Reservation on the edge of the Sacramento Valley, said he hopes to raise from the dead the language of his father's tribe, the Nomelaki. "I look at it as something missing," Lincoln said. "(The U.S. government) took it away from us. They didn't let us have it. It's part of our culture. Without it, you're lost." Throughout the 20th century, the federal government aggressively tried to stamp out the languages, sending Indian children to boarding schools where only English was permitted and prohibiting the teaching of the languages in public schools. Mamie Elsie Powell, a 72-year-old resident of the Grindstone Indian Rancheria in Glenn County, said she grew up without speaking her native tongue of Nomelaki, although she remembered hearing her father and other relatives speak it while growing up. As it turns out, her father who died at age 101 in 1987 was aware of the importance of his language and made hours of recordings of himself speaking it. "I am one of the few people around who remember what my language sounds like," Powell said. "I have my father's tapes." Lincoln pointed to Powell, who was sitting next to him in a UC Berkeley cafeteria. "She is going to help us a lot to learn our language," Lincoln said. Since the 1980s, the campaign to rescue dying or dead languages has become a movement among American Indians, said Leanne Hinton, chairwoman of UC Berkeley's linguistics department. Language has become an integral part of American Indians shedding harsh stereotypes imposed on them and rediscovering their heritages, Hinton said. "The languages had been crushed so badly," she said. "Only in a more tolerant era on the part of the government has this opportunity to rediscover arrived." Still, many California Indians remain apathetic about their culture, and getting them excited about it is often an uphill battle, said Yeager, also from Grindstone. "If they show interest, we'll teach them," he said. On Thursday, UC Berkeley launched a companion conference, "Stabilizing Indigenous Languages," drawing several hundred indigenous people and linguists from around the country and the world to learn how to rescue their own fragile languages. The two conferences merged Friday morning, and Californians such as Combs and Yeager nervously climbed onto the Pauley Ballroom stage to show what they had learned during the week to the international audience. Among the crowd were young people such as 26-year-old Michelle Martin, an Aborigine from northwest Australia who said she has been trying to preserve some of the 25 indigenous languages spoken in her part of the world. Her motivations were the same as the California Indians'. "It's who we are," Martin said. "You can say you're an Aborigine, but what it really means is your culture and your language." Martin said many of her elders still speak the old languages although few try to pass on their knowledge. That's why Martin is working to preserve the languages while there's still time by recording them onto tape and creating dictionaries for them. In that way, what she has seen so far in California has been a warning to her. "If my people don't take an interest now," she said, "we'll be in the same situation as you." Some Nomelaki words Transcribed by California Indian Norma Yeager and UC Berkeley graduate student Jenny Lederer. Nomelaki was spoken among Northern Californian natives. tree -- mee deer -- nopoom flowers -- kalal bear -- waymahl jaybird -- chiek-chiek rabbit -- patkeelee Part of a Nomelaki prayer using the words: Hlesin mem mee nopoom kalal way Hlesin mem waymahl chiek-chiek patkeelee From Tony.Johnson at GRANDRONDE.ORG Mon Jun 14 21:28:38 2004 From: Tony.Johnson at GRANDRONDE.ORG (Tony Johnson) Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 14:28:38 -0700 Subject: Once-dying Chinook language finds future in voices of children (fwd0 Message-ID: Thanks Phil. I, as usual, am a little frustrated with the press' ability to get facts straight, but all-in-all I think it is good for our efforts. I loved her writing that our way of saying how someone is sick implies "animosity" to the sickness (I told her it implies "animacy"). How are you these days? I do hope all is well--Tony >>> cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU 06/08/2004 8:57:28 AM >>> Tony, Nice article! I am glad to see that your efforts to revitalize Chinook-Wawa are being recognized. Phil Cash Cash UofA, ILAT > ----- Message from cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU --------- > Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 08:48:52 -0700 > From: phil cash cash > Reply-To: Indigenous Languages and Technology > Subject: Once-dying Chinook language finds future in voices of children (fwd0 > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > > Once-dying Chinook language finds future in voices of children > > By Nancy Bartley > Seattle Times staff reporter > > GRANDE RONDE RESERVATION, Ore. * To Tony Johnson, the Chinook jargon > widely spoken by his ancestors was not just a second-class language > used for trade but a language of tribal rituals, family gatherings > and > courtship. Until recently, it was almost extinct. > > Now, due largely to the 33-year-old Johnson, who regards each word of > his ancestral tongue as an heirloom, the jargon also known as > "Chinuk-wawa" has become a language of the future. > > In the seven years he has worked for the Confederated Tribes of the > Grand Ronde to revitalize the language, Johnson, who grew up in > Raymond > on Willapa Bay, has developed a teaching program that has become a > model for tribes around the region. > > He has been "vital to the language having any future," said Portland > linguist Henry Zenk, with whom Johnson created a written Chinuk-wawa > alphabet. > > What makes the program successful is the traditional > master-and-apprentice approach, in which students learn from elders, > then become teachers themselves. That's coupled with the more > modern-day concept of language immersion, in which students speak > Chinuk-wawa in and outside the classroom. > > When tribal spokesman Brent Merrill, 43, was growing up, Chinuk-wawa > was > a language elders would use with one another when they didn't want > younger people to know what they were saying. > > Now the Grand Ronde program is so successful, he said, children here > use > Chinuk-wawa to keep secrets from adults. > > "When they don't want parents to hear about something, they switch > over," he said. > > On a