From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Nov 1 16:42:41 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2005 09:42:41 -0700 Subject: Learning the language (fwd) Message-ID: Learning the language © Indian Country Today November 01, 2005. All Rights Reserved Posted: November 01, 2005 by: Staff Reports / Indian Country Today http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096411838 [Photo courtesy University of Wyoming -- Wayne C'Hair (right), from the Wind River Indian Reservation, and Skott Vigil, a University of Wyoming graduate student from Berthoud, Colo., chat informally at a weekly after-class gathering. C'Hair, who at age 60 is thought to be the youngest fluent Northern Arapaho speaker, teaches Northern Arapaho language at UW.] Language course preserves Northern Arapaho culture LARAMIE, Wyo. - More than a dozen University of Wyoming students, their family members and friends sit outside on a pleasant Friday night in September. They eat their fill of traditional American Indian foods and swap stories of their upbringings, career goals, and even Dallas Cowboy football. It doesn't feel like it, but they are in a class. The Wyoming Council for the Humanities, and additional financial support from the College of Arts and Sciences and the American Indian Studies Program, have enabled UW this year to offer eight credit hours of Northern Arapaho language instruction through the Department of Modern and Classical Languages. Course instructor Wayne C'Hair travels from the Wind River Indian Reservation to Laramie to teach the class for eight consecutive weekends the first half of each semester. Students go to class for four hours on Fridays and then have a meal together which they all prepare and share. The class meets for an additional 3.5 hours Saturday mornings. Northern Arapaho was offered in 2003, but its new association with the language department means that when completed with a grade ''C'' or above, the class now fulfills the College of Arts and Sciences' foreign language requirement. ''We support this type of course,'' said Klaus Hanson, former languages department head. ''This certainly represents a new opportunity for interested students, who now can learn a foreign language that is in fact much 'closer' in significance to Wyoming students in particular.'' Jenny Ingram, WCH publications and development coordinator, agreed and noted that the grant committee felt the relationship added strength to the program. According to Ingram, the grant proposal, submitted by AIS Program Director Judy Antell, was a perfect fit for a narrow WCH grant line earmarked for language preservation projects in Wyoming involving Wyoming Indian languages. The funds for the grant were generated from a 1994 project between the Arapaho Nation and Walt Disney Company. The unlikely pair teamed up to dub the animated classic ''Bambi'' into Northern Arapaho and distributed videotapes throughout the reservation. The profits were given back to the Arapaho Nation to help continue language preservation efforts. ''Combined with the two other language preservation grants WCH awarded this summer, we have now expended all the funds for the grant line, so we are no longer in the 'Bambi' business,'' Ingram said. ''But we hope this grant will serve as seed money for the Northern Arapaho language program and spark interest for future sources of funding.'' Class member Yolanda Hvizdak, an enrolled member of the Northern Arapaho Nation studying women's and American Indian studies at UW, said she is thankful for the course and hopes the university is able to offer it every year. ''I think it's important for us to have that connection while we're here going to school - to still be able to stay in touch with our culture and our traditions. ''Hopefully we can learn our language and be able to speak it and communicate with our elders. We need to go back home and teach it to our little ones so they don't lose it. The language is almost gone. It's up to our generation to bring it back.'' C'Hair is trying to help his people do just that. He cites new technology introduced to the reservation 40 years ago as the reason for the decline in the Native language. ''When I was a kid, I would go to my grandma and grandpa's house and grandma would cook us something like frybread or a berry gravy. Then we'd form a circle and she would tell us these Arapaho legends and we would use our imagination,'' he explained. ''But then later on, when electricity and television came to the homes, the kids, they put the language and the culture aside for what they thought was more exciting.'' C'Hair, who at age 60 is thought to be the youngest person fluent in Northern Arapaho, said that without the language, Arapaho people are in danger of losing their cultural identities because the two are inseparable. ''The language is who you are. If you speak Arapaho, you are Arapaho. You speak Shoshone, you are Shoshone. It is very important that our kids get their language back because they are not complete without it,'' he said. Northern Arapaho language is taught at the three reservation schools, and C'Hair, an Arapaho elder who teaches Arapaho language and culture at Central Wyoming College, the Wind River Tribal College and St. Stephens Indian School, is happy to have the opportunity to teach the class at UW. ''I want our kids to bring the language back, and keep it going, but I also want non-Native students and people at UW to be aware that the language is still spoken and to try and understand our way of life. Arapahos are still here and this was our land at one time,'' he said. Both Native and non-Native students should benefit from the class, which aims to reflect and preserve the culture of the Arapaho Nation, according to Antell. ''Language is a vital expression of culture and this project promotes cultural learning through the use of traditional stories, songs, games and expressions of the Arapaho people,'' Antell said, noting the dinners provide a perfect opportunity to add depth to the classroom experience. Hvizdak agreed, saying, ''One of the things we do back home is eat together. This is really good that we have this sense of community. That really means a lot, because this is how it would be if we were back at home.'' From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Nov 1 16:46:11 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2005 09:46:11 -0700 Subject: Tribes, Ed Leader Debate Left Behind Act (fwd) Message-ID: Tribes, Ed Leader Debate Left Behind Act By KELLY KURT The Associated Press Monday, October 31, 2005; 9:37 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/31/AR2005103101444.html TULSA, Okla. -- American Indian leaders argued Monday that the No Child Left Behind Act is too rigid and has forced rural schools to cut tribal culture and language classes. The leaders attending the meeting of the National Congress of American Indians also said President Bush's school reform law makes it difficult for rural districts to recruit and retain qualified teachers. Thousands of North Dakota teachers were found to lack the schooling to be considered highly qualified under the law. The Education Department gave veteran teachers a reprieve, but it's a problem faced by rural schools nationwide where teachers do double-duty in a variety of subjects, said Tex Hall, the group's president. "You might have a major in music and a minor in special education" and teach both, Hall said. "But now, they're saying your minor isn't good enough. It's devastating for a rural school district to say you just lost your special ed teacher." U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings defended the law, telling the meeting that it has resulted in Indian children gaining in reading and math. "For the first time ever ... we are holding ourselves accountable as a nation for closing the achievement gap between white and minority students within a decade," she said. "It's about time." The tribal leaders' concerns echo those contained in a preliminary report released earlier in October by the National Indian Education Association. Lillian Sparks, the NIEA's executive director, said the group believes the intent of the law is laudable and that it has shown where achievement gaps are. But "culture and language isn't being considered," particularly in parts of the law on teacher recruitment, she said. Spellings said she would work with tribes on improving communication on a "goverment-to-goverment basis." © 2005 The Associated Press From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 2 17:54:32 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 10:54:32 -0700 Subject: Native American Family Technology Journey Seeks to Preserve Heritage... (fwd) Message-ID: Native American Family Technology Journey Seeks to Preserve Heritage Through Innovation and Encourage Internet Access Today http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=99861 ARMONK, NY -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 11/01/2005 -- While technology is hailed by many for its potential to advance today's society, Native Americans are encouraged by the promise it holds to help sustain languages and cultures several centuries old. The 2005 Native American Family Technology Journey (The Journey), launching on November 1, will offer Native People across the United States a chance to explore what technology and innovation can mean for their families as they embrace the full potential of the Internet. A study released by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, titled Falling Through The Net: Defining The Digital Divide, found that Native Americans "are not able to access the important information resources via computers and on the Internet that are quickly becoming essential for success." "With studies indicating that access to computers among many Native American households lags behind the national average by 15% and access to the Internet by roughly 19%, it's clear that more has to be done to make Native American families aware of the advantages and opportunities that are associated with bringing technology into their lives," said Terry Braun (Seneca Hawk), Director, Americas Solution Design Center, IBM Global Services and Native American Family Technology Journey national co-chair. "The Journey is providing American Indian families with an opportunity to not just hear about technology, but also to experience it. I've seen children delight in constructing bridges out of steel on a computer, and adults marvel at how easily they can access information on the Internet. Technology can make a tremendous difference in the Native community. As we reach these young people, IBM is hoping to inspire them to not only learn about the benefits of technology but to also consider careers in technology," said Braun. "We are truly honored to work with IBM and Career Communications Group on The Journey," said Marcella Perrano, a member of the Ramapough-Lenape nation and director of Title VII Indian Education. "We are very excited and believe that the events comprising this national initiative will provide a fun-filled learning experience for all of the participants. Our goal is to increase technical education and computer literacy among Native American Families, by assisting them in incorporating science and technology into their daily lives. With this in mind, it is our hope that these events will encourage our Native American students to pursue university degrees in science, technology and/or business." Sponsored by IBM and Career Communications Group (CCG), The Journey will play host to computer and Internet workshops, educational and career seminars, and interactive demonstrations, which will provide Native Americans residing in urban centers, rural areas and on tribal lands technology access and training. The Journey will also establish a forum in which Native people can learn more about technology's potential to help pass the languages, stories and customs that distinguish their tribes from one generation to another. IBM, for example, is partnering with the Indigenous Language Institute to establish a Language Materials Development Center that will assist various tribes in preserving, teaching and sharing their language. The company has also developed the Native Keyboard Input Method Editor, which allows a user to switch from English to another language with a simple "hotkey" or command. In addition, IBM is partnering with the Abenaki Tribe in Swanton, Vermont to offer Native American families classes covering basic to intermediate computer skills, including Windows, the Internet, web page creation and using business productivity software. The classes will take place in the computer lab IBM gifted to the community. From naomi.fox at UTAH.EDU Thu Nov 3 01:27:32 2005 From: naomi.fox at UTAH.EDU (Naomi Fox) Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 18:27:32 -0700 Subject: Upcoming Conference Message-ID: I wanted to bring this upcoming conference to the attention of the list. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. --Naomi CONFERENCE ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES AND CULTURES OF NATIVE AMERICA Call for Papers Dates: The Conference on Endangered Languages and Cultures of Native America (2nd annual CELCNA conference) will be held March 31-April 2, 2006, on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City, Utah. Keynote speaker: Victor Golla. Call for papers: We invite papers dealing with any aspect of endangered Native American languages, in particular on documentation or revitalization. Native American participants are especially invited. Papers are 20 minutes each in length, with an additional 10 minutes for discussion. Deadline: ABSTRACTS MUST BE RECEIVED by Jan. 16, 2006. The program committee will attempt to provide notification of acceptance by Jan. 30 (by e-mail). Features to note: Session in Spanish (ponencias en español): One session will be set aside on Sunday morning, April 2, for papers in Spanish. Abstracts in Spanish (or English) can be submitted for consideration for this session. (Due to popular demand.) Posters: Abstracts are also invited for the poster session. This can include also demonstration of tools and toys for language documentation. Forum discussions: The program will include open discussion sessions dedicated to: (1) Discussion of training for documentation of endangered languages, and employment considerations for students dedicated to work with endangered languages. (2) Databasing and aids for language documentation. (3) Open forum to address matters that arise during the conference. Abstract submission guidelines: The abstract should be no more than 500 words in length. It should include the title of the paper and the name (or names) of the author/ authors, together with the author’s/authors’ affiliation. (If the paper is accepted, this abstract will be reproduced in conference materials to be distributed to other participants.) Abstracts should be submitted by e-mail. Submissions should be in Microsoft Word Format (.doc), Rich Text Format (RTF), or Portable Document Format (PDF). If possible, avoid special fonts (or arrange with the organizers so they can be read). Please include with your abstract appropriate contact details, which include: contact author’s name, e-mail address for the period of time from January to April 2006, and a telephone contact number. Only one abstract per person may be submitted. (The only exception may be in instances where at least one of the papers has multiple authors.) Address: Please send abstracts to: cail.utah at gmail.com. Questions should be addressed to z.pischnotte at utah.edu (by Jan. 16, 2006). Accommodations: University Guest House, the official conference hotel – 100 yards from the meeting venue (Officers’ Club) and CAIL (Center for American Indian Languages). To book accommodations, please contact the Guest House directly (mention CELCNA for the conference booking): University Guest House University of Utah 110 South Fort Douglas Blvd. Salt Lake City, Utah 84113-5036 Toll free: 1-888-416-4075 (or 801-587-1000), Fax 801-587-1001 Website www.guesthouse.utah.edu (Please make reservations early, since rooms will be held for the conference only until early March.) Sponsors: The sponsors of this conference are: (1) Center for American Indian Languages (CAIL), University of Utah, (2) Smithsonian Institution Department of Anthropology of the National Museum of Natural History, (3) Department of Linguistics, U of Utah and (4) College of Humanities, University of Utah. Registration fee: $35. Additional information: for further information contact: Zeb Pischnotte z.pischnotte at utah.edu, or for particular questions, write to Lyle Campbell at lyle.campbell at linguistics.utah.edu. If you need information not easily arranged via e-mail, please call: Tel. 801-587-0720 or 801-581-3341 during business hours (Mountain Standard Time), or Fax 801-585-7351. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 3 17:49:03 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 10:49:03 -0700 Subject: Fort Gibson Schools To Offer Cherokee Instruction (fwd) Message-ID: Fort Gibson Schools To Offer Cherokee Instruction http://www.kotv.com/main/home/stories.asp?whichpage=1&id=92923 FORT GIBSON, Okla. (AP) -- The Fort Gibson Public School District plans to offer instruction in Cherokee culture and customs. Assistant Superintendent Linda Clinkenbeard says the district is working to get state certification in the Cherokee language. The district has a 40 percent American Indian student population, most of them Cherokee. Clinkenbeard says she believes there should be an interest in the language. A 2002 study by the Cherokee Nation indicated less than seven percent of tribal members in northeastern Oklahoma can speak Cherokee. Created: 11/3/2005 Updated: 11/3/2005 6:25:58 AM Source: Associated Press www.KOTV.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 3 18:12:21 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 11:12:21 -0700 Subject: English-Speaking Web Users a Minority on the Internet (fwd) Message-ID: English-Speaking Web Users a Minority on the Internet, Says Byte Level Research http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/11/emw305575.htm According to Byte Level's Internet Language Index, emerging markets are putting the "world" into "World Wide Web." English-speakers now make up less than 30% of all Internet users, and this percentage will continue to fall. (PRWEB) November 3, 2005 -- According to a new study published by Byte Level Research, less than 30% of the world's Internet users are native-English speakers. By 2010, that number will drop to less than 25% as such emerging markets as China, Russia, and Brazil drive millions of non-English-speaking people to the Internet. “This data makes clear that the next Internet revolution will not be in English,” said John Yunker, president of Byte Level Research. "While English isn't becoming any less important on the Internet, other languages, such as Chinese, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese, are becoming comparatively more important. Web globalization will become increasingly vital to succeeding in this emerging global marketplace." Of the roughly one billion people who now have Internet access, English is spoken by 300 million, followed by 128 million Chinese speakers and 80 million Japanese speakers. Looking ahead, Chinese speakers online will grow at the fastest pace, doubling over the next five years. The Internet Language Index tracks 30 languages across 75 countries and is a new regular feature of the monthly Web globalization publication Global By Design. Members of the media may receive a full copy of the index and methodology; please contact Annie Blaise at +1 (760) 317-2001. About Global By Design Global By Design is a paid monthly newsletter devoted to best practices and innovations in business and content globalization. Subscribers to Global By Design include FedEx, Panasonic, Dow Corning, Lionbridge, SDL, Neteller, and many more. For more information, please visit www.globalbydesign.com About Byte Level Research Byte Level Research, founded in 2000, is the world’s leading authority on Web and content globalization. Serving many of the world’s leading multinationals and their vendors, Byte Level has pioneered a number of Web globalization best practices. John Yunker, president chief analyst of Byte Level Research, is author of Beyond Borders: Web Globalization Strategies. ### From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 3 18:16:49 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 11:16:49 -0700 Subject: Kiowa language expert Alecia Gonzales named to USAO Alumni Hall of Fame (fwd) Message-ID: Kiowa language expert Alecia Gonzales named to USAO Alumni Hall of Fame http://www.chickashanews.com/viewarticle.php?id=3666 EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third in a four-part series about homecoming and honoring the distinguished individuals named to the USAO Alumni Hall of Fame this fall. Known for her lifelong devotion to teaching and preserving the Kiowa language, author and educator Alecia Keahbone Gonzales will be named to the USAO Alumni Hall of Fame on Saturday, Nov. 5. Im speechless, Gonzales said Tuesday. This is an overwhelming honor. I am so grateful. I love to share the ways of my people, the Kiowa, she said. Gonzales work has made her a celebrity of sorts for her knowledge and enthusiasm about Kiowa history. In fact, visitors to the new Smithsonians National Museum of the American Indian in Washington hear Gonzales voice in recorded segments on an audio tour. Museum officials chose only one voice to represent each of five geographic areas in America. For the central United States, they chose Gonzales. With the 2001 release of her Kiowa language textbook, the first of its kind in America, Gonzales may have secured the Kiowa language's future and created a veritable template for other Native American tribes to use for sustaining their own languages. Gonzales teaches Kiowa language classes at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma (USAO) in Chickasha, where she approaches the Kiowa language from a bicultural viewpoint using two distinctly different languages. She also teaches at Anadarko High School. She takes pride in training student interns at the college who can assist in teaching the Kiowa language. The title is Thaun Khoiye Tdoen Gyah: Beginning Kiowa Language, which illustrates the book's relationship between the Kiowa and English languages. Beginning Kiowa Language was published by USAO Foundation. Copies of the textbook are available at the USAO Campus Bookstore, 405-574-1304. Born in Ft. Cobb, the Kiowa-Apache author and teacher was surrounded by a mixture of Kiowa and American cultures. She was Apache Tribal Princess as a young girl. In the 1950s, Gonzales presented The Lord's Prayer in Indian sign language on the first color television broadcast of The Dave Garraway and Arlene Francis Show. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy presented her with a lifesaving award. She graduated from the Oklahoma College for Women (now USAO) with a bachelor of arts degree in 1965, then obtained her master of arts degree at Southwestern State College in 1974. Gonzales has been a speech pathologist, a dean of student services, a guidance counselor, and always an educator. She has also been a member of various groups, such as the Oklahoma Federation of Indian Women, the National Education Association, the Caddo County Education Association, and she was the 1993-94 recipient of the Indian Woman of the Year award. In recent years, Gonzales has taken legendary Kiowa folk songs and is giving them life through childrens storybooks. Printed by USAO, these bilingual childrens books include Little Red Buffalo Song, A Mother Birds Song, and Grandma Spiders Song. They are available in the USAO Bookstore and from Anadarko Daily News and the Apache Tribal Smoke Shop in Anadarko. Readers see the story in both Kiowa and English shown parallel to one another. For non-native speakers, a special CD-ROM is included that features the author reading the story in both languages. The two remaining books in the collection, Grandmothers Song and The Prairie Dog Song are set for release in 2006. After that, Gonzales hopes to publish a Kiowa vocabulary textbook with audio CD. I didn't do all this myself, Gonzales said. I have the educational background, I have the know-how to do it, but if it weren't for the people in my life, the Kiowa and non-Kiowa, I wouldn't have been able to do it, she said. She credits her aunts and uncles, who served as my working dictionary, she said. After the death of her parents and other elders, Gonzales says she realized the language would die without a systematic, written method of teaching it. I was nurtured by my grandparents into education, Gonazales said. They believed deeply in the value of education, especially the tribal form of education. This was the seed from which weve grown todays high-tech preservation of language. Today we publish a CD that helps people learn to hear and speak the language. Gonzales sees herself not so much as a pioneer but as a contributer to a long tradition of preserving the language. Her heroes include Parker Mackenzie of the Mountain View area, who assisted John P. Harrington in early preservation of the Kiowa language in the 1920s. Harringtons work eventually earned him the doctorate, Gonzales said. My work is using Harringtons work and my experience as a child to assist others in carrying forward our great language. Probably her greatest influence, she said, came from her grandfather, Tennyson Berry, a longtime resident of Caddo County. He was a musician and was a