From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun May 1 18:35:18 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 1 May 2005 11:35:18 -0700 Subject: Native Networking Policy Center (NNPC) (fwd link) Message-ID: Native Networking Policy Center (NNPC) http://www.nativenetworking.org/ The Native Networking Policy Center (NNPC) is solely dedicated to advancing equitable and affordable access to, and culturally appropriate use of, telecommunications and information technology throughout Indian Country. As the only Washington, D.C.-based Native American non-profit organization focused on tribal telecommunications and information technology issues, NNPC is ready to meet the policy challenges of today and tomorrow. [follow link for grants notice and news] From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun May 1 18:39:25 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 1 May 2005 11:39:25 -0700 Subject: 40th International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages (fwd) Message-ID: Call for Papers 40th International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages Vancouver, British Columbia August 10-12, 2005 http://fnlg.arts.ubc.ca/FNLGe_conferences.htm This year's ICSNL 40 conference will be hosted by the Musqueam Indian Band, the University of British Columbia First Nations Languages Program, and the University of British Columbia Department of Linguistics. The conference will take place on the Musqueam Indian Reserve in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Wednesday August 10 through Friday August 12, 2005. Papers on all aspects of the study, preservation, and teaching of Salish and neighbouring languages are welcome. Papers for the ICSNL pre-print volume, which will be compiled and distributed prior to the conference by the University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics, should be submitted to the UBCWPL editors (address below) by Friday, May 27, 2005. Please note that, as in previous years, there will also be an opportunity in the conference program for the presentation of papers not included in the pre-print volume. Guidelines for paper submissions to UBCWPL ICSNL 40: There are no page limits. Electronic submissions are encouraged. Word files with any special fonts will be accepted; however, PDF files are preferred. A style sheet is available at http://www.linguistics.ubc.ca/UBCWPL/. Contact the editors at Linguistics-UBCWPLarts.ubc.ca for updated information. Electronic copies of paper submissions should be sent to: Linguistics-UBCWPL at arts.ubc.ca Non-electronic (print) copies of paper submissions should be mailed to: The editors: ICSNL 40, 2005 UBCWPL c/o Department of Linguistics, UBC E-270 1866 Main Mall Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z1 Canada Information on ordering the preprints, as well as more detailed information about the conference itself, will follow in a separate announcement. Please pass this message on to anyone else who might be interested in the conference. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun May 1 19:47:33 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 1 May 2005 12:47:33 -0700 Subject: National Geographic project seeks to map human migration (fwd) Message-ID: April 30, 2005, 11:38PM National Geographic project seeks to map human migration DNA collectors could face some reluctance from remote peoples By MICHAEL KILIAN and JEREMY MANIER Chicago Tribune http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3161071 WASHINGTON - Your family tree may look quite a bit different than you thought it did. Which is to say, you might well be related to the queen of England but through a common ancestor who lived in Africa tens of millennia ago. In pursuit of such knowledge, the National Geographic this month launched an ambitious, five-year, $40 million project to trace the evolution and migration of human beings and their cultures over the thousands of years of human existence. Organized in cooperation with IBM Corp. and the Waitt Family Foundation, the massive undertaking will involve the scientific identification and computer analysis of about 100,000 DNA samples prehistoric, historic and contemporary. Indigenous peoples in remote locations will be asked for DNA samples. Contributions also will be accepted from volunteers around the globe. This will help determine where groups of people came from, what impelled them to migrate, where they ended up and what happened to them genetically and culturally along the way. "We want to learn the why of history," said population geneticist Spencer Wells, National Geographic explorer in residence and director of the Genographic Project. "Why did people move? Why did these people look a little bit like those people? Why did they speak the same language or a different language? We want to place the genetic information in the context of history and anthropology." The project, however, raises concerns among some experts who say the organizers may run into trouble obtaining cooperation from native peoples around the world. In the late 1990s, opposition from indigenous groups who feared their genes would be exploited for profit helped doom a similar effort, called the Human Genome Diversity Project. The leader of that project, Stanford University geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, is chairing an advisory board for the new effort and has been a mentor to Wells. "This whole idea has a checkered history," said Lynn Jorde, a professor of human genetics at the University of Utah School of Medicine. "These kinds of studies are not as easy as just going out, saying 'hello' to the natives and taking their DNA." The new project's Web site (www.nationalgeographic.com/genographic) addresses the earlier diversity project's failure. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Mon May 2 04:33:59 2005 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sun, 1 May 2005 21:33:59 -0700 Subject: Lone Fight Message-ID: Long fight not over for Indian Education for All - March 11, 2005 By JODI RAVE Of the Missoulian ''Our stories teach us that we must always work for a time when there will be no evil, no racial prejudice, no pollution ... a time when spiritual, physical, mental and social values are interconnected to form a complete circle.'' - Salish Culture Committee HELENA - Understand thy Native neighbor. Some educators and community leaders believe it's a goal that can be met in public school classrooms across the state. And when they met recently in Helena, many arrived ready to revive a vision. Bolstered by recent legislation and court rulings, they still believed Native issues could be integrated into K-12 curricula. ''First of all, it's constitutional,'' State Superintendent Linda McCulloch said. ''It's statutory. But the real reason, the most important reason, is that 148,000 students need to know this information ... Frankly, it isn't just the K-12 students that we're involving. ''It's every potential adult in Montana that needs to know this. Indian Education for All isn't just about educating students about the cultural heritage of American Indians. It's making sure that we all are tolerant of different groups. When that happens, and that tolerance is achieved, we erase racism.'' Now all they need is the money. A 30-year fight McCulloch, a former teacher, brought Native-based education to the forefront last fall, when she led the Office of Public Instruction to organize October's Indian Education Summit in Helena. For many, it had been a three-decade effort. ''As many of you in the room know, today is not the beginning discussion on Indian education,'' McCulloch said in her address. ''I see some people who have worked on Indian education for many, many years.'' Indeed, some of the 200 torch-carriers attending had since retired. Yet there were those like Rep. Carol Juneau, D-Browning, who refused to quit pushing for change. And with recent court rulings on their side, it seemed the day might have finally arrived when lawmakers and public schools would uphold the 1972 Montana Constitution's Article X. Juneau's education career spans 30 years, as teacher and administrator in tribal and public schools. She brought that experience to the Legislature eight years ago. In 1999, even before a district court - followed by the Montana Supreme Court - pushed quality and Native education into the spotlight, Juneau introduced the Indian Education for All act. The bill reminded her legislative colleagues and state educators that Montana Constitution's Article X - Section 1, Subsection 2 - required the state to preserve the cultural integrity of Native people. Her bill became law. Furthermore, the constitution's Native education article would later become central to the school funding lawsuit argued before District Court Judge Jeffrey Sherlock of Helena beginning in January 2004. Attorney Jim Malloy called on Juneau to testify on behalf of the constitution's Native education mandate. Malloy: ''Carol - is the Indian Education for All act intended just to serve the needs of Indian students?'' Juneau: ''It's for every Montanan. It's for every school district. It's for every student in every school district to be provided with an opportunity to learn about their tribal neighbors.'' Malloy: ''Okay. And, yet, does it have an important purpose with respect to serving the needs of Indian students in our public schools?'' Juneau: ''Absolutely. Say you're an Indian student walking into a classroom in one of Montana's schools, and you don't see anything about Indian people in that classroom, you don't see anything visual in the classroom, you open your textbooks, there is nothing ... I think that child is going to get a pretty strong message that they don't belong or they don't fit. When you feel valued and when you feel that you belong, you do better in school.'' 'Jumping for joy' In April, Sherlock ruled in favor of the Montana Quality Education Coalition, which filed the lawsuit against the state. The Montana Supreme Court upheld the ruling in November, then ordered the state to define ''quality'' education so it could adequately fund state schools. Second, it found the funding system ''failed to recognize the distinct and unique cultural heritage of American Indians and has shown no commitment in its education goals to the preservation of Indian cultural identity.'' The ruling was cause for a victory dance. ''I was jumping for joy,'' said Rep. Norma Bixby, D- Lame Deer, who is also the Northern Cheyenne tribal education director. ''We had another opinion, another court ruling that said the state still has not honored the constitution and American Indians.'' For the first time in nearly 30 years, proponents of Native education had reason to believe all Montana students - Native and non-Native - would be taught Native issues, past and present. And furthermore, that the state would increase efforts to close the achievement gap of Native students, of which some 96 percent attend public schools. For a six-year period beginning in 1991, 56 percent of Native students graduated from high school, compared to 82 percent of white students. ''So when you think about Article X, and you read those two provisions together, quality education and Indian Education for All, they're basically saying the same thing - for all Montana's school children deserve an opportunity that allows them to live good and effective lives,'' said Ray Cross, a University of Montana law professor who spoke to the state's Native legislators about their role in this year's session. Challenges ahead Winning a lawsuit represents only one step. Now come more pressing questions. How much money should be allocated to Native education? And once the money is there, how will teachers bring quality Native curricula into the classroom? The answers are uncertain. Lawmakers have been grappling with the money issue since January. Office of Public Instruction staff is still trying to create a way to get Native-related curricula to more than 10,000 teachers. And the Montana University System has yet to fully embrace teacher education programs to qualify teachers to become familiar with Native-based curricula. A proposed Native education budget request for $23 million was slashed. The Senate Select Committee's Working Group reduced the amount to $7.5 million to be spent over the next two years. Then it voted to reduce that amount to $1.4 million. ''The funding is still elusive,'' Juneau said Thursday. Yet she remained confident progress was being made by her legislative colleagues. ''I think some of them understand what Indian Education for All is about, and how it's a significant part the lawsuit, and perhaps a cornerstone.'' The proposed budget is only enough to pay for a conference, someone to look for grant money, a public Indian education campaign and $25,000 for the Montana Advisory Council on Indian Education, said Joyce Silverthorne, a former member of the State Board of Education. An important piece is missing from the proposed funding. ''It will not fund professional development for all educators of the state,'' said Silverthorne, who is also the 2004 National Indian Educator of the Year. But just as pro-Native educators have done before them, and for those still in the trenches, Juneau and her education colleagues will continue their fight. ''I always feel that unless somebody's here having a good clear voice on it,'' she said, ''we will be forgotten.'' Jodi Rave, who covers Native issues for Lee Enterprises, can be reached at (800) 366-7186 or jodi.rave at missoulian.com From sburke at CPAN.ORG Tue May 3 08:37:22 2005 From: sburke at CPAN.ORG (Sean M. Burke) Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 00:37:22 -0800 Subject: ".gov.au Guide to Open Source Software" Message-ID: A Slashdot story: ".gov.au Guide to Open Source Software" http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/03/0157205 I do hope that some tribal goverments (and schools, etc) can take advantage of open source stuff, instead of being routinely grifted by the usual OS and application vendors. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue May 3 18:24:46 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 11:24:46 -0700 Subject: Nigerian Languages Face Extinction - Varsity Don (fwd) Message-ID: Nigerian Languages Face Extinction - Varsity Don Posted to the web May 2, 2005 By Omon-Julius Onabu Benin-City http://allafrica.com/stories/200505020092.html Many indigenous languages in Nigeria are on the path to extinction, unless urgent steps are taken to rescue it from imminent disappearance from the linguistic map, a university don, Professor Matthew Omo-Ojugo, has warned. Ojugo said the prediction on threat to many Asian and Nigerian languages made sometime ago by the United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), for the end of the 21st century, could come to pass if this warning is ignored. He expressed these views while delivering a public lecture at the launching of the "Esan Dictionary," edited by former Health Minister, Chief Christopher Okojie, at Ambrose Alli Hall, Ekpoma, Edo State, at the weekend. Ojugo said 23 of the languages classified by UNESCO as already extinct in Africa and Asia, were identified in Nigeria alone, saying that called for new and positive attitude to indigenous languages in the country. Delivering the lecture, titled "Revitalising Endangered Languages: The Esan Language as a Test Case," Ojugo said the ominous signs of the said threat was today visible with regard to the Esan Language, which is threatened by Pidgin English and English Language itself. He expressed regrets that encouraging words from the Federal Government on indigenous languages are not matched with concrete and positive action. The chairman of the occasion and former vice-chancellor of the University of Benin, Prof Abhulimen R. Anao, described language as "an important part of the vehicle for transmitting the culture and socialization (and which) promotes harmony, unity and development of the people." In his speech, 85-year old Okojie regretted the many parents now find it fashionable not to pseak Esan language to their own children even at home in Esanland. "When I speak the language to many Esan children in the hospital, it is with anguish I hear the father or mother respond" that the children do not understand Esan, he said. Copyright © 2005 This Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue May 3 21:15:19 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 14:15:19 -0700 Subject: Great Andaman King, whose tribe had miracle tsunami escape, is dead (fwd) Message-ID: Tuesday, May 03, 2005 Great Andaman King, whose tribe had miracle tsunami escape, is dead King Jirake’s death in a Chennai hospital last month is a huge loss for those trying to break linguistic barriers ABANTIKA GHOSH NEW DELHI, MAY 2 Four months ago, his tribe’s near-miraculous escape from the devastating tsunami catapulted King Jirake to fame. His interviews describing the disaster, and how his tribe was adjusting in their new quarters in Port Blair, made headlines across the world. But all that was in stark contrast to the 65-year-old’s quiet and painful death in a Chennai Hospital on April 17—the tribal chief died of brain haemorrhage and consequent paralysis. And apart from the 49 remaining members of his tribe, including Jirake’s grandson Berebe, who was born days before he died, the only other people mourning his demise were a group of researchers from the School of Languages in Jawaharlal Nehru University. For, Jirake was the last member of his tribe who knew all the 10 variants of the Great Andamanese language. With his death, the trilingual Great Andamanese-English-Hindi dictionary that Professor Anvita Abbi’s team from JNU is working on, has suffered a setback that it will probably never be able to fully recover from. Not more than 18 of Jirake’s remaining tribesmen speak Great Andamanese and, after him, there are just five who speak it fluently. Speaking to The Indian Express from Port Blair, Alok Das, a sociolinguist member of Professor Abbi’s team, remembers the day Jirake died. ‘‘At around 10.30 am, when I reached the Adi Basera tribal guest house in Port Blair where the tribe is presently lodged, I was bemused when everybody who I met wanted to shake hands with me. In the one-and-a-half months I have been here, the Great Andamanese had never shaken hands with me before.” It was only after some time that Das realised that Jirake was gone and the tribe traditionally shook hands only when there was a death in the community. For Abbi, a professor in the department of linguistics, the greatest irony of Jirake’s demise is the fact that days before he suffered the brain stroke, Jirake was found drunk in the streets of Port Blair. “Alcoholism is something we have introduced among the tribals and that is only speeding up the process of their extinction. Even in his death bed, Jirake repeatedly asked for liquor,” she says. Describing her project as a ‘‘race against the setting sun’’ now, Abbi says, ‘‘Any disappearance of a unique language is a big loss because it also means disappearance of indigenous knowledge and culture. Jirake had vast knowledge about not just his own people but also other tribes. He was multilingual, his father was from the Bo tribe and his mother from the Cari tribe. The tribes are now extinct, but Jirake spoke both their languages apart from a host of others like Jeru, Khora and Pucikwar.’’ The king also knew Burmese and a language called Sadari spoken in the tribal areas of Ranchi. URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=69681 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu May 5 18:57:32 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 11:57:32 -0700 Subject: Technology for Social Inclusion: An Interview with Mark Warschauer (fwd) Message-ID: Technology for Social Inclusion: An Interview with Mark Warschauer Author: Francis Raven, EDC Center for Media & Community | May 4th, 2005 Communities: Literacy & Learning , Economic Development, http://www.digitaldivide.net/articles/view.php?ArticleID=102 Mark Warschauer is Assistant Professor of Education and of Information and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Warschauer's research focuses on the integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) in schools; the impact of ICT on language and literacy practices; and the relationship of ICT to institutional reform, democracy, and social development. His most recent book, Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide, was published by MIT Press in January of 2003. His previous books have focused on the development of new electronic literacies among culturally and linguistically diverse students and on the role of ICT in second language learning and teaching. DDN: What are some circumstances when the concept of the digital divide is problematic? MW: The notion of a digital divide suggests a digital solution--i.e., trying to solve a social problem by throwing computers and Internet connections into the mix. But without the right social supports, inputs of hardware and connections might be wasted or even have a negative effect. Putting computers into a situation where there is inadequate electricity, lack of trained personnel to upkeep them, and lack of a plan for using them well can divert attention from more effective approaches to social problems. Why don't you believe that "social problems can be addressed through provision of computers and Internet accounts"? People need the language, literacy, and computer skills to use the equipment; there need to be plans for maintaining equipment; and there needs to be an understanding of how use of the equipment may help address a social problem. An excellent approach is that of "community informatics," in which a community makes careful plans for its own community and social development and works together to define and plan the role that technology and media can play to contribute to that. You write (citing Steve Cisler) that there is not a binary division between information haves and have-nots but rather a "gradation based on different degrees of access to information." Would you explain how these information differentials function? Is a person who has access to the Internet only through occasional use at an Internet cafe an information have or an information have-not? There are lots of gradations on the have/have-not scale, based on regularity and convenience of access, type of equipment and connections, individual skill level, amount of personal freedom in computer use (from control by states, employers, or others). All these things contribute on a graded scale to determining access. What is needed in addition to computers and Internet accounts? Literacy is essential, and "digital literacy" is valuable too (computer literacy, information literacy, multimedia literacy, etc.) Knowledge of one or more major international languages is often essential. Social support from others who know how to use technology and provide assistance can be critical as well. How do a person’s lack of access to computers and a person's life chances interact? There is a high degree of correlation between individuals, communities, and nations that have high degrees of computer/Internet access and social factors such as income, wealth, and education. Of course, the causality can be mutual--wealth helps people afford computers and computer access helps people to have better employment opportunities or otherwise achieve social inclusion. What concept would you replace the digital divide with and why? Could you explain your alternate framework: technology for social inclusion? Technology for social inclusion deemphasizes the notion of bridging divides and instead looks at the broader goal--achieving social inclusion for all--and then considers the role that technology can play within that. Social inclusion refers to the extent that individuals, families, and communities are able to fully participate in society and control their own destinies, taking into account a variety of factors related to economic resources, employment, health, education, housing, recreation, culture, and civic engagement. Social inclusion is a matter not only of an adequate share of resources, but also of participation and control over one's life chances. Even the well-to-do may face problems of social exclusion, due to reasons of political persecution or discrimination based on age, gender, sexual preference, or disability. Technology can be used to promote social inclusion, not only by allowing people and communities more economic opportunity but also by providing other opportunities for people and communities to control their destinies. What role can technology play in social inclusion? Many ways, depending on the context. These include better access to health information, greater opportunities for political participation, and information to economic data of benefit to rural farmers (such as crop prices at different markets). Some of the rural Internet kiosk projects in India provide an outstanding example of effective technology use for social inclusion. In a rural village, even one computer with an Internet connection--if well used by the community--can make a big difference in people's lives. How can a more sophisticated understanding of ICT access lead to more comprehensive social inclusion? By helping people understand the broader social context that facilitates good technology use. Just to give one example, using a metaphor of Chris Dede at Harvard, people throughout the world seem to have a "fire model" of educational technology. In other words, they seem to think that a computer generates learning the way a fire generates warmth. This leads to lots of wasted money, with computers put into schools but either unused or used poorly. For computers to actually contribute to learning, much more thought needs to be put into issues of pedagogy, curriculum, professional development, software, maintenance, scheduling, etc. In other words, as Dede would say, computers are less like fire and more like clothes--they make you warm when they fit well. A few of Dr. Warschauer's relevant papers are available online: Warschauer, M. (2002). Reconceptualizing the digital divide. First Monday 7(7). Warschauer, M. (2003, August). Demystifying the digital divide. Scientific American 289(2), 42-47. Warschauer, M. (2003). Dissecting the "digital divide": A case study in Egypt. The Information Society, 19(4), 297-304. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu May 5 18:59:10 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 11:59:10 -0700 Subject: Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) Message-ID: Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers Last updated May 5 2005 09:07 AM CDT CBC News http://north.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=language-aboriginal-05052005 FORT SMITH, N.W.T. – People working to keep aboriginal languages alive in the N.W.T. say there's a critical shortage of resources to teach the subject. School libraries are full of texts in English or French, but Dene language instructors often have less than one shelf of written materials to work with. Instructors met in Fort Smith last week to talk about their quest for new resources. "It's a lot of man-hours," says Joanie Lafferty, who teaches at Princess Alexander School in Hay River. "It's not as easy as opening a book and going to chapter six to read lessons one to three. You actually have to build it." Lafferty and 16 other instructors spent three weeks creating resources for aboriginal language teachers. Gladys Norwegian, an experienced educator and language expert, coordinated their efforts. Norwegian would like to see more of the money that is now spent on cultural programming reinvested in the development of resources for language instruction. "There's many of them that are just trying to make do with what little materials they have and it is really important that they have a lot to work with to make sure students learn the language," she says. "Culture can be done anytime but to learn the language you need resources." Participants in the workshop represent each of the communities in the Dehcho and Akaitcho regions, and funding for the project is coming from divisional boards of education. The books and projects they create will be available to aboriginal language instructors across the Northwest Territories. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu May 5 19:08:19 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 12:08:19 -0700 Subject: Janabaa Baa Hane a Navajo take on Cinderella (fwd link) Message-ID: Janabaa Baa Hane a Navajo take on Cinderella http://www.navajohopiobserver.com/NAVAJOHOPIOBSERVER/myarticles.asp?P=1108085&S=392&PubID=13985 FLAGSTAFF On May 7, Northern Arizona University's Navajo 202 Language class will present the play Janabaa Baa Hane: Navajo Cinderella. Dubbed a unique student production of the importance and beauty of the Dine language, the play was written by the 17 students of the class. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu May 5 19:11:32 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 12:11:32 -0700 Subject: Miami tribe begins reclamation of its language with dictionary (fwd) Message-ID: Wednesday, May 4, 2005 Miami tribe begins reclamation of its language with dictionary By Rita Price The Columbus Dispatch http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050504/NEWS01/505040398/1056 OXFORD - When war and relocation couldn't finish off the native culture, the Bureau of Indian Affairs turned to linguistic genocide. The "English Only" campaign, combined with poverty and forced assimilation, succeeded in helping to destroy a way of life. Yet sometimes, when Daryl Baldwin walks into the bedrooms of his sleeping children, he witnesses the slim, stubborn promise that remains: young lips moving in dreams, mouthing a language not heard in 40 years. "Miami," he says proudly. How well his sons and daughters learn - and whether they, and others, teach their children - will determine the fate of the Miami-Peoria language, Baldwin thinks. In the meantime, piecing together all he can, he cobbles the fabric of a language whose last fluent speakers died in the 1960s. Soon, at least a partial written account will exist: The first Miami-Peoria dictionary is to be published this month. Baldwin joined co-editor David Costa, another linguist, in developing the book through the Myaamia Project at Miami University. The Miami tribe of Oklahoma and its namesake university in Ohio have a relationship - including scholarships and academic and cultural projects - that began during the 1970s. Congress responded in 1990 with the Native American Languages Act, which calls for protection of indigenous languages and sets up a grant program to assist. "Most of us grew up removed from our cultural heritage," said Baldwin, 42, a northwestern Ohio native and member of the Miami of Oklahoma. "We began to ask, 'What is Miami?' Without speakers of the language, it's hard to get a glimpse of what that means. Language is culture." Joshua Sutterfield studies language at Miami, which he attends on a tribal scholarship. Now 31, he also grew up without a strong sense of identity. "Oklahoma was more pan-Indian then," he said. "My mother is Miami, and I don't know that she ever heard it spoken." After four years of language classes, he said, "I'm starting to recognize the language. My greetings and phrases are coming along nicely, and when I call my mother, I feel a connection 800 miles away." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri May 6 23:53:03 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 6 May 2005 16:53:03 -0700 Subject: Agencies Partner to Document Endangered Languages (fwd) Message-ID: Agencies Partner to Document Endangered Languages http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/node/7780 Today, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced the recipients of 13 fellowships and 26 institutional grants as part of the agencies' joint Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) project—a new, multi-year effort to digitally archive at-risk languages before they become extinct. Experts estimate that almost half of the world's 6000-7000 existing languages are endangered. The DEL awards, totaling $4.4 million, will support the digital documentation of more than 70 of them. "Endangered languages are an irreplaceable source of linguistic and cognitive information," according to NSF Director Arden L. Bement, Jr. "Modern cyberinfrastructure tools enable us to investigate these phenomena more exactly and more comprehensively." The DEL grants support a variety of researchers and reflect efforts to document dying languages around the globe. For example, the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee, N.C. was awarded a grant to translate and digitize 19th-century Cherokee language materials from the Smithsonian Institution. Scientists at Cornell and Northern Arizona Universities will gather ultrasound and airflow data to determine just how the "click" sounds of South Africa's N/u language are produced. Only 13 fluent N/u speakers remain. Kristine Stenzel from the University of Colorado will document and analyze Piratapuyo--an Amazon language that uses an extremely rare word order: Object-Verb-Subject. Researchers at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks will digitize 1,000 Yup'ik audio recordings for storage at the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center and assess the feasibility of creating a Northern Indigenous Languages Archive for the region's 200 endangered languages. Three DEL fellowship awardees will independently document several endangered Austronesian languages--including ones spoken in Taiwan, the Philippines and on Easter Island. On Easter Island, use of Rapa Nui declined from 77 percent to 7.5 percent among elementary school children over a 20-year period. "This is a rescue mission to save endangered languages," says NEH Chairman Bruce Cole of the DEL program. "Language is the DNA of a culture, and it is the vehicle for the traditions, customs, stories, history, and beliefs of a people. A lost language is a lost culture. Fortunately, with the aid of modern technology and these federal funds, linguistic scholars can document and record these languages before they become extinct." >From National Science Foundation From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 7 21:33:45 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 7 May 2005 14:33:45 -0700 Subject: Federal Agencies Partner to Document Endangered Languages (fwd) Message-ID: Federal Agencies Partner to Document Endangered Languages Today, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced the recipients of 13 fellowships and 26 institutional grants as part of the agencies' joint Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) project—a new, multi-year effort to digitally archive at-risk languages before they become extinct. Experts estimate that almost half of the world's 6000-7000 existing languages are endangered. The DEL awards, totaling $4.4 million, will support the digital documentation of more than 70 of them. i-Newswire, 2005-05-06 - "Endangered languages are an irreplaceable source of linguistic and cognitive information," according to NSF Director Arden L. Bement, Jr. "Modern cyberinfrastructure tools enable us to investigate these phenomena more exactly and more comprehensively." The DEL grants support a variety of researchers and reflect efforts to document dying languages around the globe. For example, the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee, N.C. was awarded a grant to translate and digitize 19th-century Cherokee language materials from the Smithsonian Institution. Scientists at Cornell and Northern Arizona Universities will gather ultrasound and airflow data to determine just how the "click" sounds of South Africa's N/u language are produced. Only 13 fluent N/u speakers remain. Kristine Stenzel from the University of Colorado will document and analyze Piratapuyo--an Amazon language that uses an extremely rare word order: Object-Verb-Subject. Researchers at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks will digitize 1,000 Yup'ik audio recordings for storage at the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center and assess the feasibility of creating a Northern Indigenous Languages Archive for the region's 200 endangered languages. Three DEL fellowship awardees will independently document several endangered Austronesian languages--including ones spoken in Taiwan, the Philippines and on Easter Island. On Easter Island, use of Rapa Nui declined from 77 percent to 7.5 percent among elementary school children over a 20-year period. "This is a rescue mission to save endangered languages," says NEH Chairman Bruce Cole of the DEL program. "Language is the DNA of a culture, and it is the vehicle for the traditions, customs, stories, history, and beliefs of a people. A lost language is a lost culture. Fortunately, with the aid of modern technology and these federal funds, linguistic scholars can document and record these languages before they become extinct." A complete listing of this year's awards follows. Institutional grants: Jonathan Amith, Gettysburg College, Guerrero Nahuatl Language Documentation and Lexicon Enrichment Project $299,917 ( NSF ) Melissa Axelrod, University of New Mexico, Nambe Tewa Language Revitalization Project: Production of an Electronic Archive, $203,840 ( NSF ) Lyle Campbell, University of Utah, Xinkan, Pipil and Mocho': Bringing Three Endangered Language Documentation Projects to Completion, $374,932 ( NSF ) Peter Cole, University of Delaware, Traditional Jambi Malay, $185,585 ( NSF ) Lise Dobrin, University of Virginia, Arapesh Grammar and Digital Language Archive, $225,000 ( NEH ) Barbara Duncan, Cherokee Museum, Smithsonian Cherokee Language Materials and Language revitalization, $166,274 ( NEH ) Keri Edwards, Sealaska Heritage, Continuing Tlingit Language Documentation, $266,224 ( NSF ) Zygmunt Frajzyngier, University of Colorado, Grammars of Mandara and Giziga, $239,999 ( NSF ) Jule Garcia, California State University, San Marcos, Multimedia Database of Ixil Mayan Narratives, $160,000 ( NSF ) John Goldsmith, University of Chicago, Digital Preservation of Meso-American Linguistic Archives, $141,516 ( NEH ) Heidi Harley, University of Arizona, The Morphosyntax of Verbs in Arizona Yaqui, $159,992 ( NSF ) Charles Hofling, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Comparative and Historical Yukatekan Maya, $101,971 ( NSF ) Gary Holton, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Developing a Northern Indigenous Languages Archive: Yup'ik Pilot Project, $39,186 ( NSF ) Thomas Hudak, Arizona State University, Documentation and Archival-Digitization of Tai Linguistic Data, $69,456 ( NSF ) Larry Hyman, University of California Berkeley, Documentation and Description of the Badiaranke Language, $17,767 ( NEH ) Richard Littlebear, Dull Knife Memorial College, Northern Cheyenne Endangered Language Project, $100,000 ( NSF ) Daniel Miller, Ironbound Films, Inc., Vanishing Voices, $502,730 ( NSF ) Amanda Miller-Ockhuizen, Cornell University, Collaborative Research: Descriptive and Theoretical Studies of N|u, $14,452 ( NSF ) Susan Penfield, University of Arizona, Mohave and Chemehuevi Language Documentation Project, $200,000 ( NSF ) Margaret Reynolds, Linguistic Society of America, Archiving Endangered Languages: Communication Among Competing Approaches and Education in Best Practices, $25,000 ( NSF ) Bonny Sands, Northern Arizona University, Collaborative Research: Descriptive and Theoretical Studies of N|u $6,970 Joel Sherzer, University of Texas at Austin, DELAMAN 3: The Third Annual Meeting of the Digital Endangered Languages and Musics Archive Network, $15,950 Kathy Sikorski, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Pedagogical Grammar of Gwich'in, $103,947 ( NSF ) Siri Tuttle, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Lower Tanana Dictionary and Literacy, $109,772 ( NSF ) Gregory Ward, Linguistic Society of America, Challenge Grant: Ensuring the Teaching of Research Skills for the Documentation and Revitalization of Endangered Languages ( Kenneth Hale Memorial Chair ), $40,000 ( NEH, NSF ) Natasha Warner, University of Arizona, Database of Mutsun, an Extinct California American-Indian Language, $168,261 ( NEH ) Fellowships: Luis Barragan, Documenting Mountain Pima Traditional Narratives Phillip Cash Cash, A Filmic Language Documentation of Nez Perce and Sahaptin Erin Debenport, Documenting Southern Tiwa at Sandia Pueblo, New Mexico Adrienne Dwyer, University of Kansas, Language Contact and Variation: A Discourse-based Grammar of Monguor Andrei Filtchenko, Rice University, Documentation of the Endangered Eastern Khanty Dialects Nicholas Hopkins, Digitizing and Archiving of Mesoamerican Language Data, Miki Makihara, CUNY Queens College, Easter Island Linguistic Heritage Project: Creating a Digital Archive for Rapa Nui Oral and Video Histories Anthony Mattina, Colville-Okanagan Dictionary, Reference Grammar, Texts Justin McBride, Kaw Nation, Kaw Language Documentation Project Robert L. Rankin, University of Kansas, Kaw Language Documentation Project Laura Robinson, Linguistic Documentation of Eastern Cagayan Agta Paula Rogers, The Documentation of Saaroa Kristine Stenzel, Documentation of Piratapuyo ( Eastern Tukanoan ) -NSF- Media Contacts Nicole Mahoney, NSF ( 703 ) 292-5321 nmahoney at nsf.gov Noel Milan, National Endowment for the Humanities ( 202 ) 606-8439 nmilan at neh.gov Program Contacts James Herbert, NSF ( 703 ) 292-8600 jherbert at nsf.gov The National Science Foundation ( NSF ) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering, with an annual budget of nearly $5.47 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 universities and institutions. Each year, NSF receives about 40,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes about 11,000 new funding awards. The NSF also awards over $200 million in professional and service contracts yearly. Receive official NSF news electronically through the e-mail delivery and notification system, MyNSF ( formerly the Custom News Service ). To subscribe, visit www.nsf.gov/mynsf/ and fill in the information under "new users". Useful NSF Web Sites: NSF Home Page: http://www.nsf.gov NSF News: http://www.nsf.gov/news/ For the News Media: http://www.nsf.gov/news/newsroom.jsp Science and Engineering Statistics: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/ Awards Searches: http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/ If you have questions regarding information in these press release contact the company listed below. I-Newswire.com is a press release service and not the author of this press release. The information that is on or available through this site is for informational purposes only and speaks only as of the particular date or dates of that information. 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Press Release Date 2005-05-06 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 7 21:41:01 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 7 May 2005 14:41:01 -0700 Subject: Federal Agencies Partner to Document Endangered Languages (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20050507143345.lckw4s4wkk84ks8g@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Federal Agencies Partner to Document Endangered Languages http://i-newswire.com/pr19055.html [Here is link I forgot to add to the news post, Phil] From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 7 21:43:48 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 7 May 2005 14:43:48 -0700 Subject: WA group seeks funds for Indigenous radio station (fwd) Message-ID: Friday, 6 May 2005, 10:15:16 AEST WA group seeks funds for Indigenous radio station http://abc.net.au/message/news/stories/ms_news_1361285.htm A Western Australian Goldfields' Aboriginal corporation has applied for federal funding to help establish an Indigenous radio station. The Tjuma Pulka (Big Talk) Media Aboriginal Corporation has applied for $350,000 in Federal Government funding to build a studio and transmitter. The station will be based in Kalgoorlie-Boulder and provide current affairs, health and education news, as well as promoting Indigenous music and language. It will also be available for other community groups and programs. Group spokeswoman Barbara McGillvray says it hopes to be on air before the end of the year. "We don't believe in no such thing as can't - if we don't secure it from the department...the Federal Government, we are trying other sources to make sure that we will be on air by the end of the year," she said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon May 9 08:47:22 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 01:47:22 -0700 Subject: Field Notes as a Web Site (fwd abs) Message-ID: Field Methods, Vol. 16, No. 2, 203-214 (2004) DOI: 10.1177/1525822X03262664 © 2004 SAGE Publications Field Notes as a Web Site: Integrating Multimedia into Anthropological Documents Gareth Barkin Washington University Glenn Davis Stone Washington University Anthropologists are increasingly returning from the field with digital images and other media, along with their field notes. This article lays out the "Web site model" for integrating digital images, audio, and other media files into unified field note documents through the use of a Web page editor. It explains how to generate multimedia galleries and link them within textual documents, to help restore the intuitive relationships between image, sound, and word that earlier technological limitations dissolved. This allows the ethnographer to review descriptions of particular events, interviews, or periods of participant observation with all the available forms of recording, as part of a single text, rather than artificially separating out the review process by medium. Key Words: field notes • multimedia • digital imaging • Web site • database From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon May 9 17:43:55 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 10:43:55 -0700 Subject: Linguist's goal: to save endangered tongue (fwd) Message-ID: Posted on Mon, May. 09, 2005 Linguist's goal: to save endangered tongue Grant lets grad student study Badiaranke language By CHARLES BURRESS San Francisco Chronicle http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/11601197.htm It's a wish come true for a University of California at Berkeley grad student with a rare taste in wishes. A special grant will allow Rebecca Cover to dodge malarial mosquitoes and live in a mud hut without electricity in a hot, humid and remote corner of Africa where, as the only white face in the village, she will attempt to communicate in a difficult language that most of the world has never heard of. ''It's very exciting, of course,'' said Cover, 26, a doctoral student in linguistics. Cover's project is the only winner in Northern California among 39 grants and fellowships in new a federal program for threatened languages. ''This is a rescue mission to save endangered languages,'' National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman Bruce Cole said a joint statement by the NEH and the National Science Foundation. The agencies cited experts saying that more than 3,000 of the 6,000 to 7,000 languages now in use are approaching extinction. The agencies awarded $4.4 million in their new Documenting Endangered Languages partnership. Cover's $17,767 grant will record and analyze Badiaranke, an unwritten tongue spoken by an estimated 12,000 people where three countries meet -- Senegal, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau. Although tiny in the number of users, Badiaranke belongs to the world's largest family of languages, Niger-Congo, which consists of between 1,200 and 1,500 different tongues, said UC linguistics Professor Larry Hyman, sponsor of Cover's proposal. ''We're very, very pleased,'' Hyman said. ''A huge number of people applied.'' ''She (Cover) is very distinguished,'' he said, adding that she had come into linguistics after receiving her undergraduate degree in astrophysics at Williams College, where she was a valedictorian. Two of her letters of recommendation ''said she was their best student in 30 years,'' Hyman said. Cover said she had embarked on linguistics because of a desire to work with endangered languages, an interest that began when she served two years in the Peace Corps as a health education volunteer in Senegal. ''When you lose a language,'' she said in a telephone interview Thursday from her family home in Sharon, Mass., ''you're not just losing the language, which in itself has great value from a scientific, linguistic perspective, but from a cultural perspective as well. ''A lot of the culture is embedded in the language. When a language dies, part of the culture dies, too.'' Cover got a foretaste of her project last year when she spent nearly two months in the 487-person, Badiaranke-speaking village of Paroumba in Senegal. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue May 10 19:08:12 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 12:08:12 -0700 Subject: Bid to save 'lost' language (fwd) Message-ID: Bid to save 'lost' language 10/05/2005 08:45 - (SA) http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1702495,00.html Asmara - Nearly a decade after accidentally discovering a previously unknown language on an Indian Ocean archipelago off the Eritrean coast, a French linguist is fighting to save the unwritten, untaught tongue. "Dahaalik is part of humanity's heritage and must be preserved," said Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle, who with colleague Martine Vanhove, found Dahlak island fishermen conversing in the unusual vernacular nine years ago. Puzzled by words and usage that did not correspond to the two main languages of the region — Afar and Arabic — the pair at first thought it was a dialect of Tigray, but later ascertained it was a distinct entity, she said. Although close to Arabic and Tigre, Dahaalik was determined to be a language in itself due to its markedly different phonetics, morphology and syntax, but had languished in obscurity on the isles off the port of Massawa. "Before 1996, no one had heard of Dahaalik," said Simeone-Senelle, a Afro-Asiatic language specialist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). "We have to find out how it appeared," she said. "For the moment, we don't know when it emerged." Origins unknown, danger of extinction Now spoken by only about 3 000 people on the three islands and not currently taught in schools, Dahaalik, whose origins remain a mystery, is in danger of dying out, she said. "The understanding of this language, which has an oral but no written tradition, will provide us with a better knowledge of Eritrean history and its human components," said Simeone-Senelle who recently returned from another research trip to the islands to study the language. In her bid to preserve Dahaalik with the help of Eritrean authorities, Simeone-Senelle has been collecting "tales, poems, riddles, stories of traditions and vocabulary concerning daily life, animals, boats and fishing techniques." With these snippets, she has begun to compile a Dahaalik dictionary and grammar book, creating a written version of the language in the Roman alphabet by mimicking its sounds. "It's a long job," Simeone-Senelle said. "I have already listed 1 500 words, but in all it will take several years." The nascent dictionary is currently limited to Dahaalik into French, but she hopes the as-yet unfinished lexicon will become more multilingual, from Dahaalik into English, Arabic and Tigre. Because it was not discovered until 1996, after Eritrea outlined its policy of linguistic pluralism, Dahaalik is not now taught in Dahlak schools, but Eritrean officials say they intend to introduce it into the curriculum, adding it to Arabic. "The plan is that one day Dahaalik will also be taught in schools," said Zemehret Yohannes, head of Research and Documentation at Eritrea's sole political party, the People's Front for Democracy and Justice. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu May 12 16:37:30 2005 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 09:37:30 -0700 Subject: Family Exercise Message-ID: Ask Dr. Coyote* Answers on food and exercise http://www.americanindianonline.com/food/index.html Dear Dr. Coyote: So, in your most respected opinion, why are our Native kids these days getting so large? Is it genetic, a result of institutional prejudice or a dominate society placing western values on traditional people? What gives? Response: Face it, our kids are being molded in our own image. We used to hunt, fish, gather food, chop wood, play games, swim, run, be outdoors all day, make baskets, travel miles to visit people (on foot no less) and we lived a much happier and more active life. Now we are happy if we can figure out how to use the microwave for instant macaroni and cheese. Get out of your recliner, go outside and take your children with you. Plant a garden (or get some friends and family and start a community garden), go on daily nature walks, gather acorns and mushrooms in the fall, hike, learn to fish with a pole, take up a sport, coach your child’s team, turn off the television and move. Leading by example is not the way I Choose to live, but hey, you’re a responsible parent now and that is your job, not mine. I remember my friend Raccoon, who lived with his grandmother. She would send him out to get acorns so they would have food for the winter. On his way up the mountain to their family gathering site, he would play a stick game with his friends. Then on the way home, he would jump in a creek and swim to cool off. Take a clue from Raccoon and figure out how to incorporate lots of exercise in your daily life. Get active, and make sure your kids are close by your side. *Please note that in many cultures, Coyote is the trickster and his advice should be taken with a grain of sodium reduced kosher sea salt (his words is intended as humor or parody). If you have any questions to ask of Dr. Coyote about, diet, health, nutrition or exercise please email: coyote at ncidc.org .:.  André Cramblit: andre.p.cramblit.86 at alum.dartmouth.org is the Operations Director Northern California Indian Development Council NCIDC (http://www.ncidc.org) is a non-profit that meets the development needs of American Indians To subscribe to a news letter of interest to Natives send an email to: IndigenousNewsNetwork-subscribe at topica.com or go to: http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/? location=listinfo -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 3029 bytes Desc: not available URL: From anguksuar at YAHOO.COM Thu May 12 17:11:48 2005 From: anguksuar at YAHOO.COM (Richard LaFortune) Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 10:11:48 -0700 Subject: language In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: cute- but can we please limit this listserve to Native language?? :) Richard --- Andre Cramblit wrote: > Ask Dr. Coyote* Answers on food and exercise > http://www.americanindianonline.com/food/index.html > > Dear Dr. Coyote: So, in your most respected opinion, > why are our Native > kids these days getting so large? Is it genetic, a > result of > institutional prejudice or a dominate society > placing western values on > traditional people? What gives? > > Response: Face it, our kids are being molded in > our own image. We used > to hunt, fish, gather food, chop wood, play games, > swim, run, be > outdoors all day, make baskets, travel miles to > visit people (on foot > no less) and we lived a much happier and more active > life. Now we are > happy if we can figure out how to use the microwave > for instant > macaroni and cheese. Get out of your recliner, go > outside and take your > children with you. Plant a garden (or get some > friends and family and > start a community garden), go on daily nature walks, > gather acorns and > mushrooms in the fall, hike, learn to fish with a > pole, take up a > sport, coach your child�s team, turn off the > television and move. > > Leading by example is not the way I Choose to live, > but hey, you�re a > responsible parent now and that is your job, not > mine. I remember my > friend Raccoon, who lived with his grandmother. She > would send him out > to get acorns so they would have food for the > winter. On his way up the > mountain to their family gathering site, he would > play a stick game > with his friends. Then on the way home, he would > jump in a creek and > swim to cool off. Take a clue from Raccoon and > figure out how to > incorporate lots of exercise in your daily life. Get > active, and make > sure your kids are close by your side. > > *Please note that in many cultures, Coyote is the > trickster and his > advice should be taken with a grain of sodium > reduced kosher sea salt > (his words is intended as humor or parody). If you > have any questions > to ask of Dr. Coyote about, diet, health, nutrition > or exercise please > email: coyote at ncidc.org > > > > .:.� > > Andr� Cramblit: > andre.p.cramblit.86 at alum.dartmouth.org is the > Operations Director Northern California Indian > Development Council > NCIDC (http://www.ncidc.org) is a non-profit that > meets the development > needs of American Indians > > To subscribe to a news letter of interest to Natives > send an email to: > IndigenousNewsNetwork-subscribe at topica.com or go to: > > http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/? > > location=listinfo > > Discover Yahoo! Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/ From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu May 12 17:36:05 2005 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 10:36:05 -0700 Subject: language In-Reply-To: <20050512171149.37387.qmail@web31112.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: My apologies I hit the send button after clicking personal address book On May 12, 2005, at 10:11 AM, Richard LaFortune wrote: cute- but can we please limit this listserve to Native language?? :) Richard --- Andre Cramblit wrote: > Ask Dr. Coyote* Answers on food and exercise > http://www.americanindianonline.com/food/index.html > > Dear Dr. Coyote: So, in your most respected opinion, > why are our Native > kids these days getting so large? Is it genetic, a > result of > institutional prejudice or a dominate society > placing western values on > traditional people? What gives? > > Response: Face it, our kids are being molded in > our own image. We used > to hunt, fish, gather food, chop wood, play games, > swim, run, be > outdoors all day, make baskets, travel miles to > visit people (on foot > no less) and we lived a much happier and more active > life. Now we are > happy if we can figure out how to use the microwave > for instant > macaroni and cheese. Get out of your recliner, go > outside and take your > children with you. Plant a garden (or get some > friends and family and > start a community garden), go on daily nature walks, > gather acorns and > mushrooms in the fall, hike, learn to fish with a > pole, take up a > sport, coach your child’s team, turn off the > television and move. > > Leading by example is not the way I Choose to live, > but hey, you’re a > responsible parent now and that is your job, not > mine. I remember my > friend Raccoon, who lived with his grandmother. She > would send him out > to get acorns so they would have food for the > winter. On his way up the > mountain to their family gathering site, he would > play a stick game > with his friends. Then on the way home, he would > jump in a creek and > swim to cool off. Take a clue from Raccoon and > figure out how to > incorporate lots of exercise in your daily life. Get > active, and make > sure your kids are close by your side. > > *Please note that in many cultures, Coyote is the > trickster and his > advice should be taken with a grain of sodium > reduced kosher sea salt > (his words is intended as humor or parody). If you > have any questions > to ask of Dr. Coyote about, diet, health, nutrition > or exercise please > email: coyote at ncidc.org > > > > .:.  > > André Cramblit: > andre.p.cramblit.86 at alum.dartmouth.org is the > Operations Director Northern California Indian > Development Council > NCIDC (http://www.ncidc.org) is a non-profit that > meets the development > needs of American Indians > > To subscribe to a news letter of interest to Natives > send an email to: > IndigenousNewsNetwork-subscribe at topica.com or go to: > > http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/? > > location=listinfo > > Discover Yahoo! Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/ .:.  André Cramblit: andre.p.cramblit.86 at alum.dartmouth.org is the Operations Director Northern California Indian Development Council NCIDC (http://www.ncidc.org) is a non-profit that meets the development needs of American Indians To subscribe to a news letter of interest to Natives send an email to: IndigenousNewsNetwork-subscribe at topica.com or go to: http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/? location=listinfo From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu May 12 19:38:59 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 12:38:59 -0700 Subject: Chickaloon tribe has new classroom to continue 'ancient teachings' (fwd) Message-ID: Chickaloon tribe has new classroom to continue 'ancient teachings' Rooted By S.J. KOMARNITSKY Anchorage Daily News Published: May 11th, 2005 http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/matsu/story/6477935p-6358203c.html SUTTON -- The tiny Ya Ne Dah Ah School of Chickaloon put itself on the map in 2002 when Harvard University selected it as one of eight outstanding tribal programs in the country and awarded the school a $10,000 grant. Last week, the school marked another milestone by moving out of a cramped portable-size building without running water, used for the past six years, and into a new 2,400-square-foot school with flush toilets and a kitchen. It was a big move for the small school, which despite the national recognition has struggled to keep its doors open at times during its 13 years. The event was celebrated with a private ceremony and a public grand opening. But the school's real success is the tribe's commitment to the school and focus on using it to revitalize Chickaloon's Athabascan culture, according to parents and administrators. "If we're not doing that, then there's no reason to do (the school)," said Kari Johns, education director for Ya Ne Dah Ah. The Chickaloon tribe, with headquarters near Sutton, is small, with only about 200 members. But it's a vocal advocate for tribal sovereignty and in recent years has capitalized on its tribal status to leverage grants and other money to fund multiple projects in the Sutton area, including a new health clinic and an ongoing effort to restore salmon runs in a nearby Moose Creek. The $150,000 needed for the new school was raised through a combination of individual donations and loans from private organizations, Johns said. The school's roughly $150,000 annual operating cost is also funded through grants and private donations, Johns said. Tribe matriarch Katie Wade started the school in 1992 as a way to pass on Athabascan ways and beliefs to the younger generation, Johns said. Ya Ne Dah Ah means "ancient teachings" in Ahtna Athabascan, the dialect spoken by the Chickaloon tribe. While it's called a school, Ya Ne Dah Ah is not officially recognized as such by any federal or state agency. The students are considered home schooled, which gives the school flexibility in what is taught, Johns said. Students learn basics, such as math and science, and take state standardized tests, but drumming, singing, basket weaving and learning the Ahtna Athabascan language are all part of the curriculum. The students also participate in the Ya Ne Dah Ah dance group, which has performed all over the state, most recently at the University of Alaska Anchorage, Johns said. It's easy to see the appeal of the school. The classes, or rather, class, is tiny. The eight students, in first through eighth grade, share a single room. There are no bells signaling the end of a period. Instead, the lessons flow from one to the next. On a recent morning, teacher Sondra Stuart, whose three sons attend the school, led the students through an exercise on the Ahtna Athabascan language using a computer program designed by the tribe. She also had them play charades in Athabascan and do stretching exercises counting in Athabascan. For recess, she led the children outside to play traditional Athabascan games, including the seal hop, in which students hop while lying on the ground resting only on their toes and knuckles of their hands, and a limbo-like exercise that involves holding a long pole diagonally across one's body and bending underneath without moving the pole. An Athabascan elder from Tazlina -- one of many visitors to the school -- taught the children the latter game, Stuart said. Exercise is a big part of the school, and even in winter the students have to go outside and run. Katie Wade has insisted on it, Stuart said. Wade also requires that students sometimes run with water in their mouths, then spit it out at the end to show they didn't swallow it as a way to teach mental toughness, Stuart said. The students seem to respond to the teaching style even if at times they don't seem to be paying attention. During the morning language exercise, two students sat on top of their desks, while another, a young girl, twirled a pink shirt in front of her. But even though they seemed distracted, the students quickly answered when called on by Stuart, pronouncing tongue twisters like kuggaedi -- Ahtna Athabascan for mosquito --with ease. While most students are tribal members, the school is open to anyone -- Native or non-Native -- willing to pay the $50 tuition fee and meet requirements for volunteering in the school, Johns said. The philosophy is to teach anyone who is interested in the culture, she said. Brian Hirsch, a non-Native who has worked for the tribe, said he brought his daughter Aviva, now 11, to the school four years ago when he moved to Palmer. He has since moved to Homer, but he liked the school's unique approach to learning from starting the day with a prayer to teaching respect for others, especially elders. "There's not many places where students for lunch would walk to an elder's house for a bowl of moose stew," he said. Hirsch was also pleased with the academics, noting his daughter recently scored in the 90th percentile on the standardized state tests. While visitors typically concentrate on the school's more visible differences, such as teaching birch-bark basket weaving, Johns said the emphasis on Athabascan values, such as respecting elders, is important to her. Johns, whose father is Athabascan, said she missed those values attending public schools on the Kenai Peninsula. She also felt lost growing up because she knew she was different from non-Natives but knew little about her heritage, she said. She hopes the same will not be true for her two children, who are enrolled in Ya Ne Dah Ah. "That's the greatest gift, to know where they came from," she said. Johns said the tribe hopes to expand the school, possibly adding a gymnasium. But for now the focus is on raising $5 million for an endowment to provide a stable funding source for the school's operation. Reporter S.J. Komarnitsky can be reached at skomarnitsky at adn.com or 352-6714. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu May 12 19:47:27 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 12:47:27 -0700 Subject: American Indian Youths Preserve the Past, One Word at a Time (fwd) Message-ID: American Indian Youths Preserve the Past, One Word at a Time Pacific News Service, Youth News Feature, Shadi Rahimi, May 11, 2005 http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=36c877df78051f0526db4e11862e9386 Editor's Note: Though only a few elders of the Big Valley band of Pomo Indians are still fluent in their language, young tribal members are picking up words and phrases with the help of technology. Eighteen-year-old Kristin Amparo, a tribal member of the Big Valley band of Pomo Indians, lives with her parents and five siblings in a large house on their reservation in Clear Lake, about three hours north of San Francisco. She likes bouncing on a trampoline to slam-dunk a basketball in her back yard, zooming past the creamy white Konocti Vista Casino in a yellow all-terrain vehicle and, now, speaking Bahtssal with her 14-year-old sister Felicia. The flat and green Big Valley reservation sits two miles from tiny downtown Lakeport on 153 acres encircling the banks of Clear Lake, whose blue-green waters host international bass-fishing tournaments and traditional Pomo tule boat races. On sunny days, kids fish for bluegill and catfish from the dock near the tribe's Konocti Vista Casino. Only a few elders of the Big Valley tribe are fluent in Bahtssal, a tribal dialect that began to fade after settlers forced Northern California Pomos off their lands. Today, Amparo and her sister are among a small group of young people on the 470-member reservation who are learning to speak the dialect as part of a newly formed language program. "We tell our mom stuff in Bahtssal, like, 'I have to go,'" says Amparo, who had never heard the language spoken before she began studying it under the new initiative. "It's really fun to learn." According to tribal historians, the decline in fluency in Bahtssal dates back to 1852, when the United States Senate refused to ratify a federal treaty that had promised the Big Valley tribe 72 square miles of land on the south side of Clear Lake. Settlers began claiming plots of land the following year, making private property of the areas where Big Valley ancestors had gathered food for more than 11,000 years. As tribal members began working in fields and on ranches owned by settlers, and their children began learning English in white schools, Bahtssal began to fade. James Bluewolf, who directs the language program, sees it as an exercise not just in cultural preservation, but also in healing. "People are still suffering from post-traumatic stress after being forced to give up everything they had," he says. "But every culture comes to a point where they are ready to make a change." In Clear Lake, the epicenter of that change sits among piles of scrap metal, wood and rusty cars, in a building that looks like it has dropped from the sky. It is tiny and tidy, and painted a bright swimming-pool blue. Inside this building, which houses the tribal language program, young mothers watch their chubby-cheeked toddlers play in a preschool class held by the nonprofit Lake County Tribal Health Consortium. In a cramped office past the play area, James Bluewolf smiles at the children's squeals. A stocky, soft-spoken man who once ran a landscaping business, Bluewolf has been using technology tribal ancestors could not have imagined to preserve and promote the tribal language. Bluewolf records hours of Bahtssal spoken by elders, which he edits into half-hour audio segments that air on the community radio station, and are available free on CD to tribal members. Bluewolf is also writing a curriculum for a 15-week course in Bahtssal. In a program Bluewolf directs, local teenagers perform skits that teach words and phrases such as "Chiin the'a 'eh" ("How are you?") and "Q'odii" ("Good"). Bluewolf videotapes the skits and makes them into videos that are played on the Lake County television station, and made available on DVD. In the play area, Alisha Salguero, 21, rocks her 5-month-old daughter to sleep while her 3-year-old son Brian plays. Brian has learned several words in Bahtssal in the preschool class, where Bluewolf uses hand puppets to teach the language. "He's really picked it up," Salguero says with a smile. "I don't really know it, so I think it's good for him to learn his language." While traditional song, dance, and tule boat races have always been part of the cultural life of Big Valley children, holding on to their tribal language has been more difficult, says Marilyn Ellis, 21. "That's why this language program is important," says Ellis, whose father, Ray, was the spiritual leader of the tribe. Before he died several years ago, Ray Ellis revived the tribe's "Big Time" spiritual celebration. The gathering, held every September on the grassy banks of Clear Lake, includes prayer, dancing and singing -- and now, perhaps, the sound of children trying out their ancestral tongue. "Our language is part of us," says Ellis, who does not speak the tribal dialect herself, but whose daughters can now name their cat and dog in Bahtssal. "If we don't know it, we're pretty much dead." PNS contributor Shadi Rahimi, 24, is the co-founder and an editor of Seventh Native American Generation (SNAG) magazine, and an associate editor of YO! Youth Outlook, www.youthoutlook.org. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu May 12 19:30:33 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 12:30:33 -0700 Subject: Multilingualism in Cyberspace Conference Concluded in Bamako (fwd) Message-ID: Multilingualism in Cyberspace Conference Concluded in Bamako http://www.noticias.info/asp/aspComunicados.asp?nid=65081&src=0 /noticias.info/ - Essential steps to ensure that a language, that is not yet represented on the Internet, is included in cyberspace, were identified at the conference on “Multilingualism for Cultural Diversity and Participation of All in Cyberspace" that UNESCO and partners organized in Mali’s capital Bamako last week. The over 130 participants from 25 countries concluded that there is a need for written national language policies that must address the issue of language in cyberspace. They stressed that standards are crucial to create, access, disseminate and preserve multilingual content in cyberspace, particularly in endangered and lesser-spoken languages. Participants also pointed out that local content is critical to foster a multilingual cyberspace and to ensure that members of all communities can share in the benefits of cyberspace. In this context , the role of libraries and archives to sustain linguistic diversity should be fostered, for example through promoting reading and making content in local languages available, both in analogue and in digitized form. The role of the media, particularly local and community radios and emerging web media, should be strengthened to foster language diversity, especially using endangered and lesser spoken languages, particularly those with predominantly oral traditions. Although the meeting focused on “cyberspace” it was noted that the media has a vital role to play, whether in localizing terminology or in building capacities that are relevant to the ability to participate in the digital world. Measuring and monitoring multilingualism in cyberspace are crucial to the development of languages policies and analyzing their impacts. However, the present statistical services including data collection and analysis are insufficient. The Conference, that was recognized as one of the thematic meetings of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), was organized by UNESCO, together with the African Academy of Languages (ACALAN) and the Agence intergouvernementale de la francophonie (AIF), in cooperation with the Government of Mali. UNESCO will submit the conclusion of the conference to the World Summit oin the Information Society. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri May 13 19:40:04 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 12:40:04 -0700 Subject: Funding for research on the diversity of the French language (fwd) Message-ID: Funding for research on the diversity of the French language How Canada's multicultural history has influenced the way we speak French http://www.news.gc.ca/cfmx/CCP/view/en/index.cfm?articleid=145969 (Ottawa, May 13, 2005) - The Honourable Mauril Bélanger, deputy leader of the government in the House of Commons and minister responsible for official languages, on behalf of the Honourable David L. Emerson, minister of industry and minister responsible for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), today announced $2.5 million in research funding to explore the diversity and unique history of Canadian French. Dr. France Martineau, a French professor at the University of Ottawa, and an international team of researchers will use funding from SSHRC to study differences in French across the country and how each group's individual history has influenced the language they speak. "This research will help us to better understand the history and diversity of the French language and its speakers," said Minister Bélanger. "I congratulate Professor Martineau and her research team for embarking on this very important and timely research, which comes as we celebrate the 400th anniversary of French settlement in Canada." The researchers will also examine how contact between French and other languages-particularly English and First Nations languages during the early years of French settlement in Canada-changed the way people speak. Using traditional sources such as literary and grammar texts, as well as legal records, diaries and travel logs, they hope to chart the evolution of the French language in Canada and compare this to the language's development in France. "This research team is asking important questions about how societies and groups manage the evolution of their languages and their linguistic identity," said Marc Renaud, president of SSHRC. "By comparing the early development of French in Canada to its development in France, the team will help us determine what exactly is behind the unique character of the French language spoken by Canadians." Rivalries and tensions between different forms of French-Parisian versus Québécois, or Acadian versus Franco-Manitoban are at the heart of the study. Martineau's team will explore how French speakers learned to master several grammatical systems simultaneously, and became, in some instances, bilingual or multilingual speakers of French. "We know that learning a language is a lifelong process-individuals refine and perfect their speech throughout their lives," said Dr. Martineau. "We want to learn more about what causes the competition between grammatical systems and how individuals navigate this instability until one form eventually dominates and becomes the standard." Researchers from seven other Canadian universities are taking part in the study, as well as researchers at universities in Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Scotland and the United States. More than half of the funds will support the research training of graduate students. -30- For additional information on this release and other SSHRC research projects, please contact: Doré Dunne Media relations officer Telephone: (613) 992-7302 E-mail: dore.dunne at sshrc.ca From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri May 13 19:46:57 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 12:46:57 -0700 Subject: Hundreds of residential school students can sue Ottawa for abuse, court says (fwd) Message-ID: Hundreds of residential school students can sue Ottawa for abuse, court says TARA BRAUTIGAM http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/news/shownews.jsp?content=n0512113A TORONTO (CP) - Hundreds of former students of an Ontario native residential school who say they were abused by instructors out to "Christianize" them can go ahead with a class-action lawsuit against the federal government. "It's been a long time but it's a step in the right direction," said Sylvia DeLeary, who says she was a victim of the shocking abuse at the Mohawk Institute near Brantford in the 1940s. Ottawa's request to appeal a previous court ruling allowing the class-action lawsuit was dismissed Thursday by the Supreme Court of Canada. In December, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that 800 former pupils of the institute and their children could sue as a group. Lower courts had said they would have to sue individually because their complaints are different. DeLeary said the class-action certification was significant because many of the claimants are aging, live in remote regions and are unable to finance their own lawsuits. "We are not rich people, we can't afford to go individually," DeLeary said. The lawsuit names the federal government, the Anglican Church of Canada's General Synod, the incorporated diocese of Huron and an English charity called the New England Company as defendants. Calls to Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan's office were not immediately returned. "We're ecstatic with the decision," Toronto lawyer Darcy Merkur, who represents the plaintiffs, said in an interview. "The decision closes the books on certification of the class action. ... It sets a foundation for other class actions, primarily our proposed national class action, to move forward quickly." The suit, which represents 2,000 complainants and claims $2.3 billion in damages, alleges that the school was rife with fear and brutality, meant to turn native children into Christians. They describe an atmosphere of harsh intimidation, beatings, forced participation in Christian religious activities and excessive punishment for speaking their native languages. "These children went to the schools and they were told they were not allowed to speak their native language," Merkur said. "If they spoke their native language they were usually hit." The suit covers students who attended the school from 1922 to 1969. Most are now in their 60s and older, Merkur said. Some have already died. "A lot of our people have already gone on to the next world," said DeLeary, 70, who now lives in Walpole Island, Ont. "(The federal government) needs to accept responsibility for past actions and compensate people." DeLeary said she witnessed horrific neglect and a glaring absence of adult supervision at the native school. "We were not fed or clothed adequately," she said. The judgment Thursday could have ramifications for similar cases, including a massive national class action being pressed by more than 20 lawyers across Canada. They're seeking $12.5 billion in compensation from Ottawa for 86,000 former students who attended more than 100 residential schools from 1920 to 1996. Just last week, officials said the federal government was working out details on lump-sum payments and new healing programs for all residential school survivors. The plan is expected to be announced by the end of this month. But lawyers for the former students said any proposed settlements should be supervised by the courts. Seven years ago, the Liberal government conceded that abuse was rampant in the once-mandatory network of live-in schools. More than 100,000 aboriginal children over six years of age attended, often against their will, from 1930 until the last one closed its doors outside Regina in 1996. "When you separate children from their parents for years ... it's going to have an impact on how they're going to be able to live a meaningful life," DeLeary said. Lawyers will go to the Ontario Superior Court in early June to set a date for the suit to begin. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 14 19:50:32 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 14 May 2005 12:50:32 -0700 Subject: Film program gives teens direction (fwd) Message-ID: Film program gives teens direction By Marc Ramirez Seattle Times staff reporter http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002274824_native14.html Nick Clark, a freshman at La Conner High in Skagit County, thought this video-project thing sounded like a lot of fun: He'd get to meet some Native American actors, learn a few ways to use a camera. Maybe even act a little bit himself. A year later, along with Martin Edwards and David Aleck, fellow 15-year-old members of the Swinomish Tribe, Nick has acted in and helped direct what one adviser describes as "a poetic, coming-of-age" film about three street kids stealing to survive, and their choices in life. He's also possibly avoided life on the streets himself. Says Nick: "I just want [people] to watch it and tell me what they think." This weekend is his chance, as more than 40 youths from five Washington tribes gather for a workshop marking the one-year anniversary of Native Lens, 911 Media Arts Center's film program for Native American teenagers. The program's mission: Let Native American teens tell their own stories through film. A much-need alternative For Nick, who has struggled with drug and alcohol use, his participation in the six-month-long Native Lens Film Institute has been a source of motivation. "If I wasn't involved in this, I'd probably be out doing drugs with all my user friends," he said. "When I go down there [to 911], I'm away from them." Now, he says, he enjoys directing, shaping a piece from start to end, layering it with music. "I learned different effects you could use on the camera," he said. "And the rule of thirds, like certain spots where the camera has to be." "Native Lens has really been a positive thing for him," said Frank Dunn, Swinomish tribal-communications director. "I've really seen him grow and mature." The program has provided a much-needed alternative to boredom and has given students like Theresa Jimmy, 17, and Nolita Bob, 15, who produced a documentary about cultural ties, the confidence to interview elders. "It's a lot more fun to do this instead of sitting around at home," said Theresa, a junior at La Conner High. "We had to pull them along in the beginning," said 911's Annie Silverstein, Native Lens program director. "But by the end, they were pulling us." A film in two days This weekend's new recruits are learning to create short films in just two days. Their finished products will screen tonight, concluding the weekend. The kids, representing the Swinomish, Colville, Tulalip, Suquamish and Lummi tribes, were also slated to hear from writer/filmmaker Sherman Alexie and attend a panel discussion featuring actors Elaine Miles ("Northern Exposure") and Eddie Spears, among others. But the highlight is the premiere of five meatier films made through 911's six-month course (six hours, every other weekend), designed to build on the energy created by last year's inaugural workshop. Nick Clark and six other novices ages 13 to 16 learned to edit, discuss film theory and analyze media portrayals of Native Americans. It wasn't easy at first. Program leaders practically had to go door to door and roust kids from their homes each morning. They had to build trust — that they weren't the kind of people who were going to just stop showing up one day, that all the hard work would pay off. After a while, the kids were ready to go, despite challenges that would rile many adults. "Kids hate pre-production, because it's lame," Silverstein said. Putting ideas to paper, planning every shot, finding people to make it work on film — "all of that was really hard," she said. "They'd go to school all week, and then that's their weekend. They were choosing to do that. But we started bonding as a group, and it became evident really quick what the payoff was. Now they're just beside themselves." Changing perceptions Along with the street-kids piece and the cultural-ties documentary, other finished films include an animated satire imagining Christopher Columbus time-traveling into the present, a dark-humored "infomercial" about selling Indian spirituality, and a music-video-style piece about bullying. "It's about people's differences," said 13-year-old Anna Cladoosby, the seventh-grader who made the bullying video. "I've seen a lot of people pick on each other. Maybe it'll change people's perceptions of other people." The Swinomish Tribe is the primary sponsor of this weekend's workshop, supported by grants from the Potlatch Fund and National Endowment for the Arts. "They're really our partner in putting this on," Silverstein said. "They really feel it. Now we're pulling it off for other tribes — it's like this complete, full-circle thing." She sees tribes just beginning to realize the potential of video to preserve language and culture as elders pass on, as well as their own ability to pay for such efforts with casino profits. "The fact that tribes are going to start using this makes a lot of sense," Silverstein said, and not just for taping community meetings or delivering health information, but major film projects. "I really think these tribes, especially with how their resources are changing, will have the opportunity to create their own films more than any other community. It's not, learn all this so you can work in Hollywood — it's, learn all this so you can make films right here in Washington. It's very empowering." Marc Ramirez: 206-464-8102 or mramirez at seattletimes.com From fhm at UNIMELB.EDU.AU Tue May 17 18:05:51 2005 From: fhm at UNIMELB.EDU.AU (Felicity Helen Meakins) Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 04:05:51 +1000 Subject: Australian Language Centre Position Message-ID: COORDINATOR Diwurruwurru-jaru Aboriginal Corporation (DAC) seeks applications from suitably qualified persons for the position of Coordinator. The position will be based in Katherine, NT. The Coordinator will be responsible to an Indigenous Committee representing language groups throughout the Katherine Region. ROLE: o Coordinate the activities on an Indigenous language centre, including financial management. o Coordinate language projects and associated resources. o Promote the activities of DAC and liaise with other agencies in relation to language activities. o Implement policy and direction established by the Committee. QUALIFICATIONS: Essential: Ability to maintain Aboriginal input and control of an organisation while at the same time ensuring regulations are met. Effective communication with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. Experience with resourcing an organisation. Strong administration and organisational skills. Demonstrated ability to select and supervise staff and contractors. Experience with preparation and monitoring of budgets. An A class driver's licence. Desirable:  Some knowledge of Australian Languages and associated issues. Understanding of accounting systems. Experience working with a community-based organisation. CONDITIONS OF EMMPLOYMENT: Salary allied to the Aboriginal Communities and Organisations (WA) Award, five weeks annual leave. To obtain the Selection Criteria and Duty Statement, contact Robin Hodgson or Michelle Dawson on (08) 89711233, Fax (08) 89710561 or e-mail dacadmin at kathlangcentre.org.au. Written applications addressing the Selection Criteria, with names and contact numbers of two referees should be forwarded to: The Chairperson, Diwurruwurru-jaru Aboriginal Corporation PO Box 871, Katherine NT 0851 Applications close c.o.b. 23 May 2005 Robin Hodgson Coordinator Diwurruwurru-jaru Aboriginal Corporation (Katherine Regional Aborginal Language Centre PO Box 871 Katherine NT 0851 Ph: 08 89711233 Fax: 08 89710561 From miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Tue May 17 20:42:32 2005 From: miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish (LFP)) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 14:42:32 -0600 Subject: Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20050505115910.6r3qtc8o8go8g800@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: I will be doing my dissertation soon, and part of my research will be to look at how we can build materials for revitalization. I hadn't intended to do a distance component, but if there are people who would like to participate in my research, they would get the materials to use for their tribes and schools. I am working on mathematics materials using Fauconnier' and Turner's Conceptual Blending Theory, and Lakoff and Nunez's embodied theory of mathematics. The nice thing about these is that the mathematical theory can be totally abstracted from the English, and recontextualized into the culture of the People. (I think its pretty cool). I don't have money for travel, so everything we do would have to be done over the web and via cell phone :-) but it could be both fun and informative. It's pretty high-tech, lots of Flash movies, voice, and some evaluation of how successful the materials were at meeting the goals and objectives, something the teachers might be interested in. I people know other people who would be interested in doing something like this, they could contact me. I tried to find the lady mentioned in this article, but there doesn't seem to be any web site for the Princess Alexandra school. I found a contact and a snail mail address. . . .,. Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of phil cash cash Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 12:59 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers Last updated May 5 2005 09:07 AM CDT CBC News http://north.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=language-aboriginal-05052 005 FORT SMITH, N.W.T. – People working to keep aboriginal languages alive in the N.W.T. say there's a critical shortage of resources to teach the subject. School libraries are full of texts in English or French, but Dene language instructors often have less than one shelf of written materials to work with. Instructors met in Fort Smith last week to talk about their quest for new resources. "It's a lot of man-hours," says Joanie Lafferty, who teaches at Princess Alexander School in Hay River. "It's not as easy as opening a book and going to chapter six to read lessons one to three. You actually have to build it." Lafferty and 16 other instructors spent three weeks creating resources for aboriginal language teachers. Gladys Norwegian, an experienced educator and language expert, coordinated their efforts. Norwegian would like to see more of the money that is now spent on cultural programming reinvested in the development of resources for language instruction. "There's many of them that are just trying to make do with what little materials they have and it is really important that they have a lot to work with to make sure students learn the language," she says. "Culture can be done anytime but to learn the language you need resources." Participants in the workshop represent each of the communities in the Dehcho and Akaitcho regions, and funding for the project is coming from divisional boards of education. The books and projects they create will be available to aboriginal language instructors across the Northwest Territories. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue May 17 21:05:36 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 14:05:36 -0700 Subject: Amazon Indian tribe threatened (fwd) Message-ID: Rights group: Amazon Indian tribe threatened Tuesday, May 17, 2005 Posted: 0108 GMT (0908 HKT) http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/05/16/brazil.tribe.ap/ RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- An Amazon Indian tribe isolated from modern Brazil by hundreds of miles of rain forest faces annihilation by loggers if nothing is done to protect them, an Indian rights group warned Monday. The Indian rights group Survival International said logging companies were cutting down the forest in the Rio Pardo area, about 1,400 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro, despite repeated reports that there were isolated Indians in the region. "These people are on a knife's edge. If something isn't done really urgently, they will be consigned to history," Fiona Watson, a campaign coordinator for the Indian rights group Survival International, said by telephone from London. Anthropologists with Brazil's Federal Indian Bureau first detected the tribe in 1998 in a densely jungled area of Mato Grosso state, near its northern border with Amazonas state. The bureau considers the Indians "uncontacted" because anthropologists have not reached the tribe, although its members may have had some type of contact -- perhaps violent -- with wildcat miners and loggers in the region. In 2001, the bureau banned outsiders from entering 410,186 acres of the rain forest to allow anthropologists to contact the tribe and demarcate a reservation. But the protection efforts were curtailed this March when a federal judge granted an appeal by the Sulmap Sul Amazonia logging company that the decree protecting the area would cause the company irreversible damages. "The judge's order opened this area to development and forbids the presence of the Federal Indian Bureau. This is like putting a gun in the loggers' hands to kill Indians," said Sydney Possuelo, head of the bureau's Isolated Indians unit. Little is known about the Rio Pardo Indians except that they probably are hunter-gathers and were forced to abandon their villages in a hurry. "When we found the villages it looked like a tsunami had hit," said Possuelo. "No Indians abandon their hammocks or their arrows unless they are being harassed." Possuelo said efforts to contact the Indians were complicated because they appeared to have been the victims of attacks by loggers. "If, on the one hand, we are trying to protect them, there are others who are trying to make them run. They don't know who is who," Possuelo said. About 700,000 Indians live in Brazil, mostly in the Amazon region. About 400,000 of them live on reservations where they try to maintain their traditional culture, language and lifestyle. Indians have been always pushed deeper into the jungle by settlers. The bureau has said in the past that it has learned from other Indians of a few uncontacted tribes in the western Amazon state, where the region's jungle is thickest. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue May 17 21:22:55 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 14:22:55 -0700 Subject: Indigenous Children=?utf-8?Q?=C2=92s?= Education and Indigenous Languages (fwd link) Message-ID: UN FORUM TO CONSIDER IMPACT ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOAL IMPLEMENTATION, 16 - 27 MAY http://i-newswire.com/pr20360.html Indigenous Children’s Education and Indigenous Languages An expert paper on Indigenous children’s education and indigenous languages( document E/C.19/2005/7 ) shows that educational models for indigenous and minority children that use mainly dominant languages as languages of instruction have extremely negative consequences on the right to education and perpetuate poverty. Education through the dominant language prevents access to education, since it creates linguistic, pedagogical and psychological barriers. Without education mainly in the mother tongue in public schools, with good teaching of a dominant language as a second language, most indigenous peoples have to accept education through a dominant/majority language, at the cost of the mother tongue which is displaced, and often replaced, by the dominant language. Research on results of indigenous and minority education shows that the length of education in the mother tongue is more important than any other factor -- including socio-economic status -- in predicting the educational success of bilingual students. The worst results are with students in programmes where the students’ mother tongues are not supported at all. Education in the dominant language curtails the development of capabilities in indigenous children and perpetuates poverty. The report presents recommendations to address these problems. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue May 17 21:25:12 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 14:25:12 -0700 Subject: It's kapai that everyday English chat is peppered with te reo (fwd) Message-ID: It's kapai that everyday English chat is peppered with te reo 16.05.05 By JON STOKES http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10125628 Kiwi-speak isn't pakaru, despite the mutterings of some waka-jumpers who korero on the kumara vine. In fact, New Zealand's language is just kapai, says Victoria University linguistic and applied language expert John Macalister, who believes the frequency of Maori words in everyday conversations is likely to surprise some people. His new book, the Dictionary of Maori Words in New Zealand English, goes on sale this week. And, while many are words describing indigenous flora and fauna and place names, he believes the use of descriptive words - aroha, hikoi, kapai, koha, whanau and tangi, for example - is becoming more common. "Typically nouns are what we borrow from other languages, but there are words, such as pakaru, a transliteration of buggered, hapu, waka, mana, kia ora, and waiata. "Some of the more descriptive words are hybrid forms, like waka-jumper, mana-muncher." The dictionary identifies more than 1000 Maori words that are in common use - about six of every 1000. Dr Macalister said that while identifying words was one thing, defining the word's meaning was difficult and possibly contentious. For example, pakeha had a diverse range of interpretations and caused offence to some. He settled on: "a term for New Zealander of European origin". The adoption of Maori by non-Maori has flourished in the past 30 years - driven, Dr Macalister believes, by the growth of kohanga reo, the large number of Maori living in cities, the recognition of Maori as an official language, and the increase of the number of high-profile Maori, including more Maori MPs under MMP. "This has been driven by a generational change since about 1975," he said. While te reo was used more frequently by Maori, and varied depending on the circumstances people were in, young New Zealanders of all cultures were more likely to use and understand more. "Younger speakers show some of the really inventive use of the language, things like maka-chilly (very cold), mahi for work, mea for stuff." However, he believes not all will be impressed by his findings. He hoped his research did not generate the hate mail that followed the release of similar research. "Some people will take exception. The way they voice their criticism says more about their attitudes to Maori and bicultural New Zealand than my research. "I see this as very positive. This is about being proud of who were are, of being New Zealanders. It gives the language greater vitality. This is unique to New Zealand and helps us to establish our identify. "When you are overseas and you meet a Kiwi, you can throw in these words that you know they will understand. It establishes a solidarity." Te reo expert Naida Glavish, whose refusal to buckle to her then-employer Telecom's demands that she not greet telephone customers with kia ora prompted intense public debate, believes the dictionary shows that New Zealanders are becoming more inclusive. "It shows awesome growth. It shows Aotearoa's biculturalism is getting recognised. We have come a long way since 1984." But Ms Glavish urged speakers not to become complacent. "It is good growth but we still have a long way to go." And it is not just in New Zealand that some words are recognised, with Dr Macalister identifying a number of words now recognisable on the world stage, such as mana, tapu, haka and hangi. From CMcMillan at WVC.EDU Tue May 17 21:59:07 2005 From: CMcMillan at WVC.EDU (McMillan, Carol) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 14:59:07 -0700 Subject: It's kapai that everyday English chat is peppered with te reo (fwd) Message-ID: ehe, maka-kapai. - From CMcMillan at WVC.EDU Tue May 17 22:35:01 2005 From: CMcMillan at WVC.EDU (McMillan, Carol) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 15:35:01 -0700 Subject: Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) Message-ID: Mia, that sounds fascinating. For my master's thesis many years ago I developed elementary math curriculum based on the Nuffield Math Project, an environmental math program. I'm not familiar with Fauconnier and Turner of Lakoff and Nnez, (I'm way out of date) but I wish I had the time to find out more. Do you have an introductory part of your research you could send? mcmillan at televar.com Carol -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Mia Kalish (LFP) Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 1:43 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) I will be doing my dissertation soon, and part of my research will be to look at how we can build materials for revitalization. I hadn't intended to do a distance component, but if there are people who would like to participate in my research, they would get the materials to use for their tribes and schools. I am working on mathematics materials using Fauconnier' and Turner's Conceptual Blending Theory, and Lakoff and Nunez's embodied theory of mathematics. The nice thing about these is that the mathematical theory can be totally abstracted from the English, and recontextualized into the culture of the People. (I think its pretty cool). I don't have money for travel, so everything we do would have to be done over the web and via cell phone :-) but it could be both fun and informative. It's pretty high-tech, lots of Flash movies, voice, and some evaluation of how successful the materials were at meeting the goals and objectives, something the teachers might be interested in. I people know other people who would be interested in doing something like this, they could contact me. I tried to find the lady mentioned in this article, but there doesn't seem to be any web site for the Princess Alexandra school. I found a contact and a snail mail address. . . .,. Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of phil cash cash Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 12:59 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers Last updated May 5 2005 09:07 AM CDT CBC News http://north.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=language-aboriginal-0 5052 005 FORT SMITH, N.W.T. - People working to keep aboriginal languages alive in the N.W.T. say there's a critical shortage of resources to teach the subject. School libraries are full of texts in English or French, but Dene language instructors often have less than one shelf of written materials to work with. Instructors met in Fort Smith last week to talk about their quest for new resources. "It's a lot of man-hours," says Joanie Lafferty, who teaches at Princess Alexander School in Hay River. "It's not as easy as opening a book and going to chapter six to read lessons one to three. You actually have to build it." Lafferty and 16 other instructors spent three weeks creating resources for aboriginal language teachers. Gladys Norwegian, an experienced educator and language expert, coordinated their efforts. Norwegian would like to see more of the money that is now spent on cultural programming reinvested in the development of resources for language instruction. "There's many of them that are just trying to make do with what little materials they have and it is really important that they have a lot to work with to make sure students learn the language," she says. "Culture can be done anytime but to learn the language you need resources." Participants in the workshop represent each of the communities in the Dehcho and Akaitcho regions, and funding for the project is coming from divisional boards of education. The books and projects they create will be available to aboriginal language instructors across the Northwest Territories. From miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Tue May 17 22:49:54 2005 From: miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish (LFP)) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 16:49:54 -0600 Subject: Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) In-Reply-To: <1F3D73C143AC9740BE41086D103A7A045970FC@wvcmail.wvc.edu> Message-ID: Hi, Carol, I have a draft of the first chapter of my dissertation. It has a good overview. Fauconnier and Turner's CBT shows how "metaphors are made". However, they contend that almost everything above the level of perception is represented as a conceptual metaphor, that is, a human conceptualization that defines how people think about a particular thing. For example, Points on a Line is a metaphor. F&T talk about how the metaphoric structures blend to form new understandings. For example, they have one that says, If Aristotle had been a general in the Korean War, he would have used the catapult. This is a blending over time, and of course, through two wars. (Aristotle was the person who fried the ships in the harbor with a parabolic shaped piece of glass). F&T are rather extensive, because they have a collection of structures and ways that those structures come together. Lakoff & Nunez talk about mathematical metaphors. For example, all creatures can count; many of these abilities have been studied and reported on. The process of "knowing", without words, how many of something there are is called subitization. The limits on this facility are 3-4 items. However, to count, we need a metaphor. We need a Numbers as Objects metaphor that allows us to map the thingy to the number. Technically, it's pretty low level stuff to explain in words. It probably sounds pretty obscure to you, but here's how I see it: If we can decompose math into these basic metaphors, and then create Flash movies of the metaphors in action, we can show the transformations. Since the earliest perceptual skill is visual motion, it makes sense that materials that move are more effective than materials that don't. Part of my goal is to make materials faster; we spend altogether too much time trying to develop materials for learning. Another part is to make those materials rich enough to make lots of information available, and fast enough so that people are interested and inspired to use them. Finally, I think they should work for people who don't have a large collection of materials. I think they should have cultural references, and that their development should include families and communities. :-) ?? Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of McMillan, Carol Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 4:35 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) Mia, that sounds fascinating. For my master's thesis many years ago I developed elementary math curriculum based on the Nuffield Math Project, an environmental math program. I'm not familiar with Fauconnier and Turner of Lakoff and Nnez, (I'm way out of date) but I wish I had the time to find out more. Do you have an introductory part of your research you could send? mcmillan at televar.com Carol -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Mia Kalish (LFP) Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 1:43 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) I will be doing my dissertation soon, and part of my research will be to look at how we can build materials for revitalization. I hadn't intended to do a distance component, but if there are people who would like to participate in my research, they would get the materials to use for their tribes and schools. I am working on mathematics materials using Fauconnier' and Turner's Conceptual Blending Theory, and Lakoff and Nunez's embodied theory of mathematics. The nice thing about these is that the mathematical theory can be totally abstracted from the English, and recontextualized into the culture of the People. (I think its pretty cool). I don't have money for travel, so everything we do would have to be done over the web and via cell phone :-) but it could be both fun and informative. It's pretty high-tech, lots of Flash movies, voice, and some evaluation of how successful the materials were at meeting the goals and objectives, something the teachers might be interested in. I people know other people who would be interested in doing something like this, they could contact me. I tried to find the lady mentioned in this article, but there doesn't seem to be any web site for the Princess Alexandra school. I found a contact and a snail mail address. . . .,. Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of phil cash cash Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 12:59 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers Last updated May 5 2005 09:07 AM CDT CBC News http://north.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=language-aboriginal-0 5052 005 FORT SMITH, N.W.T. - People working to keep aboriginal languages alive in the N.W.T. say there's a critical shortage of resources to teach the subject. School libraries are full of texts in English or French, but Dene language instructors often have less than one shelf of written materials to work with. Instructors met in Fort Smith last week to talk about their quest for new resources. "It's a lot of man-hours," says Joanie Lafferty, who teaches at Princess Alexander School in Hay River. "It's not as easy as opening a book and going to chapter six to read lessons one to three. You actually have to build it." Lafferty and 16 other instructors spent three weeks creating resources for aboriginal language teachers. Gladys Norwegian, an experienced educator and language expert, coordinated their efforts. Norwegian would like to see more of the money that is now spent on cultural programming reinvested in the development of resources for language instruction. "There's many of them that are just trying to make do with what little materials they have and it is really important that they have a lot to work with to make sure students learn the language," she says. "Culture can be done anytime but to learn the language you need resources." Participants in the workshop represent each of the communities in the Dehcho and Akaitcho regions, and funding for the project is coming from divisional boards of education. The books and projects they create will be available to aboriginal language instructors across the Northwest Territories. From jtucker at STARBAND.NET Wed May 18 02:38:19 2005 From: jtucker at STARBAND.NET (Jan Tucker) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 22:38:19 -0400 Subject: Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20050517204234.C718C2DC5@listserv.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Mia, email me off the list server if you think I could help. I have a website with free courseware called Moodle. I'd very much like to work to build an online language course in collaboration with a native language teacher. I've written and presented a brief paper called Breaking into online Education with limited financial resources. 2000 unpublished (autobiographical), so I'm good at doing something with almost nothing. I've been playing around with the features of the Moodle courseware to see how it works. Also, I've signed on for their free course to learn to use Moodle to teach language. It's focus is best practices for teaching language online. Their free course is at moodle.org. I have a way to go yet to comprehend the best structure using Moodle courseware. I'm a certified online professor of applied anthropology and use WebCT and Blackboard version 6 to teach a variety of online courses now. This keeps me very busy, however I'd really enjoy collaborating with Native language teachers and you if I could be of any help. I volunteer my website http:nativepeople.net [Note that it's still in development or under construction and I'm still learning the software]. I've have more time this summer to work on collaborating. I've been collecting Cherokee language resources to try and put together a Free Cherokee language course. Once I figure all the tools out I'll invite any interested Cherokee language teachers to collaborate and teach it on the site. I'd love to collaborate since I myself learned to teach online in collaboration with another online course developer. Actually, my very first hybrid online module students were part of a dissertation at University of Texas, Austin. Jan Tucker jtucker at starband.net -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]On Behalf Of Mia Kalish (LFP) Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 4:43 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) I will be doing my dissertation soon, and part of my research will be to look at how we can build materials for revitalization. I hadn't intended to do a distance component, but if there are people who would like to participate in my research, they would get the materials to use for their tribes and schools. I am working on mathematics materials using Fauconnier' and Turner's Conceptual Blending Theory, and Lakoff and Nunez's embodied theory of mathematics. The nice thing about these is that the mathematical theory can be totally abstracted from the English, and recontextualized into the culture of the People. (I think its pretty cool). I don't have money for travel, so everything we do would have to be done over the web and via cell phone :-) but it could be both fun and informative. It's pretty high-tech, lots of Flash movies, voice, and some evaluation of how successful the materials were at meeting the goals and objectives, something the teachers might be interested in. I people know other people who would be interested in doing something like this, they could contact me. I tried to find the lady mentioned in this article, but there doesn't seem to be any web site for the Princess Alexandra school. I found a contact and a snail mail address. . . .,. Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of phil cash cash Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 12:59 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers Last updated May 5 2005 09:07 AM CDT CBC News http://north.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=language-aboriginal-05052 005 FORT SMITH, N.W.T. – People working to keep aboriginal languages alive in the N.W.T. say there's a critical shortage of resources to teach the subject. School libraries are full of texts in English or French, but Dene language instructors often have less than one shelf of written materials to work with. Instructors met in Fort Smith last week to talk about their quest for new resources. "It's a lot of man-hours," says Joanie Lafferty, who teaches at Princess Alexander School in Hay River. "It's not as easy as opening a book and going to chapter six to read lessons one to three. You actually have to build it." Lafferty and 16 other instructors spent three weeks creating resources for aboriginal language teachers. Gladys Norwegian, an experienced educator and language expert, coordinated their efforts. Norwegian would like to see more of the money that is now spent on cultural programming reinvested in the development of resources for language instruction. "There's many of them that are just trying to make do with what little materials they have and it is really important that they have a lot to work with to make sure students learn the language," she says. "Culture can be done anytime but to learn the language you need resources." Participants in the workshop represent each of the communities in the Dehcho and Akaitcho regions, and funding for the project is coming from divisional boards of education. The books and projects they create will be available to aboriginal language instructors across the Northwest Territories. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Wed May 18 18:55:14 2005 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 11:55:14 -0700 Subject: Sacred Language Message-ID: Lakota: a language with its own spiritual meanings By KAREN HERZOG, Bismarck Tribune Albert White Hat Sr. knows that at a certain age, young people like to carve their initials in things. But, he said, "my mother said, when you leave your name in public places, it becomes 'hunwin,'" meaning the smell of something rotten. So, through that Lakota word, a value was taught -- that it is important not to become egotistical, vain or selfish. For 25 years, Albert White Hat Sr., scholar, teacher and spiritual leader, has taught the Lakota language. An enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe in South Dakota, White Hat directs the Lakota language program at Sinte Gleska University at Mission, S.D. In 1982, he chaired the Committee for the Preservation of the Lakota Language and is the author of "Writing and Reading the Lakota Language" (1999, University of Utah Press). In April, he talked to students and staff at United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck about the connections between American Indian languages and education. Brian Palecek, English instructor at UTTC, introduced White Hat as a remarkable scholar and teacher whose work Palecek cites in his teaching of American Indian literature. Language is about more than words. It is the carrier of a culture, the vehicle which conveys history, spirituality, identity and values from one generation to the next. "Language is a living being. We (use it to) communicate with other nations, the coyote nation, the eagle and bear," White Hat said. White Hat, who spoke only Lakota until he started school in the early 1950s, spoke Lakota "day in, day out," at Spring Creek on the Rosebud Reservation. "I will always remember those days as my foundation," he said. During the nights, the children would select a storyteller. There were about five storytellers in the community, he said; the children's favorite told ghost stories. "We would chop wood and haul water, roll a Bull Durham, light it and offer it to the storyteller," he said. Stories, like those they heard there -- of warfare, fear, tragedy, medicine -- "this is how we learn who we are." Over and over, they listened to the story of Wounded Knee; "They told us, always pray this will never happen to anybody." At 16, White Hat found it a shock when he went to St. Francis boarding school. "Other (Indian) kids ridiculed us for being Indian, teased us for speaking Lakota. They had been at school since age five, and had been conditioned," he said. That education's goal was labor, obedience and dependency to authority, he said. There was no vocabulary to describe a sunset, no skills to play, "just live day to day reacting" to others and to authority, White Hat said. Languages were evenly divided between two subcultures, Catholic and Episcopal, who had a deathly fear of Lakota spirituality, he said. In 1841, missionaries developed an alphabet system for Indian languages. They also interpreted Lakota words in terms of Christian religious concepts, White Hat said. "Wakan," which Christians translated to mean "sacred, holy, mystery," is really entirely different, White Hat said. "Kan" is life or energy, with "wa" referring to the being with that "kan." So, he said, "every one of you is 'wakan.' We all have the ability to give, or to take life, to build or to destroy." White Hat said other Christian concepts have burrowed into Lakota words. "We don't have religion," he said. "We have spirituality." That spirituality is revealed through the practice of certain virtues -- bravery, generosity, fortitude and wisdom, he said. The spirituality also is revealed in the phrase "mitakuye dysasin" -- "our creator became us." What this means, he said, is: "I'm related to all creation. "I talk to a tree as a relative. "I talk to the wind as a relative. The sun, the moon. "We don't worship or bow or kneel. "I dance with that tree as a relative. "I work with the tree as a relative. "When we have a need, we face west, call the attention of all relatives to the west, (then to the) east, north, south, and express my need. "Prayers float on puffs of tobacco smoke. Others pick them up. "Our needs are met by creation." When gathering plants with healing qualities, offerings are left in exchange, White Hat said. "We talk to plants," he said, noting, "thank you for your sacrifice. Here are some offerings to your nation. "There is always an exchange. Nothing is free." By the 1950s and '60s, 100 percent of reservations were affected by alcoholism, White Hat said. And so Lakota words picked up the extra burden of describing alcohol, drugs, sex and violence. Traditional words came to children to mean things like "hangover" and "broke." White Hat called the phrase "'Indian time' the poorest excuse we have for being late. A real derogatory statement to ourselves." Instead, say "nake nula waun" -- "I am always prepared." "If we had been on Indian time," he said as an aside, to laughter, "the Crows would have taken all our horses." (Reach Karen Herzog at 250-8267 or krherzog at ndonline.com.) From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed May 18 19:48:36 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 12:48:36 -0700 Subject: Indigenous-language web site to explain legal system (fwd) Message-ID: Wednesday, 18 May 2005, 07:49:18 AEST Indigenous-language web site to explain legal system http://abc.net.au/message/news/stories/ms_news_1370982.htm An Aboriginal organisation from Elcho Island in the Northern Territory's Top End says it is creating a web site to help inform Indigenous people about the legal system. Representatives from Aboriginal Resource and Development Services are attending an Indigenous communications forum in Alice Springs to find out more about the latest technological advances that might assist their project. The organisation's Maratja Dhamarrandji says the web site is being created in the local Yolgnu Matha language. He says it is an important step that needs to be taken if the rate of Indigenous people going through the judicial system is to be reduced. "They'll be able to understand the way that... particularly in this case the legal matters [work]," he said. "They'll be able to respond, they'll be able to respect it with integrity and honour." He says the web site is being held up by a lack of qualified interpreters to translate legal language into Yolgnu Matha. "There's a very urgent need in this time and era where the interpreters or translators need to be trained up so that we can fulfil some of the dreams and aspirations, wishes of our people right across this the land," he said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed May 18 19:54:10 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 12:54:10 -0700 Subject: UC Riverside Education Professor to Help Revitalize Endangered Language (fwd) Message-ID: UC Riverside Education Professor to Help Revitalize Endangered Language The National Academy of Education awards a $55,000 grant. (May 17, 2005) http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=1078 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu May 19 20:33:02 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 13:33:02 -0700 Subject: Wanted: Killer Ideas (fwd link) Message-ID: Wanted: Killer Ideas. If you’re between 14 and 19 and have a “killer idea for a movie,” Fresh Films wants to hear from you. As part of a nationwide contest currently underway, Fresh Films will give some lucky — and creative — teens the opportunity to become filmmakers. If you’re selected, you’ll use iWork and the all-new Final Cut Studio running on Power Mac G5 and PowerBook computers. Would you like to be a director? If so, hurry — the contest ends May 22. http://www.fresh-films.com/ From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu May 19 22:24:51 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 15:24:51 -0700 Subject: Scarce resources hobble Dene native language efforts Message-ID: ----- Forwarded message from rtroike at U.Arizona.EDU ----- Mia, Jan, et al., What Mia is doing sounds fascinating. Since you are using Lakoff & Nunez' embodied perspective, I imagine you know about the big ethnoscience project of Ozzie Werner some years ago on the atlas of Navajo terminology for the human body. That seems relevant to this approach. One caution in general about adapting or translating materials from English/Spanish/French etc. to native languages is that these Eurocentric materials assume a universal categorization of the world that needs to be problematized and subjected to ethnographic examination for each case. A couple of examples are pertinent. Some years ago when Muriel Saville-Troike was working on a Navajo kindergarten curriculum, she found that although Navajo has a term for the hexagonal shape of the hogan 'house' (how many English speakers are readily familiar with 'hexagon'?), there was no term for Plato's supposed universal triangle, which available math and reading-readiness materials took for granted. In visiting schools on the reservation, she found that teachers had had to make up their own term for 'triangle' (after all, the code-talkers made up terms for tanks and airplanes), but each teacher had come up with a different expression. If off-the-shelf materials are to be used which presuppose the universality of certain categorizations, it should be checked and established first whether there are native categories and recognized labels which correspond to these, or whether these will have to be introduced as "foreign" categories/concepts, and labels invented and standardized for them. One cannot always be sure that just because native speakers are developing or consulting on materials development, their intuition will securely flag problems such as this. The difficulty here is that most native consultants or developers have themselves been educated largely through the dominant language, and have unconsciously internalized the categories of the dominant language/culture and have accepted the (unrecognized) ethnocentric assumption that these categories are 'natural' and universal. Thus an ethnographically-oriented examination of the native lexicon may be necessary/desirable to raise consciousness as to the differences between native conceptualizations and Eurocentric ones. (Even fluent bilinguals are rarely conscious of comparative differences between their own language and the second language, and most speakers of most languages are largely unaware of the structure and categories of their own language. Someone -- perhaps on this list -- recently remarked on the surprise of a German speaker when it was pointed out to him that the German word for 'glove', Handschuh, was literally "hand-shoe", i.e. shoe for the hand.) A few years ago when I was consulting on a project to develop materials for Mayan languages in Guatemala, I found that native speakers were taking the standard Spanish-language materials and, without changing illustrations, supplying Mayan (Mam, Quiche, Kekchi, etc.) labels for them. In one lesson devoted to practicing recognizing groups and giving appropriate numbers for them (three trees, two houses, etc.), I found that the categories presumed by the Spanish texts were not being questioned by the developers, who were themselves all elementary school teachers who had been teaching the materials in Spanish. After some discussion, it emerged that the distinction between 'arbol' (tree) and 'arbusto' (bush) did not fit the native categorizations of types of plants, and that to apply the native labels in teaching sets (without distorting the application of these labels by mapping them onto the Spanish ones), it would be necessary to come up with different pictures. Especially labels for parts of the human body, which might seem self-evident, need to be questioned. The 'foot', for which we have a lexicalized distinction in English, is often not separated terminologically from the 'ankle' or 'lower leg'; even English 'ear' does not distinguish by itself the outer ear and the inner ear, lexicalized separately in Spanish as 'oreja' and 'oido'. Thus whereas "My ear hurts" is ambiguous in English, in Spanish it would not be. Since most traditional math educators are predisposed to accept without question the universality of mathematical concepts, they need to be sensitized to the cultural embeddedness of instructional media, and the need to examine ethnographically the appropriateness of categories usually taken for granted in instruction. Rudy Troike University of Arizona ----- End forwarded message ----- From sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri May 20 04:53:42 2005 From: sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Susan Penfield) Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 21:53:42 -0700 Subject: Scarce resources hobble Dene native language efforts Message-ID: Thanks for this, Rudy... I'd like to add offer a similar reminder concerning the construction of dialogue-based language lessons. The temptation and all-to-common approach is to take English conversational patterns and plug in native language lexical items. This ignores what might be important cullturally-determined rules for conversation -- for instance, something as simple as 'How's the weather?" (introducing a conversation with a question) would not be the norm among many of the elders I have worked with. Susan ----- Original Message ----- From: "phil cash cash" To: Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 3:24 PM Subject: Re: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene native language efforts > ----- Forwarded message from rtroike at U.Arizona.EDU ----- > > Mia, Jan, et al., > > What Mia is doing sounds fascinating. Since you are using Lakoff & > Nunez' embodied perspective, I imagine you know about the big > ethnoscience > project of Ozzie Werner some years ago on the atlas of Navajo > terminology > for the human body. That seems relevant to this approach. > > One caution in general about adapting or translating materials > from English/Spanish/French etc. to native languages is that these > Eurocentric materials assume a universal categorization of the world > that > needs to be problematized and subjected to ethnographic examination for > each case. A couple of examples are pertinent. Some years ago when > Muriel Saville-Troike was working on a Navajo kindergarten curriculum, > she found that although Navajo has a term for the hexagonal shape of the > hogan 'house' (how many English speakers are readily familiar with > 'hexagon'?), there was no term for Plato's supposed universal triangle, > which available math and reading-readiness materials took for granted. > In visiting schools on the reservation, she found that teachers had had > to make up their own term for 'triangle' (after all, the code-talkers > made up terms for tanks and airplanes), but each teacher had come up > with a different expression. If off-the-shelf materials are to be used > which presuppose the universality of certain categorizations, it should > be checked and established first whether there are native categories > and recognized labels which correspond to these, or whether these will > have to be introduced as "foreign" categories/concepts, and labels > invented and standardized for them. > > One cannot always be sure that just because native speakers are > developing or consulting on materials development, their intuition will > securely flag problems such as this. The difficulty here is that most > native consultants or developers have themselves been educated largely > through the dominant language, and have unconsciously internalized the > categories of the dominant language/culture and have accepted the > (unrecognized) ethnocentric assumption that these categories are > 'natural' > and universal. Thus an ethnographically-oriented examination of the > native lexicon may be necessary/desirable to raise consciousness as to > the differences between native conceptualizations and Eurocentric ones. > (Even fluent bilinguals are rarely conscious of comparative differences > between their own language and the second language, and most speakers > of most languages are largely unaware of the structure and categories > of their own language. Someone -- perhaps on this list -- recently > remarked on the surprise of a German speaker when it was pointed out > to him that the German word for 'glove', Handschuh, was literally > "hand-shoe", i.e. shoe for the hand.) > > A few years ago when I was consulting on a project to develop > materials for Mayan languages in Guatemala, I found that native speakers > were taking the standard Spanish-language materials and, without > changing > illustrations, supplying Mayan (Mam, Quiche, Kekchi, etc.) labels for > them. In one lesson devoted to practicing recognizing groups and giving > appropriate numbers for them (three trees, two houses, etc.), I found > that the categories presumed by the Spanish texts were not being > questioned by the developers, who were themselves all elementary school > teachers who had been teaching the materials in Spanish. After some > discussion, it emerged that the distinction between 'arbol' (tree) and > 'arbusto' (bush) did not fit the native categorizations of types of > plants, and that to apply the native labels in teaching sets (without > distorting the application of these labels by mapping them onto the > Spanish ones), it would be necessary to come up with different pictures. > > Especially labels for parts of the human body, which might seem > self-evident, need to be questioned. The 'foot', for which we have a > lexicalized distinction in English, is often not separated > terminologically from the 'ankle' or 'lower leg'; even English 'ear' > does not distinguish by itself the outer ear and the inner ear, > lexicalized separately in Spanish as 'oreja' and 'oido'. Thus whereas > "My ear hurts" is ambiguous in English, in Spanish it would not be. > Since most traditional math educators are predisposed to accept without > question the universality of mathematical concepts, they need to be > sensitized to the cultural embeddedness of instructional media, and > the need to examine ethnographically the appropriateness of categories > usually taken for granted in instruction. > > Rudy Troike > University of Arizona > > ----- End forwarded message ----- From miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Fri May 20 16:17:37 2005 From: miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish (LFP)) Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 10:17:37 -0600 Subject: Scarce resources hobble Dene native language efforts In-Reply-To: <20050519152451.1dq1w0gg8scssowg@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Hi, Rudy. Thanks for this really great email describing issues that are not apparent to huge parts of the world. I thought I would say what I was doing, and people could check it out. I didn't know about Ozzie Werner's project, but I will check it out. I do know that most of the world thinks you can just "translate" stuff. I am digging deeply into my technological soul to find a way to abstract the concepts from the language, since if recontextualization doesn't start with the basics, you don't get a successful representation. This abstraction is hard because you have to do what Lakoff & Nunez did, and this takes either a) lots of manual time, or, b) some technology to help. I am going to do a little (a), to teach my body how to do it, and then develop some (b), to extract concepts from the language in which they are embedded. Then, we start with the extension issues that Rudy mentioned. About a year ago, I sent out email asking whether people knew how many Indigenous languages had words for common mathematical forms and processes. I got back a few emails telling me I "could just translate", but almost nothing about representation of mathematical forms in language. I assumed that there were several possible explanations for this: 1. People hadn't thought of the huge amount of mathematics that Indigenous people had and used (e.g., Architecture of the Moundbuilders (Callusas?), Mayans, Aztecs, petroglyphs, astronomy, calendricality, counting systems and so on, not only of the people here but in Africa). Mathematics is pretty innate; Lakoff and Nunez talk about the human metaphors that allow extension from innate capabilities to an evolving theoretical and applied mathematics. 2. Powell's influence had made people believe (an example of a human metaphor constructing reality) that Indigenous people had no math or science, and hence words from the disciplines were not reflected in their languages. So when he put out his prescriptive document of somewhere around 1897, there were no STEM spaces for words. 3. This idea is an implication from MacDonald and Duff, who hypothesized that the medicine people traveled around the world sharing knowledge. It is possible that some of the words died with the medicine people who were targeted and killed during the colonization. The mathematical figures are clearly present, in the petroglyphs, in the calendrical (presumed)triangulations. 4. Different representational systems (as opposed to 'words for . . .'): People have argued Sapir/Whorf, although I don't really know why: If you don't have a sweet potato, you don't need a word for it. I think though, that what happened with the Hopi time argument is truly (and ethnocentrically) amazing. Hopi language has all these fine distinctions for time; they are embedded in the language. So of course, they don't need to be stated explicitly, as in English. Lakoff and Nunez would see the White-Males-Are-Superior paradigm derived from early publications as the metaphor that created a blend where ethnographers and linguists were unable to conceive of different systems. A consequence of early publications was the wide-spread belief that there was an evolutionary hierarchy of people, and everyone was "progressing" up that hierarchy, and a consequence of this was that analysts assumed that sophisticated intellectual words did not exist in the languages of people on these postulated lower levels. I liked your discussion of arbol, Rudy. I had a similar experience with a mathematician recently. We were talking about building some teaching/learning materials, and he had simply plopped the term "continuous" into the discussion. Until I made him look back to find where the term had been introduced, he didn't realize that he had just assumed that people (students, learners, the people he was trying to teach) would just "know" what the mathematical meaning of continuous was. It is absolutely parallel to your experience with arbol and arbusto. I think that "an ethnographically-oriented examination of the native lexicon may be necessary/desirable to raise consciousness as to the differences between native conceptualizations and Eurocentric ones" in some form may be an early step of this entire process. Using Fauconnier & Turner's Conceptual Blending Model, it is necessary to develop the structures that produce the blends (metaphors). To take a simple example, choose the blend Word. A 'word' is composed of a) its target (the real thing: cat, house, tree, bush, burning; not the theoretical "reference" here); b) how you say the word for it in the target language; c) how you spell the word for it in the target language if it is written. In CBT, it looks like this: Blend: WORD Inputs: Word_Structure (a,b,c, above) Target_Language Word_if_Exists Spoken.wav Text_If_Written Thus it is implicit in the analysis that you might: 1) Find things that didn't have words/expressions/ways of representing in the target language; 2) "Things" in the target language that have no words/expressions/ways of representing in English (or Spanish, or French, or even Russian, Polish or Lithuanian) 3) Criss-cross of linguistic types, especially state words ('red' in Apache is a verb, "it is (being) red"; 4) Words that have direct embodiment (a la Lakoff and Nunez), as the shape suffixes common to Southern Athapascan, maybe others. I'm sure there are more, but I have written what I hope is a wonderful treatise in response to Rudy's wonderful message, and I think enough is enough. Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of phil cash cash Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 4:25 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene native language efforts ----- Forwarded message from rtroike at U.Arizona.EDU ----- Mia, Jan, et al., What Mia is doing sounds fascinating. Since you are using Lakoff & Nunez' embodied perspective, I imagine you know about the big ethnoscience project of Ozzie Werner some years ago on the atlas of Navajo terminology for the human body. That seems relevant to this approach. One caution in general about adapting or translating materials from English/Spanish/French etc. to native languages is that these Eurocentric materials assume a universal categorization of the world that needs to be problematized and subjected to ethnographic examination for each case. A couple of examples are pertinent. Some years ago when Muriel Saville-Troike was working on a Navajo kindergarten curriculum, she found that although Navajo has a term for the hexagonal shape of the hogan 'house' (how many English speakers are readily familiar with 'hexagon'?), there was no term for Plato's supposed universal triangle, which available math and reading-readiness materials took for granted. In visiting schools on the reservation, she found that teachers had had to make up their own term for 'triangle' (after all, the code-talkers made up terms for tanks and airplanes), but each teacher had come up with a different expression. If off-the-shelf materials are to be used which presuppose the universality of certain categorizations, it should be checked and established first whether there are native categories and recognized labels which correspond to these, or whether these will have to be introduced as "foreign" categories/concepts, and labels invented and standardized for them. One cannot always be sure that just because native speakers are developing or consulting on materials development, their intuition will securely flag problems such as this. The difficulty here is that most native consultants or developers have themselves been educated largely through the dominant language, and have unconsciously internalized the categories of the dominant language/culture and have accepted the (unrecognized) ethnocentric assumption that these categories are 'natural' and universal. Thus an ethnographically-oriented examination of the native lexicon may be necessary/desirable to raise consciousness as to the differences between native conceptualizations and Eurocentric ones. (Even fluent bilinguals are rarely conscious of comparative differences between their own language and the second language, and most speakers of most languages are largely unaware of the structure and categories of their own language. Someone -- perhaps on this list -- recently remarked on the surprise of a German speaker when it was pointed out to him that the German word for 'glove', Handschuh, was literally "hand-shoe", i.e. shoe for the hand.) A few years ago when I was consulting on a project to develop materials for Mayan languages in Guatemala, I found that native speakers were taking the standard Spanish-language materials and, without changing illustrations, supplying Mayan (Mam, Quiche, Kekchi, etc.) labels for them. In one lesson devoted to practicing recognizing groups and giving appropriate numbers for them (three trees, two houses, etc.), I found that the categories presumed by the Spanish texts were not being questioned by the developers, who were themselves all elementary school teachers who had been teaching the materials in Spanish. After some discussion, it emerged that the distinction between 'arbol' (tree) and 'arbusto' (bush) did not fit the native categorizations of types of plants, and that to apply the native labels in teaching sets (without distorting the application of these labels by mapping them onto the Spanish ones), it would be necessary to come up with different pictures. Especially labels for parts of the human body, which might seem self-evident, need to be questioned. The 'foot', for which we have a lexicalized distinction in English, is often not separated terminologically from the 'ankle' or 'lower leg'; even English 'ear' does not distinguish by itself the outer ear and the inner ear, lexicalized separately in Spanish as 'oreja' and 'oido'. Thus whereas "My ear hurts" is ambiguous in English, in Spanish it would not be. Since most traditional math educators are predisposed to accept without question the universality of mathematical concepts, they need to be sensitized to the cultural embeddedness of instructional media, and the need to examine ethnographically the appropriateness of categories usually taken for granted in instruction. Rudy Troike University of Arizona ----- End forwarded message ----- From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri May 20 23:38:17 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 16:38:17 -0700 Subject: Language, Culture, and Traditional Knowledge (fwd link) Message-ID: FOCUSING ON EDUCATION, SPEAKERS IN PERMANENT FORUM ON INDIGENOUS ISSUES STRESS IMPORTANCE OF ATTENTION TO LANGUAGE, CULTURE, TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE Indigenous children were more likely to attend school if their communities participated in all decisions about the content and management of their educational systems, a top official of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) told the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today, as it continued its fourth session. http://i-newswire.com/pr21115.html From rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 21 09:49:23 2005 From: rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudolph C Troike) Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 02:49:23 -0700 Subject: On "word" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Mia, Thanks indeed for your wonderful comments and explication of your approach. Re Ozzie Werner's work, it's sad how quickly efforts go in the sand. But to my main point. You are quite right that especially for native languages, which -- not being part of the European culture zone -- rarely have clearly segmentable "words" that correspond to the standard pieces of language assumed by Eurocentricists to be universal. What is really fascinating is the way in which these received elements called "words" often have to be "unpacked" semantically, and the components may be found to have a very different distribution in native languages. My favorite example (which could be multiplied a hundredfold from other languages) is the fact that Navajo has no "verb" corresponding to English "throw". To a Eurocentricist, this is always astonishing. "What do you mean, there is no word for 'throw'? This is a simple basic term for an obvious action." But from a Navajo point of view, it matters first of all WHAT is being thrown, and then logically expresses the fact that there is no "atomic" concept of "throw" to begin with, but "throw" REALLY means "to cause to move". So Navajo (and I assume, Apache) begins with different verbs for "round object moves", "long object moves", "rope-like object moves", and then adds a Causative suffix, like hundreds of other languages, producing "Cause round object to move", etc. So Navajo/Apache necessarily (and logically) has different verbs for "throw (a ball)", "throw (a stick)", etc. From that point of view, English and other Euro- languages are woefully unspecific and overgeneralizing, so that it is English that is more deficient in lacking lexical resources. Again, Mia, thanks again for your fine work and contributions. Rudy Troike From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 21 17:59:58 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 10:59:58 -0700 Subject: BETTER EDUCATION FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES (fwd link) Message-ID: PRIORITY SHOULD BE GIVEN TO PROVIDING BETTER EDUCATION FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, WITH EMPHASIS ON BILINGUAL INSTRUCTION, PERMANENT FORUM TOLD Speakers stressed the importance of quality education in pulling indigenous people out of poverty and preserving their cultures and knowledge systems, as the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues continued its fourth session today. http://i-newswire.com/pr21122.html From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed May 25 17:02:00 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 10:02:00 -0700 Subject: Legislation introduced to honor Choctaw Codetalkers (fwd) Message-ID: Legislation introduced to honor Choctaw Codetalkers Officials worry that pioneers of the practice are not getting their due Sam Lewin 5/24/2005 http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=6500 Picture the term: Codetalkers. What comes to mind? For many the word has to do with members of the Navajo Nation baffling the Japanese during World War 2. It's a mental association that has been fed by written media accounts and a major Hollywood film a few years back. Problem is, while the Navajo Codetalkers were certainly noteworthy and made valuable contributions, it was soldiers from the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma that originated the concept. Eighteen Choctaws stymied the Germans during World War 1 by using their Native language to transmit messages to U.S soldiers. Now Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., has introduced a measure that would give a congressional medal to the Choctaw Codetalkers, as well as members of the Sioux and Sac & Fox Tribes. "Code talkers from the Choctaw, Comanche and other tribes are true American heroes whose accomplishments have too long been forgotten," Inhofe said in a statement. "Their service on the front lines helped propel the allied forces to victory and saved countless lives in the process." According to the Byron County Heritage Quarterly, in the closing days of World War I, fourteen Choctaw Indian men in the Army's Thirty-Sixth Division, trained to use their language, helped U.S. forces win several key battles in France. The fourteen Choctaw CodeTalkers were Albert Billy, Mitchell Bobb, Victor Brown, Ben Caterby, James Edwards, Tobias Frazer, Ben Hampton, Solomon Louis, Pete Maytubby, Jeff Nelson, Joseph Oklahombi, Robert Taylor, Calvin Wilson, and Walter Veach. All are now deceased. According to the quarterly: The Choctaws were recognized as the first to use their native language as an unbreakable code in World War I. The Choctaw language was again used in World War II. Choctaws conversed in their language over field radios to coordinate military positions, giving exact details and locations without fear of German interception. It was a routine conversation between two of the Choctaws, Lewis and Bobb, which began the codetalker experiment. A ranking officer happened to hear the two men conversing in Choctaw and came up with the idea to use the language to foil the enemy. Bobb used a field telephone to deliver a message to Caterby, who then translated it into English for the Battalion commander. The rest is history. One reason that Choctaws did not receive recognition for their trailblazing success is because many of their contributions were classified as secret until years after the war ended. The first public recognition of their efforts appears to be during the annual Choctaw Labor Day Festival in 1986, when then-Choctaw Chief Hollis E. Roberts presented posthumous Choctaw Nation Medals of Valor to the families of the CodeTalkers. On November 3, 1989, in recognition of the role the Choctaw CodeTalkers played during World War I, the French government presented Roberts with the "Chevalier de L'Ordre National du Merite" (the Knight of the National Order of Merit), the highest honor France can bestow. Presently, Inhofe is not the only one with an interest in the contributions of the Choctaws. Students at Southeast Webster High School in Burnside, Iowa recently took up the history of Choctaw Codetalkers, creating a display featuring facts about their exploits. "You can see the difference they made," student Alonzo Barkley told the Iowa Messenger. "You can just look at the events of the war when we used code talkers versus not having them. You can see the difference they made. You just look at the events of the war when we used code talkers versus not having them." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed May 25 19:34:00 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 12:34:00 -0700 Subject: UA projects to preserve Indian tongues given funding (fwd) Message-ID: Wednesday, May 25, 2005 UA projects to preserve Indian tongues given funding PAUL L. ALLEN pallen at tucsoncitizen.com http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&story_id=052505a6_grantswfile_art Three University of Arizona projects aimed at saving endangered American Indian languages have received a total of $528,253 in federal grants and two doctoral students in linguistics have been granted fellowships. The grants and fellowships were provided through the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The projects the grants are funding are: Mohave and Chemehuevi Language Documentation Project, English department lecturer Susan Penfield, $200,000. Database of Mutsun, an Extinct California American-Indian Language, linguistics department Natasha Warner, $168,261. The Morphosyntax of Verbs in Arizona Yaqui, assistant professor of linguistics Heidi Harley, $159,992. The fellowships went to: A Filmic Language Documentation of Nez Percé and Sahaptin, by Phillip Cash Cash. Documenting Mountain Pima Traditional Narratives by Luis Barragan. Penfield and Cash Cash have been working on a different project to help tribal members around the state use modern technology and computer software to preserve their languages, the Tucson Citizen previously reported. "These grants and fellowships are a reflection of the department's and the institution's commitment to documenting, preserving and revitalizing endangered Native American languages," said Michael Hammond, head of the linguistics department. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Wed May 25 22:43:18 2005 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 15:43:18 -0700 Subject: Pomo Language Message-ID: American Indian Youths Preserve the Past By Shadi Rahimi, Pacific News Service Posted on May 16, 2005, Printed on May 25, 2005 http://www.alternet.org/story/22011/ Eighteen-year-old Kristin Amparo, a tribal member of the Big Valley band of Pomo Indians, lives with her parents and five siblings in a large house on their reservation in Clear Lake, about three hours north of San Francisco. She likes bouncing on a trampoline to slam- dunk a basketball in her back yard, zooming past the creamy white Konocti Vista Casino in a yellow all-terrain vehicle and, now, speaking Bahtssal with her 14-year-old sister Felicia. The flat and green Big Valley reservation sits two miles from tiny downtown Lakeport on 153 acres encircling the banks of Clear Lake, whose blue-green waters host international bass-fishing tournaments and traditional Pomo tule boat races. On sunny days, kids fish for bluegill and catfish from the dock near the tribe's Konocti Vista Casino. Only a few elders of the Big Valley tribe are fluent in Bahtssal, a tribal dialect that began to fade after settlers forced Northern California Pomos off their lands. Today, Amparo and her sister are among a small group of young people on the 470-member reservation who are learning to speak the dialect as part of a newly formed language program. "We tell our mom stuff in Bahtssal, like, 'I have to go,'" says Amparo, who had never heard the language spoken before she began studying it under the new initiative. "It's really fun to learn." According to tribal historians, the decline in fluency in Bahtssal dates back to 1852, when the United States Senate refused to ratify a federal treaty that had promised the Big Valley tribe 72 square miles of land on the south side of Clear Lake. Settlers began claiming plots of land the following year, making private property of the areas where Big Valley ancestors had gathered food for more than 11,000 years. As tribal members began working in fields and on ranches owned by settlers, and their children began learning English in white schools, Bahtssal began to fade. James Bluewolf, who directs the language program, sees it as an exercise not just in cultural preservation, but also in healing. "People are still suffering from post-traumatic stress after being forced to give up everything they had," he says. "But every culture comes to a point where they are ready to make a change." In Clear Lake, the epicenter of that change sits among piles of scrap metal, wood and rusty cars, in a building that looks like it has dropped from the sky. It is tiny and tidy, and painted a bright swimming-pool blue. Inside this building, which houses the tribal language program, young mothers watch their chubby-cheeked toddlers play in a preschool class held by the nonprofit Lake County Tribal Health Consortium. In a cramped office past the play area, James Bluewolf smiles at the children's squeals. A stocky, soft-spoken man who once ran a landscaping business, Bluewolf has been using technology tribal ancestors could not have imagined to preserve and promote the tribal language. Bluewolf records hours of Bahtssal spoken by elders, which he edits into half-hour audio segments that air on the community radio station, and are available free on CD to tribal members. Bluewolf is also writing a curriculum for a 15-week course in Bahtssal. In a program Bluewolf directs, local teenagers perform skits that teach words and phrases such as "Chiin the'a 'eh" ("How are you?") and "Q'odii" ("Good"). Bluewolf videotapes the skits and makes them into videos that are played on the Lake County television station, and made available on DVD. In the play area, Alisha Salguero, 21, rocks her 5-month-old daughter to sleep while her 3-year-old son Brian plays. Brian has learned several words in Bahtssal in the preschool class, where Bluewolf uses hand puppets to teach the language. "He's really picked it up," Salguero says with a smile. "I don't really know it, so I think it's good for him to learn his language." While traditional song, dance, and tule boat races have always been part of the cultural life of Big Valley children, holding on to their tribal language has been more difficult, says Marilyn Ellis, 21. "That's why this language program is important," says Ellis, whose father, Ray, was the spiritual leader of the tribe. Before he died several years ago, Ray Ellis revived the tribe's "Big Time" spiritual celebration. The gathering, held every September on the grassy banks of Clear Lake, includes prayer, dancing and singing -- and now, perhaps, the sound of children trying out their ancestral tongue. "Our language is part of us," says Ellis, who does not speak the tribal dialect herself, but whose daughters can now name their cat and dog in Bahtssal. "If we don't know it, we're pretty much dead." Shadi Rahimi, 24, is the co-founder and an editor of Seventh Native American Generation (SNAG) magazine, and an associate editor of YO! Youth Outlook, www.youthoutlook.org. © 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/22011/ From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu May 26 18:47:23 2005 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 11:47:23 -0700 Subject: Voices Message-ID: Call for participation in Voices of the World An international media project on endangered languages Dear colleagues around the world,   Voices of the World (VOW) aims to build international awareness of the diversity of mankind through a world-wide documentary film and media project. We want to portray the peoples of the world, giving face and voice to each culture and empowering every language community to speak. The goal of VOW is to strengthen our global mutual belonging. VOW is an international non-profit initiative of UNESCO’s Goodwill Ambassador for Languages Mrs. Vigdis Finnbogadottir, based on an original idea by the internationally acclaimed filmmaker Janus Billeskov Jansen, supported by the Danish Government, the UN and by leading linguists from all over the world.   AMBITIONS AND VISIONS Our first task is to create a media event in connection with UN’s 60th anniversary in October 2005. All the Nordic public service TV stations are committed to this broadcast. We are presently working on similar arrangements with other international TV-stations. In order to make this a truly global event we want to invite YOU to participate in creating key elements of the central documentary film – Voices. Voices will tell the story of the linguistic loss the world is suffering from the threat of language endangerment. The film takes its point of departure in a personal talk with UN Sec.-Gen. Mr. Kofi Annan, in his own mother tongue Fante, expressing his concerns for cultural and linguistic diversity. But the main elements of the film are to be based on YOUR contributions. We seek case stories, which pinpoint the stages from language endangerment to language death. We look for storytellers who can explain what it feels like to loose one’s language.   “VOICES” NEEDS YOUR HELP We aim to include material from as many different languages as possible in the film, but we have a limited budget. Thus we are looking for local contributions. You can participate in three different ways. 1. you can submit new material. 2. you can submit material already recorded. 3. you can send us contacts to speakers of endangered languages. We are looking for charismatic storytellers who can tell moving personal stories to the world in their own language. The issues to be covered are:   1. The language generation gap – fx how does it feel to live in a family where grand parents and grand children find it hard to communicate, because the language of the older generation was not passed on? 2. The last speakers – fx how does it feel to be among the last few speakers of a language? 3. Language suppression (economic, social, political, cultural) – fx how do people cope with situations, when their language is not given space in the public sphere? What does it mean to a community, if their language is forbidden or drained of resources? 4. Language and technology – fx how are speakers of endangered languages affected by globalization and the new information technology? We are also looking for success stories such as: 5. Language revitalization – fx how did a particular endangered language community manage to turn the situation around and revitalize their language? 6. Other vital language issues? –  YOU might come up with something brilliant, which we were not even able to conceptualize – given the limitations of our language…   TERMS AND CONDITIONS If you want to participate in “Voices”, please start by sending us an email introducing yourself, your language or the language you are engaged with. Please also describe your contribution and in what way you would like to collaborate with us. We will then send you more information about the project, more specifications of what we are looking for and technical requirements.   Contact:  Voices of the World Project manager: Signe Byrge Sørensen byrge at final-cut.dk Forbindelsesvej 7; 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark Tel: +45 35 43 60 43, Fax: +45 35 43 60 44   Don’t miss this opportunity to present YOUR language as part of the bigger picture. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 6164 bytes Desc: not available URL: From miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Fri May 27 00:07:29 2005 From: miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish (LFP)) Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 18:07:29 -0600 Subject: FW: [ILAT] Convert PowerPoint to Flash easyway Message-ID: I tried this thing. It has a couple of (small?) flaws. First, you can't edit it in Flash after its generated because all you have is the SWF. This was a problem with the presentation for which I am sending the link, because there are links to Excel worksheets. The links were not included in the SWF construction. Since I couldn't edit, I had to make them available to people a different way. I chose the easiest for today, because I am trying to get my website "up". . . . later, I will polish it so we can say it's finessed :-). Here's the link to the workshop, Mathematics of Mirabal, which I gave at the Santa Fe Indian School (to broad acclaim, I might share, however unhumble that seems: The Ndn teachers loved it): http://learningforpeople.us/Mirabalmath.htm The speed of the pages is set during publish. If people would let me know how the speed is? I couldn't figure out how to stop the automatic pacing. (sheesh). This is the first time this site has been so comprehensively put together, so for people who would like to explore: the numbers and puzzles are Estonian, with half a dozen other languages coming; the Web Pages (special link page) use Apache and Spanish in the menus (not an easy job); the science entry, 8 Days Around the Community, is a pre-K -- elementary project that includes both an in-class activities (materials not included unfortunately) and the online version. And there are so cool java effects in Fonts, and some Hopi and local petroglyphs in Math. :-) Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Depree ShadowWalker Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2005 2:13 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Convert PowerPoint to Flash easyway SWiSHpresenter is a Microsoft PowerPoint plugin that converts your PowerPoint presentations to Flash. SWiSHpresenter is the quickest easiest way to get your PowerPoint presentations on the web http://www.swishzone.com/index.php?area=products&tab=overview&product=presen ter The good thing about this is you can create a self executable which means you can view it without buying the software program. it's the BETA version so they are working on bugs and letting us try a fully functional version before you buy it! You can test it out for free. I made this conversion in less than 5 mins from an existing PowerPoint. You can add audio and timing, special effects, which of course takes longer. Here is a link to a no frills (hit button) conversion from PowerPoint just using the default settings. http://www.redpony.us/flash/EndofaTalePopularCulture.swf Swish also has a reasonable program for creating self executable files in Flash format called: $49.95 USD SWiSHstudio lets you convert your SWF files to projector executables, screensavers or burn directly to a CD-ROM in three easy steps. more info > SWiSHpresenter is a Microsoft PowerPoint plugin that converts your PowerPoint presentations to Flash. SWiSHpresenter is the quickest easiest way to get your PowerPoint presentations on the web! more info > Hope the server is set up for HTML? Depree ShadowWalker, M.Ed. emphasis in Learning Technologies Doctoral Student, Language, Reading and Culture GA @ Native American Research and Training Center voice (520) 626-0348 fax (520) 621-9802 websites: http://www.fcm.arizona.edu/research/nartc/diabetes_camp.htm www.septa.arizona.edu Red Pony Heritage Language Team website : www.redpony.us From miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Fri May 27 21:24:59 2005 From: miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish (LFP)) Date: Fri, 27 May 2005 15:24:59 -0600 Subject: ppt to Flash conversion Message-ID: Hmmm. I suppose everyone is gone for the long week-end. . . but if not. . . One of my friends suggested that I should add sound to my presentations and workshops, and I though, Cool! I tried the Swish option, but lot the ppt special effects. Also, the sound gets clipped if the display time is too short, and there doesn't seem to be an individual slide control. Powerpoint will write the slides out as jpegs, but this doesn't help with the animation. I tried the Swish option of writing the ppt out as one swf per page, but when I imported them, they created an extraordinary number of subordinate objects, and didn't behave like a regular Flash movie. Writing the ppt out as an html file doesn't help either, because the sound gets trimmed. Also, while it will embed the True Type fonts, it won't embed the Post Script fonts, so some of the fonts that are integral to the presentation get lost. sigh Has anyone else done this? Mia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 28 17:18:01 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 May 2005 10:18:01 -0700 Subject: Native American Nuuchahnulth language gets first dictionary (fwd) Message-ID: Native American Nuuchahnulth language gets first dictionary [phot inset - The Native American language has been in steady decline ever since English speakers colonised North Western America in the 19th Century. Picture / Reuters] 26.05.05 4.00pm by Ian Herbert http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10127646 The language known to the dwindling band of Native Americans who speak it as 'Nuuchahnulth' (pronounced Noo-cha-noolth) is like few others in its spectacular range of dialects and its capacity to convey complex ideas through simple words. 'Nuuchahnulth' itself means 'along the mountains', a reference to the inaccessible Vancouver Island mountain range on Canada's Western coast where it is spoken. The language has been in steady decline ever since English speakers colonised North Western America in the 19th Century, reducing those able to speak it from 3500 in 1881 to around 300 today - and most of them aged over 60. Salvation may now have arrived, however, with the first dictionary of the language to be created in its 5000-year existence, which has been completed by a Canadian-born linguist based at Newcastle University. The 537-page book is being despatched to Vancouver Island to support the efforts of elders to revive Nuuchahnulth among younger members of the community's 10,000 population, who have drifted into the predominant use of English. Vital to the preservation of Nuuchahnulth (which is better known as 'Nootka') has been the work of the anthropologist and linguist Edward Sapir who from 1910 to 1924 travelled through North America researching native languages. He chronicled Nuuchahnulth at a time when it was spoken by young and old alike but after his death, in 1939, his work was waylaid. It reappeared only in the 1970s, since when it has remained in the archives of the American Philosophical Society. It has proved as vital to Newcastle's Dr John Stonham, whose team of researchers used a computer programme to analyse Sapir's extraordinarily detailed notes, creating a database of approximately 150,000 words of the language. Dr Stonham has been working at Nuuchahnulth for 20 years. Learning the language - which has three basic vowels, 40 consonants and a very complex sound structure when spoken - will not be easy for the young Vancouver Islanders. Nuuchahnulth encompasses around 15 languages, each with distinct variations in vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation, which are acknowledged in the dictionary. Some differ to the same extent as Geordie and Cockney, though one of the southerly forms is entirely incomprehensible to the others. The language is even more complex in its oral, story-telling forms. Speakers are known to employ a set of hisses or extra consonants depending on whether they are talking to or about children, fat or short people, lame people, hunchbacked men or anyone who has an eye defect. The dictionary provides hope to those who have expressed concern about the death of many of the world's minority languages. Scientists warn that up to 95per cent of the world's 6000 languages are heading for extinction, causing irreparable damage to human civilisation, because of encroachment on the territories of indigenous peoples, mass migration and the desire to learn the dominant languages of the world, notably English. Of the 176 living languages spoken by the tribes of North America, 52 have become extinct since AD1600. Approximately 30 of the 235 languages spoken by the Aboriginal Australians have disappeared altogether. The dictionary provides a fascinating insight into the essential vocabulary needs of those making a life on a remote coastline. Entries include the words for 'mosquitos', 'high rubber boots' and 'to be secluded in the house observing taboos, so as not to spoil a hunter's luck.' (The communities' superstitions are reflected in a tradition of wearing head-dresses and masks to represent supernatural wolves and serpents.) Despite the islanders' evolution from communal houses to more modern, prefabricated homes built with the timber on which their small economy is largely based, communities remain tight-knit. There is a "very strong desire by many of the younger people to speak their native tongue," said Dr Stonham. He believes the dictionary, part of a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, can preserve both the language and culture of the island's societies. "Language is intricately bound up with tradition," he said. "Noam Chomsky said you can learn about all languages by studying just one. This work will contribute to a better understanding of the structure of English and many of the world's languages, not just those of the Native Americans." Nicholas Ostler, president of the Foundation for Endangered Languages, which is based in Britain but has international members, said: "A dictionary often provides the greatest single step in the progress of a language to fully literate status, a status that has been achieved by only a third of the world's languages to date." Almost extinct: Speakers of Mati Ke - an Aboriginal language, have decreased from 1000 to a handful. One claims his sister speaks it too, but not to him, since tribal taboos forbid them to communicate after puberty. The Native American tongue of Yuchi - an isolated language that bears no relation to any other living tongue - is spoken by a handful of elders, usually while eating The Leco - language of the Bolivian Andes is spoken by about 20 people The Cambap - language of Cameroon in Central Africa is used by just 30 native speakers. - INDEPENDENT From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 28 17:51:02 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 May 2005 10:51:02 -0700 Subject: Native Language Key to Academic Success (fwd) Message-ID: Native Language Key to Academic Success By Susan Logue Cloquet, Minnesota 27 May 2005 http://www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/2005-05-27-voa55.cfm An error occurred -- check your media assetsAn error occurred -- check your media assets An error occurred -- check your media assets [photo inset - A sign outside Red Lake High School warns against prohibition of weapons in school on Red Lake Indian Reservation] The school year is nearly over at Red Lake High School in the midwestern state of Minnesota. Seniors graduate May 28. But the community is still healing from the fatal shooting there in March. Many students finished the year at home, choosing not to return to class after Jeffrey Weise, a 17-year-old member of the Red Lake Ojibwe tribe, killed 10 people, including himself. News reports described Weise as a troubled young man, but also noted that many American Indian teens in Minnesota face serious problems, ranging from suicide to alcohol and drug abuse. But the problems have more to do with growing up poor than growing up Indian. On Minnesota's Leech Lake Indian Reservation, where 17-year-old Chris Stouffer lives, the unemployment rate is 31%. While tribal casinos provide paychecks for some members, Chris says they are also places where many Indians just gamble their money away. "A lot of people, it's just ruining (their lives), because they spend all their money in casinos." There are other problems on the reservation as well, including alcoholism and too many broken families. Chris's friend, Royal White, says his family is among them. "My father is an alcoholic on the reservation, and I don't know where he is. Royal adds that his mother is struggling to support Royal and his younger brother since she was injured at work. Both Royal and Chris say they believe that despite the problems on the Leech Lake Reservation, life there is very much like life in other American communities. Yvonne Novak, manager of Indian education for Minnesota's Department of Education agrees. "Is it hard to be an Indian? At times, (yes), but it's also glorious," she says. "I think what's harder is poverty and economic issues. I think THAT is what makes it hard to go to school, NOT that you're an Indian." American Indian educators say students find powerful incentives to stay in school when they can connect with their Indian heritage. "I have an 11th grader right now that is failing everything but language and culture," says Merlin Williams a teacher in Elk River, Minnesota, about 50 kilometers north of Minneapolis. When he told the student he had to improve his other grades in order to stay in the Ojibwe language class, the teacher says he got results. Merlin Williams is in charge of Minnesota's Heritage Quiz Bowl, an annual competition where American Indian students get to demonstrate what they have learned about their language. Students put in a lot of extra work to prepare for the big event. "Kids work for four months," says Yvonne Novack. "Their reading list is intensive, (as is) the studying, and oftentimes it's after school. And lots of times these are students who may not be the best students in school. But this engages them. It acknowledges who they are, where they are from and the importance of their history." [photo inset - Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig School] This year 27 teams, nearly 150 students in all, competed in the Heritage Quiz Bowl. Melly Johnson, Royal White, and Chris Stouffer from Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig High School on Leech Lake Reservation took home second prize. They all plan to continue studying their language and culture after they graduate and they have other plans as well. Melly wants to be veterinarian. Royal plans to study engineering. And Chris says he'll probably go into computer science. [photo inset - Dan Jones, professor of Ojibwe language and culture, Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College] There is no way to prove that studying their heritage has given these 3 students the self-confidence to reach for those goals. But Dan Jones, who teaches Ojibwe language and culture at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College in Cloquet, Minnesota, says elders believe when people don't know who they are or what they are, they are more prone to be self-destructive. Mr. Jones says he believes that's what happened to Jeffrey Weise. "If that person (Jeffrey Weise) knew their language, their culture and their history," Mr. Jones says, "he wouldn't have acted out the way he did. Because within our history, language and culture is a built-in, positive self-image, positive views on the world. It's built in that we are respectful to one another. We are respectful to the land, and have respect for life. And obviously that person did not have respect for life." Right now there is a shortage of teachers in Minnesota to provide classes in Ojibwe language and culture. To help meet the need, Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College will soon begin offering a four-year degree in elementary education. While the program will not be limited to American Indian students, graduates will be required to have a minor in the Ojibwe language. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 28 17:57:42 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 May 2005 10:57:42 -0700 Subject: The Rosetta Project: Rescuing languages (fwd) Message-ID: The Rosetta Project: Rescuing languages -Posted by Dan Farber @ 12:22 pm http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=1443 Language and culture are inseparable. An estimated 7,000 languages, and the associated social and cultural artifacts that accompany them, exist today, but many are on the verge of extinction. "There is a level of endangerment to the survival of languages, driven primarily by globalization," said counterculture icon Stewart Brand. "In this century, 50 to 90 percent of the languages will evaporate under the current circumstance." In a conversation at the Future in Review conference with Larry Brilliant of the Seva Foundation, Brand outlined the Rosetta Project , which is dedicated to archiving all the languages of the world online and creating tools to help recover and revitalize languages. "We are using the Internet to alleviate the effects of globalization and the homogenization of culture on languages," Brand said. So far, the Rosetta Project has documented 4,000 languages and about are 2,500 currently archived online, Brand said. [photo inset - Larry Brilliant (left) and Steward Brand] The project is somewhat analogous to Wikipedia in that thousands of volunteers (about 2,300 today) peer review the content and contribute to the corpus. In fact, the Rosetta Project states its goal as becoming an "open source ‘Linux of Linguistics’- an effort of collaborative online scholarship drawing on the expertise and contributions of thousands of academic specialists and native speakers around the world." Each language in the archive includes detail descriptions, maps, numbers, orthography, phonology, grammar, audio files, a translation of part of the biblical Genesis text, and Swadesh word lists. The archive also includes comparative lists of common words. Archiving the world’s languages and trying to preserve or even recover their use is swimming upstream. Mandarin, Hindi and English are the leading languages in terms of native speakers. Brilliant pointed out that their are more English speakers (not all fluent) in China than in the U.S. At the other end of the spectrum, less than 10 million people in and around New Guinea speak an estimated 900 native languages. The flattening world (see Tom Friedman’s The World is Flat) leans over time toward monoculture and a few dominant languages for global communications and commerce. Nonetheless, Brand points out that successive generations want to connect with their roots and cultural heritage. The Rosetta Project achive and tools will help preserve that opportunity, but don’t expect to see a lot of instant messages in Arauan, Chapacura-Wanham, Choco, East Papuan, Geelvink Bay, Huavean, Kiowa Tanoan, Luwic, Mascoian, Wakashan, Yenisei Ostyak, Yukaghir or Zamucoan languages… From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 28 18:02:09 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 May 2005 11:02:09 -0700 Subject: Bid to save nearly-lost language (fwd) Message-ID: Bid to save nearly-lost language Last Updated: Thursday, 26 May, 2005, 19:23 GMT 20:23 UK BBC News It is spoken by only a handful of people but, after 5,000 years, a rare native American language is to get its own dictionary. Some 300 people, descendants of a Native American people in west Canada, still speak Nuuchahnulth. But almost no young people in the community on Vancouver Island know the ancient language. The professor behind the dictionary project hopes the text will help the language survive by aiding teachers. Long words The dictionary, which has 7,500 entries, is the fruit of 15 years of research into the language. It is based on both work with current speakers and notes from linguist Edward Sapir, taken almost a century ago. SAVED SYLLABLES puqee-oh - Always-absent woman hina?aluk - I look out for what I know is to happen Simaacyin?ahinnaanuhsim?aki - their whaling spears were poised in the bow haasulapi-ck'in?i - sing a little louder "Less than 10% of the traditional population now speaks the Nuuchahnulth language," Dr John Stonham of Newcastle University told the BBC News website. He said linguists found the language fascinating because of its complexity. "Entire sentences can be built up into a single word," Dr Stonham said. "But there are also some concepts that can be encapsulated in a single syllable. A single sound describes the state of remaining in seclusion when the husband goes out to hunt, for example." Dr Stonham hopes providing a dictionary of words will encourage teachers to use the language in the classroom and that older people too will be spurred into passing their language on to the next generation. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4583455.stm Published: 2005/05/26 19:23:58 GMT © BBC MMV From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Tue May 31 16:37:34 2005 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 09:37:34 -0700 Subject: Fwd: media project on endangered languages Message-ID: Begin forwarded message: From: "Dennis W. Zotigh" Date: May 31, 2005 8:11:41 AM PDT To: , Subject: media project on endangered languages  Dear Sirs,   I have been working on documenting language loss and preservation initiatives with the 39 Oklahoma tribes of the United States. Historically, 67 tribes from throughout the United States and Canada were removed from their homelands and placed in Indian Territory (what is now Oklahoma). Today there are 39 tribal headquarters within our state boundaries. This provides a unique opportunity for researchers because we have tribes that were relocated here, whose homelands spanned across America.   My research of language loss in Oklahoma is considered by many to be currently the most up to date.  In my field studies, I have found there were 8 Oklahoma tribes who have no fluent speakers within their tribal membership. Last month another elder died, making that statistic 9 Oklahoma tribes who have no fluent tribal language speakers. In addition, 10 Oklahoma tribes are one generation away from losing their language.   "We are in the greatest era of American Indian lanuage extinction in history!" I am a strong proponent of getting this message out to the international public.   I have spoken nationally and internationally on American Indian culture. If I can be of any assistance in your Voices of the World project,  please let me know.   Sincerely,     Dennis W. Zotigh American Indian Research Historian Oklahoma Historical Society and Powwow Cultural Advisor Smithsonian  National Museum of the American Indian   ___     Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 18:47:44 +0000 From: andre cramblit Subject: Voices Of The World (language) Call for participation in Voices of the World.  An international media project on endangered languages Dear colleagues around the world, Voices of the World (VOW) aims to build international awareness of the diversity of mankind through a world-wide documentary film and media project. We want to portray the peoples of the world, giving face and voice to each culture and empowering every language community to speak. The goal of VOW is to strengthen our global mutual belonging. VOW is an international non-profit initiative of UNESCO’s Goodwill Ambassador for Languages Mrs. Vigdis Finnbogadottir, based on an original idea by the internationally acclaimed filmmaker Janus Billeskov Jansen, supported by the Danish Government, the UN and by leading linguists from all over the world. AMBITIONS AND VISIONS Our first task is to create a media event in connection with UN’s 60th anniversary in October 2005. All the Nordic public service TV stations are committed to this broadcast. We are presently working on similar arrangements with other international TV-stations. In order to make this a truly global event we want to invite YOU to participate in creating key elements of the central documentary film – Voices. Voices will tell the story of the linguistic loss the world is suffering from the threat of language endangerment. The film takes its point of departure in a personal talk with UN Sec.-Gen. Mr. Kofi Annan, in his own mother tongue Fante, expressing his concerns for cultural and linguistic diversity. But the main elements of the film are to be based on YOUR contributions. We seek case stories, which pinpoint the stages from language endangerment to language death. We look for storytellers who can explain what it feels like to loose one’s language. “VOICES” NEEDS YOUR HELP We aim to include material from as many different languages as possible in the film, but we have a limited budget. Thus we are looking for local contributions. You can participate in three different ways. 1.    you can submit new material. 2.    you can submit material already recorded. 3. you can send us contacts to speakers of endangered languages. We are looking for charismatic storytellers who can tell moving personal stories to the world in their own language. The issues to be covered are: 1. The language generation gap – fx how does it feel to live in a family where grand parents and grand children find it hard to communicate, because the language of the older generation was not passed on? 2. The last speakers – fx how does it feel to be among the last few speakers of a language? 3. Language suppression (economic, social, political, cultural) – fx how do people cope with situations, when their language is not given space in the public sphere? What does it mean to a community, if their language is forbidden or drained of resources? 4. Language and technology – fx how are speakers of endangered languages affected by globalization and the new information technology? We are also looking for success stories such as: 5. Language revitalization – fx how did a particular endangered language community manage to turn the situation around and revitalize their language? 6. Other vital language issues? –  YOU might come up with something brilliant, which we were not even able to conceptualize – given the limitations of our language… TERMS AND CONDITIONS If you want to participate in “Voices”, please start by sending us an email introducing yourself, your language or the language you are engaged with. Please also describe your contribution and in what way you would like to collaborate with us. We will then send you more information about the project, more specifications of what we are looking for and technical requirements. Contact:  Voices of the World Project manager: Signe Byrge Sørensen byrge at final-cut.dk; Forbindelsesvej 7; 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark Tel: +45 35 43 60 43, Fax: +45 35 43 60 44;  Don’t miss this opportunity to present YOUR language as part of the bigger picture. .:.  André Cramblit: andre.p.cramblit.86 at alum.dartmouth.org is the Operations Director Northern California Indian Development Council NCIDC (http://www.ncidc.org) is a non-profit that meets the development needs of American Indians To subscribe to a news letter of interest to Natives send an email to: IndigenousNewsNetwork-subscribe at topica.com or go to: http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/? location=listinfo -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 12323 bytes Desc: not available URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Tue May 31 17:01:36 2005 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 10:01:36 -0700 Subject: Rush To teach Message-ID: Headline: As tribal speakers dwindle, a rush to teach their words Date: May 31, 2005 "MT. PLEASANT, Mich. -- After 10 years of teaching Ojibwe 101 to students at Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College, language instructor George Roy says he's more determined than ever to prevent the language of his Native American ancestors from vanishing into history." ____________________________________________________________ To see this recommendation, click on the link below or cut and paste it into a Web browser: http://www.boston.com:80/news/nation/articles/2005/05/31/ as_tribal_speakers_dwindle_a_rush_to_teach_their_words From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue May 31 17:30:10 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 10:30:10 -0700 Subject: Community College to offer Native American language program (fwd) Message-ID: Community College to offer Native American language program 5/30/2005, 11:58 p.m. PT The Associated Press http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-10/1117521784283320.xml&storylist=orlocal EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Lane Community College is poised to become Oregon's first community college to offer an American Indian language course, thanks to a $1 million gift made to the college last year from an anonymous donor. Interest income from the donation will be used to invite an Indian scholar to spend a year at the school laying plans the new language program. The college has not yet decided which language it will offer, in part because that will depend on the background of the person it ultimately hires. But Lane Community College President Mary Spilde said it will be a language spoken by a Northwest tribe and said they hope to choose a scholar by this summer. Ultimately, the college hopes to offer a program rigorous enough that students who pass the native language class will be able to transfer the credits to a four-year university and have them count toward the language requirement for a bachelor's degree. Although perhaps only six of the 25 tribal languages that existed in Oregon before European arrival are still spoken, researchers and linguists say learning one still has value. "If you learn Nez Perce or Klamath or any of a number of languages, this gives you access to a large body of traditional lore and literature and mythology," University of Oregon linguistics professor Scott Delancey, who studies Northwest Indian languages. "And the truth is, you really don't get a lot of the story if you just read the English translation." Twila Souers, a Lakota tribal member, said many tribal languages already have died out and the few remaining are spoken only by a few people, usually elders. Teaching them in college is seen not only as a way to preserve dying languages but also to share the culture they reflect, she said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue May 31 17:40:40 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 10:40:40 -0700 Subject: As tribal speakers dwindle, a rush to teach their words (fwd) Message-ID: As tribal speakers dwindle, a rush to teach their words Native American languages at risk By Tom Nugent, Globe Correspondent | May 31, 2005 http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/05/31/as_tribal_speakers_dwindle_a_rush_to_teach_their_words/ MT. PLEASANT, Mich. -- After 10 years of teaching Ojibwe 101 to students at Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College, language instructor George Roy says he's more determined than ever to prevent the language of his Native American ancestors from vanishing into history. ''The first thing I tell my students at the beginning of each semester is that we're fighting a battle to hold onto our own cultural identity," said the 58-year-old Roy, a member of Michigan's Ottawa tribe. ''Language is the glue that holds our culture together. . . . The stakes are very high, and I think most of us who teach Native American languages and culture in the Great Lakes realize that we're fighting an uphill battle to preserve our own heritage." Roy, who often introduces himself to new students as both George Roy and Signaak -- his tribal family name, pronounced ''SIG-ah-Nawk," which means blackbird -- is among Native American speakers and cultural researchers across the Midwest battling to save dozens of increasingly threatened Indian languages from extinction. Most of the approximately 40 Native American languages and dialects still being used on reservations and in Native American families in the Midwest are expected to vanish within the next few decades, say linguists, as their last remaining tribal speakers die. ''Unfortunately, I think it's going to be very difficult for native Midwestern languages such as Ojibwe and Potawatomi to survive beyond the next 20 or 30 years," said Anthony Aristar, a Wayne State University linguistics researcher who directs a $2 million archival project aimed in part at preserving dying Indian languages in a large database. The growing threat to Indian languages of the Midwest is part of a worldwide phenomenon. Linguists say that, on average, a language becomes extinct every two weeks. Many language specialists blame English language television programming and the prevalence of English language software for the decline. In an effort to rescue some threatened languages, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation earlier this month announced a $4.4 million program of grants and fellowships designed to preserve both written and spoken elements of more than 70 threatened languages, including more than a dozen Native American languages, before they become extinct. The project, called Documenting Endangered Languages, awarded 13 fellowships and 26 institutional grants for projects ranging from digitizing Cherokee writings in North Carolina to documenting the Kaw language in Oklahoma. ''These languages are the DNA of our human culture, and if we lose them, we will be losing a unique and irreplaceable part of our experience," said Bruce Cole, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. ''The scholars tell us there are almost 7,000 languages in the world, and that half of them will probably be lost in the next century." Cole said that about 400 of the world's languages now have fewer than 100 fluent speakers each, and that 74 of them are Native American languages in the United States. ''I'm not happy about this, because when we lose a language, we also lose a culture," said Aristar. ''But the research shows that there probably won't be any Native American languages left around the Great Lakes by the middle of this century. There are now only 10 or 12 fluent speakers of Potawatomi left in the entire Midwest, for example, and most are elderly. When they die in a few years, they'll probably take the language with them. Losing a language like Potawatomi is a major setback for all of us because in most cases, you also lose the poetry and the songs and the entire oral tradition." Many Midwestern Native American languages are disappearing, said Aristar, because Native American parents often insist that their children ''learn the language of the mainstream culture, so they can [find] good jobs and gain economic power." Although the 40 Midwestern languages are threatened, according to Aristar, the outlook is brighter for some Indian languages in the American West, where, he said, ''some tribes were not as injured and fragmented as those around the Great Lakes in the 19th century." He noted that these larger communities, such as the Navajo in the Southwest, operate their own large colleges and radio stations where the native language is routinely spoken. Roland Marmon, a member of the North Dakota Turtle Mountain Ojibwa Tribe who teaches the Ojibwe language and culture to about 30 students each semester at White Earth Tribal and Community College in Mahnomen, Minn., said that non-Native Americans often take his course. ''I'd say that about 40 percent of my students are whites in the local community," he said, ''and the payoff for them is that they learn a great deal about the world they grew up in and continue to live in." © Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue May 31 17:51:08 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 10:51:08 -0700 Subject: Blogging: a Way to 'Decolonise Cyberspace' (fwd) Message-ID: Blogging: a Way to 'Decolonise Cyberspace' Highway Africa News Agency (Grahamstown) NEWS May 26, 2005 Posted to the web May 27, 2005 By Emrakeb Assefa Johannesburg http://allafrica.com/stories/200505270204.html Ndesanjo Macha, 35, a Tanzanian writer and lecturer with a background in law, journalism and socio-informatics, is campaigning in Africa to 'decolonise cyberspace' so that African languages and cultures could flourish in it. In order to achieve his goal, he has become the first African to launch a blog in the African language KiSwahili in June 2004. Macha is one of a group of young Africans who started a movement to place African languages on the internet by blogging novels, songs and poems in African languages and allowing the free use of content under the Creative Commons (cc) project. He told Highway Africa News Agency yesterday that twenty one blogs in African languages have been set up since June 2004. Today, there are 17 KiSwahili blogs, the language spoken by over 100 million people in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda; a single Bambara blog, the Malian language; two KiChagga blogs, a language spoken in the Kilimanjaro area of northern Tanzania; a Shona blog from Zimbabwe and one Berber blog from Morocco. Macha hopes to increase the number of indigenous African language blogs to one hundred by the end of the year. The movement to use African languages as a means of communications on the internet stems from a fear that African cultures and languages are in danger of disappearing. "A language disappears every two weeks", says Macha, comparing this to a "whole library burning down." Though Africa is known to be by far the most linguistically diverse continent - there are around 2,000 African languages, i.e. one third of the world's linguistic heritage - its languages are largely absent from internet content. According to UNESCO, although there are over 6,000 languages in the world, the content on the internet is largely disseminated in 12 languages - dominated by English. "The rest are subject languages, like most indigenous African languages; they are talked about but have no content in their own language," Macha says bitterly. Moreover, there are no tools for creating or translating information into these excluded tongues. Huge sections of the world's population are thus prevented from enjoying the benefits of technological advances and obtaining information essential to their well-being and development. Unchecked, this will contribute to a loss of cultural diversity on information networks and a widening of existing socio-economic inequalities. However, the cc project and blogging, says Macha, are providing opportunities to African artists with no English language skills to introduce their creativity into the mainstream industry. This way, African cultures and languages remain vibrant and alive. Macha's inspiration is the Kenyan Ngugi Wa Thiong'o whose novels Decolonising the African Mind and Move in the Centre had led him to this movement. Quoting Thiong'o, Macha says that the dominance of English on the internet is like saying that there is a flower which is more of a flower on the basis of its shape or colour. Or that the flourishing of one flower should depend on the death of other flowers. He stressed the importance of "decolonising the cyberspace of the dominant position of English language" to create a cyberspace that is multilingual and multicultural. Copyright © 2005 Highway Africa News Agency. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun May 1 18:35:18 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 1 May 2005 11:35:18 -0700 Subject: Native Networking Policy Center (NNPC) (fwd link) Message-ID: Native Networking Policy Center (NNPC) http://www.nativenetworking.org/ The Native Networking Policy Center (NNPC) is solely dedicated to advancing equitable and affordable access to, and culturally appropriate use of, telecommunications and information technology throughout Indian Country. As the only Washington, D.C.-based Native American non-profit organization focused on tribal telecommunications and information technology issues, NNPC is ready to meet the policy challenges of today and tomorrow. [follow link for grants notice and news] From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun May 1 18:39:25 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 1 May 2005 11:39:25 -0700 Subject: 40th International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages (fwd) Message-ID: Call for Papers 40th International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages Vancouver, British Columbia August 10-12, 2005 http://fnlg.arts.ubc.ca/FNLGe_conferences.htm This year's ICSNL 40 conference will be hosted by the Musqueam Indian Band, the University of British Columbia First Nations Languages Program, and the University of British Columbia Department of Linguistics. The conference will take place on the Musqueam Indian Reserve in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Wednesday August 10 through Friday August 12, 2005. Papers on all aspects of the study, preservation, and teaching of Salish and neighbouring languages are welcome. Papers for the ICSNL pre-print volume, which will be compiled and distributed prior to the conference by the University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics, should be submitted to the UBCWPL editors (address below) by Friday, May 27, 2005. Please note that, as in previous years, there will also be an opportunity in the conference program for the presentation of papers not included in the pre-print volume. Guidelines for paper submissions to UBCWPL ICSNL 40: There are no page limits. Electronic submissions are encouraged. Word files with any special fonts will be accepted; however, PDF files are preferred. A style sheet is available at http://www.linguistics.ubc.ca/UBCWPL/. Contact the editors at Linguistics-UBCWPLarts.ubc.ca for updated information. Electronic copies of paper submissions should be sent to: Linguistics-UBCWPL at arts.ubc.ca Non-electronic (print) copies of paper submissions should be mailed to: The editors: ICSNL 40, 2005 UBCWPL c/o Department of Linguistics, UBC E-270 1866 Main Mall Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z1 Canada Information on ordering the preprints, as well as more detailed information about the conference itself, will follow in a separate announcement. Please pass this message on to anyone else who might be interested in the conference. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun May 1 19:47:33 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 1 May 2005 12:47:33 -0700 Subject: National Geographic project seeks to map human migration (fwd) Message-ID: April 30, 2005, 11:38PM National Geographic project seeks to map human migration DNA collectors could face some reluctance from remote peoples By MICHAEL KILIAN and JEREMY MANIER Chicago Tribune http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3161071 WASHINGTON - Your family tree may look quite a bit different than you thought it did. Which is to say, you might well be related to the queen of England but through a common ancestor who lived in Africa tens of millennia ago. In pursuit of such knowledge, the National Geographic this month launched an ambitious, five-year, $40 million project to trace the evolution and migration of human beings and their cultures over the thousands of years of human existence. Organized in cooperation with IBM Corp. and the Waitt Family Foundation, the massive undertaking will involve the scientific identification and computer analysis of about 100,000 DNA samples prehistoric, historic and contemporary. Indigenous peoples in remote locations will be asked for DNA samples. Contributions also will be accepted from volunteers around the globe. This will help determine where groups of people came from, what impelled them to migrate, where they ended up and what happened to them genetically and culturally along the way. "We want to learn the why of history," said population geneticist Spencer Wells, National Geographic explorer in residence and director of the Genographic Project. "Why did people move? Why did these people look a little bit like those people? Why did they speak the same language or a different language? We want to place the genetic information in the context of history and anthropology." The project, however, raises concerns among some experts who say the organizers may run into trouble obtaining cooperation from native peoples around the world. In the late 1990s, opposition from indigenous groups who feared their genes would be exploited for profit helped doom a similar effort, called the Human Genome Diversity Project. The leader of that project, Stanford University geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, is chairing an advisory board for the new effort and has been a mentor to Wells. "This whole idea has a checkered history," said Lynn Jorde, a professor of human genetics at the University of Utah School of Medicine. "These kinds of studies are not as easy as just going out, saying 'hello' to the natives and taking their DNA." The new project's Web site (www.nationalgeographic.com/genographic) addresses the earlier diversity project's failure. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Mon May 2 04:33:59 2005 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sun, 1 May 2005 21:33:59 -0700 Subject: Lone Fight Message-ID: Long fight not over for Indian Education for All - March 11, 2005 By JODI RAVE Of the Missoulian ''Our stories teach us that we must always work for a time when there will be no evil, no racial prejudice, no pollution ... a time when spiritual, physical, mental and social values are interconnected to form a complete circle.'' - Salish Culture Committee HELENA - Understand thy Native neighbor. Some educators and community leaders believe it's a goal that can be met in public school classrooms across the state. And when they met recently in Helena, many arrived ready to revive a vision. Bolstered by recent legislation and court rulings, they still believed Native issues could be integrated into K-12 curricula. ''First of all, it's constitutional,'' State Superintendent Linda McCulloch said. ''It's statutory. But the real reason, the most important reason, is that 148,000 students need to know this information ... Frankly, it isn't just the K-12 students that we're involving. ''It's every potential adult in Montana that needs to know this. Indian Education for All isn't just about educating students about the cultural heritage of American Indians. It's making sure that we all are tolerant of different groups. When that happens, and that tolerance is achieved, we erase racism.'' Now all they need is the money. A 30-year fight McCulloch, a former teacher, brought Native-based education to the forefront last fall, when she led the Office of Public Instruction to organize October's Indian Education Summit in Helena. For many, it had been a three-decade effort. ''As many of you in the room know, today is not the beginning discussion on Indian education,'' McCulloch said in her address. ''I see some people who have worked on Indian education for many, many years.'' Indeed, some of the 200 torch-carriers attending had since retired. Yet there were those like Rep. Carol Juneau, D-Browning, who refused to quit pushing for change. And with recent court rulings on their side, it seemed the day might have finally arrived when lawmakers and public schools would uphold the 1972 Montana Constitution's Article X. Juneau's education career spans 30 years, as teacher and administrator in tribal and public schools. She brought that experience to the Legislature eight years ago. In 1999, even before a district court - followed by the Montana Supreme Court - pushed quality and Native education into the spotlight, Juneau introduced the Indian Education for All act. The bill reminded her legislative colleagues and state educators that Montana Constitution's Article X - Section 1, Subsection 2 - required the state to preserve the cultural integrity of Native people. Her bill became law. Furthermore, the constitution's Native education article would later become central to the school funding lawsuit argued before District Court Judge Jeffrey Sherlock of Helena beginning in January 2004. Attorney Jim Malloy called on Juneau to testify on behalf of the constitution's Native education mandate. Malloy: ''Carol - is the Indian Education for All act intended just to serve the needs of Indian students?'' Juneau: ''It's for every Montanan. It's for every school district. It's for every student in every school district to be provided with an opportunity to learn about their tribal neighbors.'' Malloy: ''Okay. And, yet, does it have an important purpose with respect to serving the needs of Indian students in our public schools?'' Juneau: ''Absolutely. Say you're an Indian student walking into a classroom in one of Montana's schools, and you don't see anything about Indian people in that classroom, you don't see anything visual in the classroom, you open your textbooks, there is nothing ... I think that child is going to get a pretty strong message that they don't belong or they don't fit. When you feel valued and when you feel that you belong, you do better in school.'' 'Jumping for joy' In April, Sherlock ruled in favor of the Montana Quality Education Coalition, which filed the lawsuit against the state. The Montana Supreme Court upheld the ruling in November, then ordered the state to define ''quality'' education so it could adequately fund state schools. Second, it found the funding system ''failed to recognize the distinct and unique cultural heritage of American Indians and has shown no commitment in its education goals to the preservation of Indian cultural identity.'' The ruling was cause for a victory dance. ''I was jumping for joy,'' said Rep. Norma Bixby, D- Lame Deer, who is also the Northern Cheyenne tribal education director. ''We had another opinion, another court ruling that said the state still has not honored the constitution and American Indians.'' For the first time in nearly 30 years, proponents of Native education had reason to believe all Montana students - Native and non-Native - would be taught Native issues, past and present. And furthermore, that the state would increase efforts to close the achievement gap of Native students, of which some 96 percent attend public schools. For a six-year period beginning in 1991, 56 percent of Native students graduated from high school, compared to 82 percent of white students. ''So when you think about Article X, and you read those two provisions together, quality education and Indian Education for All, they're basically saying the same thing - for all Montana's school children deserve an opportunity that allows them to live good and effective lives,'' said Ray Cross, a University of Montana law professor who spoke to the state's Native legislators about their role in this year's session. Challenges ahead Winning a lawsuit represents only one step. Now come more pressing questions. How much money should be allocated to Native education? And once the money is there, how will teachers bring quality Native curricula into the classroom? The answers are uncertain. Lawmakers have been grappling with the money issue since January. Office of Public Instruction staff is still trying to create a way to get Native-related curricula to more than 10,000 teachers. And the Montana University System has yet to fully embrace teacher education programs to qualify teachers to become familiar with Native-based curricula. A proposed Native education budget request for $23 million was slashed. The Senate Select Committee's Working Group reduced the amount to $7.5 million to be spent over the next two years. Then it voted to reduce that amount to $1.4 million. ''The funding is still elusive,'' Juneau said Thursday. Yet she remained confident progress was being made by her legislative colleagues. ''I think some of them understand what Indian Education for All is about, and how it's a significant part the lawsuit, and perhaps a cornerstone.'' The proposed budget is only enough to pay for a conference, someone to look for grant money, a public Indian education campaign and $25,000 for the Montana Advisory Council on Indian Education, said Joyce Silverthorne, a former member of the State Board of Education. An important piece is missing from the proposed funding. ''It will not fund professional development for all educators of the state,'' said Silverthorne, who is also the 2004 National Indian Educator of the Year. But just as pro-Native educators have done before them, and for those still in the trenches, Juneau and her education colleagues will continue their fight. ''I always feel that unless somebody's here having a good clear voice on it,'' she said, ''we will be forgotten.'' Jodi Rave, who covers Native issues for Lee Enterprises, can be reached at (800) 366-7186 or jodi.rave at missoulian.com From sburke at CPAN.ORG Tue May 3 08:37:22 2005 From: sburke at CPAN.ORG (Sean M. Burke) Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 00:37:22 -0800 Subject: ".gov.au Guide to Open Source Software" Message-ID: A Slashdot story: ".gov.au Guide to Open Source Software" http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/03/0157205 I do hope that some tribal goverments (and schools, etc) can take advantage of open source stuff, instead of being routinely grifted by the usual OS and application vendors. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue May 3 18:24:46 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 11:24:46 -0700 Subject: Nigerian Languages Face Extinction - Varsity Don (fwd) Message-ID: Nigerian Languages Face Extinction - Varsity Don Posted to the web May 2, 2005 By Omon-Julius Onabu Benin-City http://allafrica.com/stories/200505020092.html Many indigenous languages in Nigeria are on the path to extinction, unless urgent steps are taken to rescue it from imminent disappearance from the linguistic map, a university don, Professor Matthew Omo-Ojugo, has warned. Ojugo said the prediction on threat to many Asian and Nigerian languages made sometime ago by the United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), for the end of the 21st century, could come to pass if this warning is ignored. He expressed these views while delivering a public lecture at the launching of the "Esan Dictionary," edited by former Health Minister, Chief Christopher Okojie, at Ambrose Alli Hall, Ekpoma, Edo State, at the weekend. Ojugo said 23 of the languages classified by UNESCO as already extinct in Africa and Asia, were identified in Nigeria alone, saying that called for new and positive attitude to indigenous languages in the country. Delivering the lecture, titled "Revitalising Endangered Languages: The Esan Language as a Test Case," Ojugo said the ominous signs of the said threat was today visible with regard to the Esan Language, which is threatened by Pidgin English and English Language itself. He expressed regrets that encouraging words from the Federal Government on indigenous languages are not matched with concrete and positive action. The chairman of the occasion and former vice-chancellor of the University of Benin, Prof Abhulimen R. Anao, described language as "an important part of the vehicle for transmitting the culture and socialization (and which) promotes harmony, unity and development of the people." In his speech, 85-year old Okojie regretted the many parents now find it fashionable not to pseak Esan language to their own children even at home in Esanland. "When I speak the language to many Esan children in the hospital, it is with anguish I hear the father or mother respond" that the children do not understand Esan, he said. Copyright ? 2005 This Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue May 3 21:15:19 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 14:15:19 -0700 Subject: Great Andaman King, whose tribe had miracle tsunami escape, is dead (fwd) Message-ID: Tuesday, May 03, 2005 Great Andaman King, whose tribe had miracle tsunami escape, is dead King Jirake?s death in a Chennai hospital last month is a huge loss for those trying to break linguistic barriers ABANTIKA GHOSH NEW DELHI, MAY 2 Four months ago, his tribe?s near-miraculous escape from the devastating tsunami catapulted King Jirake to fame. His interviews describing the disaster, and how his tribe was adjusting in their new quarters in Port Blair, made headlines across the world. But all that was in stark contrast to the 65-year-old?s quiet and painful death in a Chennai Hospital on April 17?the tribal chief died of brain haemorrhage and consequent paralysis. And apart from the 49 remaining members of his tribe, including Jirake?s grandson Berebe, who was born days before he died, the only other people mourning his demise were a group of researchers from the School of Languages in Jawaharlal Nehru University. For, Jirake was the last member of his tribe who knew all the 10 variants of the Great Andamanese language. With his death, the trilingual Great Andamanese-English-Hindi dictionary that Professor Anvita Abbi?s team from JNU is working on, has suffered a setback that it will probably never be able to fully recover from. Not more than 18 of Jirake?s remaining tribesmen speak Great Andamanese and, after him, there are just five who speak it fluently. Speaking to The Indian Express from Port Blair, Alok Das, a sociolinguist member of Professor Abbi?s team, remembers the day Jirake died. ??At around 10.30 am, when I reached the Adi Basera tribal guest house in Port Blair where the tribe is presently lodged, I was bemused when everybody who I met wanted to shake hands with me. In the one-and-a-half months I have been here, the Great Andamanese had never shaken hands with me before.? It was only after some time that Das realised that Jirake was gone and the tribe traditionally shook hands only when there was a death in the community. For Abbi, a professor in the department of linguistics, the greatest irony of Jirake?s demise is the fact that days before he suffered the brain stroke, Jirake was found drunk in the streets of Port Blair. ?Alcoholism is something we have introduced among the tribals and that is only speeding up the process of their extinction. Even in his death bed, Jirake repeatedly asked for liquor,? she says. Describing her project as a ??race against the setting sun?? now, Abbi says, ??Any disappearance of a unique language is a big loss because it also means disappearance of indigenous knowledge and culture. Jirake had vast knowledge about not just his own people but also other tribes. He was multilingual, his father was from the Bo tribe and his mother from the Cari tribe. The tribes are now extinct, but Jirake spoke both their languages apart from a host of others like Jeru, Khora and Pucikwar.?? The king also knew Burmese and a language called Sadari spoken in the tribal areas of Ranchi. URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=69681 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu May 5 18:57:32 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 11:57:32 -0700 Subject: Technology for Social Inclusion: An Interview with Mark Warschauer (fwd) Message-ID: Technology for Social Inclusion: An Interview with Mark Warschauer Author: Francis Raven, EDC Center for Media & Community | May 4th, 2005 Communities: Literacy & Learning , Economic Development, http://www.digitaldivide.net/articles/view.php?ArticleID=102 Mark Warschauer is Assistant Professor of Education and of Information and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Warschauer's research focuses on the integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) in schools; the impact of ICT on language and literacy practices; and the relationship of ICT to institutional reform, democracy, and social development. His most recent book, Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide, was published by MIT Press in January of 2003. His previous books have focused on the development of new electronic literacies among culturally and linguistically diverse students and on the role of ICT in second language learning and teaching. DDN: What are some circumstances when the concept of the digital divide is problematic? MW: The notion of a digital divide suggests a digital solution--i.e., trying to solve a social problem by throwing computers and Internet connections into the mix. But without the right social supports, inputs of hardware and connections might be wasted or even have a negative effect. Putting computers into a situation where there is inadequate electricity, lack of trained personnel to upkeep them, and lack of a plan for using them well can divert attention from more effective approaches to social problems. Why don't you believe that "social problems can be addressed through provision of computers and Internet accounts"? People need the language, literacy, and computer skills to use the equipment; there need to be plans for maintaining equipment; and there needs to be an understanding of how use of the equipment may help address a social problem. An excellent approach is that of "community informatics," in which a community makes careful plans for its own community and social development and works together to define and plan the role that technology and media can play to contribute to that. You write (citing Steve Cisler) that there is not a binary division between information haves and have-nots but rather a "gradation based on different degrees of access to information." Would you explain how these information differentials function? Is a person who has access to the Internet only through occasional use at an Internet cafe an information have or an information have-not? There are lots of gradations on the have/have-not scale, based on regularity and convenience of access, type of equipment and connections, individual skill level, amount of personal freedom in computer use (from control by states, employers, or others). All these things contribute on a graded scale to determining access. What is needed in addition to computers and Internet accounts? Literacy is essential, and "digital literacy" is valuable too (computer literacy, information literacy, multimedia literacy, etc.) Knowledge of one or more major international languages is often essential. Social support from others who know how to use technology and provide assistance can be critical as well. How do a person?s lack of access to computers and a person's life chances interact? There is a high degree of correlation between individuals, communities, and nations that have high degrees of computer/Internet access and social factors such as income, wealth, and education. Of course, the causality can be mutual--wealth helps people afford computers and computer access helps people to have better employment opportunities or otherwise achieve social inclusion. What concept would you replace the digital divide with and why? Could you explain your alternate framework: technology for social inclusion? Technology for social inclusion deemphasizes the notion of bridging divides and instead looks at the broader goal--achieving social inclusion for all--and then considers the role that technology can play within that. Social inclusion refers to the extent that individuals, families, and communities are able to fully participate in society and control their own destinies, taking into account a variety of factors related to economic resources, employment, health, education, housing, recreation, culture, and civic engagement. Social inclusion is a matter not only of an adequate share of resources, but also of participation and control over one's life chances. Even the well-to-do may face problems of social exclusion, due to reasons of political persecution or discrimination based on age, gender, sexual preference, or disability. Technology can be used to promote social inclusion, not only by allowing people and communities more economic opportunity but also by providing other opportunities for people and communities to control their destinies. What role can technology play in social inclusion? Many ways, depending on the context. These include better access to health information, greater opportunities for political participation, and information to economic data of benefit to rural farmers (such as crop prices at different markets). Some of the rural Internet kiosk projects in India provide an outstanding example of effective technology use for social inclusion. In a rural village, even one computer with an Internet connection--if well used by the community--can make a big difference in people's lives. How can a more sophisticated understanding of ICT access lead to more comprehensive social inclusion? By helping people understand the broader social context that facilitates good technology use. Just to give one example, using a metaphor of Chris Dede at Harvard, people throughout the world seem to have a "fire model" of educational technology. In other words, they seem to think that a computer generates learning the way a fire generates warmth. This leads to lots of wasted money, with computers put into schools but either unused or used poorly. For computers to actually contribute to learning, much more thought needs to be put into issues of pedagogy, curriculum, professional development, software, maintenance, scheduling, etc. In other words, as Dede would say, computers are less like fire and more like clothes--they make you warm when they fit well. A few of Dr. Warschauer's relevant papers are available online: Warschauer, M. (2002). Reconceptualizing the digital divide. First Monday 7(7). Warschauer, M. (2003, August). Demystifying the digital divide. Scientific American 289(2), 42-47. Warschauer, M. (2003). Dissecting the "digital divide": A case study in Egypt. The Information Society, 19(4), 297-304. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu May 5 18:59:10 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 11:59:10 -0700 Subject: Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) Message-ID: Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers Last updated May 5 2005 09:07 AM CDT CBC News http://north.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=language-aboriginal-05052005 FORT SMITH, N.W.T. ? People working to keep aboriginal languages alive in the N.W.T. say there's a critical shortage of resources to teach the subject. School libraries are full of texts in English or French, but Dene language instructors often have less than one shelf of written materials to work with. Instructors met in Fort Smith last week to talk about their quest for new resources. "It's a lot of man-hours," says Joanie Lafferty, who teaches at Princess Alexander School in Hay River. "It's not as easy as opening a book and going to chapter six to read lessons one to three. You actually have to build it." Lafferty and 16 other instructors spent three weeks creating resources for aboriginal language teachers. Gladys Norwegian, an experienced educator and language expert, coordinated their efforts. Norwegian would like to see more of the money that is now spent on cultural programming reinvested in the development of resources for language instruction. "There's many of them that are just trying to make do with what little materials they have and it is really important that they have a lot to work with to make sure students learn the language," she says. "Culture can be done anytime but to learn the language you need resources." Participants in the workshop represent each of the communities in the Dehcho and Akaitcho regions, and funding for the project is coming from divisional boards of education. The books and projects they create will be available to aboriginal language instructors across the Northwest Territories. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu May 5 19:08:19 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 12:08:19 -0700 Subject: Janabaa Baa Hane a Navajo take on Cinderella (fwd link) Message-ID: Janabaa Baa Hane a Navajo take on Cinderella http://www.navajohopiobserver.com/NAVAJOHOPIOBSERVER/myarticles.asp?P=1108085&S=392&PubID=13985 FLAGSTAFF On May 7, Northern Arizona University's Navajo 202 Language class will present the play Janabaa Baa Hane: Navajo Cinderella. Dubbed a unique student production of the importance and beauty of the Dine language, the play was written by the 17 students of the class. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu May 5 19:11:32 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 12:11:32 -0700 Subject: Miami tribe begins reclamation of its language with dictionary (fwd) Message-ID: Wednesday, May 4, 2005 Miami tribe begins reclamation of its language with dictionary By Rita Price The Columbus Dispatch http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050504/NEWS01/505040398/1056 OXFORD - When war and relocation couldn't finish off the native culture, the Bureau of Indian Affairs turned to linguistic genocide. The "English Only" campaign, combined with poverty and forced assimilation, succeeded in helping to destroy a way of life. Yet sometimes, when Daryl Baldwin walks into the bedrooms of his sleeping children, he witnesses the slim, stubborn promise that remains: young lips moving in dreams, mouthing a language not heard in 40 years. "Miami," he says proudly. How well his sons and daughters learn - and whether they, and others, teach their children - will determine the fate of the Miami-Peoria language, Baldwin thinks. In the meantime, piecing together all he can, he cobbles the fabric of a language whose last fluent speakers died in the 1960s. Soon, at least a partial written account will exist: The first Miami-Peoria dictionary is to be published this month. Baldwin joined co-editor David Costa, another linguist, in developing the book through the Myaamia Project at Miami University. The Miami tribe of Oklahoma and its namesake university in Ohio have a relationship - including scholarships and academic and cultural projects - that began during the 1970s. Congress responded in 1990 with the Native American Languages Act, which calls for protection of indigenous languages and sets up a grant program to assist. "Most of us grew up removed from our cultural heritage," said Baldwin, 42, a northwestern Ohio native and member of the Miami of Oklahoma. "We began to ask, 'What is Miami?' Without speakers of the language, it's hard to get a glimpse of what that means. Language is culture." Joshua Sutterfield studies language at Miami, which he attends on a tribal scholarship. Now 31, he also grew up without a strong sense of identity. "Oklahoma was more pan-Indian then," he said. "My mother is Miami, and I don't know that she ever heard it spoken." After four years of language classes, he said, "I'm starting to recognize the language. My greetings and phrases are coming along nicely, and when I call my mother, I feel a connection 800 miles away." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri May 6 23:53:03 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 6 May 2005 16:53:03 -0700 Subject: Agencies Partner to Document Endangered Languages (fwd) Message-ID: Agencies Partner to Document Endangered Languages http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/node/7780 Today, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced the recipients of 13 fellowships and 26 institutional grants as part of the agencies' joint Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) project?a new, multi-year effort to digitally archive at-risk languages before they become extinct. Experts estimate that almost half of the world's 6000-7000 existing languages are endangered. The DEL awards, totaling $4.4 million, will support the digital documentation of more than 70 of them. "Endangered languages are an irreplaceable source of linguistic and cognitive information," according to NSF Director Arden L. Bement, Jr. "Modern cyberinfrastructure tools enable us to investigate these phenomena more exactly and more comprehensively." The DEL grants support a variety of researchers and reflect efforts to document dying languages around the globe. For example, the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee, N.C. was awarded a grant to translate and digitize 19th-century Cherokee language materials from the Smithsonian Institution. Scientists at Cornell and Northern Arizona Universities will gather ultrasound and airflow data to determine just how the "click" sounds of South Africa's N/u language are produced. Only 13 fluent N/u speakers remain. Kristine Stenzel from the University of Colorado will document and analyze Piratapuyo--an Amazon language that uses an extremely rare word order: Object-Verb-Subject. Researchers at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks will digitize 1,000 Yup'ik audio recordings for storage at the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center and assess the feasibility of creating a Northern Indigenous Languages Archive for the region's 200 endangered languages. Three DEL fellowship awardees will independently document several endangered Austronesian languages--including ones spoken in Taiwan, the Philippines and on Easter Island. On Easter Island, use of Rapa Nui declined from 77 percent to 7.5 percent among elementary school children over a 20-year period. "This is a rescue mission to save endangered languages," says NEH Chairman Bruce Cole of the DEL program. "Language is the DNA of a culture, and it is the vehicle for the traditions, customs, stories, history, and beliefs of a people. A lost language is a lost culture. Fortunately, with the aid of modern technology and these federal funds, linguistic scholars can document and record these languages before they become extinct." >From National Science Foundation From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 7 21:33:45 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 7 May 2005 14:33:45 -0700 Subject: Federal Agencies Partner to Document Endangered Languages (fwd) Message-ID: Federal Agencies Partner to Document Endangered Languages Today, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced the recipients of 13 fellowships and 26 institutional grants as part of the agencies' joint Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) project?a new, multi-year effort to digitally archive at-risk languages before they become extinct. Experts estimate that almost half of the world's 6000-7000 existing languages are endangered. The DEL awards, totaling $4.4 million, will support the digital documentation of more than 70 of them. i-Newswire, 2005-05-06 - "Endangered languages are an irreplaceable source of linguistic and cognitive information," according to NSF Director Arden L. Bement, Jr. "Modern cyberinfrastructure tools enable us to investigate these phenomena more exactly and more comprehensively." The DEL grants support a variety of researchers and reflect efforts to document dying languages around the globe. For example, the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee, N.C. was awarded a grant to translate and digitize 19th-century Cherokee language materials from the Smithsonian Institution. Scientists at Cornell and Northern Arizona Universities will gather ultrasound and airflow data to determine just how the "click" sounds of South Africa's N/u language are produced. Only 13 fluent N/u speakers remain. Kristine Stenzel from the University of Colorado will document and analyze Piratapuyo--an Amazon language that uses an extremely rare word order: Object-Verb-Subject. Researchers at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks will digitize 1,000 Yup'ik audio recordings for storage at the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center and assess the feasibility of creating a Northern Indigenous Languages Archive for the region's 200 endangered languages. Three DEL fellowship awardees will independently document several endangered Austronesian languages--including ones spoken in Taiwan, the Philippines and on Easter Island. On Easter Island, use of Rapa Nui declined from 77 percent to 7.5 percent among elementary school children over a 20-year period. "This is a rescue mission to save endangered languages," says NEH Chairman Bruce Cole of the DEL program. "Language is the DNA of a culture, and it is the vehicle for the traditions, customs, stories, history, and beliefs of a people. A lost language is a lost culture. Fortunately, with the aid of modern technology and these federal funds, linguistic scholars can document and record these languages before they become extinct." A complete listing of this year's awards follows. Institutional grants: Jonathan Amith, Gettysburg College, Guerrero Nahuatl Language Documentation and Lexicon Enrichment Project $299,917 ( NSF ) Melissa Axelrod, University of New Mexico, Nambe Tewa Language Revitalization Project: Production of an Electronic Archive, $203,840 ( NSF ) Lyle Campbell, University of Utah, Xinkan, Pipil and Mocho': Bringing Three Endangered Language Documentation Projects to Completion, $374,932 ( NSF ) Peter Cole, University of Delaware, Traditional Jambi Malay, $185,585 ( NSF ) Lise Dobrin, University of Virginia, Arapesh Grammar and Digital Language Archive, $225,000 ( NEH ) Barbara Duncan, Cherokee Museum, Smithsonian Cherokee Language Materials and Language revitalization, $166,274 ( NEH ) Keri Edwards, Sealaska Heritage, Continuing Tlingit Language Documentation, $266,224 ( NSF ) Zygmunt Frajzyngier, University of Colorado, Grammars of Mandara and Giziga, $239,999 ( NSF ) Jule Garcia, California State University, San Marcos, Multimedia Database of Ixil Mayan Narratives, $160,000 ( NSF ) John Goldsmith, University of Chicago, Digital Preservation of Meso-American Linguistic Archives, $141,516 ( NEH ) Heidi Harley, University of Arizona, The Morphosyntax of Verbs in Arizona Yaqui, $159,992 ( NSF ) Charles Hofling, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Comparative and Historical Yukatekan Maya, $101,971 ( NSF ) Gary Holton, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Developing a Northern Indigenous Languages Archive: Yup'ik Pilot Project, $39,186 ( NSF ) Thomas Hudak, Arizona State University, Documentation and Archival-Digitization of Tai Linguistic Data, $69,456 ( NSF ) Larry Hyman, University of California Berkeley, Documentation and Description of the Badiaranke Language, $17,767 ( NEH ) Richard Littlebear, Dull Knife Memorial College, Northern Cheyenne Endangered Language Project, $100,000 ( NSF ) Daniel Miller, Ironbound Films, Inc., Vanishing Voices, $502,730 ( NSF ) Amanda Miller-Ockhuizen, Cornell University, Collaborative Research: Descriptive and Theoretical Studies of N|u, $14,452 ( NSF ) Susan Penfield, University of Arizona, Mohave and Chemehuevi Language Documentation Project, $200,000 ( NSF ) Margaret Reynolds, Linguistic Society of America, Archiving Endangered Languages: Communication Among Competing Approaches and Education in Best Practices, $25,000 ( NSF ) Bonny Sands, Northern Arizona University, Collaborative Research: Descriptive and Theoretical Studies of N|u $6,970 Joel Sherzer, University of Texas at Austin, DELAMAN 3: The Third Annual Meeting of the Digital Endangered Languages and Musics Archive Network, $15,950 Kathy Sikorski, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Pedagogical Grammar of Gwich'in, $103,947 ( NSF ) Siri Tuttle, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Lower Tanana Dictionary and Literacy, $109,772 ( NSF ) Gregory Ward, Linguistic Society of America, Challenge Grant: Ensuring the Teaching of Research Skills for the Documentation and Revitalization of Endangered Languages ( Kenneth Hale Memorial Chair ), $40,000 ( NEH, NSF ) Natasha Warner, University of Arizona, Database of Mutsun, an Extinct California American-Indian Language, $168,261 ( NEH ) Fellowships: Luis Barragan, Documenting Mountain Pima Traditional Narratives Phillip Cash Cash, A Filmic Language Documentation of Nez Perce and Sahaptin Erin Debenport, Documenting Southern Tiwa at Sandia Pueblo, New Mexico Adrienne Dwyer, University of Kansas, Language Contact and Variation: A Discourse-based Grammar of Monguor Andrei Filtchenko, Rice University, Documentation of the Endangered Eastern Khanty Dialects Nicholas Hopkins, Digitizing and Archiving of Mesoamerican Language Data, Miki Makihara, CUNY Queens College, Easter Island Linguistic Heritage Project: Creating a Digital Archive for Rapa Nui Oral and Video Histories Anthony Mattina, Colville-Okanagan Dictionary, Reference Grammar, Texts Justin McBride, Kaw Nation, Kaw Language Documentation Project Robert L. Rankin, University of Kansas, Kaw Language Documentation Project Laura Robinson, Linguistic Documentation of Eastern Cagayan Agta Paula Rogers, The Documentation of Saaroa Kristine Stenzel, Documentation of Piratapuyo ( Eastern Tukanoan ) -NSF- Media Contacts Nicole Mahoney, NSF ( 703 ) 292-5321 nmahoney at nsf.gov Noel Milan, National Endowment for the Humanities ( 202 ) 606-8439 nmilan at neh.gov Program Contacts James Herbert, NSF ( 703 ) 292-8600 jherbert at nsf.gov The National Science Foundation ( NSF ) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering, with an annual budget of nearly $5.47 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 universities and institutions. Each year, NSF receives about 40,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes about 11,000 new funding awards. The NSF also awards over $200 million in professional and service contracts yearly. Receive official NSF news electronically through the e-mail delivery and notification system, MyNSF ( formerly the Custom News Service ). To subscribe, visit www.nsf.gov/mynsf/ and fill in the information under "new users". Useful NSF Web Sites: NSF Home Page: http://www.nsf.gov NSF News: http://www.nsf.gov/news/ For the News Media: http://www.nsf.gov/news/newsroom.jsp Science and Engineering Statistics: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/ Awards Searches: http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/ If you have questions regarding information in these press release contact the company listed below. I-Newswire.com is a press release service and not the author of this press release. The information that is on or available through this site is for informational purposes only and speaks only as of the particular date or dates of that information. 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Press Release Date 2005-05-06 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 7 21:41:01 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 7 May 2005 14:41:01 -0700 Subject: Federal Agencies Partner to Document Endangered Languages (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20050507143345.lckw4s4wkk84ks8g@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Federal Agencies Partner to Document Endangered Languages http://i-newswire.com/pr19055.html [Here is link I forgot to add to the news post, Phil] From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 7 21:43:48 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 7 May 2005 14:43:48 -0700 Subject: WA group seeks funds for Indigenous radio station (fwd) Message-ID: Friday, 6 May 2005, 10:15:16 AEST WA group seeks funds for Indigenous radio station http://abc.net.au/message/news/stories/ms_news_1361285.htm A Western Australian Goldfields' Aboriginal corporation has applied for federal funding to help establish an Indigenous radio station. The Tjuma Pulka (Big Talk) Media Aboriginal Corporation has applied for $350,000 in Federal Government funding to build a studio and transmitter. The station will be based in Kalgoorlie-Boulder and provide current affairs, health and education news, as well as promoting Indigenous music and language. It will also be available for other community groups and programs. Group spokeswoman Barbara McGillvray says it hopes to be on air before the end of the year. "We don't believe in no such thing as can't - if we don't secure it from the department...the Federal Government, we are trying other sources to make sure that we will be on air by the end of the year," she said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon May 9 08:47:22 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 01:47:22 -0700 Subject: Field Notes as a Web Site (fwd abs) Message-ID: Field Methods, Vol. 16, No. 2, 203-214 (2004) DOI: 10.1177/1525822X03262664 ? 2004 SAGE Publications Field Notes as a Web Site: Integrating Multimedia into Anthropological Documents Gareth Barkin Washington University Glenn Davis Stone Washington University Anthropologists are increasingly returning from the field with digital images and other media, along with their field notes. This article lays out the "Web site model" for integrating digital images, audio, and other media files into unified field note documents through the use of a Web page editor. It explains how to generate multimedia galleries and link them within textual documents, to help restore the intuitive relationships between image, sound, and word that earlier technological limitations dissolved. This allows the ethnographer to review descriptions of particular events, interviews, or periods of participant observation with all the available forms of recording, as part of a single text, rather than artificially separating out the review process by medium. Key Words: field notes ? multimedia ? digital imaging ? Web site ? database From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon May 9 17:43:55 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 10:43:55 -0700 Subject: Linguist's goal: to save endangered tongue (fwd) Message-ID: Posted on Mon, May. 09, 2005 Linguist's goal: to save endangered tongue Grant lets grad student study Badiaranke language By CHARLES BURRESS San Francisco Chronicle http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/11601197.htm It's a wish come true for a University of California at Berkeley grad student with a rare taste in wishes. A special grant will allow Rebecca Cover to dodge malarial mosquitoes and live in a mud hut without electricity in a hot, humid and remote corner of Africa where, as the only white face in the village, she will attempt to communicate in a difficult language that most of the world has never heard of. ''It's very exciting, of course,'' said Cover, 26, a doctoral student in linguistics. Cover's project is the only winner in Northern California among 39 grants and fellowships in new a federal program for threatened languages. ''This is a rescue mission to save endangered languages,'' National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman Bruce Cole said a joint statement by the NEH and the National Science Foundation. The agencies cited experts saying that more than 3,000 of the 6,000 to 7,000 languages now in use are approaching extinction. The agencies awarded $4.4 million in their new Documenting Endangered Languages partnership. Cover's $17,767 grant will record and analyze Badiaranke, an unwritten tongue spoken by an estimated 12,000 people where three countries meet -- Senegal, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau. Although tiny in the number of users, Badiaranke belongs to the world's largest family of languages, Niger-Congo, which consists of between 1,200 and 1,500 different tongues, said UC linguistics Professor Larry Hyman, sponsor of Cover's proposal. ''We're very, very pleased,'' Hyman said. ''A huge number of people applied.'' ''She (Cover) is very distinguished,'' he said, adding that she had come into linguistics after receiving her undergraduate degree in astrophysics at Williams College, where she was a valedictorian. Two of her letters of recommendation ''said she was their best student in 30 years,'' Hyman said. Cover said she had embarked on linguistics because of a desire to work with endangered languages, an interest that began when she served two years in the Peace Corps as a health education volunteer in Senegal. ''When you lose a language,'' she said in a telephone interview Thursday from her family home in Sharon, Mass., ''you're not just losing the language, which in itself has great value from a scientific, linguistic perspective, but from a cultural perspective as well. ''A lot of the culture is embedded in the language. When a language dies, part of the culture dies, too.'' Cover got a foretaste of her project last year when she spent nearly two months in the 487-person, Badiaranke-speaking village of Paroumba in Senegal. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue May 10 19:08:12 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 12:08:12 -0700 Subject: Bid to save 'lost' language (fwd) Message-ID: Bid to save 'lost' language 10/05/2005 08:45 - (SA) http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1702495,00.html Asmara - Nearly a decade after accidentally discovering a previously unknown language on an Indian Ocean archipelago off the Eritrean coast, a French linguist is fighting to save the unwritten, untaught tongue. "Dahaalik is part of humanity's heritage and must be preserved," said Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle, who with colleague Martine Vanhove, found Dahlak island fishermen conversing in the unusual vernacular nine years ago. Puzzled by words and usage that did not correspond to the two main languages of the region ? Afar and Arabic ? the pair at first thought it was a dialect of Tigray, but later ascertained it was a distinct entity, she said. Although close to Arabic and Tigre, Dahaalik was determined to be a language in itself due to its markedly different phonetics, morphology and syntax, but had languished in obscurity on the isles off the port of Massawa. "Before 1996, no one had heard of Dahaalik," said Simeone-Senelle, a Afro-Asiatic language specialist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). "We have to find out how it appeared," she said. "For the moment, we don't know when it emerged." Origins unknown, danger of extinction Now spoken by only about 3 000 people on the three islands and not currently taught in schools, Dahaalik, whose origins remain a mystery, is in danger of dying out, she said. "The understanding of this language, which has an oral but no written tradition, will provide us with a better knowledge of Eritrean history and its human components," said Simeone-Senelle who recently returned from another research trip to the islands to study the language. In her bid to preserve Dahaalik with the help of Eritrean authorities, Simeone-Senelle has been collecting "tales, poems, riddles, stories of traditions and vocabulary concerning daily life, animals, boats and fishing techniques." With these snippets, she has begun to compile a Dahaalik dictionary and grammar book, creating a written version of the language in the Roman alphabet by mimicking its sounds. "It's a long job," Simeone-Senelle said. "I have already listed 1 500 words, but in all it will take several years." The nascent dictionary is currently limited to Dahaalik into French, but she hopes the as-yet unfinished lexicon will become more multilingual, from Dahaalik into English, Arabic and Tigre. Because it was not discovered until 1996, after Eritrea outlined its policy of linguistic pluralism, Dahaalik is not now taught in Dahlak schools, but Eritrean officials say they intend to introduce it into the curriculum, adding it to Arabic. "The plan is that one day Dahaalik will also be taught in schools," said Zemehret Yohannes, head of Research and Documentation at Eritrea's sole political party, the People's Front for Democracy and Justice. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu May 12 16:37:30 2005 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 09:37:30 -0700 Subject: Family Exercise Message-ID: Ask Dr. Coyote* Answers on food and exercise http://www.americanindianonline.com/food/index.html Dear Dr. Coyote: So, in your most respected opinion, why are our Native kids these days getting so large? Is it genetic, a result of institutional prejudice or a dominate society placing western values on traditional people? What gives? Response: Face it, our kids are being molded in our own image. We used to hunt, fish, gather food, chop wood, play games, swim, run, be outdoors all day, make baskets, travel miles to visit people (on foot no less) and we lived a much happier and more active life. Now we are happy if we can figure out how to use the microwave for instant macaroni and cheese. Get out of your recliner, go outside and take your children with you. Plant a garden (or get some friends and family and start a community garden), go on daily nature walks, gather acorns and mushrooms in the fall, hike, learn to fish with a pole, take up a sport, coach your child?s team, turn off the television and move. Leading by example is not the way I Choose to live, but hey, you?re a responsible parent now and that is your job, not mine. I remember my friend Raccoon, who lived with his grandmother. She would send him out to get acorns so they would have food for the winter. On his way up the mountain to their family gathering site, he would play a stick game with his friends. Then on the way home, he would jump in a creek and swim to cool off. Take a clue from Raccoon and figure out how to incorporate lots of exercise in your daily life. Get active, and make sure your kids are close by your side. *Please note that in many cultures, Coyote is the trickster and his advice should be taken with a grain of sodium reduced kosher sea salt (his words is intended as humor or parody). If you have any questions to ask of Dr. Coyote about, diet, health, nutrition or exercise please email: coyote at ncidc.org .:.? Andr? Cramblit: andre.p.cramblit.86 at alum.dartmouth.org is the Operations Director Northern California Indian Development Council NCIDC (http://www.ncidc.org) is a non-profit that meets the development needs of American Indians To subscribe to a news letter of interest to Natives send an email to: IndigenousNewsNetwork-subscribe at topica.com or go to: http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/? location=listinfo -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 3029 bytes Desc: not available URL: From anguksuar at YAHOO.COM Thu May 12 17:11:48 2005 From: anguksuar at YAHOO.COM (Richard LaFortune) Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 10:11:48 -0700 Subject: language In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: cute- but can we please limit this listserve to Native language?? :) Richard --- Andre Cramblit wrote: > Ask Dr. Coyote* Answers on food and exercise > http://www.americanindianonline.com/food/index.html > > Dear Dr. Coyote: So, in your most respected opinion, > why are our Native > kids these days getting so large? Is it genetic, a > result of > institutional prejudice or a dominate society > placing western values on > traditional people? What gives? > > Response: Face it, our kids are being molded in > our own image. We used > to hunt, fish, gather food, chop wood, play games, > swim, run, be > outdoors all day, make baskets, travel miles to > visit people (on foot > no less) and we lived a much happier and more active > life. Now we are > happy if we can figure out how to use the microwave > for instant > macaroni and cheese. Get out of your recliner, go > outside and take your > children with you. Plant a garden (or get some > friends and family and > start a community garden), go on daily nature walks, > gather acorns and > mushrooms in the fall, hike, learn to fish with a > pole, take up a > sport, coach your child?s team, turn off the > television and move. > > Leading by example is not the way I Choose to live, > but hey, you?re a > responsible parent now and that is your job, not > mine. I remember my > friend Raccoon, who lived with his grandmother. She > would send him out > to get acorns so they would have food for the > winter. On his way up the > mountain to their family gathering site, he would > play a stick game > with his friends. Then on the way home, he would > jump in a creek and > swim to cool off. Take a clue from Raccoon and > figure out how to > incorporate lots of exercise in your daily life. Get > active, and make > sure your kids are close by your side. > > *Please note that in many cultures, Coyote is the > trickster and his > advice should be taken with a grain of sodium > reduced kosher sea salt > (his words is intended as humor or parody). If you > have any questions > to ask of Dr. Coyote about, diet, health, nutrition > or exercise please > email: coyote at ncidc.org > > > > .:.? > > Andr? Cramblit: > andre.p.cramblit.86 at alum.dartmouth.org is the > Operations Director Northern California Indian > Development Council > NCIDC (http://www.ncidc.org) is a non-profit that > meets the development > needs of American Indians > > To subscribe to a news letter of interest to Natives > send an email to: > IndigenousNewsNetwork-subscribe at topica.com or go to: > > http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/? > > location=listinfo > > Discover Yahoo! Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/ From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu May 12 17:36:05 2005 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 10:36:05 -0700 Subject: language In-Reply-To: <20050512171149.37387.qmail@web31112.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: My apologies I hit the send button after clicking personal address book On May 12, 2005, at 10:11 AM, Richard LaFortune wrote: cute- but can we please limit this listserve to Native language?? :) Richard --- Andre Cramblit wrote: > Ask Dr. Coyote* Answers on food and exercise > http://www.americanindianonline.com/food/index.html > > Dear Dr. Coyote: So, in your most respected opinion, > why are our Native > kids these days getting so large? Is it genetic, a > result of > institutional prejudice or a dominate society > placing western values on > traditional people? What gives? > > Response: Face it, our kids are being molded in > our own image. We used > to hunt, fish, gather food, chop wood, play games, > swim, run, be > outdoors all day, make baskets, travel miles to > visit people (on foot > no less) and we lived a much happier and more active > life. Now we are > happy if we can figure out how to use the microwave > for instant > macaroni and cheese. Get out of your recliner, go > outside and take your > children with you. Plant a garden (or get some > friends and family and > start a community garden), go on daily nature walks, > gather acorns and > mushrooms in the fall, hike, learn to fish with a > pole, take up a > sport, coach your child?s team, turn off the > television and move. > > Leading by example is not the way I Choose to live, > but hey, you?re a > responsible parent now and that is your job, not > mine. I remember my > friend Raccoon, who lived with his grandmother. She > would send him out > to get acorns so they would have food for the > winter. On his way up the > mountain to their family gathering site, he would > play a stick game > with his friends. Then on the way home, he would > jump in a creek and > swim to cool off. Take a clue from Raccoon and > figure out how to > incorporate lots of exercise in your daily life. Get > active, and make > sure your kids are close by your side. > > *Please note that in many cultures, Coyote is the > trickster and his > advice should be taken with a grain of sodium > reduced kosher sea salt > (his words is intended as humor or parody). If you > have any questions > to ask of Dr. Coyote about, diet, health, nutrition > or exercise please > email: coyote at ncidc.org > > > > .:.? > > Andr? Cramblit: > andre.p.cramblit.86 at alum.dartmouth.org is the > Operations Director Northern California Indian > Development Council > NCIDC (http://www.ncidc.org) is a non-profit that > meets the development > needs of American Indians > > To subscribe to a news letter of interest to Natives > send an email to: > IndigenousNewsNetwork-subscribe at topica.com or go to: > > http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/? > > location=listinfo > > Discover Yahoo! Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/ .:.? Andr? Cramblit: andre.p.cramblit.86 at alum.dartmouth.org is the Operations Director Northern California Indian Development Council NCIDC (http://www.ncidc.org) is a non-profit that meets the development needs of American Indians To subscribe to a news letter of interest to Natives send an email to: IndigenousNewsNetwork-subscribe at topica.com or go to: http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/? location=listinfo From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu May 12 19:38:59 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 12:38:59 -0700 Subject: Chickaloon tribe has new classroom to continue 'ancient teachings' (fwd) Message-ID: Chickaloon tribe has new classroom to continue 'ancient teachings' Rooted By S.J. KOMARNITSKY Anchorage Daily News Published: May 11th, 2005 http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/matsu/story/6477935p-6358203c.html SUTTON -- The tiny Ya Ne Dah Ah School of Chickaloon put itself on the map in 2002 when Harvard University selected it as one of eight outstanding tribal programs in the country and awarded the school a $10,000 grant. Last week, the school marked another milestone by moving out of a cramped portable-size building without running water, used for the past six years, and into a new 2,400-square-foot school with flush toilets and a kitchen. It was a big move for the small school, which despite the national recognition has struggled to keep its doors open at times during its 13 years. The event was celebrated with a private ceremony and a public grand opening. But the school's real success is the tribe's commitment to the school and focus on using it to revitalize Chickaloon's Athabascan culture, according to parents and administrators. "If we're not doing that, then there's no reason to do (the school)," said Kari Johns, education director for Ya Ne Dah Ah. The Chickaloon tribe, with headquarters near Sutton, is small, with only about 200 members. But it's a vocal advocate for tribal sovereignty and in recent years has capitalized on its tribal status to leverage grants and other money to fund multiple projects in the Sutton area, including a new health clinic and an ongoing effort to restore salmon runs in a nearby Moose Creek. The $150,000 needed for the new school was raised through a combination of individual donations and loans from private organizations, Johns said. The school's roughly $150,000 annual operating cost is also funded through grants and private donations, Johns said. Tribe matriarch Katie Wade started the school in 1992 as a way to pass on Athabascan ways and beliefs to the younger generation, Johns said. Ya Ne Dah Ah means "ancient teachings" in Ahtna Athabascan, the dialect spoken by the Chickaloon tribe. While it's called a school, Ya Ne Dah Ah is not officially recognized as such by any federal or state agency. The students are considered home schooled, which gives the school flexibility in what is taught, Johns said. Students learn basics, such as math and science, and take state standardized tests, but drumming, singing, basket weaving and learning the Ahtna Athabascan language are all part of the curriculum. The students also participate in the Ya Ne Dah Ah dance group, which has performed all over the state, most recently at the University of Alaska Anchorage, Johns said. It's easy to see the appeal of the school. The classes, or rather, class, is tiny. The eight students, in first through eighth grade, share a single room. There are no bells signaling the end of a period. Instead, the lessons flow from one to the next. On a recent morning, teacher Sondra Stuart, whose three sons attend the school, led the students through an exercise on the Ahtna Athabascan language using a computer program designed by the tribe. She also had them play charades in Athabascan and do stretching exercises counting in Athabascan. For recess, she led the children outside to play traditional Athabascan games, including the seal hop, in which students hop while lying on the ground resting only on their toes and knuckles of their hands, and a limbo-like exercise that involves holding a long pole diagonally across one's body and bending underneath without moving the pole. An Athabascan elder from Tazlina -- one of many visitors to the school -- taught the children the latter game, Stuart said. Exercise is a big part of the school, and even in winter the students have to go outside and run. Katie Wade has insisted on it, Stuart said. Wade also requires that students sometimes run with water in their mouths, then spit it out at the end to show they didn't swallow it as a way to teach mental toughness, Stuart said. The students seem to respond to the teaching style even if at times they don't seem to be paying attention. During the morning language exercise, two students sat on top of their desks, while another, a young girl, twirled a pink shirt in front of her. But even though they seemed distracted, the students quickly answered when called on by Stuart, pronouncing tongue twisters like kuggaedi -- Ahtna Athabascan for mosquito --with ease. While most students are tribal members, the school is open to anyone -- Native or non-Native -- willing to pay the $50 tuition fee and meet requirements for volunteering in the school, Johns said. The philosophy is to teach anyone who is interested in the culture, she said. Brian Hirsch, a non-Native who has worked for the tribe, said he brought his daughter Aviva, now 11, to the school four years ago when he moved to Palmer. He has since moved to Homer, but he liked the school's unique approach to learning from starting the day with a prayer to teaching respect for others, especially elders. "There's not many places where students for lunch would walk to an elder's house for a bowl of moose stew," he said. Hirsch was also pleased with the academics, noting his daughter recently scored in the 90th percentile on the standardized state tests. While visitors typically concentrate on the school's more visible differences, such as teaching birch-bark basket weaving, Johns said the emphasis on Athabascan values, such as respecting elders, is important to her. Johns, whose father is Athabascan, said she missed those values attending public schools on the Kenai Peninsula. She also felt lost growing up because she knew she was different from non-Natives but knew little about her heritage, she said. She hopes the same will not be true for her two children, who are enrolled in Ya Ne Dah Ah. "That's the greatest gift, to know where they came from," she said. Johns said the tribe hopes to expand the school, possibly adding a gymnasium. But for now the focus is on raising $5 million for an endowment to provide a stable funding source for the school's operation. Reporter S.J. Komarnitsky can be reached at skomarnitsky at adn.com or 352-6714. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu May 12 19:47:27 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 12:47:27 -0700 Subject: American Indian Youths Preserve the Past, One Word at a Time (fwd) Message-ID: American Indian Youths Preserve the Past, One Word at a Time Pacific News Service, Youth News Feature, Shadi Rahimi, May 11, 2005 http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=36c877df78051f0526db4e11862e9386 Editor's Note: Though only a few elders of the Big Valley band of Pomo Indians are still fluent in their language, young tribal members are picking up words and phrases with the help of technology. Eighteen-year-old Kristin Amparo, a tribal member of the Big Valley band of Pomo Indians, lives with her parents and five siblings in a large house on their reservation in Clear Lake, about three hours north of San Francisco. She likes bouncing on a trampoline to slam-dunk a basketball in her back yard, zooming past the creamy white Konocti Vista Casino in a yellow all-terrain vehicle and, now, speaking Bahtssal with her 14-year-old sister Felicia. The flat and green Big Valley reservation sits two miles from tiny downtown Lakeport on 153 acres encircling the banks of Clear Lake, whose blue-green waters host international bass-fishing tournaments and traditional Pomo tule boat races. On sunny days, kids fish for bluegill and catfish from the dock near the tribe's Konocti Vista Casino. Only a few elders of the Big Valley tribe are fluent in Bahtssal, a tribal dialect that began to fade after settlers forced Northern California Pomos off their lands. Today, Amparo and her sister are among a small group of young people on the 470-member reservation who are learning to speak the dialect as part of a newly formed language program. "We tell our mom stuff in Bahtssal, like, 'I have to go,'" says Amparo, who had never heard the language spoken before she began studying it under the new initiative. "It's really fun to learn." According to tribal historians, the decline in fluency in Bahtssal dates back to 1852, when the United States Senate refused to ratify a federal treaty that had promised the Big Valley tribe 72 square miles of land on the south side of Clear Lake. Settlers began claiming plots of land the following year, making private property of the areas where Big Valley ancestors had gathered food for more than 11,000 years. As tribal members began working in fields and on ranches owned by settlers, and their children began learning English in white schools, Bahtssal began to fade. James Bluewolf, who directs the language program, sees it as an exercise not just in cultural preservation, but also in healing. "People are still suffering from post-traumatic stress after being forced to give up everything they had," he says. "But every culture comes to a point where they are ready to make a change." In Clear Lake, the epicenter of that change sits among piles of scrap metal, wood and rusty cars, in a building that looks like it has dropped from the sky. It is tiny and tidy, and painted a bright swimming-pool blue. Inside this building, which houses the tribal language program, young mothers watch their chubby-cheeked toddlers play in a preschool class held by the nonprofit Lake County Tribal Health Consortium. In a cramped office past the play area, James Bluewolf smiles at the children's squeals. A stocky, soft-spoken man who once ran a landscaping business, Bluewolf has been using technology tribal ancestors could not have imagined to preserve and promote the tribal language. Bluewolf records hours of Bahtssal spoken by elders, which he edits into half-hour audio segments that air on the community radio station, and are available free on CD to tribal members. Bluewolf is also writing a curriculum for a 15-week course in Bahtssal. In a program Bluewolf directs, local teenagers perform skits that teach words and phrases such as "Chiin the'a 'eh" ("How are you?") and "Q'odii" ("Good"). Bluewolf videotapes the skits and makes them into videos that are played on the Lake County television station, and made available on DVD. In the play area, Alisha Salguero, 21, rocks her 5-month-old daughter to sleep while her 3-year-old son Brian plays. Brian has learned several words in Bahtssal in the preschool class, where Bluewolf uses hand puppets to teach the language. "He's really picked it up," Salguero says with a smile. "I don't really know it, so I think it's good for him to learn his language." While traditional song, dance, and tule boat races have always been part of the cultural life of Big Valley children, holding on to their tribal language has been more difficult, says Marilyn Ellis, 21. "That's why this language program is important," says Ellis, whose father, Ray, was the spiritual leader of the tribe. Before he died several years ago, Ray Ellis revived the tribe's "Big Time" spiritual celebration. The gathering, held every September on the grassy banks of Clear Lake, includes prayer, dancing and singing -- and now, perhaps, the sound of children trying out their ancestral tongue. "Our language is part of us," says Ellis, who does not speak the tribal dialect herself, but whose daughters can now name their cat and dog in Bahtssal. "If we don't know it, we're pretty much dead." PNS contributor Shadi Rahimi, 24, is the co-founder and an editor of Seventh Native American Generation (SNAG) magazine, and an associate editor of YO! Youth Outlook, www.youthoutlook.org. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu May 12 19:30:33 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 12:30:33 -0700 Subject: Multilingualism in Cyberspace Conference Concluded in Bamako (fwd) Message-ID: Multilingualism in Cyberspace Conference Concluded in Bamako http://www.noticias.info/asp/aspComunicados.asp?nid=65081&src=0 /noticias.info/ - Essential steps to ensure that a language, that is not yet represented on the Internet, is included in cyberspace, were identified at the conference on ?Multilingualism for Cultural Diversity and Participation of All in Cyberspace" that UNESCO and partners organized in Mali?s capital Bamako last week. The over 130 participants from 25 countries concluded that there is a need for written national language policies that must address the issue of language in cyberspace. They stressed that standards are crucial to create, access, disseminate and preserve multilingual content in cyberspace, particularly in endangered and lesser-spoken languages. Participants also pointed out that local content is critical to foster a multilingual cyberspace and to ensure that members of all communities can share in the benefits of cyberspace. In this context , the role of libraries and archives to sustain linguistic diversity should be fostered, for example through promoting reading and making content in local languages available, both in analogue and in digitized form. The role of the media, particularly local and community radios and emerging web media, should be strengthened to foster language diversity, especially using endangered and lesser spoken languages, particularly those with predominantly oral traditions. Although the meeting focused on ?cyberspace? it was noted that the media has a vital role to play, whether in localizing terminology or in building capacities that are relevant to the ability to participate in the digital world. Measuring and monitoring multilingualism in cyberspace are crucial to the development of languages policies and analyzing their impacts. However, the present statistical services including data collection and analysis are insufficient. The Conference, that was recognized as one of the thematic meetings of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), was organized by UNESCO, together with the African Academy of Languages (ACALAN) and the Agence intergouvernementale de la francophonie (AIF), in cooperation with the Government of Mali. UNESCO will submit the conclusion of the conference to the World Summit oin the Information Society. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri May 13 19:40:04 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 12:40:04 -0700 Subject: Funding for research on the diversity of the French language (fwd) Message-ID: Funding for research on the diversity of the French language How Canada's multicultural history has influenced the way we speak French http://www.news.gc.ca/cfmx/CCP/view/en/index.cfm?articleid=145969 (Ottawa, May 13, 2005) - The Honourable Mauril B?langer, deputy leader of the government in the House of Commons and minister responsible for official languages, on behalf of the Honourable David L. Emerson, minister of industry and minister responsible for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), today announced $2.5 million in research funding to explore the diversity and unique history of Canadian French. Dr. France Martineau, a French professor at the University of Ottawa, and an international team of researchers will use funding from SSHRC to study differences in French across the country and how each group's individual history has influenced the language they speak. "This research will help us to better understand the history and diversity of the French language and its speakers," said Minister B?langer. "I congratulate Professor Martineau and her research team for embarking on this very important and timely research, which comes as we celebrate the 400th anniversary of French settlement in Canada." The researchers will also examine how contact between French and other languages-particularly English and First Nations languages during the early years of French settlement in Canada-changed the way people speak. Using traditional sources such as literary and grammar texts, as well as legal records, diaries and travel logs, they hope to chart the evolution of the French language in Canada and compare this to the language's development in France. "This research team is asking important questions about how societies and groups manage the evolution of their languages and their linguistic identity," said Marc Renaud, president of SSHRC. "By comparing the early development of French in Canada to its development in France, the team will help us determine what exactly is behind the unique character of the French language spoken by Canadians." Rivalries and tensions between different forms of French-Parisian versus Qu?b?cois, or Acadian versus Franco-Manitoban are at the heart of the study. Martineau's team will explore how French speakers learned to master several grammatical systems simultaneously, and became, in some instances, bilingual or multilingual speakers of French. "We know that learning a language is a lifelong process-individuals refine and perfect their speech throughout their lives," said Dr. Martineau. "We want to learn more about what causes the competition between grammatical systems and how individuals navigate this instability until one form eventually dominates and becomes the standard." Researchers from seven other Canadian universities are taking part in the study, as well as researchers at universities in Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Scotland and the United States. More than half of the funds will support the research training of graduate students. -30- For additional information on this release and other SSHRC research projects, please contact: Dor? Dunne Media relations officer Telephone: (613) 992-7302 E-mail: dore.dunne at sshrc.ca From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri May 13 19:46:57 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 12:46:57 -0700 Subject: Hundreds of residential school students can sue Ottawa for abuse, court says (fwd) Message-ID: Hundreds of residential school students can sue Ottawa for abuse, court says TARA BRAUTIGAM http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/news/shownews.jsp?content=n0512113A TORONTO (CP) - Hundreds of former students of an Ontario native residential school who say they were abused by instructors out to "Christianize" them can go ahead with a class-action lawsuit against the federal government. "It's been a long time but it's a step in the right direction," said Sylvia DeLeary, who says she was a victim of the shocking abuse at the Mohawk Institute near Brantford in the 1940s. Ottawa's request to appeal a previous court ruling allowing the class-action lawsuit was dismissed Thursday by the Supreme Court of Canada. In December, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that 800 former pupils of the institute and their children could sue as a group. Lower courts had said they would have to sue individually because their complaints are different. DeLeary said the class-action certification was significant because many of the claimants are aging, live in remote regions and are unable to finance their own lawsuits. "We are not rich people, we can't afford to go individually," DeLeary said. The lawsuit names the federal government, the Anglican Church of Canada's General Synod, the incorporated diocese of Huron and an English charity called the New England Company as defendants. Calls to Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan's office were not immediately returned. "We're ecstatic with the decision," Toronto lawyer Darcy Merkur, who represents the plaintiffs, said in an interview. "The decision closes the books on certification of the class action. ... It sets a foundation for other class actions, primarily our proposed national class action, to move forward quickly." The suit, which represents 2,000 complainants and claims $2.3 billion in damages, alleges that the school was rife with fear and brutality, meant to turn native children into Christians. They describe an atmosphere of harsh intimidation, beatings, forced participation in Christian religious activities and excessive punishment for speaking their native languages. "These children went to the schools and they were told they were not allowed to speak their native language," Merkur said. "If they spoke their native language they were usually hit." The suit covers students who attended the school from 1922 to 1969. Most are now in their 60s and older, Merkur said. Some have already died. "A lot of our people have already gone on to the next world," said DeLeary, 70, who now lives in Walpole Island, Ont. "(The federal government) needs to accept responsibility for past actions and compensate people." DeLeary said she witnessed horrific neglect and a glaring absence of adult supervision at the native school. "We were not fed or clothed adequately," she said. The judgment Thursday could have ramifications for similar cases, including a massive national class action being pressed by more than 20 lawyers across Canada. They're seeking $12.5 billion in compensation from Ottawa for 86,000 former students who attended more than 100 residential schools from 1920 to 1996. Just last week, officials said the federal government was working out details on lump-sum payments and new healing programs for all residential school survivors. The plan is expected to be announced by the end of this month. But lawyers for the former students said any proposed settlements should be supervised by the courts. Seven years ago, the Liberal government conceded that abuse was rampant in the once-mandatory network of live-in schools. More than 100,000 aboriginal children over six years of age attended, often against their will, from 1930 until the last one closed its doors outside Regina in 1996. "When you separate children from their parents for years ... it's going to have an impact on how they're going to be able to live a meaningful life," DeLeary said. Lawyers will go to the Ontario Superior Court in early June to set a date for the suit to begin. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 14 19:50:32 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 14 May 2005 12:50:32 -0700 Subject: Film program gives teens direction (fwd) Message-ID: Film program gives teens direction By Marc Ramirez Seattle Times staff reporter http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002274824_native14.html Nick Clark, a freshman at La Conner High in Skagit County, thought this video-project thing sounded like a lot of fun: He'd get to meet some Native American actors, learn a few ways to use a camera. Maybe even act a little bit himself. A year later, along with Martin Edwards and David Aleck, fellow 15-year-old members of the Swinomish Tribe, Nick has acted in and helped direct what one adviser describes as "a poetic, coming-of-age" film about three street kids stealing to survive, and their choices in life. He's also possibly avoided life on the streets himself. Says Nick: "I just want [people] to watch it and tell me what they think." This weekend is his chance, as more than 40 youths from five Washington tribes gather for a workshop marking the one-year anniversary of Native Lens, 911 Media Arts Center's film program for Native American teenagers. The program's mission: Let Native American teens tell their own stories through film. A much-need alternative For Nick, who has struggled with drug and alcohol use, his participation in the six-month-long Native Lens Film Institute has been a source of motivation. "If I wasn't involved in this, I'd probably be out doing drugs with all my user friends," he said. "When I go down there [to 911], I'm away from them." Now, he says, he enjoys directing, shaping a piece from start to end, layering it with music. "I learned different effects you could use on the camera," he said. "And the rule of thirds, like certain spots where the camera has to be." "Native Lens has really been a positive thing for him," said Frank Dunn, Swinomish tribal-communications director. "I've really seen him grow and mature." The program has provided a much-needed alternative to boredom and has given students like Theresa Jimmy, 17, and Nolita Bob, 15, who produced a documentary about cultural ties, the confidence to interview elders. "It's a lot more fun to do this instead of sitting around at home," said Theresa, a junior at La Conner High. "We had to pull them along in the beginning," said 911's Annie Silverstein, Native Lens program director. "But by the end, they were pulling us." A film in two days This weekend's new recruits are learning to create short films in just two days. Their finished products will screen tonight, concluding the weekend. The kids, representing the Swinomish, Colville, Tulalip, Suquamish and Lummi tribes, were also slated to hear from writer/filmmaker Sherman Alexie and attend a panel discussion featuring actors Elaine Miles ("Northern Exposure") and Eddie Spears, among others. But the highlight is the premiere of five meatier films made through 911's six-month course (six hours, every other weekend), designed to build on the energy created by last year's inaugural workshop. Nick Clark and six other novices ages 13 to 16 learned to edit, discuss film theory and analyze media portrayals of Native Americans. It wasn't easy at first. Program leaders practically had to go door to door and roust kids from their homes each morning. They had to build trust ? that they weren't the kind of people who were going to just stop showing up one day, that all the hard work would pay off. After a while, the kids were ready to go, despite challenges that would rile many adults. "Kids hate pre-production, because it's lame," Silverstein said. Putting ideas to paper, planning every shot, finding people to make it work on film ? "all of that was really hard," she said. "They'd go to school all week, and then that's their weekend. They were choosing to do that. But we started bonding as a group, and it became evident really quick what the payoff was. Now they're just beside themselves." Changing perceptions Along with the street-kids piece and the cultural-ties documentary, other finished films include an animated satire imagining Christopher Columbus time-traveling into the present, a dark-humored "infomercial" about selling Indian spirituality, and a music-video-style piece about bullying. "It's about people's differences," said 13-year-old Anna Cladoosby, the seventh-grader who made the bullying video. "I've seen a lot of people pick on each other. Maybe it'll change people's perceptions of other people." The Swinomish Tribe is the primary sponsor of this weekend's workshop, supported by grants from the Potlatch Fund and National Endowment for the Arts. "They're really our partner in putting this on," Silverstein said. "They really feel it. Now we're pulling it off for other tribes ? it's like this complete, full-circle thing." She sees tribes just beginning to realize the potential of video to preserve language and culture as elders pass on, as well as their own ability to pay for such efforts with casino profits. "The fact that tribes are going to start using this makes a lot of sense," Silverstein said, and not just for taping community meetings or delivering health information, but major film projects. "I really think these tribes, especially with how their resources are changing, will have the opportunity to create their own films more than any other community. It's not, learn all this so you can work in Hollywood ? it's, learn all this so you can make films right here in Washington. It's very empowering." Marc Ramirez: 206-464-8102 or mramirez at seattletimes.com From fhm at UNIMELB.EDU.AU Tue May 17 18:05:51 2005 From: fhm at UNIMELB.EDU.AU (Felicity Helen Meakins) Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 04:05:51 +1000 Subject: Australian Language Centre Position Message-ID: COORDINATOR Diwurruwurru-jaru Aboriginal Corporation (DAC) seeks applications from suitably qualified persons for the position of Coordinator. The position will be based in Katherine, NT. The Coordinator will be responsible to an Indigenous Committee representing language groups throughout the Katherine Region. ROLE: o Coordinate the activities on an Indigenous language centre, including financial management. o Coordinate language projects and associated resources. o Promote the activities of DAC and liaise with other agencies in relation to language activities. o Implement policy and direction established by the Committee. QUALIFICATIONS: Essential: Ability to maintain Aboriginal input and control of an organisation while at the same time ensuring regulations are met. Effective communication with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. Experience with resourcing an organisation. Strong administration and organisational skills. Demonstrated ability to select and supervise staff and contractors. Experience with preparation and monitoring of budgets. An A class driver's licence. Desirable:? Some knowledge of Australian Languages and associated issues. Understanding of accounting systems. Experience working with a community-based organisation. CONDITIONS OF EMMPLOYMENT: Salary allied to the Aboriginal Communities and Organisations (WA) Award, five weeks annual leave. To obtain the Selection Criteria and Duty Statement, contact Robin Hodgson or Michelle Dawson on (08) 89711233, Fax (08) 89710561 or e-mail dacadmin at kathlangcentre.org.au. Written applications addressing the Selection Criteria, with names and contact numbers of two referees should be forwarded to: The Chairperson, Diwurruwurru-jaru Aboriginal Corporation PO Box 871, Katherine NT 0851 Applications close c.o.b. 23 May 2005 Robin Hodgson Coordinator Diwurruwurru-jaru Aboriginal Corporation (Katherine Regional Aborginal Language Centre PO Box 871 Katherine NT 0851 Ph: 08 89711233 Fax: 08 89710561 From miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Tue May 17 20:42:32 2005 From: miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish (LFP)) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 14:42:32 -0600 Subject: Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20050505115910.6r3qtc8o8go8g800@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: I will be doing my dissertation soon, and part of my research will be to look at how we can build materials for revitalization. I hadn't intended to do a distance component, but if there are people who would like to participate in my research, they would get the materials to use for their tribes and schools. I am working on mathematics materials using Fauconnier' and Turner's Conceptual Blending Theory, and Lakoff and Nunez's embodied theory of mathematics. The nice thing about these is that the mathematical theory can be totally abstracted from the English, and recontextualized into the culture of the People. (I think its pretty cool). I don't have money for travel, so everything we do would have to be done over the web and via cell phone :-) but it could be both fun and informative. It's pretty high-tech, lots of Flash movies, voice, and some evaluation of how successful the materials were at meeting the goals and objectives, something the teachers might be interested in. I people know other people who would be interested in doing something like this, they could contact me. I tried to find the lady mentioned in this article, but there doesn't seem to be any web site for the Princess Alexandra school. I found a contact and a snail mail address. . . .,. Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of phil cash cash Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 12:59 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers Last updated May 5 2005 09:07 AM CDT CBC News http://north.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=language-aboriginal-05052 005 FORT SMITH, N.W.T. ? People working to keep aboriginal languages alive in the N.W.T. say there's a critical shortage of resources to teach the subject. School libraries are full of texts in English or French, but Dene language instructors often have less than one shelf of written materials to work with. Instructors met in Fort Smith last week to talk about their quest for new resources. "It's a lot of man-hours," says Joanie Lafferty, who teaches at Princess Alexander School in Hay River. "It's not as easy as opening a book and going to chapter six to read lessons one to three. You actually have to build it." Lafferty and 16 other instructors spent three weeks creating resources for aboriginal language teachers. Gladys Norwegian, an experienced educator and language expert, coordinated their efforts. Norwegian would like to see more of the money that is now spent on cultural programming reinvested in the development of resources for language instruction. "There's many of them that are just trying to make do with what little materials they have and it is really important that they have a lot to work with to make sure students learn the language," she says. "Culture can be done anytime but to learn the language you need resources." Participants in the workshop represent each of the communities in the Dehcho and Akaitcho regions, and funding for the project is coming from divisional boards of education. The books and projects they create will be available to aboriginal language instructors across the Northwest Territories. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue May 17 21:05:36 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 14:05:36 -0700 Subject: Amazon Indian tribe threatened (fwd) Message-ID: Rights group: Amazon Indian tribe threatened Tuesday, May 17, 2005 Posted: 0108 GMT (0908 HKT) http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/05/16/brazil.tribe.ap/ RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- An Amazon Indian tribe isolated from modern Brazil by hundreds of miles of rain forest faces annihilation by loggers if nothing is done to protect them, an Indian rights group warned Monday. The Indian rights group Survival International said logging companies were cutting down the forest in the Rio Pardo area, about 1,400 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro, despite repeated reports that there were isolated Indians in the region. "These people are on a knife's edge. If something isn't done really urgently, they will be consigned to history," Fiona Watson, a campaign coordinator for the Indian rights group Survival International, said by telephone from London. Anthropologists with Brazil's Federal Indian Bureau first detected the tribe in 1998 in a densely jungled area of Mato Grosso state, near its northern border with Amazonas state. The bureau considers the Indians "uncontacted" because anthropologists have not reached the tribe, although its members may have had some type of contact -- perhaps violent -- with wildcat miners and loggers in the region. In 2001, the bureau banned outsiders from entering 410,186 acres of the rain forest to allow anthropologists to contact the tribe and demarcate a reservation. But the protection efforts were curtailed this March when a federal judge granted an appeal by the Sulmap Sul Amazonia logging company that the decree protecting the area would cause the company irreversible damages. "The judge's order opened this area to development and forbids the presence of the Federal Indian Bureau. This is like putting a gun in the loggers' hands to kill Indians," said Sydney Possuelo, head of the bureau's Isolated Indians unit. Little is known about the Rio Pardo Indians except that they probably are hunter-gathers and were forced to abandon their villages in a hurry. "When we found the villages it looked like a tsunami had hit," said Possuelo. "No Indians abandon their hammocks or their arrows unless they are being harassed." Possuelo said efforts to contact the Indians were complicated because they appeared to have been the victims of attacks by loggers. "If, on the one hand, we are trying to protect them, there are others who are trying to make them run. They don't know who is who," Possuelo said. About 700,000 Indians live in Brazil, mostly in the Amazon region. About 400,000 of them live on reservations where they try to maintain their traditional culture, language and lifestyle. Indians have been always pushed deeper into the jungle by settlers. The bureau has said in the past that it has learned from other Indians of a few uncontacted tribes in the western Amazon state, where the region's jungle is thickest. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue May 17 21:22:55 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 14:22:55 -0700 Subject: Indigenous Children=?utf-8?Q?=C2=92s?= Education and Indigenous Languages (fwd link) Message-ID: UN FORUM TO CONSIDER IMPACT ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOAL IMPLEMENTATION, 16 - 27 MAY http://i-newswire.com/pr20360.html Indigenous Children?s Education and Indigenous Languages An expert paper on Indigenous children?s education and indigenous languages( document E/C.19/2005/7 ) shows that educational models for indigenous and minority children that use mainly dominant languages as languages of instruction have extremely negative consequences on the right to education and perpetuate poverty. Education through the dominant language prevents access to education, since it creates linguistic, pedagogical and psychological barriers. Without education mainly in the mother tongue in public schools, with good teaching of a dominant language as a second language, most indigenous peoples have to accept education through a dominant/majority language, at the cost of the mother tongue which is displaced, and often replaced, by the dominant language. Research on results of indigenous and minority education shows that the length of education in the mother tongue is more important than any other factor -- including socio-economic status -- in predicting the educational success of bilingual students. The worst results are with students in programmes where the students? mother tongues are not supported at all. Education in the dominant language curtails the development of capabilities in indigenous children and perpetuates poverty. The report presents recommendations to address these problems. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue May 17 21:25:12 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 14:25:12 -0700 Subject: It's kapai that everyday English chat is peppered with te reo (fwd) Message-ID: It's kapai that everyday English chat is peppered with te reo 16.05.05 By JON STOKES http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10125628 Kiwi-speak isn't pakaru, despite the mutterings of some waka-jumpers who korero on the kumara vine. In fact, New Zealand's language is just kapai, says Victoria University linguistic and applied language expert John Macalister, who believes the frequency of Maori words in everyday conversations is likely to surprise some people. His new book, the Dictionary of Maori Words in New Zealand English, goes on sale this week. And, while many are words describing indigenous flora and fauna and place names, he believes the use of descriptive words - aroha, hikoi, kapai, koha, whanau and tangi, for example - is becoming more common. "Typically nouns are what we borrow from other languages, but there are words, such as pakaru, a transliteration of buggered, hapu, waka, mana, kia ora, and waiata. "Some of the more descriptive words are hybrid forms, like waka-jumper, mana-muncher." The dictionary identifies more than 1000 Maori words that are in common use - about six of every 1000. Dr Macalister said that while identifying words was one thing, defining the word's meaning was difficult and possibly contentious. For example, pakeha had a diverse range of interpretations and caused offence to some. He settled on: "a term for New Zealander of European origin". The adoption of Maori by non-Maori has flourished in the past 30 years - driven, Dr Macalister believes, by the growth of kohanga reo, the large number of Maori living in cities, the recognition of Maori as an official language, and the increase of the number of high-profile Maori, including more Maori MPs under MMP. "This has been driven by a generational change since about 1975," he said. While te reo was used more frequently by Maori, and varied depending on the circumstances people were in, young New Zealanders of all cultures were more likely to use and understand more. "Younger speakers show some of the really inventive use of the language, things like maka-chilly (very cold), mahi for work, mea for stuff." However, he believes not all will be impressed by his findings. He hoped his research did not generate the hate mail that followed the release of similar research. "Some people will take exception. The way they voice their criticism says more about their attitudes to Maori and bicultural New Zealand than my research. "I see this as very positive. This is about being proud of who were are, of being New Zealanders. It gives the language greater vitality. This is unique to New Zealand and helps us to establish our identify. "When you are overseas and you meet a Kiwi, you can throw in these words that you know they will understand. It establishes a solidarity." Te reo expert Naida Glavish, whose refusal to buckle to her then-employer Telecom's demands that she not greet telephone customers with kia ora prompted intense public debate, believes the dictionary shows that New Zealanders are becoming more inclusive. "It shows awesome growth. It shows Aotearoa's biculturalism is getting recognised. We have come a long way since 1984." But Ms Glavish urged speakers not to become complacent. "It is good growth but we still have a long way to go." And it is not just in New Zealand that some words are recognised, with Dr Macalister identifying a number of words now recognisable on the world stage, such as mana, tapu, haka and hangi. From CMcMillan at WVC.EDU Tue May 17 21:59:07 2005 From: CMcMillan at WVC.EDU (McMillan, Carol) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 14:59:07 -0700 Subject: It's kapai that everyday English chat is peppered with te reo (fwd) Message-ID: ehe, maka-kapai. - From CMcMillan at WVC.EDU Tue May 17 22:35:01 2005 From: CMcMillan at WVC.EDU (McMillan, Carol) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 15:35:01 -0700 Subject: Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) Message-ID: Mia, that sounds fascinating. For my master's thesis many years ago I developed elementary math curriculum based on the Nuffield Math Project, an environmental math program. I'm not familiar with Fauconnier and Turner of Lakoff and Nnez, (I'm way out of date) but I wish I had the time to find out more. Do you have an introductory part of your research you could send? mcmillan at televar.com Carol -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Mia Kalish (LFP) Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 1:43 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) I will be doing my dissertation soon, and part of my research will be to look at how we can build materials for revitalization. I hadn't intended to do a distance component, but if there are people who would like to participate in my research, they would get the materials to use for their tribes and schools. I am working on mathematics materials using Fauconnier' and Turner's Conceptual Blending Theory, and Lakoff and Nunez's embodied theory of mathematics. The nice thing about these is that the mathematical theory can be totally abstracted from the English, and recontextualized into the culture of the People. (I think its pretty cool). I don't have money for travel, so everything we do would have to be done over the web and via cell phone :-) but it could be both fun and informative. It's pretty high-tech, lots of Flash movies, voice, and some evaluation of how successful the materials were at meeting the goals and objectives, something the teachers might be interested in. I people know other people who would be interested in doing something like this, they could contact me. I tried to find the lady mentioned in this article, but there doesn't seem to be any web site for the Princess Alexandra school. I found a contact and a snail mail address. . . .,. Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of phil cash cash Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 12:59 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers Last updated May 5 2005 09:07 AM CDT CBC News http://north.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=language-aboriginal-0 5052 005 FORT SMITH, N.W.T. - People working to keep aboriginal languages alive in the N.W.T. say there's a critical shortage of resources to teach the subject. School libraries are full of texts in English or French, but Dene language instructors often have less than one shelf of written materials to work with. Instructors met in Fort Smith last week to talk about their quest for new resources. "It's a lot of man-hours," says Joanie Lafferty, who teaches at Princess Alexander School in Hay River. "It's not as easy as opening a book and going to chapter six to read lessons one to three. You actually have to build it." Lafferty and 16 other instructors spent three weeks creating resources for aboriginal language teachers. Gladys Norwegian, an experienced educator and language expert, coordinated their efforts. Norwegian would like to see more of the money that is now spent on cultural programming reinvested in the development of resources for language instruction. "There's many of them that are just trying to make do with what little materials they have and it is really important that they have a lot to work with to make sure students learn the language," she says. "Culture can be done anytime but to learn the language you need resources." Participants in the workshop represent each of the communities in the Dehcho and Akaitcho regions, and funding for the project is coming from divisional boards of education. The books and projects they create will be available to aboriginal language instructors across the Northwest Territories. From miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Tue May 17 22:49:54 2005 From: miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish (LFP)) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 16:49:54 -0600 Subject: Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) In-Reply-To: <1F3D73C143AC9740BE41086D103A7A045970FC@wvcmail.wvc.edu> Message-ID: Hi, Carol, I have a draft of the first chapter of my dissertation. It has a good overview. Fauconnier and Turner's CBT shows how "metaphors are made". However, they contend that almost everything above the level of perception is represented as a conceptual metaphor, that is, a human conceptualization that defines how people think about a particular thing. For example, Points on a Line is a metaphor. F&T talk about how the metaphoric structures blend to form new understandings. For example, they have one that says, If Aristotle had been a general in the Korean War, he would have used the catapult. This is a blending over time, and of course, through two wars. (Aristotle was the person who fried the ships in the harbor with a parabolic shaped piece of glass). F&T are rather extensive, because they have a collection of structures and ways that those structures come together. Lakoff & Nunez talk about mathematical metaphors. For example, all creatures can count; many of these abilities have been studied and reported on. The process of "knowing", without words, how many of something there are is called subitization. The limits on this facility are 3-4 items. However, to count, we need a metaphor. We need a Numbers as Objects metaphor that allows us to map the thingy to the number. Technically, it's pretty low level stuff to explain in words. It probably sounds pretty obscure to you, but here's how I see it: If we can decompose math into these basic metaphors, and then create Flash movies of the metaphors in action, we can show the transformations. Since the earliest perceptual skill is visual motion, it makes sense that materials that move are more effective than materials that don't. Part of my goal is to make materials faster; we spend altogether too much time trying to develop materials for learning. Another part is to make those materials rich enough to make lots of information available, and fast enough so that people are interested and inspired to use them. Finally, I think they should work for people who don't have a large collection of materials. I think they should have cultural references, and that their development should include families and communities. :-) ?? Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of McMillan, Carol Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 4:35 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) Mia, that sounds fascinating. For my master's thesis many years ago I developed elementary math curriculum based on the Nuffield Math Project, an environmental math program. I'm not familiar with Fauconnier and Turner of Lakoff and Nnez, (I'm way out of date) but I wish I had the time to find out more. Do you have an introductory part of your research you could send? mcmillan at televar.com Carol -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Mia Kalish (LFP) Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 1:43 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) I will be doing my dissertation soon, and part of my research will be to look at how we can build materials for revitalization. I hadn't intended to do a distance component, but if there are people who would like to participate in my research, they would get the materials to use for their tribes and schools. I am working on mathematics materials using Fauconnier' and Turner's Conceptual Blending Theory, and Lakoff and Nunez's embodied theory of mathematics. The nice thing about these is that the mathematical theory can be totally abstracted from the English, and recontextualized into the culture of the People. (I think its pretty cool). I don't have money for travel, so everything we do would have to be done over the web and via cell phone :-) but it could be both fun and informative. It's pretty high-tech, lots of Flash movies, voice, and some evaluation of how successful the materials were at meeting the goals and objectives, something the teachers might be interested in. I people know other people who would be interested in doing something like this, they could contact me. I tried to find the lady mentioned in this article, but there doesn't seem to be any web site for the Princess Alexandra school. I found a contact and a snail mail address. . . .,. Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of phil cash cash Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 12:59 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers Last updated May 5 2005 09:07 AM CDT CBC News http://north.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=language-aboriginal-0 5052 005 FORT SMITH, N.W.T. - People working to keep aboriginal languages alive in the N.W.T. say there's a critical shortage of resources to teach the subject. School libraries are full of texts in English or French, but Dene language instructors often have less than one shelf of written materials to work with. Instructors met in Fort Smith last week to talk about their quest for new resources. "It's a lot of man-hours," says Joanie Lafferty, who teaches at Princess Alexander School in Hay River. "It's not as easy as opening a book and going to chapter six to read lessons one to three. You actually have to build it." Lafferty and 16 other instructors spent three weeks creating resources for aboriginal language teachers. Gladys Norwegian, an experienced educator and language expert, coordinated their efforts. Norwegian would like to see more of the money that is now spent on cultural programming reinvested in the development of resources for language instruction. "There's many of them that are just trying to make do with what little materials they have and it is really important that they have a lot to work with to make sure students learn the language," she says. "Culture can be done anytime but to learn the language you need resources." Participants in the workshop represent each of the communities in the Dehcho and Akaitcho regions, and funding for the project is coming from divisional boards of education. The books and projects they create will be available to aboriginal language instructors across the Northwest Territories. From jtucker at STARBAND.NET Wed May 18 02:38:19 2005 From: jtucker at STARBAND.NET (Jan Tucker) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 22:38:19 -0400 Subject: Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20050517204234.C718C2DC5@listserv.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Mia, email me off the list server if you think I could help. I have a website with free courseware called Moodle. I'd very much like to work to build an online language course in collaboration with a native language teacher. I've written and presented a brief paper called Breaking into online Education with limited financial resources. 2000 unpublished (autobiographical), so I'm good at doing something with almost nothing. I've been playing around with the features of the Moodle courseware to see how it works. Also, I've signed on for their free course to learn to use Moodle to teach language. It's focus is best practices for teaching language online. Their free course is at moodle.org. I have a way to go yet to comprehend the best structure using Moodle courseware. I'm a certified online professor of applied anthropology and use WebCT and Blackboard version 6 to teach a variety of online courses now. This keeps me very busy, however I'd really enjoy collaborating with Native language teachers and you if I could be of any help. I volunteer my website http:nativepeople.net [Note that it's still in development or under construction and I'm still learning the software]. I've have more time this summer to work on collaborating. I've been collecting Cherokee language resources to try and put together a Free Cherokee language course. Once I figure all the tools out I'll invite any interested Cherokee language teachers to collaborate and teach it on the site. I'd love to collaborate since I myself learned to teach online in collaboration with another online course developer. Actually, my very first hybrid online module students were part of a dissertation at University of Texas, Austin. Jan Tucker jtucker at starband.net -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]On Behalf Of Mia Kalish (LFP) Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 4:43 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) I will be doing my dissertation soon, and part of my research will be to look at how we can build materials for revitalization. I hadn't intended to do a distance component, but if there are people who would like to participate in my research, they would get the materials to use for their tribes and schools. I am working on mathematics materials using Fauconnier' and Turner's Conceptual Blending Theory, and Lakoff and Nunez's embodied theory of mathematics. The nice thing about these is that the mathematical theory can be totally abstracted from the English, and recontextualized into the culture of the People. (I think its pretty cool). I don't have money for travel, so everything we do would have to be done over the web and via cell phone :-) but it could be both fun and informative. It's pretty high-tech, lots of Flash movies, voice, and some evaluation of how successful the materials were at meeting the goals and objectives, something the teachers might be interested in. I people know other people who would be interested in doing something like this, they could contact me. I tried to find the lady mentioned in this article, but there doesn't seem to be any web site for the Princess Alexandra school. I found a contact and a snail mail address. . . .,. Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of phil cash cash Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 12:59 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd) Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers Last updated May 5 2005 09:07 AM CDT CBC News http://north.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=language-aboriginal-05052 005 FORT SMITH, N.W.T. ? People working to keep aboriginal languages alive in the N.W.T. say there's a critical shortage of resources to teach the subject. School libraries are full of texts in English or French, but Dene language instructors often have less than one shelf of written materials to work with. Instructors met in Fort Smith last week to talk about their quest for new resources. "It's a lot of man-hours," says Joanie Lafferty, who teaches at Princess Alexander School in Hay River. "It's not as easy as opening a book and going to chapter six to read lessons one to three. You actually have to build it." Lafferty and 16 other instructors spent three weeks creating resources for aboriginal language teachers. Gladys Norwegian, an experienced educator and language expert, coordinated their efforts. Norwegian would like to see more of the money that is now spent on cultural programming reinvested in the development of resources for language instruction. "There's many of them that are just trying to make do with what little materials they have and it is really important that they have a lot to work with to make sure students learn the language," she says. "Culture can be done anytime but to learn the language you need resources." Participants in the workshop represent each of the communities in the Dehcho and Akaitcho regions, and funding for the project is coming from divisional boards of education. The books and projects they create will be available to aboriginal language instructors across the Northwest Territories. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Wed May 18 18:55:14 2005 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 11:55:14 -0700 Subject: Sacred Language Message-ID: Lakota: a language with its own spiritual meanings By KAREN HERZOG, Bismarck Tribune Albert White Hat Sr. knows that at a certain age, young people like to carve their initials in things. But, he said, "my mother said, when you leave your name in public places, it becomes 'hunwin,'" meaning the smell of something rotten. So, through that Lakota word, a value was taught -- that it is important not to become egotistical, vain or selfish. For 25 years, Albert White Hat Sr., scholar, teacher and spiritual leader, has taught the Lakota language. An enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe in South Dakota, White Hat directs the Lakota language program at Sinte Gleska University at Mission, S.D. In 1982, he chaired the Committee for the Preservation of the Lakota Language and is the author of "Writing and Reading the Lakota Language" (1999, University of Utah Press). In April, he talked to students and staff at United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck about the connections between American Indian languages and education. Brian Palecek, English instructor at UTTC, introduced White Hat as a remarkable scholar and teacher whose work Palecek cites in his teaching of American Indian literature. Language is about more than words. It is the carrier of a culture, the vehicle which conveys history, spirituality, identity and values from one generation to the next. "Language is a living being. We (use it to) communicate with other nations, the coyote nation, the eagle and bear," White Hat said. White Hat, who spoke only Lakota until he started school in the early 1950s, spoke Lakota "day in, day out," at Spring Creek on the Rosebud Reservation. "I will always remember those days as my foundation," he said. During the nights, the children would select a storyteller. There were about five storytellers in the community, he said; the children's favorite told ghost stories. "We would chop wood and haul water, roll a Bull Durham, light it and offer it to the storyteller," he said. Stories, like those they heard there -- of warfare, fear, tragedy, medicine -- "this is how we learn who we are." Over and over, they listened to the story of Wounded Knee; "They told us, always pray this will never happen to anybody." At 16, White Hat found it a shock when he went to St. Francis boarding school. "Other (Indian) kids ridiculed us for being Indian, teased us for speaking Lakota. They had been at school since age five, and had been conditioned," he said. That education's goal was labor, obedience and dependency to authority, he said. There was no vocabulary to describe a sunset, no skills to play, "just live day to day reacting" to others and to authority, White Hat said. Languages were evenly divided between two subcultures, Catholic and Episcopal, who had a deathly fear of Lakota spirituality, he said. In 1841, missionaries developed an alphabet system for Indian languages. They also interpreted Lakota words in terms of Christian religious concepts, White Hat said. "Wakan," which Christians translated to mean "sacred, holy, mystery," is really entirely different, White Hat said. "Kan" is life or energy, with "wa" referring to the being with that "kan." So, he said, "every one of you is 'wakan.' We all have the ability to give, or to take life, to build or to destroy." White Hat said other Christian concepts have burrowed into Lakota words. "We don't have religion," he said. "We have spirituality." That spirituality is revealed through the practice of certain virtues -- bravery, generosity, fortitude and wisdom, he said. The spirituality also is revealed in the phrase "mitakuye dysasin" -- "our creator became us." What this means, he said, is: "I'm related to all creation. "I talk to a tree as a relative. "I talk to the wind as a relative. The sun, the moon. "We don't worship or bow or kneel. "I dance with that tree as a relative. "I work with the tree as a relative. "When we have a need, we face west, call the attention of all relatives to the west, (then to the) east, north, south, and express my need. "Prayers float on puffs of tobacco smoke. Others pick them up. "Our needs are met by creation." When gathering plants with healing qualities, offerings are left in exchange, White Hat said. "We talk to plants," he said, noting, "thank you for your sacrifice. Here are some offerings to your nation. "There is always an exchange. Nothing is free." By the 1950s and '60s, 100 percent of reservations were affected by alcoholism, White Hat said. And so Lakota words picked up the extra burden of describing alcohol, drugs, sex and violence. Traditional words came to children to mean things like "hangover" and "broke." White Hat called the phrase "'Indian time' the poorest excuse we have for being late. A real derogatory statement to ourselves." Instead, say "nake nula waun" -- "I am always prepared." "If we had been on Indian time," he said as an aside, to laughter, "the Crows would have taken all our horses." (Reach Karen Herzog at 250-8267 or krherzog at ndonline.com.) From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed May 18 19:48:36 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 12:48:36 -0700 Subject: Indigenous-language web site to explain legal system (fwd) Message-ID: Wednesday, 18 May 2005, 07:49:18 AEST Indigenous-language web site to explain legal system http://abc.net.au/message/news/stories/ms_news_1370982.htm An Aboriginal organisation from Elcho Island in the Northern Territory's Top End says it is creating a web site to help inform Indigenous people about the legal system. Representatives from Aboriginal Resource and Development Services are attending an Indigenous communications forum in Alice Springs to find out more about the latest technological advances that might assist their project. The organisation's Maratja Dhamarrandji says the web site is being created in the local Yolgnu Matha language. He says it is an important step that needs to be taken if the rate of Indigenous people going through the judicial system is to be reduced. "They'll be able to understand the way that... particularly in this case the legal matters [work]," he said. "They'll be able to respond, they'll be able to respect it with integrity and honour." He says the web site is being held up by a lack of qualified interpreters to translate legal language into Yolgnu Matha. "There's a very urgent need in this time and era where the interpreters or translators need to be trained up so that we can fulfil some of the dreams and aspirations, wishes of our people right across this the land," he said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed May 18 19:54:10 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 12:54:10 -0700 Subject: UC Riverside Education Professor to Help Revitalize Endangered Language (fwd) Message-ID: UC Riverside Education Professor to Help Revitalize Endangered Language The National Academy of Education awards a $55,000 grant. (May 17, 2005) http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=1078 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu May 19 20:33:02 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 13:33:02 -0700 Subject: Wanted: Killer Ideas (fwd link) Message-ID: Wanted: Killer Ideas. If you?re between 14 and 19 and have a ?killer idea for a movie,? Fresh Films wants to hear from you. As part of a nationwide contest currently underway, Fresh Films will give some lucky ? and creative ? teens the opportunity to become filmmakers. If you?re selected, you?ll use iWork and the all-new Final Cut Studio running on Power Mac G5 and PowerBook computers. Would you like to be a director? If so, hurry ? the contest ends May 22. http://www.fresh-films.com/ From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu May 19 22:24:51 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 15:24:51 -0700 Subject: Scarce resources hobble Dene native language efforts Message-ID: ----- Forwarded message from rtroike at U.Arizona.EDU ----- Mia, Jan, et al., What Mia is doing sounds fascinating. Since you are using Lakoff & Nunez' embodied perspective, I imagine you know about the big ethnoscience project of Ozzie Werner some years ago on the atlas of Navajo terminology for the human body. That seems relevant to this approach. One caution in general about adapting or translating materials from English/Spanish/French etc. to native languages is that these Eurocentric materials assume a universal categorization of the world that needs to be problematized and subjected to ethnographic examination for each case. A couple of examples are pertinent. Some years ago when Muriel Saville-Troike was working on a Navajo kindergarten curriculum, she found that although Navajo has a term for the hexagonal shape of the hogan 'house' (how many English speakers are readily familiar with 'hexagon'?), there was no term for Plato's supposed universal triangle, which available math and reading-readiness materials took for granted. In visiting schools on the reservation, she found that teachers had had to make up their own term for 'triangle' (after all, the code-talkers made up terms for tanks and airplanes), but each teacher had come up with a different expression. If off-the-shelf materials are to be used which presuppose the universality of certain categorizations, it should be checked and established first whether there are native categories and recognized labels which correspond to these, or whether these will have to be introduced as "foreign" categories/concepts, and labels invented and standardized for them. One cannot always be sure that just because native speakers are developing or consulting on materials development, their intuition will securely flag problems such as this. The difficulty here is that most native consultants or developers have themselves been educated largely through the dominant language, and have unconsciously internalized the categories of the dominant language/culture and have accepted the (unrecognized) ethnocentric assumption that these categories are 'natural' and universal. Thus an ethnographically-oriented examination of the native lexicon may be necessary/desirable to raise consciousness as to the differences between native conceptualizations and Eurocentric ones. (Even fluent bilinguals are rarely conscious of comparative differences between their own language and the second language, and most speakers of most languages are largely unaware of the structure and categories of their own language. Someone -- perhaps on this list -- recently remarked on the surprise of a German speaker when it was pointed out to him that the German word for 'glove', Handschuh, was literally "hand-shoe", i.e. shoe for the hand.) A few years ago when I was consulting on a project to develop materials for Mayan languages in Guatemala, I found that native speakers were taking the standard Spanish-language materials and, without changing illustrations, supplying Mayan (Mam, Quiche, Kekchi, etc.) labels for them. In one lesson devoted to practicing recognizing groups and giving appropriate numbers for them (three trees, two houses, etc.), I found that the categories presumed by the Spanish texts were not being questioned by the developers, who were themselves all elementary school teachers who had been teaching the materials in Spanish. After some discussion, it emerged that the distinction between 'arbol' (tree) and 'arbusto' (bush) did not fit the native categorizations of types of plants, and that to apply the native labels in teaching sets (without distorting the application of these labels by mapping them onto the Spanish ones), it would be necessary to come up with different pictures. Especially labels for parts of the human body, which might seem self-evident, need to be questioned. The 'foot', for which we have a lexicalized distinction in English, is often not separated terminologically from the 'ankle' or 'lower leg'; even English 'ear' does not distinguish by itself the outer ear and the inner ear, lexicalized separately in Spanish as 'oreja' and 'oido'. Thus whereas "My ear hurts" is ambiguous in English, in Spanish it would not be. Since most traditional math educators are predisposed to accept without question the universality of mathematical concepts, they need to be sensitized to the cultural embeddedness of instructional media, and the need to examine ethnographically the appropriateness of categories usually taken for granted in instruction. Rudy Troike University of Arizona ----- End forwarded message ----- From sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri May 20 04:53:42 2005 From: sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Susan Penfield) Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 21:53:42 -0700 Subject: Scarce resources hobble Dene native language efforts Message-ID: Thanks for this, Rudy... I'd like to add offer a similar reminder concerning the construction of dialogue-based language lessons. The temptation and all-to-common approach is to take English conversational patterns and plug in native language lexical items. This ignores what might be important cullturally-determined rules for conversation -- for instance, something as simple as 'How's the weather?" (introducing a conversation with a question) would not be the norm among many of the elders I have worked with. Susan ----- Original Message ----- From: "phil cash cash" To: Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 3:24 PM Subject: Re: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene native language efforts > ----- Forwarded message from rtroike at U.Arizona.EDU ----- > > Mia, Jan, et al., > > What Mia is doing sounds fascinating. Since you are using Lakoff & > Nunez' embodied perspective, I imagine you know about the big > ethnoscience > project of Ozzie Werner some years ago on the atlas of Navajo > terminology > for the human body. That seems relevant to this approach. > > One caution in general about adapting or translating materials > from English/Spanish/French etc. to native languages is that these > Eurocentric materials assume a universal categorization of the world > that > needs to be problematized and subjected to ethnographic examination for > each case. A couple of examples are pertinent. Some years ago when > Muriel Saville-Troike was working on a Navajo kindergarten curriculum, > she found that although Navajo has a term for the hexagonal shape of the > hogan 'house' (how many English speakers are readily familiar with > 'hexagon'?), there was no term for Plato's supposed universal triangle, > which available math and reading-readiness materials took for granted. > In visiting schools on the reservation, she found that teachers had had > to make up their own term for 'triangle' (after all, the code-talkers > made up terms for tanks and airplanes), but each teacher had come up > with a different expression. If off-the-shelf materials are to be used > which presuppose the universality of certain categorizations, it should > be checked and established first whether there are native categories > and recognized labels which correspond to these, or whether these will > have to be introduced as "foreign" categories/concepts, and labels > invented and standardized for them. > > One cannot always be sure that just because native speakers are > developing or consulting on materials development, their intuition will > securely flag problems such as this. The difficulty here is that most > native consultants or developers have themselves been educated largely > through the dominant language, and have unconsciously internalized the > categories of the dominant language/culture and have accepted the > (unrecognized) ethnocentric assumption that these categories are > 'natural' > and universal. Thus an ethnographically-oriented examination of the > native lexicon may be necessary/desirable to raise consciousness as to > the differences between native conceptualizations and Eurocentric ones. > (Even fluent bilinguals are rarely conscious of comparative differences > between their own language and the second language, and most speakers > of most languages are largely unaware of the structure and categories > of their own language. Someone -- perhaps on this list -- recently > remarked on the surprise of a German speaker when it was pointed out > to him that the German word for 'glove', Handschuh, was literally > "hand-shoe", i.e. shoe for the hand.) > > A few years ago when I was consulting on a project to develop > materials for Mayan languages in Guatemala, I found that native speakers > were taking the standard Spanish-language materials and, without > changing > illustrations, supplying Mayan (Mam, Quiche, Kekchi, etc.) labels for > them. In one lesson devoted to practicing recognizing groups and giving > appropriate numbers for them (three trees, two houses, etc.), I found > that the categories presumed by the Spanish texts were not being > questioned by the developers, who were themselves all elementary school > teachers who had been teaching the materials in Spanish. After some > discussion, it emerged that the distinction between 'arbol' (tree) and > 'arbusto' (bush) did not fit the native categorizations of types of > plants, and that to apply the native labels in teaching sets (without > distorting the application of these labels by mapping them onto the > Spanish ones), it would be necessary to come up with different pictures. > > Especially labels for parts of the human body, which might seem > self-evident, need to be questioned. The 'foot', for which we have a > lexicalized distinction in English, is often not separated > terminologically from the 'ankle' or 'lower leg'; even English 'ear' > does not distinguish by itself the outer ear and the inner ear, > lexicalized separately in Spanish as 'oreja' and 'oido'. Thus whereas > "My ear hurts" is ambiguous in English, in Spanish it would not be. > Since most traditional math educators are predisposed to accept without > question the universality of mathematical concepts, they need to be > sensitized to the cultural embeddedness of instructional media, and > the need to examine ethnographically the appropriateness of categories > usually taken for granted in instruction. > > Rudy Troike > University of Arizona > > ----- End forwarded message ----- From miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Fri May 20 16:17:37 2005 From: miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish (LFP)) Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 10:17:37 -0600 Subject: Scarce resources hobble Dene native language efforts In-Reply-To: <20050519152451.1dq1w0gg8scssowg@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Hi, Rudy. Thanks for this really great email describing issues that are not apparent to huge parts of the world. I thought I would say what I was doing, and people could check it out. I didn't know about Ozzie Werner's project, but I will check it out. I do know that most of the world thinks you can just "translate" stuff. I am digging deeply into my technological soul to find a way to abstract the concepts from the language, since if recontextualization doesn't start with the basics, you don't get a successful representation. This abstraction is hard because you have to do what Lakoff & Nunez did, and this takes either a) lots of manual time, or, b) some technology to help. I am going to do a little (a), to teach my body how to do it, and then develop some (b), to extract concepts from the language in which they are embedded. Then, we start with the extension issues that Rudy mentioned. About a year ago, I sent out email asking whether people knew how many Indigenous languages had words for common mathematical forms and processes. I got back a few emails telling me I "could just translate", but almost nothing about representation of mathematical forms in language. I assumed that there were several possible explanations for this: 1. People hadn't thought of the huge amount of mathematics that Indigenous people had and used (e.g., Architecture of the Moundbuilders (Callusas?), Mayans, Aztecs, petroglyphs, astronomy, calendricality, counting systems and so on, not only of the people here but in Africa). Mathematics is pretty innate; Lakoff and Nunez talk about the human metaphors that allow extension from innate capabilities to an evolving theoretical and applied mathematics. 2. Powell's influence had made people believe (an example of a human metaphor constructing reality) that Indigenous people had no math or science, and hence words from the disciplines were not reflected in their languages. So when he put out his prescriptive document of somewhere around 1897, there were no STEM spaces for words. 3. This idea is an implication from MacDonald and Duff, who hypothesized that the medicine people traveled around the world sharing knowledge. It is possible that some of the words died with the medicine people who were targeted and killed during the colonization. The mathematical figures are clearly present, in the petroglyphs, in the calendrical (presumed)triangulations. 4. Different representational systems (as opposed to 'words for . . .'): People have argued Sapir/Whorf, although I don't really know why: If you don't have a sweet potato, you don't need a word for it. I think though, that what happened with the Hopi time argument is truly (and ethnocentrically) amazing. Hopi language has all these fine distinctions for time; they are embedded in the language. So of course, they don't need to be stated explicitly, as in English. Lakoff and Nunez would see the White-Males-Are-Superior paradigm derived from early publications as the metaphor that created a blend where ethnographers and linguists were unable to conceive of different systems. A consequence of early publications was the wide-spread belief that there was an evolutionary hierarchy of people, and everyone was "progressing" up that hierarchy, and a consequence of this was that analysts assumed that sophisticated intellectual words did not exist in the languages of people on these postulated lower levels. I liked your discussion of arbol, Rudy. I had a similar experience with a mathematician recently. We were talking about building some teaching/learning materials, and he had simply plopped the term "continuous" into the discussion. Until I made him look back to find where the term had been introduced, he didn't realize that he had just assumed that people (students, learners, the people he was trying to teach) would just "know" what the mathematical meaning of continuous was. It is absolutely parallel to your experience with arbol and arbusto. I think that "an ethnographically-oriented examination of the native lexicon may be necessary/desirable to raise consciousness as to the differences between native conceptualizations and Eurocentric ones" in some form may be an early step of this entire process. Using Fauconnier & Turner's Conceptual Blending Model, it is necessary to develop the structures that produce the blends (metaphors). To take a simple example, choose the blend Word. A 'word' is composed of a) its target (the real thing: cat, house, tree, bush, burning; not the theoretical "reference" here); b) how you say the word for it in the target language; c) how you spell the word for it in the target language if it is written. In CBT, it looks like this: Blend: WORD Inputs: Word_Structure (a,b,c, above) Target_Language Word_if_Exists Spoken.wav Text_If_Written Thus it is implicit in the analysis that you might: 1) Find things that didn't have words/expressions/ways of representing in the target language; 2) "Things" in the target language that have no words/expressions/ways of representing in English (or Spanish, or French, or even Russian, Polish or Lithuanian) 3) Criss-cross of linguistic types, especially state words ('red' in Apache is a verb, "it is (being) red"; 4) Words that have direct embodiment (a la Lakoff and Nunez), as the shape suffixes common to Southern Athapascan, maybe others. I'm sure there are more, but I have written what I hope is a wonderful treatise in response to Rudy's wonderful message, and I think enough is enough. Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of phil cash cash Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 4:25 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene native language efforts ----- Forwarded message from rtroike at U.Arizona.EDU ----- Mia, Jan, et al., What Mia is doing sounds fascinating. Since you are using Lakoff & Nunez' embodied perspective, I imagine you know about the big ethnoscience project of Ozzie Werner some years ago on the atlas of Navajo terminology for the human body. That seems relevant to this approach. One caution in general about adapting or translating materials from English/Spanish/French etc. to native languages is that these Eurocentric materials assume a universal categorization of the world that needs to be problematized and subjected to ethnographic examination for each case. A couple of examples are pertinent. Some years ago when Muriel Saville-Troike was working on a Navajo kindergarten curriculum, she found that although Navajo has a term for the hexagonal shape of the hogan 'house' (how many English speakers are readily familiar with 'hexagon'?), there was no term for Plato's supposed universal triangle, which available math and reading-readiness materials took for granted. In visiting schools on the reservation, she found that teachers had had to make up their own term for 'triangle' (after all, the code-talkers made up terms for tanks and airplanes), but each teacher had come up with a different expression. If off-the-shelf materials are to be used which presuppose the universality of certain categorizations, it should be checked and established first whether there are native categories and recognized labels which correspond to these, or whether these will have to be introduced as "foreign" categories/concepts, and labels invented and standardized for them. One cannot always be sure that just because native speakers are developing or consulting on materials development, their intuition will securely flag problems such as this. The difficulty here is that most native consultants or developers have themselves been educated largely through the dominant language, and have unconsciously internalized the categories of the dominant language/culture and have accepted the (unrecognized) ethnocentric assumption that these categories are 'natural' and universal. Thus an ethnographically-oriented examination of the native lexicon may be necessary/desirable to raise consciousness as to the differences between native conceptualizations and Eurocentric ones. (Even fluent bilinguals are rarely conscious of comparative differences between their own language and the second language, and most speakers of most languages are largely unaware of the structure and categories of their own language. Someone -- perhaps on this list -- recently remarked on the surprise of a German speaker when it was pointed out to him that the German word for 'glove', Handschuh, was literally "hand-shoe", i.e. shoe for the hand.) A few years ago when I was consulting on a project to develop materials for Mayan languages in Guatemala, I found that native speakers were taking the standard Spanish-language materials and, without changing illustrations, supplying Mayan (Mam, Quiche, Kekchi, etc.) labels for them. In one lesson devoted to practicing recognizing groups and giving appropriate numbers for them (three trees, two houses, etc.), I found that the categories presumed by the Spanish texts were not being questioned by the developers, who were themselves all elementary school teachers who had been teaching the materials in Spanish. After some discussion, it emerged that the distinction between 'arbol' (tree) and 'arbusto' (bush) did not fit the native categorizations of types of plants, and that to apply the native labels in teaching sets (without distorting the application of these labels by mapping them onto the Spanish ones), it would be necessary to come up with different pictures. Especially labels for parts of the human body, which might seem self-evident, need to be questioned. The 'foot', for which we have a lexicalized distinction in English, is often not separated terminologically from the 'ankle' or 'lower leg'; even English 'ear' does not distinguish by itself the outer ear and the inner ear, lexicalized separately in Spanish as 'oreja' and 'oido'. Thus whereas "My ear hurts" is ambiguous in English, in Spanish it would not be. Since most traditional math educators are predisposed to accept without question the universality of mathematical concepts, they need to be sensitized to the cultural embeddedness of instructional media, and the need to examine ethnographically the appropriateness of categories usually taken for granted in instruction. Rudy Troike University of Arizona ----- End forwarded message ----- From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri May 20 23:38:17 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 16:38:17 -0700 Subject: Language, Culture, and Traditional Knowledge (fwd link) Message-ID: FOCUSING ON EDUCATION, SPEAKERS IN PERMANENT FORUM ON INDIGENOUS ISSUES STRESS IMPORTANCE OF ATTENTION TO LANGUAGE, CULTURE, TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE Indigenous children were more likely to attend school if their communities participated in all decisions about the content and management of their educational systems, a top official of the United Nations Children?s Fund (UNICEF) told the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today, as it continued its fourth session. http://i-newswire.com/pr21115.html From rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 21 09:49:23 2005 From: rtroike at U.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudolph C Troike) Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 02:49:23 -0700 Subject: On "word" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Mia, Thanks indeed for your wonderful comments and explication of your approach. Re Ozzie Werner's work, it's sad how quickly efforts go in the sand. But to my main point. You are quite right that especially for native languages, which -- not being part of the European culture zone -- rarely have clearly segmentable "words" that correspond to the standard pieces of language assumed by Eurocentricists to be universal. What is really fascinating is the way in which these received elements called "words" often have to be "unpacked" semantically, and the components may be found to have a very different distribution in native languages. My favorite example (which could be multiplied a hundredfold from other languages) is the fact that Navajo has no "verb" corresponding to English "throw". To a Eurocentricist, this is always astonishing. "What do you mean, there is no word for 'throw'? This is a simple basic term for an obvious action." But from a Navajo point of view, it matters first of all WHAT is being thrown, and then logically expresses the fact that there is no "atomic" concept of "throw" to begin with, but "throw" REALLY means "to cause to move". So Navajo (and I assume, Apache) begins with different verbs for "round object moves", "long object moves", "rope-like object moves", and then adds a Causative suffix, like hundreds of other languages, producing "Cause round object to move", etc. So Navajo/Apache necessarily (and logically) has different verbs for "throw (a ball)", "throw (a stick)", etc. From that point of view, English and other Euro- languages are woefully unspecific and overgeneralizing, so that it is English that is more deficient in lacking lexical resources. Again, Mia, thanks again for your fine work and contributions. Rudy Troike From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 21 17:59:58 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 10:59:58 -0700 Subject: BETTER EDUCATION FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES (fwd link) Message-ID: PRIORITY SHOULD BE GIVEN TO PROVIDING BETTER EDUCATION FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, WITH EMPHASIS ON BILINGUAL INSTRUCTION, PERMANENT FORUM TOLD Speakers stressed the importance of quality education in pulling indigenous people out of poverty and preserving their cultures and knowledge systems, as the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues continued its fourth session today. http://i-newswire.com/pr21122.html From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed May 25 17:02:00 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 10:02:00 -0700 Subject: Legislation introduced to honor Choctaw Codetalkers (fwd) Message-ID: Legislation introduced to honor Choctaw Codetalkers Officials worry that pioneers of the practice are not getting their due Sam Lewin 5/24/2005 http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=6500 Picture the term: Codetalkers. What comes to mind? For many the word has to do with members of the Navajo Nation baffling the Japanese during World War 2. It's a mental association that has been fed by written media accounts and a major Hollywood film a few years back. Problem is, while the Navajo Codetalkers were certainly noteworthy and made valuable contributions, it was soldiers from the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma that originated the concept. Eighteen Choctaws stymied the Germans during World War 1 by using their Native language to transmit messages to U.S soldiers. Now Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., has introduced a measure that would give a congressional medal to the Choctaw Codetalkers, as well as members of the Sioux and Sac & Fox Tribes. "Code talkers from the Choctaw, Comanche and other tribes are true American heroes whose accomplishments have too long been forgotten," Inhofe said in a statement. "Their service on the front lines helped propel the allied forces to victory and saved countless lives in the process." According to the Byron County Heritage Quarterly, in the closing days of World War I, fourteen Choctaw Indian men in the Army's Thirty-Sixth Division, trained to use their language, helped U.S. forces win several key battles in France. The fourteen Choctaw CodeTalkers were Albert Billy, Mitchell Bobb, Victor Brown, Ben Caterby, James Edwards, Tobias Frazer, Ben Hampton, Solomon Louis, Pete Maytubby, Jeff Nelson, Joseph Oklahombi, Robert Taylor, Calvin Wilson, and Walter Veach. All are now deceased. According to the quarterly: The Choctaws were recognized as the first to use their native language as an unbreakable code in World War I. The Choctaw language was again used in World War II. Choctaws conversed in their language over field radios to coordinate military positions, giving exact details and locations without fear of German interception. It was a routine conversation between two of the Choctaws, Lewis and Bobb, which began the codetalker experiment. A ranking officer happened to hear the two men conversing in Choctaw and came up with the idea to use the language to foil the enemy. Bobb used a field telephone to deliver a message to Caterby, who then translated it into English for the Battalion commander. The rest is history. One reason that Choctaws did not receive recognition for their trailblazing success is because many of their contributions were classified as secret until years after the war ended. The first public recognition of their efforts appears to be during the annual Choctaw Labor Day Festival in 1986, when then-Choctaw Chief Hollis E. Roberts presented posthumous Choctaw Nation Medals of Valor to the families of the CodeTalkers. On November 3, 1989, in recognition of the role the Choctaw CodeTalkers played during World War I, the French government presented Roberts with the "Chevalier de L'Ordre National du Merite" (the Knight of the National Order of Merit), the highest honor France can bestow. Presently, Inhofe is not the only one with an interest in the contributions of the Choctaws. Students at Southeast Webster High School in Burnside, Iowa recently took up the history of Choctaw Codetalkers, creating a display featuring facts about their exploits. "You can see the difference they made," student Alonzo Barkley told the Iowa Messenger. "You can just look at the events of the war when we used code talkers versus not having them. You can see the difference they made. You just look at the events of the war when we used code talkers versus not having them." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed May 25 19:34:00 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 12:34:00 -0700 Subject: UA projects to preserve Indian tongues given funding (fwd) Message-ID: Wednesday, May 25, 2005 UA projects to preserve Indian tongues given funding PAUL L. ALLEN pallen at tucsoncitizen.com http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&story_id=052505a6_grantswfile_art Three University of Arizona projects aimed at saving endangered American Indian languages have received a total of $528,253 in federal grants and two doctoral students in linguistics have been granted fellowships. The grants and fellowships were provided through the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The projects the grants are funding are: Mohave and Chemehuevi Language Documentation Project, English department lecturer Susan Penfield, $200,000. Database of Mutsun, an Extinct California American-Indian Language, linguistics department Natasha Warner, $168,261. The Morphosyntax of Verbs in Arizona Yaqui, assistant professor of linguistics Heidi Harley, $159,992. The fellowships went to: A Filmic Language Documentation of Nez Perc? and Sahaptin, by Phillip Cash Cash. Documenting Mountain Pima Traditional Narratives by Luis Barragan. Penfield and Cash Cash have been working on a different project to help tribal members around the state use modern technology and computer software to preserve their languages, the Tucson Citizen previously reported. "These grants and fellowships are a reflection of the department's and the institution's commitment to documenting, preserving and revitalizing endangered Native American languages," said Michael Hammond, head of the linguistics department. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Wed May 25 22:43:18 2005 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 15:43:18 -0700 Subject: Pomo Language Message-ID: American Indian Youths Preserve the Past By Shadi Rahimi, Pacific News Service Posted on May 16, 2005, Printed on May 25, 2005 http://www.alternet.org/story/22011/ Eighteen-year-old Kristin Amparo, a tribal member of the Big Valley band of Pomo Indians, lives with her parents and five siblings in a large house on their reservation in Clear Lake, about three hours north of San Francisco. She likes bouncing on a trampoline to slam- dunk a basketball in her back yard, zooming past the creamy white Konocti Vista Casino in a yellow all-terrain vehicle and, now, speaking Bahtssal with her 14-year-old sister Felicia. The flat and green Big Valley reservation sits two miles from tiny downtown Lakeport on 153 acres encircling the banks of Clear Lake, whose blue-green waters host international bass-fishing tournaments and traditional Pomo tule boat races. On sunny days, kids fish for bluegill and catfish from the dock near the tribe's Konocti Vista Casino. Only a few elders of the Big Valley tribe are fluent in Bahtssal, a tribal dialect that began to fade after settlers forced Northern California Pomos off their lands. Today, Amparo and her sister are among a small group of young people on the 470-member reservation who are learning to speak the dialect as part of a newly formed language program. "We tell our mom stuff in Bahtssal, like, 'I have to go,'" says Amparo, who had never heard the language spoken before she began studying it under the new initiative. "It's really fun to learn." According to tribal historians, the decline in fluency in Bahtssal dates back to 1852, when the United States Senate refused to ratify a federal treaty that had promised the Big Valley tribe 72 square miles of land on the south side of Clear Lake. Settlers began claiming plots of land the following year, making private property of the areas where Big Valley ancestors had gathered food for more than 11,000 years. As tribal members began working in fields and on ranches owned by settlers, and their children began learning English in white schools, Bahtssal began to fade. James Bluewolf, who directs the language program, sees it as an exercise not just in cultural preservation, but also in healing. "People are still suffering from post-traumatic stress after being forced to give up everything they had," he says. "But every culture comes to a point where they are ready to make a change." In Clear Lake, the epicenter of that change sits among piles of scrap metal, wood and rusty cars, in a building that looks like it has dropped from the sky. It is tiny and tidy, and painted a bright swimming-pool blue. Inside this building, which houses the tribal language program, young mothers watch their chubby-cheeked toddlers play in a preschool class held by the nonprofit Lake County Tribal Health Consortium. In a cramped office past the play area, James Bluewolf smiles at the children's squeals. A stocky, soft-spoken man who once ran a landscaping business, Bluewolf has been using technology tribal ancestors could not have imagined to preserve and promote the tribal language. Bluewolf records hours of Bahtssal spoken by elders, which he edits into half-hour audio segments that air on the community radio station, and are available free on CD to tribal members. Bluewolf is also writing a curriculum for a 15-week course in Bahtssal. In a program Bluewolf directs, local teenagers perform skits that teach words and phrases such as "Chiin the'a 'eh" ("How are you?") and "Q'odii" ("Good"). Bluewolf videotapes the skits and makes them into videos that are played on the Lake County television station, and made available on DVD. In the play area, Alisha Salguero, 21, rocks her 5-month-old daughter to sleep while her 3-year-old son Brian plays. Brian has learned several words in Bahtssal in the preschool class, where Bluewolf uses hand puppets to teach the language. "He's really picked it up," Salguero says with a smile. "I don't really know it, so I think it's good for him to learn his language." While traditional song, dance, and tule boat races have always been part of the cultural life of Big Valley children, holding on to their tribal language has been more difficult, says Marilyn Ellis, 21. "That's why this language program is important," says Ellis, whose father, Ray, was the spiritual leader of the tribe. Before he died several years ago, Ray Ellis revived the tribe's "Big Time" spiritual celebration. The gathering, held every September on the grassy banks of Clear Lake, includes prayer, dancing and singing -- and now, perhaps, the sound of children trying out their ancestral tongue. "Our language is part of us," says Ellis, who does not speak the tribal dialect herself, but whose daughters can now name their cat and dog in Bahtssal. "If we don't know it, we're pretty much dead." Shadi Rahimi, 24, is the co-founder and an editor of Seventh Native American Generation (SNAG) magazine, and an associate editor of YO! Youth Outlook, www.youthoutlook.org. ? 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/22011/ From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu May 26 18:47:23 2005 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 11:47:23 -0700 Subject: Voices Message-ID: Call for participation in Voices of the World An international media project on endangered languages Dear colleagues around the world, ? Voices of the World (VOW) aims to build international awareness of the diversity of mankind through a world-wide documentary film and media project. We want to portray the peoples of the world, giving face and voice to each culture and empowering every language community to speak. The goal of VOW is to strengthen our global mutual belonging. VOW is an international non-profit initiative of UNESCO?s Goodwill Ambassador for Languages Mrs. Vigdis Finnbogadottir, based on an original idea by the internationally acclaimed filmmaker Janus Billeskov Jansen, supported by the Danish Government, the UN and by leading linguists from all over the world. ? AMBITIONS AND VISIONS Our first task is to create a media event in connection with UN?s 60th anniversary in October 2005. All the Nordic public service TV stations are committed to this broadcast. We are presently working on similar arrangements with other international TV-stations. In order to make this a truly global event we want to invite YOU to participate in creating key elements of the central documentary film ? Voices. Voices will tell the story of the linguistic loss the world is suffering from the threat of language endangerment. The film takes its point of departure in a personal talk with UN Sec.-Gen. Mr. Kofi Annan, in his own mother tongue Fante, expressing his concerns for cultural and linguistic diversity. But the main elements of the film are to be based on YOUR contributions. We seek case stories, which pinpoint the stages from language endangerment to language death. We look for storytellers who can explain what it feels like to loose one?s language. ? ?VOICES? NEEDS YOUR HELP We aim to include material from as many different languages as possible in the film, but we have a limited budget. Thus we are looking for local contributions. You can participate in three different ways. 1. you can submit new material. 2. you can submit material already recorded. 3. you can send us contacts to speakers of endangered languages. We are looking for charismatic storytellers who can tell moving personal stories to the world in their own language. The issues to be covered are: ? 1. The language generation gap ? fx how does it feel to live in a family where grand parents and grand children find it hard to communicate, because the language of the older generation was not passed on? 2. The last speakers ? fx how does it feel to be among the last few speakers of a language? 3. Language suppression (economic, social, political, cultural) ? fx how do people cope with situations, when their language is not given space in the public sphere? What does it mean to a community, if their language is forbidden or drained of resources? 4. Language and technology ? fx how are speakers of endangered languages affected by globalization and the new information technology? We are also looking for success stories such as: 5. Language revitalization ? fx how did a particular endangered language community manage to turn the situation around and revitalize their language? 6. Other vital language issues? ?? YOU might come up with something brilliant, which we were not even able to conceptualize ? given the limitations of our language? ? TERMS AND CONDITIONS If you want to participate in ?Voices?, please start by sending us an email introducing yourself, your language or the language you are engaged with. Please also describe your contribution and in what way you would like to collaborate with us. We will then send you more information about the project, more specifications of what we are looking for and technical requirements. ? Contact:? Voices of the World Project manager: Signe Byrge S?rensen byrge at final-cut.dk Forbindelsesvej 7; 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark Tel: +45 35 43 60 43, Fax: +45 35 43 60 44 ? Don?t miss this opportunity to present YOUR language as part of the bigger picture. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 6164 bytes Desc: not available URL: From miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Fri May 27 00:07:29 2005 From: miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish (LFP)) Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 18:07:29 -0600 Subject: FW: [ILAT] Convert PowerPoint to Flash easyway Message-ID: I tried this thing. It has a couple of (small?) flaws. First, you can't edit it in Flash after its generated because all you have is the SWF. This was a problem with the presentation for which I am sending the link, because there are links to Excel worksheets. The links were not included in the SWF construction. Since I couldn't edit, I had to make them available to people a different way. I chose the easiest for today, because I am trying to get my website "up". . . . later, I will polish it so we can say it's finessed :-). Here's the link to the workshop, Mathematics of Mirabal, which I gave at the Santa Fe Indian School (to broad acclaim, I might share, however unhumble that seems: The Ndn teachers loved it): http://learningforpeople.us/Mirabalmath.htm The speed of the pages is set during publish. If people would let me know how the speed is? I couldn't figure out how to stop the automatic pacing. (sheesh). This is the first time this site has been so comprehensively put together, so for people who would like to explore: the numbers and puzzles are Estonian, with half a dozen other languages coming; the Web Pages (special link page) use Apache and Spanish in the menus (not an easy job); the science entry, 8 Days Around the Community, is a pre-K -- elementary project that includes both an in-class activities (materials not included unfortunately) and the online version. And there are so cool java effects in Fonts, and some Hopi and local petroglyphs in Math. :-) Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Depree ShadowWalker Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2005 2:13 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Convert PowerPoint to Flash easyway SWiSHpresenter is a Microsoft PowerPoint plugin that converts your PowerPoint presentations to Flash. SWiSHpresenter is the quickest easiest way to get your PowerPoint presentations on the web http://www.swishzone.com/index.php?area=products&tab=overview&product=presen ter The good thing about this is you can create a self executable which means you can view it without buying the software program. it's the BETA version so they are working on bugs and letting us try a fully functional version before you buy it! You can test it out for free. I made this conversion in less than 5 mins from an existing PowerPoint. You can add audio and timing, special effects, which of course takes longer. Here is a link to a no frills (hit button) conversion from PowerPoint just using the default settings. http://www.redpony.us/flash/EndofaTalePopularCulture.swf Swish also has a reasonable program for creating self executable files in Flash format called: $49.95 USD SWiSHstudio lets you convert your SWF files to projector executables, screensavers or burn directly to a CD-ROM in three easy steps. more info > SWiSHpresenter is a Microsoft PowerPoint plugin that converts your PowerPoint presentations to Flash. SWiSHpresenter is the quickest easiest way to get your PowerPoint presentations on the web! more info > Hope the server is set up for HTML? Depree ShadowWalker, M.Ed. emphasis in Learning Technologies Doctoral Student, Language, Reading and Culture GA @ Native American Research and Training Center voice (520) 626-0348 fax (520) 621-9802 websites: http://www.fcm.arizona.edu/research/nartc/diabetes_camp.htm www.septa.arizona.edu Red Pony Heritage Language Team website : www.redpony.us From miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Fri May 27 21:24:59 2005 From: miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish (LFP)) Date: Fri, 27 May 2005 15:24:59 -0600 Subject: ppt to Flash conversion Message-ID: Hmmm. I suppose everyone is gone for the long week-end. . . but if not. . . One of my friends suggested that I should add sound to my presentations and workshops, and I though, Cool! I tried the Swish option, but lot the ppt special effects. Also, the sound gets clipped if the display time is too short, and there doesn't seem to be an individual slide control. Powerpoint will write the slides out as jpegs, but this doesn't help with the animation. I tried the Swish option of writing the ppt out as one swf per page, but when I imported them, they created an extraordinary number of subordinate objects, and didn't behave like a regular Flash movie. Writing the ppt out as an html file doesn't help either, because the sound gets trimmed. Also, while it will embed the True Type fonts, it won't embed the Post Script fonts, so some of the fonts that are integral to the presentation get lost. sigh Has anyone else done this? Mia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 28 17:18:01 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 May 2005 10:18:01 -0700 Subject: Native American Nuuchahnulth language gets first dictionary (fwd) Message-ID: Native American Nuuchahnulth language gets first dictionary [phot inset - The Native American language has been in steady decline ever since English speakers colonised North Western America in the 19th Century. Picture / Reuters] 26.05.05 4.00pm by Ian Herbert http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10127646 The language known to the dwindling band of Native Americans who speak it as 'Nuuchahnulth' (pronounced Noo-cha-noolth) is like few others in its spectacular range of dialects and its capacity to convey complex ideas through simple words. 'Nuuchahnulth' itself means 'along the mountains', a reference to the inaccessible Vancouver Island mountain range on Canada's Western coast where it is spoken. The language has been in steady decline ever since English speakers colonised North Western America in the 19th Century, reducing those able to speak it from 3500 in 1881 to around 300 today - and most of them aged over 60. Salvation may now have arrived, however, with the first dictionary of the language to be created in its 5000-year existence, which has been completed by a Canadian-born linguist based at Newcastle University. The 537-page book is being despatched to Vancouver Island to support the efforts of elders to revive Nuuchahnulth among younger members of the community's 10,000 population, who have drifted into the predominant use of English. Vital to the preservation of Nuuchahnulth (which is better known as 'Nootka') has been the work of the anthropologist and linguist Edward Sapir who from 1910 to 1924 travelled through North America researching native languages. He chronicled Nuuchahnulth at a time when it was spoken by young and old alike but after his death, in 1939, his work was waylaid. It reappeared only in the 1970s, since when it has remained in the archives of the American Philosophical Society. It has proved as vital to Newcastle's Dr John Stonham, whose team of researchers used a computer programme to analyse Sapir's extraordinarily detailed notes, creating a database of approximately 150,000 words of the language. Dr Stonham has been working at Nuuchahnulth for 20 years. Learning the language - which has three basic vowels, 40 consonants and a very complex sound structure when spoken - will not be easy for the young Vancouver Islanders. Nuuchahnulth encompasses around 15 languages, each with distinct variations in vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation, which are acknowledged in the dictionary. Some differ to the same extent as Geordie and Cockney, though one of the southerly forms is entirely incomprehensible to the others. The language is even more complex in its oral, story-telling forms. Speakers are known to employ a set of hisses or extra consonants depending on whether they are talking to or about children, fat or short people, lame people, hunchbacked men or anyone who has an eye defect. The dictionary provides hope to those who have expressed concern about the death of many of the world's minority languages. Scientists warn that up to 95per cent of the world's 6000 languages are heading for extinction, causing irreparable damage to human civilisation, because of encroachment on the territories of indigenous peoples, mass migration and the desire to learn the dominant languages of the world, notably English. Of the 176 living languages spoken by the tribes of North America, 52 have become extinct since AD1600. Approximately 30 of the 235 languages spoken by the Aboriginal Australians have disappeared altogether. The dictionary provides a fascinating insight into the essential vocabulary needs of those making a life on a remote coastline. Entries include the words for 'mosquitos', 'high rubber boots' and 'to be secluded in the house observing taboos, so as not to spoil a hunter's luck.' (The communities' superstitions are reflected in a tradition of wearing head-dresses and masks to represent supernatural wolves and serpents.) Despite the islanders' evolution from communal houses to more modern, prefabricated homes built with the timber on which their small economy is largely based, communities remain tight-knit. There is a "very strong desire by many of the younger people to speak their native tongue," said Dr Stonham. He believes the dictionary, part of a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, can preserve both the language and culture of the island's societies. "Language is intricately bound up with tradition," he said. "Noam Chomsky said you can learn about all languages by studying just one. This work will contribute to a better understanding of the structure of English and many of the world's languages, not just those of the Native Americans." Nicholas Ostler, president of the Foundation for Endangered Languages, which is based in Britain but has international members, said: "A dictionary often provides the greatest single step in the progress of a language to fully literate status, a status that has been achieved by only a third of the world's languages to date." Almost extinct: Speakers of Mati Ke - an Aboriginal language, have decreased from 1000 to a handful. One claims his sister speaks it too, but not to him, since tribal taboos forbid them to communicate after puberty. The Native American tongue of Yuchi - an isolated language that bears no relation to any other living tongue - is spoken by a handful of elders, usually while eating The Leco - language of the Bolivian Andes is spoken by about 20 people The Cambap - language of Cameroon in Central Africa is used by just 30 native speakers. - INDEPENDENT From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 28 17:51:02 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 May 2005 10:51:02 -0700 Subject: Native Language Key to Academic Success (fwd) Message-ID: Native Language Key to Academic Success By Susan Logue Cloquet, Minnesota 27 May 2005 http://www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/2005-05-27-voa55.cfm An error occurred -- check your media assetsAn error occurred -- check your media assets An error occurred -- check your media assets [photo inset - A sign outside Red Lake High School warns against prohibition of weapons in school on Red Lake Indian Reservation] The school year is nearly over at Red Lake High School in the midwestern state of Minnesota. Seniors graduate May 28. But the community is still healing from the fatal shooting there in March. Many students finished the year at home, choosing not to return to class after Jeffrey Weise, a 17-year-old member of the Red Lake Ojibwe tribe, killed 10 people, including himself. News reports described Weise as a troubled young man, but also noted that many American Indian teens in Minnesota face serious problems, ranging from suicide to alcohol and drug abuse. But the problems have more to do with growing up poor than growing up Indian. On Minnesota's Leech Lake Indian Reservation, where 17-year-old Chris Stouffer lives, the unemployment rate is 31%. While tribal casinos provide paychecks for some members, Chris says they are also places where many Indians just gamble their money away. "A lot of people, it's just ruining (their lives), because they spend all their money in casinos." There are other problems on the reservation as well, including alcoholism and too many broken families. Chris's friend, Royal White, says his family is among them. "My father is an alcoholic on the reservation, and I don't know where he is. Royal adds that his mother is struggling to support Royal and his younger brother since she was injured at work. Both Royal and Chris say they believe that despite the problems on the Leech Lake Reservation, life there is very much like life in other American communities. Yvonne Novak, manager of Indian education for Minnesota's Department of Education agrees. "Is it hard to be an Indian? At times, (yes), but it's also glorious," she says. "I think what's harder is poverty and economic issues. I think THAT is what makes it hard to go to school, NOT that you're an Indian." American Indian educators say students find powerful incentives to stay in school when they can connect with their Indian heritage. "I have an 11th grader right now that is failing everything but language and culture," says Merlin Williams a teacher in Elk River, Minnesota, about 50 kilometers north of Minneapolis. When he told the student he had to improve his other grades in order to stay in the Ojibwe language class, the teacher says he got results. Merlin Williams is in charge of Minnesota's Heritage Quiz Bowl, an annual competition where American Indian students get to demonstrate what they have learned about their language. Students put in a lot of extra work to prepare for the big event. "Kids work for four months," says Yvonne Novack. "Their reading list is intensive, (as is) the studying, and oftentimes it's after school. And lots of times these are students who may not be the best students in school. But this engages them. It acknowledges who they are, where they are from and the importance of their history." [photo inset - Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig School] This year 27 teams, nearly 150 students in all, competed in the Heritage Quiz Bowl. Melly Johnson, Royal White, and Chris Stouffer from Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig High School on Leech Lake Reservation took home second prize. They all plan to continue studying their language and culture after they graduate and they have other plans as well. Melly wants to be veterinarian. Royal plans to study engineering. And Chris says he'll probably go into computer science. [photo inset - Dan Jones, professor of Ojibwe language and culture, Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College] There is no way to prove that studying their heritage has given these 3 students the self-confidence to reach for those goals. But Dan Jones, who teaches Ojibwe language and culture at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College in Cloquet, Minnesota, says elders believe when people don't know who they are or what they are, they are more prone to be self-destructive. Mr. Jones says he believes that's what happened to Jeffrey Weise. "If that person (Jeffrey Weise) knew their language, their culture and their history," Mr. Jones says, "he wouldn't have acted out the way he did. Because within our history, language and culture is a built-in, positive self-image, positive views on the world. It's built in that we are respectful to one another. We are respectful to the land, and have respect for life. And obviously that person did not have respect for life." Right now there is a shortage of teachers in Minnesota to provide classes in Ojibwe language and culture. To help meet the need, Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College will soon begin offering a four-year degree in elementary education. While the program will not be limited to American Indian students, graduates will be required to have a minor in the Ojibwe language. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 28 17:57:42 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 May 2005 10:57:42 -0700 Subject: The Rosetta Project: Rescuing languages (fwd) Message-ID: The Rosetta Project: Rescuing languages -Posted by Dan Farber @ 12:22 pm http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=1443 Language and culture are inseparable. An estimated 7,000 languages, and the associated social and cultural artifacts that accompany them, exist today, but many are on the verge of extinction. "There is a level of endangerment to the survival of languages, driven primarily by globalization," said counterculture icon Stewart Brand. "In this century, 50 to 90 percent of the languages will evaporate under the current circumstance." In a conversation at the Future in Review conference with Larry Brilliant of the Seva Foundation, Brand outlined the Rosetta Project , which is dedicated to archiving all the languages of the world online and creating tools to help recover and revitalize languages. "We are using the Internet to alleviate the effects of globalization and the homogenization of culture on languages," Brand said. So far, the Rosetta Project has documented 4,000 languages and about are 2,500 currently archived online, Brand said. [photo inset - Larry Brilliant (left) and Steward Brand] The project is somewhat analogous to Wikipedia in that thousands of volunteers (about 2,300 today) peer review the content and contribute to the corpus. In fact, the Rosetta Project states its goal as becoming an "open source ?Linux of Linguistics?- an effort of collaborative online scholarship drawing on the expertise and contributions of thousands of academic specialists and native speakers around the world." Each language in the archive includes detail descriptions, maps, numbers, orthography, phonology, grammar, audio files, a translation of part of the biblical Genesis text, and Swadesh word lists. The archive also includes comparative lists of common words. Archiving the world?s languages and trying to preserve or even recover their use is swimming upstream. Mandarin, Hindi and English are the leading languages in terms of native speakers. Brilliant pointed out that their are more English speakers (not all fluent) in China than in the U.S. At the other end of the spectrum, less than 10 million people in and around New Guinea speak an estimated 900 native languages. The flattening world (see Tom Friedman?s The World is Flat) leans over time toward monoculture and a few dominant languages for global communications and commerce. Nonetheless, Brand points out that successive generations want to connect with their roots and cultural heritage. The Rosetta Project achive and tools will help preserve that opportunity, but don?t expect to see a lot of instant messages in Arauan, Chapacura-Wanham, Choco, East Papuan, Geelvink Bay, Huavean, Kiowa Tanoan, Luwic, Mascoian, Wakashan, Yenisei Ostyak, Yukaghir or Zamucoan languages From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat May 28 18:02:09 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 May 2005 11:02:09 -0700 Subject: Bid to save nearly-lost language (fwd) Message-ID: Bid to save nearly-lost language Last Updated: Thursday, 26 May, 2005, 19:23 GMT 20:23 UK BBC News It is spoken by only a handful of people but, after 5,000 years, a rare native American language is to get its own dictionary. Some 300 people, descendants of a Native American people in west Canada, still speak Nuuchahnulth. But almost no young people in the community on Vancouver Island know the ancient language. The professor behind the dictionary project hopes the text will help the language survive by aiding teachers. Long words The dictionary, which has 7,500 entries, is the fruit of 15 years of research into the language. It is based on both work with current speakers and notes from linguist Edward Sapir, taken almost a century ago. SAVED SYLLABLES puqee-oh - Always-absent woman hina?aluk - I look out for what I know is to happen Simaacyin?ahinnaanuhsim?aki - their whaling spears were poised in the bow haasulapi-ck'in?i - sing a little louder "Less than 10% of the traditional population now speaks the Nuuchahnulth language," Dr John Stonham of Newcastle University told the BBC News website. He said linguists found the language fascinating because of its complexity. "Entire sentences can be built up into a single word," Dr Stonham said. "But there are also some concepts that can be encapsulated in a single syllable. A single sound describes the state of remaining in seclusion when the husband goes out to hunt, for example." Dr Stonham hopes providing a dictionary of words will encourage teachers to use the language in the classroom and that older people too will be spurred into passing their language on to the next generation. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4583455.stm Published: 2005/05/26 19:23:58 GMT ? BBC MMV From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Tue May 31 16:37:34 2005 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 09:37:34 -0700 Subject: Fwd: media project on endangered languages Message-ID: Begin forwarded message: From: "Dennis W. Zotigh" Date: May 31, 2005 8:11:41 AM PDT To: , Subject: media project on endangered languages ?Dear Sirs, ? I have been working on documenting language loss and preservation initiatives with the 39 Oklahoma tribes of the United States. Historically, 67 tribes from throughout the United States and Canada were removed from their homelands and placed in Indian Territory (what is now Oklahoma). Today there are 39 tribal headquarters within our state boundaries. This provides a unique opportunity for researchers because we have tribes that were relocated here, whose homelands spanned across America. ? My research of language loss in Oklahoma?is considered by many to be currently the most up to date.? In my field studies, I have found there were 8 Oklahoma tribes who have no fluent speakers within their tribal membership. Last month another elder died, making that statistic 9 Oklahoma tribes who have no fluent tribal language speakers. In addition, 10 Oklahoma tribes are one generation away from losing their language. ? "We are in the greatest era of American Indian lanuage extinction in history!" I am?a strong proponent of getting this message out to the international public. ? I have spoken nationally and internationally on American Indian culture. If I can be of any?assistance in your Voices of the World project, ?please let me know. ? Sincerely, ? ? Dennis W. Zotigh American Indian Research Historian Oklahoma Historical Society and Powwow Cultural Advisor Smithsonian? National Museum of the American Indian ? ___ ? ? Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 18:47:44 +0000 From: andre cramblit Subject: Voices Of The World (language) Call for participation in Voices of the World. ?An international media project on endangered languages Dear colleagues around the world, Voices of the World (VOW) aims to build international awareness of the diversity of mankind through a world-wide documentary film and media project. We want to portray the peoples of the world, giving face and voice to each culture and empowering every language community to speak. The goal of VOW is to strengthen our global mutual belonging. VOW is an international non-profit initiative of UNESCO?s Goodwill Ambassador for Languages Mrs. Vigdis Finnbogadottir, based on an original idea by the internationally acclaimed filmmaker Janus Billeskov Jansen, supported by the Danish Government, the UN and by leading linguists from all over the world. AMBITIONS AND VISIONS Our first task is to create a media event in connection with UN?s 60th anniversary in October 2005. All the Nordic public service TV stations are committed to this broadcast. We are presently working on similar arrangements with other international TV-stations. In order to make this a truly global event we want to invite YOU to participate in creating key elements of the central documentary film ? Voices. Voices will tell the story of the linguistic loss the world is suffering from the threat of language endangerment. The film takes its point of departure in a personal talk with UN Sec.-Gen. Mr. Kofi Annan, in his own mother tongue Fante, expressing his concerns for cultural and linguistic diversity. But the main elements of the film are to be based on YOUR contributions. We seek case stories, which pinpoint the stages from language endangerment to language death. We look for storytellers who can explain what it feels like to loose one?s language. ?VOICES? NEEDS YOUR HELP We aim to include material from as many different languages as possible in the film, but we have a limited budget. Thus we are looking for local contributions. You can participate in three different ways. 1.??? you can submit new material. 2.??? you can submit material already recorded. 3. you can send us contacts to speakers of endangered languages. We are looking for charismatic storytellers who can tell moving personal stories to the world in their own language. The issues to be covered are: 1. The language generation gap ? fx how does it feel to live in a family where grand parents and grand children find it hard to communicate, because the language of the older generation was not passed on? 2. The last speakers ? fx how does it feel to be among the last few speakers of a language? 3. Language suppression (economic, social, political, cultural) ? fx how do people cope with situations, when their language is not given space in the public sphere? What does it mean to a community, if their language is forbidden or drained of resources? 4. Language and technology ? fx how are speakers of endangered languages affected by globalization and the new information technology? We are also looking for success stories such as: 5. Language revitalization ? fx how did a particular endangered language community manage to turn the situation around and revitalize their language? 6. Other vital language issues? ?? YOU might come up with something brilliant, which we were not even able to conceptualize ? given the limitations of our language? TERMS AND CONDITIONS If you want to participate in ?Voices?, please start by sending us an email introducing yourself, your language or the language you are engaged with. Please also describe your contribution and in what way you would like to collaborate with us. We will then send you more information about the project, more specifications of what we are looking for and technical requirements. Contact:? Voices of the World Project manager: Signe Byrge S?rensen byrge at final-cut.dk; Forbindelsesvej 7; 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark Tel: +45 35 43 60 43, Fax: +45 35 43 60 44;? Don?t miss this opportunity to present YOUR language as part of the bigger picture. .:.? Andr? Cramblit: andre.p.cramblit.86 at alum.dartmouth.org is the Operations Director Northern California Indian Development Council NCIDC (http://www.ncidc.org) is a non-profit that meets the development needs of American Indians To subscribe to a news letter of interest to Natives send an email to: IndigenousNewsNetwork-subscribe at topica.com or go to: http://www.topica.com/lists/IndigenousNewsNetwork/subscribe/? location=listinfo -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 12323 bytes Desc: not available URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Tue May 31 17:01:36 2005 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 10:01:36 -0700 Subject: Rush To teach Message-ID: Headline: As tribal speakers dwindle, a rush to teach their words Date: May 31, 2005 "MT. PLEASANT, Mich. -- After 10 years of teaching Ojibwe 101 to students at Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College, language instructor George Roy says he's more determined than ever to prevent the language of his Native American ancestors from vanishing into history." ____________________________________________________________ To see this recommendation, click on the link below or cut and paste it into a Web browser: http://www.boston.com:80/news/nation/articles/2005/05/31/ as_tribal_speakers_dwindle_a_rush_to_teach_their_words From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue May 31 17:30:10 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 10:30:10 -0700 Subject: Community College to offer Native American language program (fwd) Message-ID: Community College to offer Native American language program 5/30/2005, 11:58 p.m. PT The Associated Press http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-10/1117521784283320.xml&storylist=orlocal EUGENE, Ore. (AP) ? Lane Community College is poised to become Oregon's first community college to offer an American Indian language course, thanks to a $1 million gift made to the college last year from an anonymous donor. Interest income from the donation will be used to invite an Indian scholar to spend a year at the school laying plans the new language program. The college has not yet decided which language it will offer, in part because that will depend on the background of the person it ultimately hires. But Lane Community College President Mary Spilde said it will be a language spoken by a Northwest tribe and said they hope to choose a scholar by this summer. Ultimately, the college hopes to offer a program rigorous enough that students who pass the native language class will be able to transfer the credits to a four-year university and have them count toward the language requirement for a bachelor's degree. Although perhaps only six of the 25 tribal languages that existed in Oregon before European arrival are still spoken, researchers and linguists say learning one still has value. "If you learn Nez Perce or Klamath or any of a number of languages, this gives you access to a large body of traditional lore and literature and mythology," University of Oregon linguistics professor Scott Delancey, who studies Northwest Indian languages. "And the truth is, you really don't get a lot of the story if you just read the English translation." Twila Souers, a Lakota tribal member, said many tribal languages already have died out and the few remaining are spoken only by a few people, usually elders. Teaching them in college is seen not only as a way to preserve dying languages but also to share the culture they reflect, she said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue May 31 17:40:40 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 10:40:40 -0700 Subject: As tribal speakers dwindle, a rush to teach their words (fwd) Message-ID: As tribal speakers dwindle, a rush to teach their words Native American languages at risk By Tom Nugent, Globe Correspondent | May 31, 2005 http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/05/31/as_tribal_speakers_dwindle_a_rush_to_teach_their_words/ MT. PLEASANT, Mich. -- After 10 years of teaching Ojibwe 101 to students at Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College, language instructor George Roy says he's more determined than ever to prevent the language of his Native American ancestors from vanishing into history. ''The first thing I tell my students at the beginning of each semester is that we're fighting a battle to hold onto our own cultural identity," said the 58-year-old Roy, a member of Michigan's Ottawa tribe. ''Language is the glue that holds our culture together. . . . The stakes are very high, and I think most of us who teach Native American languages and culture in the Great Lakes realize that we're fighting an uphill battle to preserve our own heritage." Roy, who often introduces himself to new students as both George Roy and Signaak -- his tribal family name, pronounced ''SIG-ah-Nawk," which means blackbird -- is among Native American speakers and cultural researchers across the Midwest battling to save dozens of increasingly threatened Indian languages from extinction. Most of the approximately 40 Native American languages and dialects still being used on reservations and in Native American families in the Midwest are expected to vanish within the next few decades, say linguists, as their last remaining tribal speakers die. ''Unfortunately, I think it's going to be very difficult for native Midwestern languages such as Ojibwe and Potawatomi to survive beyond the next 20 or 30 years," said Anthony Aristar, a Wayne State University linguistics researcher who directs a $2 million archival project aimed in part at preserving dying Indian languages in a large database. The growing threat to Indian languages of the Midwest is part of a worldwide phenomenon. Linguists say that, on average, a language becomes extinct every two weeks. Many language specialists blame English language television programming and the prevalence of English language software for the decline. In an effort to rescue some threatened languages, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation earlier this month announced a $4.4 million program of grants and fellowships designed to preserve both written and spoken elements of more than 70 threatened languages, including more than a dozen Native American languages, before they become extinct. The project, called Documenting Endangered Languages, awarded 13 fellowships and 26 institutional grants for projects ranging from digitizing Cherokee writings in North Carolina to documenting the Kaw language in Oklahoma. ''These languages are the DNA of our human culture, and if we lose them, we will be losing a unique and irreplaceable part of our experience," said Bruce Cole, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. ''The scholars tell us there are almost 7,000 languages in the world, and that half of them will probably be lost in the next century." Cole said that about 400 of the world's languages now have fewer than 100 fluent speakers each, and that 74 of them are Native American languages in the United States. ''I'm not happy about this, because when we lose a language, we also lose a culture," said Aristar. ''But the research shows that there probably won't be any Native American languages left around the Great Lakes by the middle of this century. There are now only 10 or 12 fluent speakers of Potawatomi left in the entire Midwest, for example, and most are elderly. When they die in a few years, they'll probably take the language with them. Losing a language like Potawatomi is a major setback for all of us because in most cases, you also lose the poetry and the songs and the entire oral tradition." Many Midwestern Native American languages are disappearing, said Aristar, because Native American parents often insist that their children ''learn the language of the mainstream culture, so they can [find] good jobs and gain economic power." Although the 40 Midwestern languages are threatened, according to Aristar, the outlook is brighter for some Indian languages in the American West, where, he said, ''some tribes were not as injured and fragmented as those around the Great Lakes in the 19th century." He noted that these larger communities, such as the Navajo in the Southwest, operate their own large colleges and radio stations where the native language is routinely spoken. Roland Marmon, a member of the North Dakota Turtle Mountain Ojibwa Tribe who teaches the Ojibwe language and culture to about 30 students each semester at White Earth Tribal and Community College in Mahnomen, Minn., said that non-Native Americans often take his course. ''I'd say that about 40 percent of my students are whites in the local community," he said, ''and the payoff for them is that they learn a great deal about the world they grew up in and continue to live in." ? Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue May 31 17:51:08 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 10:51:08 -0700 Subject: Blogging: a Way to 'Decolonise Cyberspace' (fwd) Message-ID: Blogging: a Way to 'Decolonise Cyberspace' Highway Africa News Agency (Grahamstown) NEWS May 26, 2005 Posted to the web May 27, 2005 By Emrakeb Assefa Johannesburg http://allafrica.com/stories/200505270204.html Ndesanjo Macha, 35, a Tanzanian writer and lecturer with a background in law, journalism and socio-informatics, is campaigning in Africa to 'decolonise cyberspace' so that African languages and cultures could flourish in it. In order to achieve his goal, he has become the first African to launch a blog in the African language KiSwahili in June 2004. Macha is one of a group of young Africans who started a movement to place African languages on the internet by blogging novels, songs and poems in African languages and allowing the free use of content under the Creative Commons (cc) project. He told Highway Africa News Agency yesterday that twenty one blogs in African languages have been set up since June 2004. Today, there are 17 KiSwahili blogs, the language spoken by over 100 million people in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda; a single Bambara blog, the Malian language; two KiChagga blogs, a language spoken in the Kilimanjaro area of northern Tanzania; a Shona blog from Zimbabwe and one Berber blog from Morocco. Macha hopes to increase the number of indigenous African language blogs to one hundred by the end of the year. The movement to use African languages as a means of communications on the internet stems from a fear that African cultures and languages are in danger of disappearing. "A language disappears every two weeks", says Macha, comparing this to a "whole library burning down." Though Africa is known to be by far the most linguistically diverse continent - there are around 2,000 African languages, i.e. one third of the world's linguistic heritage - its languages are largely absent from internet content. According to UNESCO, although there are over 6,000 languages in the world, the content on the internet is largely disseminated in 12 languages - dominated by English. "The rest are subject languages, like most indigenous African languages; they are talked about but have no content in their own language," Macha says bitterly. Moreover, there are no tools for creating or translating information into these excluded tongues. Huge sections of the world's population are thus prevented from enjoying the benefits of technological advances and obtaining information essential to their well-being and development. Unchecked, this will contribute to a loss of cultural diversity on information networks and a widening of existing socio-economic inequalities. However, the cc project and blogging, says Macha, are providing opportunities to African artists with no English language skills to introduce their creativity into the mainstream industry. This way, African cultures and languages remain vibrant and alive. Macha's inspiration is the Kenyan Ngugi Wa Thiong'o whose novels Decolonising the African Mind and Move in the Centre had led him to this movement. Quoting Thiong'o, Macha says that the dominance of English on the internet is like saying that there is a flower which is more of a flower on the basis of its shape or colour. Or that the flourishing of one flower should depend on the death of other flowers. He stressed the importance of "decolonising the cyberspace of the dominant position of English language" to create a cyberspace that is multilingual and multicultural. Copyright ? 2005 Highway Africa News Agency. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).