bookshelf in his office, Johnson displays a teaching certificate > issued to him recently by the state of Oregon, making him the first > licensed teacher of the uniquely expressive language, which was > spoken > two centuries ago by 100,000 tribal members, traders and explorers > from > Northern California to Southern Alaska. > > Three other licenses also have been issued * one to Zenk, the other > two > to tribal members here who learned Chinuk-wawa through > adult-education > classes taught by Johnson on the reservation. > > "It wasn't long ago * about 20 years * that the last of our elders > who > spoke it was passing away," said tribal teacher Bobby Mercier. "We > are > bringing a lot of our elders back by teaching the language. It's our > identity." > > Teaching 4-year-olds > > Johnson, the son of a tribal chairman, has found that preserving a > language must be undertaken on many fronts. In addition to creating > an > alphabet, he has designed a computer program so the Chinuk-wawa > characters can be typed. > > He teaches 4-year-olds at the tribal day-care center and has shared > meals with the few remaining tribal elders who still remember the > language, gleaning from them Chinook words like taqwfla, (hazelnuts), > salt-tsfqw (salt water) and tilixaN (friend). > > And each of the past six years, he has organized a Chinuk-wawa > workshop > that draws linguists, historians and tribal members. Johnson wishes > he > could teach the language to the surviving Chinooks, but the tribe of > 2,000, which once thrived near Chinook, Pacific County, has no money > for such programs. > > The lucrative Spirit Mountain Casino, on the Grand Ronde Reservation, > makes the language program affordable. > > Other tribes with casino money frequently inquire about the tribe's > success, but the program is a commitment not just of money, but of > time > and tenacity, Johnson said. > > Still, he hopes other tribes will want to learn Chinuk-wawa, and that > students he's teaching now will "grow up and marry each other and > raise > Chinuk-wawa-speaking households. Or become linguists and come back > here > and do what we're doing." > > Johnson was so determined that Chinuk-wawa would live on through his > own > son, Sammy, that he began talking to Sammy and singing him > Chinuk-wawa > lullabies even before the baby was born. > > [photo inset - STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES > Teacher Jackie Whisler records Chinuk-wawa words spoken by Lauren > Lucio, > 5, at the Twah Sunchako preschool.] > > To lose one's language is to lose one's culture, Johnson said. > > Once a strong tribe > > The Chinooks were once a strong tribe with related bands located near > the mouth of the Columbia River, from Pacific County east to the > Cascades. For thousands of years, they fished and traded with other > tribes using two languages * one a jargon for trade, the other pure > Chinookan. > > In the late 1700s, when ships began stopping in the harbors and > trading > with the Chinooks, English and French words were added to the trade > language, which became known as Chinuk-wawa, or Chinook jargon. > > It was this language Lewis and Clark encountered when they arrived at > the Columbia River in 1805 and were greeted by Chinooks offering > boiled > roots, dried sturgeon and potatoes. > > "What they were experiencing was clearly Chinuk-wawa," Johnson said. > Though Lewis made notations of words in his journal, the field notes, > believed to include an entire vocabulary, did not survive the trip > back. > > Contact with whites exposed the Chinooks to deadly diseases, and by > the > mid-1800s the remaining Chinooks were sent to reservations. By the > 1850s, when many tribes were gaining federal recognition, the > Chinooks > were overlooked. Many went to the Grand Ronde, where they were among > at > least 20 other bands with 20 different dialects. > > There, Chinuk-wawa became no longer just a trade language but one > necessary for day-to-day communication among the diverse bands * the > first language of those born on the reservation. > > "It was the language used when someone courted their mate, when > someone > went to the post office, when someone went to the sweat lodge," > Johnson > said. > > It took on the unique elements of the Grand Ronde culture, Johnson > said, > from how tribal members viewed nature, their spiritual life and their > health. While the phrase "I have a backache" almost implies in > English > an ownership of the condition, in Chinuk-wawa the words mean "there > is > a sickness living in my back," implying "an animosity to illness," > Johnson said. > > And the simple greeting, "How are you?" is more a question of the > condition of your spirit than a casual inquiry. > > Listened to father's stories > > Johnson grew up with his parents and a brother in a two-story house > in > Raymond, off the reservation. > > As a young man, he sailed and fished in Willapa Bay and listened to > his > father tell stories of the past. But he had little of his culture > except the few words in Chinuk-wawa he learned from his elders or > could > recall from his past. > > "Hum-upuch," his grandmother called him when he was a toddler. > "Stinky > pants." > > Johnson graduated with degrees in anthropology and silversmithing > from > Central Washington University in Ellensburg. Now divorced, he is > raising 4-year-old Sammy in a small, gray rambler in Sheridan, a few > miles east of the reservation. > > Since Sammy was a toddler, Johnson has taken him to the homes of the > few > tribal elders he knew who spoke the language. When Sammy utters the > word "dret" * an expression similar to uh-huh * Johnson remembers the > now-deceased woman they once visited. > > "It pleases me so much to hear the voice of our elders in our > children." > > Each day, he and Sammy go to the reservation's Twah Sunchako > preschool * > Chinook jargon for "A Bright Day is Coming." > > In a classroom in the sprawling, gray education building, parents > drop > off their preschoolers for a half-day of language immersion. A > no-English rule is observed by all * even the youngest preschoolers > correct each other when someone lapses into English. > > [photo inset - STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES > Tony Johnson, son of a Chinook tribal chairman, holds his son, Sammy, > 4, > who is a fluent speaker of the Chinuk-wawa language taught to him by > his dad.] > > The room was filled with signs identifying