protege of John Philip Sousa, Gonzales said. He was a debater in the Ivy League schools and made friends with men who became lawyers and senators, people he could call on to help regarding government-tribal relations. He was probably the most significant influence of my life. Another great influence came from her grandmother, Annie Jones, of Verden. She taught me cultural aspects and critical skills: beading, tanning hides, and cooking, as well as the moral standards of our tribe, Gonzales recalled. Four other individuals will be honored at Homecoming. Author and actress Claire Clemons Cowan and educator Ann OBar also will be inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame. The Outstanding Young Alumni Awards will be given to artist-educator Brandon Wood of Tuttle and teacher Susan Wyant of Purcell. From taniag at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 3 19:12:28 2005 From: taniag at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Tania Granadillo) Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 12:12:28 -0700 Subject: Fwd:CELCNA Message-ID: CONFERENCE ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES AND CULTURES OF NATIVE AMERICA Call for Papers Dates: The Conference on Endangered Languages and Cultures of Native America (2nd annual CELCNA conference) will be held March 31-April 2, 2006, on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City, Utah. Keynote speaker: Victor Golla. Call for papers: We invite papers dealing with any aspect of endangered Native American languages, in particular on documentation or revitalization. Native American participants are especially invited. Papers are 20 minutes each in length, with an additional 10 minutes for discussion. Deadline: ABSTRACTS MUST BE RECEIVED by Jan. 16, 2006. The program committee will attempt to provide notification of acceptance by Jan. 30 (by e-mail). Features to note: Session in Spanish (ponencias en español): One session will be set aside on Sunday morning, April 2, for papers in Spanish. Abstracts in Spanish (or English) can be submitted for consideration for this session. (Due to popular demand.) Posters: Abstracts are also invited for the poster session. This can include also demonstration of tools and toys for language documentation. Forum discussions: The program will include open discussion sessions dedicated to: (1) Discussion of training for documentation of endangered languages, and employment considerations for students dedicated to work with endangered languages. (2) Databasing and aids for language documentation. (3) Open forum to address matters that arise during the conference. Abstract submission guidelines: • The abstract should be no more than 500 words in length. It should include the title of the paper and the name (or names) of the author/authors, together with the author’s/authors’ affiliation. (If the paper is accepted, this abstract will be reproduced in conference materials to be distributed to other participants.) • Abstracts should be submitted by e-mail. Submissions should be in Microsoft Word document, Rich Text Format (RTF), or Portable Document Format (PDF). If possible, avoid special fonts (or arrange with the organizers so they can be read). • Please include with your abstract appropriate contact details, which include: contact author’s name, e-mail address for the period of time from January to April 2006, and a telephone contact number. • Only one abstract per person may be submitted. (The only exception may be in instances where at least one of the papers has multiple authors.) • Address: Please send abstracts to: cail.utah at gmail.com (by Jan. 16, 2006). Accommodations: University Guest House, the official conference hotel – 100 yards from the meeting venue (Officers’ Club) and CAIL (Center for American Indian Languages). To book accommodations, please contact the Guest House directly (mention CELCNA for the conference booking): University Guest House University of Utah 110 South Fort Douglas Blvd. Salt Lake City, Utah 84113-5036 Toll free: 1-888-416-4075 (or 801-587-1000), Fax 801-587-1001 Website www.guesthouse.utah.edu (Please make reservations early, since rooms will be held for the conference only until early March.) Sponsors: The sponsors of this conference are: (1) Center for American Indian Languages (CAIL), University of Utah, (2) Smithsonian Institution Department of Anthropology of the National Museum of Natural History, (3) Department of Linguistics, U of Utah and (4) College of Humanities, University of Utah. Registration fee: $35. Additional information: for further information contact: Zeb Pischnotte z.pischnotte at utah.edu, or for particular questions, write to Lyle Campbell at lyle.campbell at linguistics.utah.edu. If you need information not easily arranged via e-mail, please call: Tel. 801-587-0720 or 801-581-3341 during business hours (Mountain Standard Time), or Fax 801-585-7351. ----- End forwarded message ----- -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 4605 bytes Desc: not available URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 3 22:00:20 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 15:00:20 -0700 Subject: THE LINGUISTICS OF ENDANGERED LANGUAGES (fwd link) Message-ID: fyi, THE LINGUISTICS OF ENDANGERED LANGUAGES KOBE, JAPAN, 2-5 APRIL 2006 http://kobeinst.com/3lg01.htm The Third Oxford-Kobe Linguistics Seminar, on 'The Linguistics of Endangered Languages', is being organized at the St. Catherine's College (University of Oxford) Kobe Institute, in Kobe, Japan, by Peter Austin (SOAS, University of London), Masayoshi Shibatani (Rice University & Kobe University), and John Charles Smith (University of Oxford), between 2 and 5 April 2006. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 3 22:55:44 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 15:55:44 -0700 Subject: Saving ‘DNA of a culture’(fwd) Message-ID: Saving ‘DNA of a culture’: Doctoral student recording endangered language of Sandia Pueblo’s natives The University of Chicago Chronicle November 3, 2005 - Vol. 25 No. 4 By Jennifer Carnig News Office http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/051103/endangered-language.shtml The results of Erin Debenport’s research in New Mexico hold more than her dissertation in the balance—the future of an entire language is resting on her work. Debenport, a doctoral student in Linguistics, is the recipient of a Documenting Endangered Languages grant, a new multiyear effort that partners the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation in an endeavor to preserve records of “key languages” before they become extinct. She was awarded a $40,000 fellowship—one of 13, with most having been awarded to faculty at major universities—to support her research in recording and revitalizing Southern Tiwa, a Native American language spoken at Sandia Pueblo, New Mexico. Debenport is part of “a rescue mission to save endangered languages,” said NEH Chairman Bruce Cole. “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.” About half of the 6,000 to 7,000 languages currently used in the world are headed for oblivion, experts at the NEH and NSF estimate. “Fortunately, with the aid of modern technology and these federal funds, linguistic scholars can document and record these languages before they become extinct,” Cole said. In Debenport’s project, she is recording and archiving audio materials in Southern Tiwa and training tribal members in linguistic methods. This will allow for the creation of an online dictionary, as well as a dialogue-based curriculum for teaching the language. The result will be an archive of a language that had never been recorded, and the immersion of non-Tiwa speaking members of the tribe in the language of their parents and ancestors. Southern Tiwa is a Mesoamerican heritage language dating back to precolonial times, one of four different languages from three different language families in the New Mexico Pueblo community. Sandia Pueblo, where Southern Tiwa is spoken, is located 10 miles north of Albuquerque and has a population of 500 to 600 people. Less than 40 members of the pueblo are able to speak the language, none younger than 58. As with many other indigenous communities in North America, the “postcontact” or postcolonial period has been typified by a shift away from indigenous language use, Debenport explained. In this case, both English and Spanish have fundamentally replaced the aboriginal language. The proximity of the pueblo to Albuquerque, combined with a history of forced assimilation in Indian boarding schools and stigmatization, has only accelerated the trend. A sign on the wall of the Sandia Pueblo Learning Resource Center illustrates the direness of the situation. It reads “Tiwa” with a red slash through it. The caption below says, “Once, we were told we could not speak our language. Don’t let it be lost again.” “In many ways, this is a critical time; if something isn’t done to save this language soon, it will die out,” Debenport said. “But things are also more complicated than that in many ways. Language is political power. It is emblematic of sovereignty. There are issues of colonization, power, race, religion, identity, economics and politics all wrapped up in this one issue.” This time also marks a turning point in the tribe’s history. Once dominated by severe economic depression, the pueblo now runs a successful casino. With the influx of revenue come tourists, developers, and land and economic disputes, with many outsiders now claiming that they, too, are members of the tribe. One way that people can prove their connection to the community is through the Southern Tiwa language. In her work with the pueblo, Debenport must navigate her way around all of these issues. She is not a native Southern Tiwa speaker, and in many ways her interest in the language carries with it the painful baggage of the record of indignities forced on Native Americans. The history of anthropologic and language research is intertwined with a history of missionary work, colonialism and a pattern of members of the academe treating indigenous communities as “objects or a living museum,” Debenport said. Only recently, she continued, has a real interest in reframing these relationships and forging genuine partnerships between researchers and the community been demonstrated. One of the first steps has been to expand the idea of what it means to be an “expert.” Debenport’s current project builds on three years of predissertation fieldwork at Sandia Pueblo, and an ongoing partnership with the tribe’s education staff, the real experts, Debenport said. On its own, the community created a position within its Education and Wellness Department to concentrate on issues of language and cultural preservation. In the fall of 2002, Debenport, then working with a linguist at the University of New Mexico, was invited to work with the tribe to create a dictionary. The resulting work is an orthography capable of accurately capturing the sounds of Southern Tiwa, while remaining close enough to the English alphabet to encourage ease of use. A basic interactive dictionary was created with the capability of sorting by English, Tiwa, semantic field and part of speech. In many ways, this first step was revolutionary for the tribal community. Southern Tiwa has for thousands of years been an oral language. The choice to embrace a written form was not made lightly, but most agreed it was that or risk the extinction of the language. Subsequent independent work with the tribal education staff has built on the steps already taken, with Debenport and three native speakers already designing a curriculum for use in adult language classes and recording audio materials to supplement each lesson, as well as recording more lengthy texts for the sake of preservation. The partnership worked so well that Debenport was invited to stay and continue working with the tribe’s education team on the dictionary and curriculum, which soon will be introduced in Head Start classes. She also was given permission to work on her dissertation and to make extensive recordings of the language. “I’m simply aiding the tribe in the way that they’ve asked me to,” Debenport said. “And in exchange, I get to see firsthand this amazing historical moment when a language is moving from oral to written.” One issue she had to overcome in the negotiations was the question of where the materials would be kept—would they be Debenport’s or the University’s, or would they belong to the pueblo? “Because language typifies culture, there is an understandably conservative attitude toward letting outsiders come in and study them and their language,” she said. “And there’s also the concern about this being used for profit or in ways they can’t control.” So the written, and possibly oral, materials will be kept at the pueblo. “It’s a real personal relationship,” Debenport continued. “There’s a lot of trust on both ends. They trust me with their culture, and I trust them with my dissertation.” But what she will receive may be more valuable even than her doctoral degree. “Just being here is an honor for me,” Debenport said. “I will gladly commit the rest of my life to seeing this project through.” From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 3 22:58:27 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 15:58:27 -0700 Subject: Linguistics researchers reintroduce indigenous communities to ancestral languages, cultures (fwd) Message-ID: Linguistics researchers reintroduce indigenous communities to ancestral languages, cultures The University of Chicago Chronicle November 3, 2005 - Vol. 25 No. 4 By Jennifer Carnig News Office http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/051103/linguistics.shtml For many Americans, it is hard to grasp why language matters. It is a point of view that John Goldsmith, the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor in Linguistics, said he is constantly combating. “I think it’s something difficult for people to understand, unless their language is threatened,” Goldsmith said. “But if you even go somewhere as close as Quebec, you get it instantly. Language matters Ð it is your culture and your history.” With about half of the world’s currently used human languages heading toward extinction, according to the National Endowment for the Humanities, this is a critical historical moment in the preservation of both language and culture. With that in mind, Goldsmith and a team of University faculty and staff, including John Lucy, the William Benton Professor in Comparative Human Development, are leading a project in the hopes of preserving and saving several North, Central and South American Indian languages. Some of the languages the project seeks to preserve include the Algonquian languages Meskwaki and Cree, Greenlandic Eskimo and Inuktitut. The team behind the project, “Digital Preservation of Mesoamerican Linguistic Archives,” has been awarded a grant by the NEH and the National Science Foundation as part of a new effort partnering the organizations to save endangered languages. The project allows the Language Laboratories and Archives, an organization within the Humanities Division that supports language study and linguistic research, to digitize its unique recordings of world languages. In doing so, these resources will become publicly available for the first time to an international community of scholars and students via the Web. The materials include audio field and studio recordings that faculty and students in Linguistics and Anthropology have collected. The LLA staff members are making digital masters of recordings currently at risk and unavailable for public consumption. Based on prior audio preservation experience, Goldsmith said that over the two-year period of the grant, he expects the project will make accessible about 850 hours of audio recordings. “We’re doing some serious first aid with this project, and we’re just in time,” Goldsmith said. “Many of these languages are not going to be around in 50 years, so if we don’t preserve these recordings, they could simply be gone.” The project, which started July 1, is reflective of a trend moving through the field of linguistics as a whole, Goldsmith said. In moving the audio recordings to the Web, they will now be available to indigenous communities, in some cases for the first time. “It used to be that your constituency was your academic community,” he said, explaining that when many of these recordings were first made, as long as 100 years ago in some instances, it was the norm that the information became the property of the researcher, university or college. “Now we can see more clearly the ethical implications of those actions, and so your constituency is as much the indigenous community as it is the academic community.” By posting the languages online, researchers are reintroducing “important cultural artifacts” to communities, such as discussions of everyday life, legends and even some music. Some of the stories may have been lost to the native community, or they may have changed their form. Making them available will allow comparison with current cultural artifacts, Goldsmith said. The project also reflects another trend in linguistics. Formerly part of anthropology, the field of linguistics broke off on its own in the 1920s. Here at the University, the Department of Linguistics was established in 1928. At that time, most research was conducted on documenting North American languages. With the Chomskian revolution, however, the mental aspects of language dominated the study of linguistics between the 1960s and the 1990s. Only now has there been resurgence in the field of documentation. Alan Yu, Assistant Professor in Linguistics, is working on his own language documentation project for the Washo community, Native Americans living in California and Nevada around Lake Tahoe. Of the 1,000 to 2,000 Washo tribe members alive today, only about 13 people, all in their 60s, speak the language fluently. Yu, who is still in the beginning stages of applying for funding, hopes to first document the language and then help create a pedagogical program so others in the community can learn it. “This is why documentation projects are so important,” Yu said. “You can’t teach a language until you know what you’re teaching.” Yu has been making a few one- or two-week-long trips a year to Lake Tahoe for the past couple of years to begin taping. So far, he has collected creation stories, descriptions of food preparation and tales of rituals and interactions with neighboring tribes. To get that sort of access, he first had to promise that he would not own or profit from any of the recordings. Another linguist previously made 50 years of recordings, but now will not share the tapes with the tribe. “There is a new surge of cooperation between communities and linguists, and we have to be very careful with that if we want to avoid the distrust that existed for so long,” Yu said. “What you can learn scientifically from languages is so important, but there is more at stake than that. Because you’re not just learning a language, you’re learning a culture and a way of life, one that in many cases is no longer in existence.” From anguksuar at YAHOO.COM Fri Nov 4 12:10:17 2005 From: anguksuar at YAHOO.COM (Richard LaFortune) Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 04:10:17 -0800 Subject: NATB request for scripts In-Reply-To: <20051103150020.ieop08ccow48ww0c@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Sararesa Begay (402) 472-3522 NAPT (402) 472-8675 fax PO Box 83111 sbegay2 at unl.edu Lincoln, NE 68501 LINCOLN, Neb. To share the art of storytelling, the Native American Public Telecommunications Native Radio Theatre Project has a call out for radio play scripts. This is a project of the Native American Public Telecommunications and Native Voices at The National Autry Center with planning funds from the Ford Foundation. The script entry deadline is November 15, 2005, and to get application procedure information visit http://www.airos.org/theatre/. The goal of NRT project is to bring audio theater to the American Indian Radio on Satellite by Native authors, theater and recording artists. Selections will be announced during mid-April 2006. Native American and Canadian First Nations theatre companies, authors and playwrights who are located in the United States are eligible. The criteria for submission is short works, 10-minute plays and one-acts will be considered. Existing plays from theatre companies will be considered, based on the panel members¹ assessment of their adaptability to an audio production. Like any good theater, radio theater always beings with a well written, perceptive, entertaining script. Use of sound and appropriateness to the medium is considered. The applicant must secure production, performance broadcast and recording rights. Any genres will be considered with preference given to contemporary Native stories. Application Process Complete and sign application form. Submit six copies of the script, using 8.5 x 11 paper with 1-inch margins and a 12-point standard typeface. The title page should include the title of the script, names of all authors, name and address, phone and fax numbers, and email address of the corresponding author. The subsequent pages should include only the manuscript title and page numbers. The judging will be "blind." Submit the $15 readers fee with the application package. Include a self-addressed stamped postcard for receipt notification. Send to NAPT, PO Box 83111, Lincoln, NE 68501, or street address: 1800 N. 33rd St. Lincoln, NE 68583. For more information about the project and opportunities for Native Theater and audio artists, visit http://www.airos.org or http://www.museumoftheamericanwest.org/visit/nativevoices.php. For more information about National Audio Theatre Festivals visit http://www.natf.org/ NAPT is a non-profit radio and television program development and distribution organization based in Lincoln, Neb. at Nebraska Educational Telecommunications with a mission to support the creation, distribution and promotion of Native Public Media. __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 7 17:25:26 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 10:25:26 -0700 Subject: Prof, students help ancient culture live on (fwd) Message-ID: Prof, students help ancient culture live on November 3, 2005 http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/2005/fall/129.htm English Associate Professor Troi Carleton is determined to save Zapotec, a language indigenous to Mexico -- and to do it before it is lost to new generations transformed by technology and social change. "When a language dies, its culture dies, too," Carleton said. This summer Carleton took eight students to Oaxaca, Mexico, where 23 dialects of Zapotec are spoken. The Zapotecs called Mexico their home for thousands of years before Spain colonized Mexico and made Spanish -- a completely foreign tongue -- the country's official language. "What makes me terribly sad is the thought of it [Zapotec] dying without it being written down anywhere. Once it disappears, there's no record it ever existed," said Carleton, who has been teaching in the linguistics and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages programs at SFSU since 1996. This was the second year Carleton's students worked on preserving the Zapotec language, which is being overwhelmed by Spanish. The field experience provides a rare opportunity for students with little to no experience in field linguistics and language documentation. "Dr. Carleton's efforts in this project have put all of us way ahead of the curve," said Jason Fraser, a graduate student who participated this summer. "She is doing her students a great service." The students, who must take preparatory linguistics classes and speak Spanish to participate in the ongoing project, focused on Zapotec Teotitlan Del Valle, a dialect from a small town named Teotitlan in the Oaxaca valley. Joining Teotitlan officials, community elders and local university students, they worked toward three goals: developing a Spanish/Zapotec dictionary, a grammar accessible to all Zapotec community members and an archive of oral history for the town museum. Carleton wanted to integrate SFSU students in a first-hand, language preservation project, but the Oaxaca mountain communities were poor, dangerous and could not sustain a group of students for the three weeks needed for research. She turned to Teotitlan, a wealthier town known for its textile production and successful international market for rugs. The people of Teotitlan are eager to preserve their language and culture and welcome SFSU into to their community, Carleton said. "They are extremely hard-working, amazing people," said Charlie Kaupp, a graduate student who has been a part of the Zapotec preservation project since it started. "They wake up early ... and they work well into the evening. But even with all this work, they still find time for family and friends to have a Coronita." Carleton began the Zapotec preservation project after working for seven years to help preserve Chatino, another Zapotec dialogue. She produced the first Chatino/Spanish/English dictionary and published several articles on grammatical- and discourse-related issues in Chatino. Earlier in her career, she worked in Malawi, Africa. Carleton will continue to bring students each summer to gather more language and cultural information and to contribute to the Teotitlan museum, which includes sections on the town's history, individual stories, cultural practices, and traditional storytelling, myths and legends. The archive is owned by both Teotitlan and Carleton. Carleton's students, who are already preparing for next