common classroom objects * > clock, drum and fish in the aquarium * as tiktik, pumpum and phish. > > "When these kids get old, they'll be fluent speakers," said teacher > Bobby Mercier, who was first exposed to Chinuk-wawa as a child. Now > not > only is he fluent, so is his 6-year-old son; his 2-year-old son also > is > learning the language. > > The reservation's other licensed Chinuk-wawa teacher is Jackie > Whisler, > whose dream was to carry on a conversation completely in Chinuk-wawa > before her grandmother died. Now her own granddaughter and a niece > are > among the preschool students, and her daughter is in the > adult-education class. > > Johnson and Sammy share the language in daily rituals of their own. > > Each morning when Sammy gets up, he talks about his dreams in > Chinuk-wawa. And before he goes to bed, he tells his father the > condition of his heart. > > "Nayka qat mayka, papa," he says. > > "Nayka qat mayka, Sammy," Johnson replies. > > Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522, or nbartley at seattletimes.com > > > -inset- > Listen to Chinuk-wawa > > One-minute conversation > > Approximate translation: > Tony Johnson: How are you? > Bobby Mercier: I am good. > Crystal Szczepanski: Good. > Jackie Whisler: I am good. How are you? > T.J.: Good, but I have a lot to do. > J.W.: It is always that way, isn't it. > T.J.: It is exactly that way. > > B.M.: What should we do? > J.W.: Well, the kids are gone; we should clean the school, right? > T.J.: Yes. Who made a mess up on the loft? > C.S.: I don't know who did that. > > J.W.: Where do we want to eat? > B.M.: We should eat together at the casino. > T.J.: That's good with me, what do you think? > C.S.: Good. > J.W.: We should go. > > T.J.: This language we are speaking now, they named it Chinuk Wawa. > J.W.: Our old people used to speak this language really well. > B.M.: Now we teach it. > T.J.: We wish that it will be strong again. > C.S.: We hope so. > -- > > -inset- > Glossary of Chinuk-wawa words and phrases > > In Chinuk-wawa, capital letters are sometimes found in the middle or > at > the end of words. Exact pronunciations are sometimes difficult to > duplicate with the English alphabet. > > QHata Nayka: How are you? > > Lush nayka: I am good > > LaXayfN nayka shiks: Hello my friend > > Nayka qat mayka: I love you > > Salt-tsfqw: Ocean or saltwater > > Taqwfla: Hazelnuts, or nuts of any kind > > PHaya-TsikTsik: Automobile (literally, fire wagon) > > TilixaN: People, friend or family > > Source: Tony Johnson > -- > > > ----- End message from cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU ----- From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jun 15 15:43:32 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 08:43:32 -0700 Subject: Emergency measures needed to preserve aboriginal languages (fwd) Message-ID: Emergency measures needed to preserve aboriginal languages Saskatchewan News Network; Regina Leader-Post Monday, June 14, 2004 http://www.canada.com/saskatoon/starphoenix/news/local/story.html?id=48267ac9-7cfc-4ab4-8f84-1b130de28831 REGINA (SNN) -- Only three of 60 aboriginal languages will survive in Canada unless emergency measures are taken, said the chair of a federal task force on the preservation of languages. "The loss of an aboriginal language represents the death of a part of Canada," said Ron Ignace, chair of the Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures. The group was in Fort Qu'Appelle Saturday, discussing the future of First Nations languages in Saskatchewan with 15 invited guests. Ignace said the objective of the task force is to make policy recommendations for sustaining aboriginal languages to the federal minister of heritage. The task force is holding 13 focus group hearings across Canada to gather information. The group is consulting with aboriginal people, federal ministries, and provincial and territorial governments. Florence Carrier, from the Piapot First Nations, was invited to speak with the task force. She said younger generations do not undertand the importance of her Cree language. "Our language is our foundation as a First Nation," said Carrier. She explained that the leadership of the province and country needs to take a greater interest in retaining languages, not just with adolescents, but also with adults. "Teaching language in the school environment is not going to solve our problem. We have to have it at home. So there have to be programs within the community that we can enrich that," said Carrier. In December 2002, the federal government allocated more than $160 million for the preservation of First Nations languages. Ignace said the task force will also make recommendations for the creation of a not-for-profit corporate entity that will manage the money. The task force will also make recommendations for the creation of an aboriginal languages and cultural centre. Ignace said that it will not be a bricks and mortar building, but will be a centralized location of information that can be shared. "What we will be looking at is electronic means, to websites so we can exchange best practices for the preservation of language and culture," said Ignace. The recommendations are due Sept. 15, but Ignace said an extension has been requested. ??The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2004 From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Tue Jun 15 20:48:05 2004 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 13:48:05 -0700 Subject: Pimachamxwliki Tiinmami Wayxtit (Rise of the People Run) Message-ID: Carrying a staff draped with eagle feathers, Ron Peters Jr. broke away from the smoke and singing of a prayer circle Monday morning and headed at a run toward Mount Adams. Peters was the first runner sent out on the inaugural Pimachamxwliki Tiinmami Wayxtit (Rise of the People Run), an event highlighting the importance of retaining traditional language and culture. Full Story @: http://www.yakima-herald.com/?storyid=289747637666476 From sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jun 16 23:59:12 2004 From: sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Sue Penfield) Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2004 16:59:12 -0700 Subject: Fw: Seeking poems by Native Americans Message-ID: All, I don't usually post things like this on ILAT, but thought some of you might be interested... Susan ----- Original Message ----- From: "Arts" Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 