year's trip, are working on developing a Spanish/Zapotec dictionary of at least 5,000 words. -- Student Writer Lisa Rau with Matt Itelson From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Nov 8 21:35:15 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 14:35:15 -0700 Subject: Language celebration honors Alutiiq Elders (fwd) Message-ID: Language celebration honors Alutiiq Elders Article published on Monday, November 7th, 2005 By ANDREW WELLNER Mirror Writer http://www.kodiakdailymirror.com/?pid=19&id=2261 The Kodiak Senior Center played host to the Alutiiq Language Council’s Alutiiq Language Celebration and Elder Honoring Saturday. Approximately 50 people turned out to eat a potluck dinner, win door prizes and to celebrate the Alutiiq language. April Laktonen, Alutiiq language manager at the Alutiiq Museum, played master of ceremonies for the event. She said the event comes before meetings to discuss the ongoing language program. With .05 percent of the Alutiiq population of Kodiak fluent in the language, “we’re basically at the most extreme state of language loss,” Laktonen said. The language program, which matches a native-speaking Elder with an apprentice, is a part of the “process of trying to revitalize our language,” she said. At the potluck, organizers drew winners for a raffle the group had organized this fall to raise money for the program. Laktonen announced that, in addition to tickets sold that night, the raffle generated $6,000. Also at the dinner, the program honored Alutiiq Elders with roses — pink for women and yellow for men. A single rose, Laktonen said, “doesn’t mean much in itself but it represents the respect and the affection we have for our Elders.” Without the Elders, she added, “we wouldn’t have a language.” The group also took the opportunity Saturday to present certificates of appreciation to various organizations which have supported the program. The evening ended with a performance by the Alutiiq Language Singers and a presentation about Kodiak’s delegation to the World Indigenous People’s Conference on Education. Mirror writer Andrew Wellner can be reached via e-mail at awellner at kodiakdailymirror.com. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 9 17:03:44 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:03:44 -0700 Subject: ENJOY FREE ACCESS TO SMITHSONIAN FOLKWAYS RECORDINGS THROUGH NOV. 23 (fwd) Message-ID: ENJOY FREE ACCESS TO SMITHSONIAN FOLKWAYS RECORDINGS THROUGH NOV. 23 Alexander Street Press is offering free access to Smithsonian Folkways Recordings through November 23, 2005, to let librarians, students, and educators enjoy all 35,000 audio tracks from around the world. No passwords or trial sign-ups are necessary. Simply visit http://glmu.classical.com and be connected to the entire database. Listeners can choose from their favorite sounds – American Folk, Blues, Bluegrass, Old Time Country, American Indian, Jazz, Classical & Broadway, Spoken Word & Sounds, or Children's. Listeners can browse by artist, cultural group, country, instrument, or other fields. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. For more information, contact Rita Patrick at Amigos, 1-800-843-8482 (972-851-8000 in the Dallas area), ext. 2850, mailto:patrick at amigos.org, or Debbie Nelson at Alexander Street Press, 1-800-889-5937, ext. 214, or dnelson at alexanderstreet.com. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 9 17:49:13 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:49:13 -0700 Subject: Indigenous group works towards saving culture (fwd) Message-ID: Indigenous group works towards saving culture Tuesday, 8 November 2005. 11:12 (AWST) http://www.abc.net.au/news/items/200511/1500358.htm?northwestwa An Aboriginal organisation working to preserve the Yindjibarndi people's culture has celebrated the launch of four new projects. The Juluwarlu Aboriginal Corporation in Roebourne, in north-west Western Australia, engages in cultural and historical recording, publishing and video and multimedia production. Last week, Juluwarlu celebrated a new DVD version of AFI winning film Exile in the Kingdom, a book detailing fauna from an Yindjibarndi perspective, a digital archiving system and JTV - Roebourne's new Aboriginal-owned TV channel. Juluwarlu's operations manager Michael Woodley says its work will be available for the future generations to see. "It's ensuring to our elders that their history that they have been taught verbally is being documented in the format of film, whether it's DVD or CD-ROM or whether it's a publication and it's good to have that," he said. "I mean, for our young generations once they get more mature and, you know, more serious about their language and their history then they can just go to the shelf and pick it up." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 9 17:47:50 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:47:50 -0700 Subject: Indigenous body seeks more funds for language programs (fwd) Message-ID: Wednesday, 9 November 2005, 20:50:18 AEDT Indigenous body seeks more funds for language programs http://abc.net.au/message/news/stories/ms_news_1501555.htm A national Indigenous advisory group wants the Federal Government to increase funding to Aboriginal language programs. Community leaders from around Australia are meeting in Adelaide to discuss ways of preserving native languages. Denise Karpany from the Federation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages Corporation says community-based projects are suffering. "This state is thriving in the schools and kindergartens and places like that, the universities and that, but for the community-based programs, they're not thriving really," she said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 9 17:55:46 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:55:46 -0700 Subject: School program will focus on Natives (fwd) Message-ID: School program will focus on Natives PILOT: Staff members will train to become more sensitive to their needs. By KATIE PESZNECKER Anchorage Daily News Published: November 9, 2005 Last Modified: November 9, 2005 at 07:19 AM http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/7187360p-7097479c.html Willow Crest Elementary and Romig Middle School will try out a program to make education more inviting and suited for Alaska Natives, Anchorage School District officials and Native education advocates said Tuesday. The program aims to make school staff members more sensitive to the culture and communication styles of Alaska Native kids and to establish better relationships with Native parents, administrators said. The move stems from a meeting earlier this school year when about 300 people, mostly Alaska Natives, crowded Central Lutheran Church to share sometimes painful stories about their experiences in local schools. Parents complained they felt ignored and invisible and were horrified by data showing their children are more likely to fail tests and drop out of school. They asked Superintendent Carol Comeau for a pilot program to make education better for Native children. She agreed, and since has met with Native representatives to pick two schools for such a program. "Romig and Willow Crest are anxious to do it too," said Patty Jacobus, a moderator at the earlier meeting. She helped with the research and home visits that led to that gathering. "They were willing and happy and excited that they were picked." Diane Hoffbauer is principal at Willow Crest, where more than one-quarter of the students are Alaska Native, representing all Native-language groups and from as far away as the North Slope and Atka in the Aleutians. "This will help us recognize and support a large segment of our school, because very few of us have lived in rural Alaska and grown up in a remote Alaska lifestyle," said Hoffbauer, who previously worked in Barrow. "They can only imagine how hard the transition is to Anchorage. So we can become a staff that's well educated about where our kids come from." Willow Crest and Romig might not seem obvious picks. At the fall meeting in which the complaints were aired, Native advocates focused on schools with larger Native numbers such as North Star Elementary, Mountain View Elementary and Clark Middle School. But Willow Crest and Romig have more Native students than the district's average. With about 13 percent Native enrollment overall, it's 16 percent at Romig and more than 25 percent at Willow Crest. "And even though they say they're doing well with their students, we still find their scores are very low" for Natives, said Sister Donna Kramer with the Catholic Native Ministry. Her church and the Alaska Native Lutheran Church brought forth the pilot program request. The project calls for cross-cultural training for all school staff members with a focus on "cultural and communication techniques of Alaska Natives." "It's about educating the staff about how to communicate better with the Native people, because they do have a different style than white folks have," Kramer said. "And also the outreach part of the project is to have teachers go out and visit families in their homes and get to know the Native parents." Comeau calls it "customer service with a culturally sensitive twist." The training should rub off so staff members are more welcoming to all families, she said. She said she thinks Romig and Willow Crest are good fits. For one, Willow Crest students later attend Romig, so families with students in both schools will benefit. Romig students eventually go to West High, Comeau said, so she'd like to see the program eventually expand to that level too. Also, both Romig and Willow Crest's principals have worked in rural Alaska, she said. The next step is to develop training, with help from local Native leaders and organizations such as the Native Heritage Center and Cook Inlet Tribal Council. Comeau wants to start schooling staff members in early 2006. "We couldn't have asked for a warmer reception," Kramer said. "I think (Comeau) said she had no idea that this kind of stuff was still going on. She was just on fire with correcting the wrongs that have been done to these kids and their families, making it right for the future for all minority groups." Daily News reporter Katie Pesznecker can be reached at kpesznecker at adn.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 9 17:59:42 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:59:42 -0700 Subject: What Future For Pacific Languages? (fwd) Message-ID: Find this page online at: http://www.news.vu/en/living/Events/051108-Vanuatu-languages-special-feature.shtml What Future For Pacific Languages? By Darrell Tryon Posted Tuesday, November 8, 2005 Overview The languages of the Pacific include all of the vernacular languages of greater New Guinea (including West Papua and Papua New Guinea), the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Polynesia and Micronesia. This represents a total of about 1250 distinct languages, which are members of two very large language families, the Papuan Family (or Families) and the Austronesian or Malayo-Polynesian Family. The Papuan languages are spoken in nearly all of the non-coastal areas of greater New Guinea, in some islands in eastern Indonesia. To the east of the great island of New Guinea, Papuan languages are also found in New Ireland, New Britain and Bougainville (all part of Papua New Guinea), with a sprinkling of Papuan languages in the Solomons. The Austronesian family of languages extends from Taiwan, where there are twenty indigenous Austronesian languages, through the Philippines, most of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. Nearer to home, Austronesian languages are spoken in most coastal regions of greater New Guinea, in most of the Solomons, and throughout Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji (with the exception of the Indian population), and all of the islands of Micronesia and Polynesia as far east as Easter Island. In addition to these vernacular languages, there are three major metropolitan languages, English, French and Spanish, and a number of pidgins and creoles, including Tok Pisin (Papua New Guinea), Pijin (Solomon Islands) and Bislama (Vanuatu), to say nothing of Pidgin Fijian and Fiji Hindi. Another phenomenon to be considered is that of Pacific Islander diaspora, which describes the situation in which many Pacific Islands states have large overseas populations, for example Niue (with 1,800 on Niue and 16,000 in NZ), Samoa (with nearly 200,000 in NZ and a similar number at home). The same applies to Tonga, Fiji, the Cook Islands and Wallis and Futuna. We will discuss the consequences of this diaspora a little later. Language and dialect What is the difference between a language and a dialect? A commonly made distinction is based on mutual comprehensibility. Where two speech varieties are mutually intelligible, they are normally considered to constitute dialects of one and the same language. Where intelligibility is marginal, very limited or non-existent between two speech communities, then it is usually considered that we are dealing with separate languages. Why so many languages? The Pacific area boasts the greatest linguistic diversity in the world, with more than a thousand indigenous tongues. Not only are there astounding numbers of languages, but the languages themselves are very diverse. This is probably due to extensive contact between the more recently arrived Austronesian-speaking populations and the Papuan populations whose presence in Papua New Guinea goes back almost 50,000 years. The Papuan languages themselves have become very diverse, simply because of regular change and development over a very long period. (In fact they have become so diverse that linguists have yet to demonstrate that they are all genetically related. However at least 430 of the 750 Papuan languages have now been shown to be related, and ongoing research is likely to demonstrate that they all related, albeit distantly in some cases). The surprisingly high number of languages is may be ascribed to a number of factors, including physical isolation and separation, as well as Melanesian agricultural techniques, which constantly requires new land. The roles of the languages The metropolitan languages, English and French in the main, play a major national role in most of the Pacific Island states, primarily as languages of education. These are the major languages of communication with the outside world. The pidgin and creole languages, Bislama in the case of Vanuatu, act as languages of inter-island and inter-community communication across local language boundaries. This is especially useful in Vanuatu, where both English and French are the official languages of education, with little real bilingualism between the two. The vernacular languages generally play a local role, used for family and community communication within each island in Vanuatu. They are extremely important cultural identity markers, reflecting the cultural richness of the country. Vernacular languages number just over 100 in Vanuatu today, with an average of one language per two thousand inhabitants, one of the highest ratios in the world. Language endangerment Right across the Pacific, many of the vernacular languages are under threat from one direction or another. Even some of the bigger languages face serious danger of disappearance. In New Caledonia, for example, the largest language is Drehu, the language of the island of Lifou in the Loyalty Islands. This language has roughly 15,000 speakers. Normally such a language would not be considered to be under threat. However, this is rapidly becoming the case. For there is a very large Lifou population living in the greater Noumea area as there is a strong move to the New Caledonian mainland, chiefly for economic reasons. This is not a new phenomenon. However, the result is alarming in that large numbers of young Lifou people are today no longer to speak their mother tongue with confidence. The language of opportunity in the Southern Province of New Caledonia is French, the language of instruction throughout the country. Children are sent to their original home island over the long summer school break in the hope that they will somehow acquire the language skills in Drehu that are lacking on the New Caledonian mainland. The results are far from satisfactory, the role of Drehu being rapidly limited to communication with grand-parents and customary greetings and exchanges. Lifou community leaders in Noumea are expressing increasing concern at the emerging situation. Indeed, a recent study of language practice in mixed Melanesian communities around Noumea, focusing on the Riviere Salee community, showed that hardly any of those interviewed use their mother tongue except for communicating with older members of their home communities. Rather, they almost always express themselves in French. Indeed, the author of the study (Sophie Barneche, Gens de Noumea, Paris: L’Harmattan 2005) reveals that the residents of the Riviere Salee community acknowledge that they speak a non-standard, some would say sub-standard, French. Community members have made a deliberate choice, in the absence of a local vernacular mother tongue, to use this particular variety of French as their identity marker. In French Polynesia, the major indigenous language, Tahitian, is undergoing considerable pressure from French and from the Anglophone world. At the same time the French spoken by the majority of the Polynesian population is strongly marked by Tahitian language structures and expressions. In Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, Melanesian pidgins are used as the major language of all three parliaments. What emerges is often a basic pidgin heavily overlaid with English terms and expressions, often incomprehensible to rural listeners. The major vector of language endangerment, and indeed of the language mixing so common today, is rapidly increasing urbanization, as people move into the towns in search of employment as the old subsistence economy gives way to a cash economy. The nearer a local vernacular language is to a major urban area, the greater the threat to its long term survival. To this, we should add parents’ expectations for their children. In many parts of the Pacific parents see a mastery of English or French as the key to economic success, and are prepared to sacrifice even their mother tongues in this quest. Does it matter? Does it really matter that local vernaculars may be sacrificed on the altar of economic advancement? The answer is a resounding “Yes”. It is important that communities around the world resist the pressures of ever increasing globalization and preserve their precious cultural and linguistic heritage. For each language encapsulates an individual culture, a way of conceptualizing the world. The way in which Pacific languages conceptualise time and space, the way in which people and objects are categorized, is far removed from the concepts which underlie European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages, for example. Even within Vanuatu each language has a subtly different way of expressing its view of the world, in the same way as English and French, both European languages, express very different ways of organizing their conceptual worlds. Inevitably languages will be lost, even in Vanuatu, over the coming decades. However, the languages which are passed down from parent to child will continue to survive for as long as this investment by parents is made, and as long as the roles of local vernacular languages are maintained at present levels, that they fully serve their communities and are not reduced to play a simply ceremonial role. Darrell Tryon Men’s Fieldworkers’ Workshop Vanuatu Cultural Centre From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 9 18:05:27 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 11:05:27 -0700 Subject: Raiders to broadcast game in Navajo (fwd) Message-ID: San Francisco Business Times - 1:31 PM PST Tuesday Raiders to broadcast game in Navajo http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2005/11/07/daily20.html The Oakland Raiders announced a deal to have the team's Nov. 13 game broadcast on the radio in Navajo. Radio station KTNN-AM of Window Rock, Ariz., will carry the game with two announcers. The station's 50,000-watt signal reaches into New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Arizona. Raiders' CEO Amy Trask said she decided to join with KTNN for the upcoming home game versus the Denver Broncos as "another way to expand our multi-cultural initiatives." The team has web sites and merchandise in German, Chinese and Spanish and has two staff members who coordinate multi-cultural events. The Raiders picked KTNN because the station has done sports broadcasting in the past, including covering Super Bowl XXX in 1996. More than 100,000 Navajo people speak the language, making it among the most-spoken Native American languages in the United States. During World War II, a code based on Navajo was used by code talkers to send secure military messages over radio. The Raiders' regular English broadcast on KSFO-AM and Spanish broadcast on KZSF-AM will take place Nov. 13 as well. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 10 17:50:24 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 10:50:24 -0700 Subject: Taiwan: Indigenous Peoples Get More Recognition (fwd) Message-ID: Taiwan: Indigenous Peoples Get More Recognition http://www.unpo.org/news_detail.php?arg=50&par=3204 Taiwan's legislature this year passed a law guaranteeing autonomy for the island's 12 indigenous tribes, which have endured centuries of repression. VOA's Steve Herman recently visited Taiwan and discovered the island is making other efforts to reverse the legacy of discrimination, something that has not gone unnoticed by the mainland Chinese government. The newscast on cable channel 16, at first, appears no different than any other on the dozens of Mandarin language television channels in Taiwan. But then something different happens, one of the anchors begins speaking in a language most people on the island cannot understand. It is the tongue of the Amis people, the largest indigenous minority of Taiwan. The broadcast airs daily on the island's newest channel, the Indigenous Television Network, ITV. There are about 140,000 Amis people, a matrilineal tribe, who mostly live in the eastern valleys and coastal areas. They are one of 12 recognized aboriginal tribes of Taiwan, totaling less than two percent of the population. ITV also recently began broadcasting snippets of news in two other tribal languages, Atayal and Bunun. The tribes have cultural and genetic links to ethnic groups in Malaysia and Indonesia, not to the Han Chinese who dominate both Taiwan and mainland China. Some tribe members are identifiable because of their larger eyes and darker skin than the Han, but others, largely because of marriage with Chinese or Japanese over the centuries, are less distinguishable. For centuries, they were looked down on by the Han, and faced social discrimination. One survey taken about a decade ago found that 70 percent of Chinese Taiwanese parents would not want their children to marry tribal people. But in recent years, members of Taiwan's tribes have gained prominence and popularity, especially in contemporary music and sports. This comes after a long period of tension between the Han Chinese, who began migrating to Taiwan in large numbers from the mid-14th century, and the indigenous people, whose history there goes back thousands of years. The director of the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines, Eric Yu, says the native people had good reason to be wary of their new neighbors. "When they moved to this island from mainland China they tried to cheat, rob - they did a lot of bad things to take the property from the indigenous people," he explained. But the new immigrants viewed the natives as barbarians, in no small part because many of them were headhunters and tattooed their faces. The Han forced the aboriginals to take Mandarin names. When the Japanese colonized Taiwan in 1895, the situation went from bad to worse. The colonial masters wanted the aboriginal people to take on Japanese identities and, to reinforce the message, shelled some villages or bombarded them with mustard gas. Taiwan returned to Chinese control in 1945, and in 1949, Nationalist forces, which had lost a civil war with the Chinese communists, took over the island. The new rulers regarded the tribes as either collaborators with the Japanese or sympathizers with the communists. However, with the advent of Taiwanese democracy in the past decade, tribal people gradually began to speak out against their unfair treatment. The government responded by enacting laws to protect tribal lands and giving preferential treatment to ethnic minorities in competitive high school and university entrance examinations. Walis Pelin is a former Catholic priest from the Atayal tribe. He is now the government minister overseeing the Council of Indigenous Peoples. Mr. Walis says the pursuit of rights by Taiwan's indigenous people was a grassroots movement, not something the government pursued for its own domestic or international interests. He says the struggle has its roots in the near total destruction of tribal society during the Japanese colonial era. Sylvia Feng, now a senior producer for Taiwan's Public Television Service Foundation, led the fight to broadcast the island's first programs produced by indigenous minorities. They're not afraid to say 'I'm from this nation or that nation, I speak a language different from yours and I have a different culture.' Whereas when we started the training program it was totally different. They