11:34 AM Subject: Fw: Seeking poems by Native Americans > A general FYI, > ----- > Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 6:39 AM > Subject: Seeking poems by Native Americans > > > Subject: poems by Native Americans sought > > > > > SHENANDOAH TO PUBLISH POETRY BY NATIVE AMERICANS > > *Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee University Review* will publish a > special selection of poetry by Native American writers in its Winter, > 2004 issue. The selection will include approximately 40 pages of poetry > and one essay. All poets of Native American origin are eligible to send > work for consideration. Send manuscript, along with bio notes, to > Shenandoah, Special Issues Editor/Native American Poetry, Mattingly > House, 2 Lee Avenue, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA > 24450-0303. Submissions must be received by August 15, 2004. General > writer's?T guidelines and other information about Shenandoah are > available on our web site: > > http://shenandoah.wlu.edu > > > > From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jun 17 15:49:46 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 08:49:46 -0700 Subject: Saving native languages on Akaitcho agenda (fwd) Message-ID: Saving native languages on Akaitcho agenda WebPosted Jun 17 2004 10:30 AM CDT http://north.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=nwt-akaitcholanguage06172004 YELLOWKNIFE People attending the Akaitcho Assembly say they want to improve aboriginal language services in their N.W.T. communities. They say a lack of money and a cumbersome bureaucracy interferes with getting more people fluent in their native languages. Elders are often considered great teachers, but many of them aren't paid as such when they help children learn their native language, the assembly heard. N'Dilo chief Darrell Beaulieu wants the territorial Education Department to recognize them and pay them as teachers. "But the N.W.T. Education Act says, 'no, your elders have to have a university degree to teach the language.' There is no university that teaches our elders their language," says Beaulieu. "The elders are probably the professors in this area here." The discussion concerning the importance of saving native languages lasted for hours at the Akaitcho Assembly. Some delegates spoke about teaching people syllabics as well as how to speak it. George Marlow of Lutsel'Ke, says on his travels he found that syllabics form much of the curriculum among the Dene communities in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. "I'm really happy when the little kids, real small kids speak Chipewyan. Nobody talks English. In Lutsel'Ke everybody talks English. It's not right by me,"says Marlow. Toni Heron, from the Salt River First Nation in Fort Smith, wants the Akaitcho to control government money earmarked for language and culture. Some representatives say a lack of funding is one of the major challenges in the battle to preserve language. The Akaitcho government's language co-ordinator works part time and community programs that already exist have limited resources. Some people at this meeting say pressuring schools to bring in a stronger language curriculum may help. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu Jun 17 21:24:46 2004 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 14:24:46 -0700 Subject: NWT Message-ID: Akaitcho delegates suggested paying elders and teaching syllabics They say a lack of money and a cumbersome bureaucracy interferes with getting more people fluent in their native languages. Elders are often considered great teachers, but many of them aren't paid as such when they help children learn their native language, the assembly heard. N'Dilo chief Darrell Beaulieu wants the territorial Education Department to recognize them and pay them as teachers. "But the N.W.T. Education Act says, 'no, your elders have to have a university degree to teach the language.' There is no university that teaches our elders their language," says Beaulieu. "The elders are probably the professors in this area here." The discussion concerning the importance of saving native languages lasted for hours at the Akaitcho Assembly. Some delegates spoke about teaching people syllabics as well as how to speak it. George Marlow of Lutsel'Ke, says on his travels he found that syllabics form much of the curriculum among the Dene communities in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. "I'm really happy when the little kids, real small kids speak Chipewyan. Nobody talks English. In Lutsel'Ke everybody talks English. It's not right by me,"says Marlow. Toni Heron, from the Salt River First Nation in Fort Smith, wants the Akaitcho to control government money earmarked for language and culture. Some representatives say a lack of funding is one of the major challenges in the battle to preserve language. The Akaitcho government's language co-ordinator works part time and community programs that already exist have limited resources. Some people at this meeting say pressuring schools to bring in a stronger language curriculum may help. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Fri Jun 18 22:44:53 2004 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:44:53 -0700 Subject: Wow! (language resources) Message-ID: http://www.native-languages.org/linguistics.htm From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jun 21 17:02:51 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 10:02:51 -0700 Subject: Grant Opportunities for Native Organizations in Humboldt County (fwd) Message-ID: Grant Opportunities for Native Organizations in Humboldt County Native Cultures Fund Deadline: August 2, 2004 The Native Cultures Fund, a program of the Humboldt Area Foundation, has two grant programs?Fellowships for Cultural Participation and Native Community Technology Initiative. The former provides grants to Native individuals and organizations for theater production, script development, the training of apprentices to learn cultural skills and traditional arts, the creation of contemporary visual arts and exhibitions as well as the building of traditional dance houses. Grants range from $5,000?$10,000. The Native Community Technology Initiative provides technology and training grants to Native organizations for education and advocacy. Advocacy grants support the use of technology as a tool in protecting sacred sites and river systems. Education grants support the creation of digital cultural curriculum based on Native languages as well as the exploration of digital arts forms including storytelling. Grants range from $5,000?