were easily intimidated. We were discouraged by a lot of people and we did encounter some very unfriendly treatment," she recalled. Now just about everybody seems eager to embrace the Amis, the Atayal, the Bunun, the Rukai, the Yami and the other tribes, as well. Several months ago, Taiwan's prime minister, Frank Hsieh, said he believes his great-grandmother was an aboriginal, because whenever he hears music of the Bunun tribe he becomes "excited and emotional." The improvement comes as Taiwan grapples with its own identity. Some Taiwanese favor eventual unification with China, while others yearn for a declaration of independence or insist the island is already de facto independent. For the separatists, the indigenous tribes represent a unique history and culture distinguishing Taiwan from the Chinese mainland. Ms. Feng of public television says the Beijing government has not hesitated to try to lure Taiwanese aboriginal figures into its camp. "They do try to get in touch with some of the indigenous people here though organized efforts, establish contact and have them go over to China to show that they support Chinese unification," she noted. Beijing considers Taiwan's indigenous people as among China's 56 official ethnic groups. But for most of the indigenous people their priorities have little to do with cross-strait politics. Poorer and less educated than Han Chinese, the priorities of the indigenous people are better jobs, education and housing and improved rights to ancient tribal lands. Kolas, an ITV news anchorwoman from the Amis tribe, who mentors the station's ethnic reporters, says her major challenge is bringing the traditional tongues, most of which have no written tradition, into the age of electronic media. "Most [of the] young generation in Taiwan, they can't speak native tongue. But the elder one[s], most of them can't get used to the modern infrastructures [technology] and they even can't use a computer, so that is the most serious problem facing us," she explained. The challenge has not deterred the indigenous broadcasters. They've already introduced the first Bunun soap opera. Until more directors and producers can be trained to create programs in the native languages, the bulk of ITV's schedule will air in the Mandarin. However, there is an upside to that. Mainstream Taiwanese are tuning in and learning more about their island's increasingly trendy minorities. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 10 17:55:54 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 10:55:54 -0700 Subject: Navajo radio picks up NFL broadcast (fwd) Message-ID: Navajo radio picks up NFL broadcast By ED ODEVEN Sun Sports Staff 11/10/2005 http://www.azdailysun.com/non_sec/nav_includes/story.cfm?storyID=118896 KTNN 660 AM will broadcast Sunday's Oakland Raiders-Denver Broncos in Navajo. The game begins at 2 p.m. KTNN covered Super Bowl XXX 10 years ago. That marked the first time a Super Bowl was broadcast in a Native American language. The station has also broadcast Phoenix Suns, Phoenix Mercury and Arizona Cardinals in that span. "KTNN has been broadcasting as the Voice of the Navajo Nation for the last 20 years and we're proud to be broadcasting the Raiders game in the Navajo language," KTNN's program director Jay Allen said. Oakland Raiders chief executive Amy Trask said, "This presents an exciting opportunity to unite the Raider Nation. This association is yet another example of our commitment to our global fan base and our ever-expanding multi-cultural initiatives." L.A. Williams, KTNN's sports director who regularly covers prep football, basketball and volleyball, and 33-year radio veteran Ernie Manuelito will handle the broadcast duties. The duo won the 1996 Native American Journalism Association award for best bilingual sportscasters. A KTNN press release addressed the question of how basic football terms will be translated into Navajo. "This will be a team effort and it's all about describing what's happening on the field and what our listeners will understand back home," the release stated. The Oakland Raiders have broadcast each of their games in Spanish for the past four years. The team's Web site publishes coverage in English, Spanish, Chinese and German. KTNN, a 50,000-watt clear channel signal reaches the entire western United States and northern Mexico. Ed Odeven can be reached at eodeven at azdailysun.com or 556-2251. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 10 18:02:28 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 11:02:28 -0700 Subject: Music: Indigenous Radio Benefit with Maneja Beto (fwd) Message-ID: Music: Indigenous Radio Benefit with Maneja Beto http://www.austin360.com/event/events/Entertainment/event?hidActionName=PreviewEvent&eventid=66830 >From the Promoter: Austin-based Colectivo Caracol invites the public to a benefit to a benefit on November 11, 2005 for three indigenous community radio stations in Southern Mexico. The event begins at 8:30 p.m. at Ruta Maya International Headquarters, 3601 South Congress Ave., with music by DJ E Be Lo, Alteza, and Maneja Beto. The proceeds will go directly to three indigenous community radio stations whose organizers live here in Austin and attend the University of Texas. A five dollar donation is requested. The Colectivo Caracol, who also produce the program Radio Caracol airing Thursdays on KVRX UT Student Radio, have organized the November 11 benefit to kick off a campaign of news and technical exchange between community radio programs in Mexico and Austin. The three stations broadcast in Spanish and local indigenous languages. They are Radio Antzetik, a Tsotsil language station in Oventik, Chiapas; Radio Ayuuk, a Mixe language station in Guichicovi, Oaxaca; and the newly forming Radio Cieneguilla, which will broadcast in Chatino. Said Emiliana Cruz, a Chatina woman from Cieneguilla and UT-Austin graduate student, "This radio station will support the Chatino language revitalization project begun two years ago." The three stations have the common objective of keeping the local people informed and allowing communities to have their own means of communication. The three stations are part of a new wave of native language stations that began in 2003. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Nov 11 00:00:48 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 17:00:48 -0700 Subject: FATSIL Guide to Community Protocols for Indigenous Language Projects 2004 (fwd link) Message-ID: fyi, here is an very interesting example on community protocols from the Federation of Aboriginal & Torre Strait Islander Languages (FATSIL). Well worth reading. Phil Cash Cash, ILAT ~~~ FATSIL Guide to Community Protocols for Indigenous Language Projects 2004 http://www.fatsil.org/ From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 13 18:56:08 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 11:56:08 -0700 Subject: SIL Bird flu materials (fwd msg) Message-ID: FYI ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 16:08:48 +1100 From: "Gerry (Mobile) Beimers" Subject: SIL Bird flu materials Those of you with an applied language development angle in your creole work may have a significant interest the following notice from my SIL colleagues. Gerry Beimers Solomon Islands Pijin Old Testament www.pijinplus.net Dear Colleagues, IMPORTANT NOTICE from the SIL International Literacy Department NOTICE: The following is an abbreviated version of important materials that are posted on the www.sil.org/literacy website. AVIAN FLU, BIRD FLU, H5N1, AVIAN INFLUENZA AVIAN FLU EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS - FREE DOWNLOADS AVAILABLE FOR IMMEDIATE USE The materials consist of the following: Avian Flu Risk & Prevention Booklet (various versions in PDF, Publisher, and Word) > - Avian Flu Booklet - Illustrations only - (35 drawings) > - Avian Flu Booklet - audio version > - Avian Flu Poster > - Avian Flu Fact Sheet (See the recommendations for their use at the end of this notice.) "BIRD FLU" INFORMATION FOR ETHNIC LANGUAGE COMMUNITIES The ethnic minority communities we work in are among the highest risk for Avian or "Bird" Flu. Yet, as you know, they are least likely to have access to accurate information about the disease. The threat of a potential Avian Flu pandemic prompts us to inform ethnic groups about some preventive measures their communities can take. More than just millions of wild and domestic flocks will die if this flu begins to spread among humans. Dr. Dianne Mathews (MD, MPH), an SIL member serving in Asia; and Dr. Indarto, the Indonesian veterinarian in charge of communicable animal diseases for Papua Province, both understand the threat of Avian Flu. Following the suggestion of SIL's Asia Area Director, Dr. Larry Jones, they collaborated to research the topic. Assisted by SIL technicians, Larry Mathews and Dennis Conroy, they have developed some informative material on Avian Flu for ethnic groups in Indonesia. The materials could be easily adapted to other contexts. A booklet and audio version provides basic risk and prevention information in story form, a means that many ethnic groups use to transmit information. The master copy of the booklet is diglot (English and Indonesian). The story text could be translated into other languages. Two sets of illustrations for the Avian Flu booklet reflect Papuan and Asian cultures. However, the line drawings are generic enough to be used "as is" or modified as needed for African or other ethnic groups. In other words, this booklet is a "shellbook " and easily adapted. SIL International and SIL's Asia Area field office are making these materials available to anyone who wants them as free downloadable files for translation, distribution, and immediate use worldwide. You or anyone else may download this material from our literacy website www.sil.org/literacy THE FOLLOWING IS THE PERMISSION STATEMENT FOR USE OF THE MATERIALS: These materials are produced as a service for ethnic communities. Any or all parts of the materials, including the illustrations, may be copied, reproduced or adapted by anyone in order to meet local needs, with the provision that the items reproduced are distributed free or at cost - not for commercial profit. Any person or organization wishing to copy, reproduce, or adapt these materials for commercial purposes should first obtain permission from SIL International. (See Terms of Use for SIL products: www.sil.org/policies.htm#term ) We feel this Avian Flu booklet is very IMPORTANT - that the communities we work in should have access to this information. They are the people at highest risk to lose flocks and family during an outbreak. They need information in a language they understand to prompt them to take preventative action. We highly encourage SIL and other field personnel to make this a priority and facilitate the translation and distribution of the materials. The audio of course could be made available for local radio broadcasting. We also encourage you to make copies of the materials available to your local Ministry of Health offices and to other health workers. AVIAN FLU EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS - SIL FREE DOWNLOADABLE FILES The Bird Flu educational materials available on the SIL Literacy website consist of the following items. These items may be used "as-is" or portions may be used to produce locally appropriate materials. > AVIAN FLU RISK & PREVENTION BOOKLET > > ENGLISH TITLE: Terpen Village Avoids Avian Influenza > BAHASA INDONESIAN TITLE: Desa Terpen Terhindar Dari Penyakit Flu Burung > > AVIAN FLU RISK & PREVENTION BOOKLET - COMPLETE SHELLS OR MODELS > (Available http://www.sil.org/literacy or on the W&D CD Rom) > > ENGLISH- INDONESIAN VERSION, ENGLISH AND INDONESIAN ON SAME PAGE, > PAPUAN ILLUSTRATIONS > Publisher 2003 file (1.9 MB) > Publisher 2000 file (8.5 MB) > PDF file (1 MB) > > ENGLISH- INDONESIAN VERSION, ENGLISH AND INDONESIAN ON SAME PAGE, > ASIAN ILLUSTRATIONS > Publisher 2003 file (1.9 MB) > Publisher 2000 file (7.9 MB) > PDF file (1 MB) > > BAHASA INDONESIAN VERSION, ENGLISH IN BACK OF BOOK, ASIAN > ILLUSTRATIONS > Publisher 2003 file (1.8 MB) > Publisher 2000 file (7.9 MB) > PDF fle (963 KB) > > ENGLISH ONLY VERSION, ASIAN ILLUSTRATIONS > Publisher 2003 file (1.8 MB) > Publisher 2000 file (7.9 MB) > PDF file (1.1 MB) > > ENGLISH ONLY VERSION, PAPUAN ILLUSTRATIONS > Publisher 2003 file (2.7 MB) > Publisher 2000 file (15.7 MB) > PDF file (1.5 MB) > > INDIVIDUAL PARTS > **PERMISSION AND FRONT MATTER ** > English, Front Matter & Forward (MS Word, 24 KB) > English, Permission Statement (MS Word, 20 KB) > > STORY TEXT > ** English (MS Word, 39 KB) ** > Indonesian (MS Word, 48 KB) > Spanish Available soon > > ILLUSTRATIONS (35 DRAWINGS) > Sequence of illustrations and text (MS Word, 45 KB) > Asian illustrations (zipped tif files, 4.9 MB) > Papuan illustrations (zipped tif files, 4.8 MB) > > AUDIO