$15,000. You can learn more about each grant by visiting the Humboldt Area Foundation?s website: http://www.hafoundation.org/ Or call Rebecca Lowry at (707) 442-2993 for more information. From liko at LEOKI.UHH.HAWAII.EDU Mon Jun 21 17:36:32 2004 From: liko at LEOKI.UHH.HAWAII.EDU (Liko Puha) Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 07:36:32 -1000 Subject: Grant Opportunities for Native Organizations in Humboldt County (fwd) Message-ID: I mea e ?ike ai ?oe, ?a?ole au ma ka hana mai ka l? 20 a i ka l? 27 o Iune. In? he n?nau k?u no ka Leok?, e leka i? Keola Donaghy. I will be out of the office June 21-27. If you have a Leok? related issue, please e-mail Keola Donaghy. Mahalo, Liko From delancey at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU Mon Jun 21 18:06:12 2004 From: delancey at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU (Scott DeLancey) Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 11:06:12 -0700 Subject: FW: Message from the Premier (fwd) Message-ID: From the Government of the Northwest Territories (Canada): ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Messenger /YK /PWS Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2004 4:22 PM Subject: Message from the Premier To all GNWT Employees: Monday June 21st is a statutory holiday in celebration of National Aboriginal Day. Our jurisdiction remains the only one in the country to mark Aboriginal Day in this manner. It represents a benchmark for all of Canada and something that I believe all of us, as Northerners and NWT residents can be very proud of. National Aboriginal Day is an opportunity to pay tribute to the many Aboriginal friends and colleagues with whom we live and work daily - and to acknowledge the countless ways in which their lives enrich our own. Take a look around. In our government, schools, businesses and communities, the symbols, values and traditions of the Dene, M?tis and Inuvialuit people are displayed and embraced. Aboriginal history, language, arts and cultural customs are an integral part of who we are as Canada's northern people. Our celebration of National Aboriginal day, and the manner in which we have chosen to embrace it, reflects the unique and multicultural identity that distinguishes us all as residents of the Northwest Territories. I encourage you all to take time on June 21st to participate in National Aboriginal Day celebrations in your community. Joseph L Handley Premier From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jun 27 16:01:34 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2004 09:01:34 -0700 Subject: Class helps preserve Dena'ina heritage (fwd) Message-ID: Class helps preserve Dena'ina heritage By JENNY NEYMAN Sunday, June 27, 2004 - Peninsula Clarion http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113~7244~2238671,00.html# KENAI--A group of about 30 people gather around a campfire near the Kenai River and spend the morning telling stories, laughing, swatting mosquitoes and speaking to each other in Dena'ina about adding more wood to the fire and the tea they are brewing. In that respect, the scene is one that could have happened hundreds of years ago. Upon closer inspection, however, the cell phones and tape recorders the people are carrying, the manufactured clothing they are wearing and the cars parked not far from the fire pit make it clear the scene is not a part of history. The point of the gathering was to recapture history, preserve it and make it a part of modern culture. The gathering was part of a Dena'ina language class at Kenai Peninsula College in late May and early June and sponsored by the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The purpose of it is to preserve a language nearing extinction. "The language has very few speakers," said Gary Holton, assistant professor with the language center and an organizer of the institute. "Basically the people don't have enough opportunity to speak it." Holton said Dena'ina, like many Athabascan languages, has been disappearing because in many cases the only people who know it are elderly. As they die, the knowledge of the language dies with them. Many of the elders, when they were young, attended government schools under a Bureau of Indian Affairs policy to "Americanize" Natives, including eradicating their language. Gladys Evanoff traveled from Nondalton, where she has lived since 1950, to attend the class. She grew up in Pedro Bay hearing her grandmother speak Dena'ina and said her husband was fluent in the language, but they didn't use it. "No one really speaks it in Nondalton," she said. "They don't even understand it. My own kids don't speak it. And whose fault is that? It's the parents' fault. "... We never taught it to our kids because when (my husband) went to school, he was kept from speaking it. ... That's why so many people don't want to speak it now, because they were held back from their own language and culture." That's where the language class comes in. It evolved out of the Athabascan Language Development Institute, a program started in Fairbanks in 1998 that brought together Athabascan speakers from around the state to teach and learn their languages. Organizers decided to make the program more regional, so last summer language classes were held in areas where the languages were traditionally spoken. The willingness of Kenai Peninsula College and the Kenaitze Indian Tribe to help host the event led to the choice of Soldotna for the Dena'ina language class, Holton said. The first year it was held at the college, eight people registered for it. This year about 30 people attended from all over the widespread Dena'ina region, including Tyonek, Nondalton, Lime Village and Pedro Bay on the west side of Cook Inlet, the Kenai Peninsula and Chickaloon, northeast of Palmer. "The nice thing about having it here is a lot of people are here from all over the region," Holton said. "To hear the language spoken here again is something that hasn't been heard in many years. ... For these speakers to get an opportunity to come to this region where famous people lived, like Peter Kalifornsky, is very powerful to them because they know those connections and respect them." Morning sessions like the fireside gathering on the grounds of Alaska Christian College were spent in conversation, generally where one person said a phrase in Dena'ina and everyone took turns repeating it. Though usually one person leads or facilitates the session, the learning environment is collaborative with participants looking to each other--usually the elders--for help with pronunciation. "We didn't have established instructors. Many people who are teaching are learning it themselves," Holton said. "We can't afford to wait 10 years to train teachers." Afternoon sessions were more lecture-oriented and covered grammar and other linguistic elements of the language. The learning didn't end when classes were over. Participants spent one evening making birch bark baskets. "They're spending all their time together here. In a way, six hours of formal classes is only part of what's going on," Holton said. The connections the people make are equally, if not more, important than the classes because it means their conversations can continue throughout the year, Holton said. The class has brought together a diverse group of participants. There are elders who learned the language as children and have come to pass on their knowledge, traditional college students who are taking the class to complete a degree and others of Dena'ina descent who want to learn the language as a way to be more in touch with their heritage. Ages range from teens to one man in his 90s, as well as the children some of the participants bring along. "These kids, they're learning. They want to be here. I'm happy that they're learning," said Helen Dick of Lime Village. She didn't speak the language for a long time or teach it to her children because her husband was white, she said. After coming to the class, Dick said, she wants to start teaching her granddaughter Dena'ina words whenever she talks to her on the phone. Shauna Sagmoen, originally from Stony River, said she took the class because some of her older relatives can speak Dena'ina and she wanted to communicate with them. She is 19 now and moved to Anchorage when she was in eighth grade, where she said she got "citified." After taking last summer's class she was able to say "I am Dena'ina" to her relatives. This year, she learned more, but it is a slow process. "I didn't think it would be as hard as it is," Sagmoen said. Trying to learn Dena'ina, or any Athabascan language, coming from an English background is challenging. "It's undeniably very different from English," Holton said. "There is nothing like it. There is nothing similar at all." Just speaking Dena'ina words requires making sounds not used in English and verb use in Dena'ina is more complicated than in English. In Dena'ina, for instance, the verb used to describe someone carrying something changes depending on what the person is carrying. "Dena'ina really describes the environment and world and forces you to describe the environment in great detail," Holton said. "Not that you can't do that in English, but you can get away with not doing it. Dena'ina really forces you to describe your world." Now that Sagmoen has started to learn the language, she has become interested in learning more about other areas of the culture. "When I first started, I just thought I would learn how to communicate. In the process of learning, you kind of pick up a lot of outdoor cultural practices," she said. "... It's all interconnected. You can do stuff without the language but it's so interconnected." That's why it's so important to preserve the language, because it does play such an integral part in Dena'ina culture, Holton said. "So much is tied up in language--the way we think, the way we feel, the way we express ourselves is filtered through our language," he said. In that respect, the move to preserve the Dena'ina language is interconnected with a move to revitalize Dena'ina culture, he said. "I think it's very important," Evanoff from Nondalton said. "It makes us strong. It makes us proud of who we are. We are Dena'ina people. We should be able to speak it and understand it and to be proud of it." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jun 27 16:07:34 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2004 09:07:34 -0700 Subject: 2004 COMPUTERWORLD EXCELLENCE AWARDS (fwd) Message-ID: Monday, 28 June, 2004 And the winners are ... 2004 COMPUTERWORLD EXCELLENCE AWARDS IDG Staff, Auckland http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/0/6C696179245321F5CC256EBD006E50BC?OpenDocument Excellence in the Use of IT in Government ? sponsored by Unisys ? Te Taura Whiri i Te Reo M?ori (Maori Language Commission) for the M?t?puna Dictionary System: M?t?puna is the web-based open source system MLC has built for a M?ori dictionary being compiled by contributors from all over New Zealand. The dictionary is written entirely in M?ori and is a first for an indigenous language. M?t?puna has been made available under general public licence, so that other groups may use it for their own languages. From coyotez at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU Sun Jun 27 18:07:07 2004 From: coyotez at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU (David Lewis) Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2004 11:07:07 -0700 Subject: [Fwd: NEH Landmarks of American History Workshops] Message-ID: -------- Original Message -------- Subject: NEH Landmarks of American History Workshops Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2004 07:44:46 -0700 From: H-AmIndian (Joyce Ann Kievit) Reply-To: H-Net List for American Indian Studies To: H-AMINDIAN at H-NET.MSU.EDU Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2004 15:50:35 -0400 From: "Serventi, Jennifer" Subject: NEH Landmarks of American History NEH Landmarks of American History Workshops The Division of Education Programs of the National Endowment for the Humanities seeks applications for Landmarks of American History: Workshops for School Teachers and the new Landmarks of American History: Workshops for Community College Faculty. These grant opportunities are part of the "We the People" initiative, which is designed to enhance the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture. Landmarks of American History workshops bring groups of K-12 teachers or community college faculty together for intensive, one-week, residence-based workshops at or near significant American historical sites. Eligible applicants include museums, libraries, cultural and learned societies, state humanities councils, colleges and universities, schools and school districts. Collaborative programs are encouraged. For details about the program, some sample projects, and application guidelines, go to http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/landmarks.html (Workshops for School Teachers) or http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/landmarkscc.html (Workshops for Community College Faculty). Current Landmarks of American History: Workshops for School Teachers are described at http://www.neh.gov/projects/landmarks.html. Note that the deadline is fast approaching: August 6th! As always, Division of Education program officers are available to help out, whether it's to discuss your ideas or to read a draft proposal. Here are their names and contact information: Thomas Adams, 202-606-8396, tadams at neh.gov Douglas Arnold, 202-606-8225, darnold at neh.gov Barbara Ashbrook, 202-606-8388, bashbrook at neh.gov Sonia Feigenbaum, 202-606-8490, sfeigenbaum at neh.gov Gary Henrickson, 202-606-8241, ghenrickson at neh.gov Judy Jeffrey Howard, 202-606-8398, jhoward at neh.gov Robert Sayers, 202-606-8215, rsayers at neh.gov From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jun 28 15:42:38 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2004 08:42:38 -0700 Subject: Lakota: School hopes to keep Lakota language alive (fwd) Message-ID: Lakota: School hopes to keep Lakota language alive By Mike Corpos http://www.unpo.org/news_detail.php?arg=35&par=842 The Wakpala School is putting the finishing touches on implementing a $400,000 government grant it hopes will help save a language from extinction. The grant, to promote bi-lingual learning, was used to create classroom tools, mostly computer-based, to help students and teachers keep alive the Lakota language. They will begin using the tools when classes start in August. Project Director Earl Bullhead said the school, located on the Standing Rock Indian reservation, was able to develop a series of computer graphics and interactive programs to assist in the learning and preservation of the Lakota language and culture. "We will have CD-ROMs available and students can work with them on the computer screen," Bullhead said. "You click on a graphic and it tells you the Lakota word with the pronunciation." Bullhead said students will be quizzed on what they learn. Teachers will also have access to the programs so they can learn the language along with students. Written materials on Lakota are also part of the programs. Bullhead said the grant money has nearly all been spent on purchasing and implementing the technology needed to develop the programs. He said more money is needed to further improve the school's Lakota curriculum. "So much more needs to be done," he said. Bullhead said the school used local people to help implement the programs instead of contracting services from outside sources. The school plans a public unveiling of the new technology and materials at 2 p.m. Tuesday. That will include speakers and entertainment, Bullhead said. "It won't be the final product we'll show there, but it's close," Bullhead said. "We have some small details to take care of - corrections and such. It's tedious, but it's worth it." Bullhead said the most important thing in the whole program is that students are able to retain their identity through learning Lakota. "The grant was a very valuable experience - it helps promote awareness of culture and language." Source: Aberdeen News From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jun 28 15:56:23 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2004 08:56:23 -0700 Subject: Keepers of a Lost Language (fwd link) Message-ID: [fwd from Mother Jones magazine - requires subscription] Keepers of a Lost Language An 82-year-old linguist and his young prot?g? are among the last speakers of a native California language ? and its final chance. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/07/06_400.html From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jun 29 15:25:18 2004 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 08:25:18 -0700 Subject: Bands focus on preservation (fwd) Message-ID: Posted on Mon, Jun. 28, 2004 Bands focus on preservation LANGUAGE REVITALIZATION:Groups work to save Minnesota's first languages and cultures. BY STEVE KUCHERA NEWS TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/9034294.htm Minnesota's very name comes from a Dakota word meaning "sky-tinted waters." Yet fewer than 30 fully fluent Dakota speakers remain in the state, according to the Dakota Ojibwe Language Revitalization Alliance. Things are little better for speakers of the Ojibwe language. A 1995 survey of reservations in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan found 418 fluent Ojibwemowin speakers, none younger than 45. Most were elders. Alliance members want the numbers of fluent Dakota and Ojibwemowin speakers to grow. "We really need our language and culture," alliance member Jennifer Bendickson said. "If children don't know their culture and their language, then they become lost because they are missing that part of themselves." The Twin Cities-based alliance -- a gathering of elders, fluent Dakota and Ojibwemowin speakers, educators and others from Minnesota's tribes -- was formed last June at the Fond du Lac Reservation. It met Friday with language educators and other interested people from Fond du Lac, Leech Lake and Grand Portage. "We're going to different communities to find out what is going on... and what we can do to support them," Bendickson said. "Any effort that is being made to preserve language is good, because we need that." Linguists estimate that 500 years ago, American Indians in the continental U.S. area spoke more than 300 languages. About half survive. Some were lost when tribes that spoke them were exterminated. Others faded as schools and missionaries worked to quash native languages and cultures. Despite the oppression, there have always been people interested in preserving Indian languages, said Rosemary Christensen, a Mole Lake Ojibwe who grew up on Bad River. She was involved in the 1995 Ojibwe language survey and teaches American Indian studies at University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Today, however, there is more overt interest and action, she said. "Now that the tribes have money, they are putting their money where their mouth is," Christensen said. "Right now is the heyday of Indian tribes trying various things to become successful in how to teach language to fluency." "The Mille Lacs Band, for example, has spent an incredible amount on language," she said. "Even before they had a casino, they were spending money to preserve and strengthen their language." Many Mille Lacs Band youth experience Ojibwe traditions almost daily. At the band's Nay Ah Shing Schools, courses in Ojibwe language, history and culture are part of the curriculum. And in 2000, the band opened the Ojibwe Language and Cultural Awareness Grounds near Rutledge. Program director Larry Smallwood said it's important to preserve Ojibwemowin because the language and Ojibwe culture are interconnected. "We need to do our ceremonies in our language, because that's the way it was given to us by the Creator," he said. "And we believe we do not only need it in this world, but also after we leave here and go to the spirit world." Smallwood has seen a growing interest in Ojibwe language and culture, especially among those in their late teens and early 20s. "People are starting to get back to their own identity," he said. "Something woke them up and said 'Hey, I'm an Indian person, and I better get back to my own identity,' because for a while they were pretty well lost." The Mille Lacs band is not the only regional group working to preserve Ojibwemowin. In Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Native American Center has held a language immersion camp each of the past two summers at Red Cliff, and offers another this week. Lac Courte Oreilles sponsors a similar camp. The Fond du Lac Band also is working to expand its language preservation efforts. It offers regular language instruction at centers in Cloquet, Old Sawyer and Brookston. "If you put together all those little groups of people, then you have a really large group of people trying to revitalize their language," Bendickson said. "That is very encouraging." STEVE KUCHERA is an education reporter. He can be reached weekdays at (218) 279-5503 or (877) 269-9672, or by e-mail at skuchera at duluthsuperior.com. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Tue Jun 29 22:48:20 2004 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 15:48:20 -0700 Subject: Map Data Center (language) Message-ID: There are nine speakers of Navajo in Maine. Alaska and Arizona have the most speakers of Native languages than any other state. And more people speak Native languages than Hebrew. These are some of the interesting bits of information found at a new website that maps language use in the United States. Based on data from the most recent Census, the Modern Language Association (MLA) has created a tool that give surfers a graphical look at 37 languages and language groups. With a few clicks of the mouse, the Language Map Data Center (http://www.mla.org/resources/census_main) creates maps detailing where and how many people speak a particular language. The maps can be focused by state, county and even zip code, and for those seeking the raw data, there's a tool that spits out information in table form. The site groups 160 Native languages into one category so it's not possible, for now, to find out how many people speak Cherokee. People curious about that statistic can turn to the U.S. Census Bureau. The agency has compiled a two-volume report (http://www.census.gov/census2000/pubs/phc-5.html) that breaks down tribal affiliation and language use. But the MLA site does include data on the use of Navajo because it is one of the more commonly spoken languages in the country. Not surprisingly, the map shows that most speakers of Dineh live in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, the three states where the Navajo Nation is located. At 178,014 speakers, more people speak Navajo than Scandinavian languages, Thai or Hungarian. And it is pervasive -- every state, plus Puerto Rico (7) the District of Columbia (4), has people who use Navajo. Even without detailed information on other Native languages, the MLA site still provides invaluable statistics. According to the site, the top 10 states where most Native speakers live are the following: Alaska - 30,121 Arizona - 30,109 New Mexico - 26,880 Oklahoma - 18,871 South Dakota - 11,246 Montana - 9,234 California - 6,729 Minnesota - 5,862 Mississippi - 5,654 Wisconsin - 4,210 According to the data, there are 203,466 people who speak Native languages. If Navajo is added to this number, more people use Native languages than Greek, Hindi, Armenian or Hebrew. In Alaska, Native languages are the second most commonly-used in the state. Alaska Natives make up about 16 percent of the population. In Arizona, Navajo is the third most commonly-used language after English and Spanish. The state's Native population is about 6 percent. Going by age, the data shows that most speakers of Native languages are adults over the age of 18. Most language experts say fewer and fewer young people are learning their tribal languages. From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Wed Jun 30 17:50:51 2004 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 17:50:51 -0000 Subject: Fwd: Monolingual literacy in Venezuela? Message-ID: Does anyone have further info on the literacy campaign in Venezuela, and whether the focus on Spanish is having a negative effect on indigenous languages? TIA... DZO --- In Multilingual_Literacy at yahoogroups.com, "Don Osborn" wrote: The following item was forwarded by Karen Chung to the Linguist list - and it seems to suggest a literacy campaign in Venezuela that focuses only on one language. Can anyone comment more on the situation there? DZO In Venezuela, Words Spread Far and Wide By Carol J. Williams, Times Staff Writer A literacy program teaches Spanish, the nation's official language, in isolated indigenous villages ISLA PEDRO CAMEJO, Venezuela -- ...Teacher, handyman and rare link with the modern world, Fernandez pops in a cassette for the community's first Spanish-language instruction, which begins with a slogan from Cuban liberation hero Jose Marti: "To be cultured is to be free." This remote island in the Orinoco River is one of the last and most isolated enclaves targeted in Venezuela's vaunted campaign against illiteracy, which in less than a year has taught 1.2 million people, from the slums and the jungles, to read and write in the national language. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg- literacy13jun13.story Registration (it's free) is required to access the articles. --- End forwarded message ---