VERSION > English text audio Available soon > > AVIAN FLU POSTER > English Available soon > > AVIAN FLU LEAFLET > ** English, How to Avoid Bird Flu at Home (MS Word, 302 KB) ** > > AVIAN FLU FACT SHEET FOR COMMUNITY FIELD WORKERS > English fact sheet (MS Word, 23 KB) From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 13 19:15:30 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 12:15:30 -0700 Subject: Native Americans used symbols and syllables in writing systems (fwd) Message-ID: Native Americans used symbols and syllables in writing systems DENNIS ADAMS, Packet columnist Published Sunday, November 13, 2005 http://www.islandpacket.com/editorial/col/adams/story/5329457p-4827406c.html While researching the Beaufort County branch library's display for National American Indian Heritage Month (Nov. 1-30), I found facts about two writing systems native to the Western Hemisphere. The glyphs of the Mayas were in use centuries before Europeans came to Central America. The second system was the Cherokee syllabary, developed in United States territory (present-day Arkansas) in the early 19th century. In "Maya and Other Mesoamerican Scripts" (a chapter in "The World's Writing Systems), Martha J. Macri wrote that "a conservative estimate of the number of distinct writing systems" in pre-Columbian Central America is fifteen, "many only known from a single inscription." The Aztecs, Mixtecs and Zapotecs used "codified pictorial systems" that seldom represented the actual sounds of their languages. Instead, these systems relied on logograms, or symbols containing the meaning of an entire word or idea. In order to understand the "shorthand" of these logograms, a person would have had to have been born into the culture of a tribe -- the meanings were strictly "insider knowledge." Scholars today rarely can produce a literal, symbol-by-symbol translation of the paper scrolls that have survived, but must speak of general interpretations of the texts instead of precise decipherments. The Mayas, on the other hand, used "logographic-syllabic" writing. Sound-symbols representing syllables in the language combined with logograms in a system that has been deciphered to a large, if still incomplete, extent. Although the earliest Mayan inscriptions date to before 250 A.D., their origins reach back to at least 500-400 B.C. Most glyphs (by some estimates fewer than 600 symbols) fill the area of a square, and look like elaborate ancestors of our own computer icons. They normally appeared in double columns, read from left to right and from top to bottom. Unlike the ancient Mesopotamians, whose writing system evolved from their need to keep track of daily business transactions, Mesoamericans began writing about the night sky. According to Macri, Mayan script was "inextricably connected with an intricate calendar and seems to have developed partially in response to the desire to record astronomical observations." Cherokee syllabary When Sequoyah (born around 1770, died 1843) first began work on a writing system for his people, he envisioned pictographs somewhat like the pictorial symbols of the Aztecs. According to the Encyclopedia of North American Indians (edited by D. L. Birchfield), Sequoyah had encountered "talking leaves" (written and printed pages) when serving in a Cherokee division of the U. S. Army from 1812-1814, and in other encounters with white people. Native American Biography (edited by Sharon Malinowski and Simon Glickman) said that Sequoyah scrapped pictographs in favor of a syllabary of 85 symbols. While an alphabet forms syllables by combining letter symbols, each character of a syllabary represents a complete syllable of a language. For example, Sequoyah's symbol that resembles the Roman letter "W" stands for the syllable "ta," "S" for "du," and "H" for "mi." Although Sequoyah sometimes used shapes like those in the white man's "talking leaves," he did not borrow their sounds. Many symbols are entirely original, such as a "winged V" ("quo") and an inverted J with an h-like shape on its left side ("tv"). Sequoyah could not read the Roman alphabet, nor could he understand English. But in spite his lack of formal education, he invented a system that, in the words of Theda Perdue (American National Biography), "reportedly could be mastered by a Cherokee speaker in several days." Sequoyah worked on his syllabary for 12 years. At first, his people were hostile to his creation and even accused him of witchcraft. In 1821, however, Sequoyah showed tribal elders how useful his system could be. Soon there were books, newspapers, a Bible and tribal constitution printed in the Cherokee language. Students learned how to write the syllabary in Cherokee schools, and people could finally write letters to each other. Medicine men recorded their formulas and traditions for posterity. Nearly half of Cherokee households had a person literate in the syllabary by 1835, less than 15 years after its endorsement by the tribe. Dennis Adams is Information Services Coordinator for the Beaufort County Public Library System. He can be reached at denseatoms at earthlink.net From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 13 19:26:56 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 12:26:56 -0700 Subject: Indigenous languages replace Spanish in Oregon fields (fwd) Message-ID: Indigenous languages replace Spanish in Oregon fields Agencies reach out to farmworkers who speak neither English nor Spanish GABRIELA RICO Statesman Journal November 12, 2005 http://159.54.226.83/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051112/NEWS/511120306/1001 Just as the Oregon employment department was feeling confident that it offered enough Spanish-speaking farmworker liaisons, everything changed. In the Willamette Valley fields, a growing number of migrant workers arrive speaking Mixteco, Triqui and Zapoteco, indigenous languages from Oaxaca. "Pretty soon, you won't need me in this job," said Daniel Quiñones, a Spanish-speaking farmworkers representative with the Oregon Employment Department. In the position since 2001, Quiñones was struck by the blank stares he got when he addressed workers in Spanish. "The people tend to come in groups," he said. "So, I'll ask if anyone in the group speaks Spanish." Usually a man steps forward with limited Spanish skills, but enough to understand what Quiñones is trying to communicate. "Our job is to educate them that they have rights," he said. "A lot of them don't know that they have rights in the United States." Enforcing minimum-wage laws, workplace safety and child labor laws all are the responsibility of the state, Quiñones said. The number of indigenous workers from the state of Oaxaca is growing in Oregon, but they maintain an unusually low profile, he said. "They're a different breed of people than we're used to," Quiñones said. "The reason we know they're here is because there's so many of them." In response to the phenomena, the Oregon Law Center started an outreach program three years ago. The Indigenous Farmworker Project of the Oregon Law Center employs three trilingual outreach workers to communicate with migrant workers and offer legal services, said Julie Samples, an attorney with the Oregon Law Center. One initiative involved putting wage and hour laws and workplace safety information on audio cassettes in these indigenous languages -- the best way to reach migrant workers from Oaxaca who either don't read or speak languages without a common written equivalent. Earlier this year, the Legal Aid Services of Oregon and the Oregon Law Center received a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices division and a visit from the special counsel, William J. Sanchez in recognition of these efforts. Although Oaxaqueños first started migrating into the United States during World War II, the population in Oregon has grown significantly in the past five years, Samples said. It is estimated that tens of thousands of people from Oaxaca now live in Oregon, and this state's demand for these workers continues. Aside from outreach, the project educates employers, police, social-service agencies, medical clinics and schools about indigenous people. The women are less likely to speak Spanish and being able to provide information to them in their native language is rewarding, Samples said. "Watching their eyes light up when someone speaks their language ... it never gets old," she said. Future farmworker outreach employees in Oregon may need to have an indigenous language on their résumé. "We're tossing around changes in recruitment to reflect the population," Quiñones said. "It's all new to us." Copyright 2005 Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 13 19:30:41 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 12:30:41 -0700 Subject: Oaxaca Connection (fwd) Message-ID: Oaxaca Connection The migration of tens of thousands of people from Oaxaca to Oregon is altering both states GABRIELA RICO Statesman Journal November 12, 2005 http://159.54.226.83/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051112/NEWS/511120303/1001 Ignacio, Sergio, Dagoberto, Neftali, Joel. They are among the tens of thousands of people from Oaxaca, Mexico, who are in Oregon trying to make a buck, provide better lives for their families or find a piece of the American dream. They all left villages in the impoverished southern Mexican state because they couldn't make it happen there. Their migration to the United States is the latest chapter in a centuries-old story -- one that is changing them, their families and now the Willamette Valley. Cotton in Texas, chiles in New Mexico, cantaloupes in Arizona, grapes in California, apples in Washington, potatoes in Idaho and berries in Oregon have long been harvested by migrant workers -- predominantly from Mexico. In the past decade, many Mexican immigrants have risen from the fields and become construction workers, cooks, maids and factory workers. But in Oregon, which takes great pride in its agricultural products, someone needs to tend the crops. That someone is the indigenous farmworker from the mountains and villages of southern Mexico, home to ancient cultures and languages. "The manual labor of the indigenous has always been admired," said Jesus Leon Santos, a farmer in Nochixtlán, Oaxaca. "And it has always been recruited." Oaxaca -- Mexico's second-poorest state -- provides a significant farm labor force, according to Oregon employment and legal experts. Many of these immigrants speak only to the handful of others who understand their language; Spanish is something they learn in the fields of U.S. farms. Discrimination is unremarkable to the men and women who make up 75 percent of the farm labor in Oregon. In their own country, they also are treated like second-class citizens. "They're so accustomed to discrimination, they don't respond even to Spanish speakers in Oregon," said Valentin Sánchez, co-founder of Organización de Comunidades Indígenas Migrantes Oaxaqueños (Organization for migrant, indigenous communities from Oaxaca) in Salem. "Many Mexicans don't have pride in where they come from and don't respect the indigenous," said Sánchez, a native of San Juan Cahuayaxi, Oaxaca. "They call us 'Indian, midget, short one,' and the Anglos learn that and think it's OK to treat us like that." In the past five years, there has been a dramatic increase of Mixteco, Triqui and Zapoteco speaking indigenous workers in Oregon. "I knew that it was happening," said Lynn Stephen, a professor of anthropology at the University of Oregon. "What surprised me was that absolutely no one in Oregon -- except for those who work with farmworkers -- knew this was going on." Fernando Sánchez Ugarte, Mexico's consul general in Oregon, said the growth of Oaxaqueños in Oregon has been "explosive" but is difficult to quantify. Although the U.S. Census Bureau counted 260,094 Mexicans in Oregon in 2002, the consulate says with the "uncounted" -- the migrant population and seasonal workers -- that total is closer to 600,000. More than 11 percent are from Oaxaca. Oaxaqueños are the second-largest population of Mexicans in Oregon, behind Michoacán, if you count only those who register with the consulate for a Matricular identification card. "Many of the farmworkers here don't need these IDs," Sánchez said. "They arrive in groups, live where they work and see no need to interact with the rest of the state." The reason for the growth is no great mystery: they know how to work the fields and are easily exploited, farmworker advocates say. "The bottom line is cheap labor," said Ramon Ramirez, president of Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United. "They'll do the job for cheap. I'm not saying it's right." Stephen, who has extensively studied the connection between Oregon and Oaxaca, said the result of the migration is that in some villages, half of the people are gone. In others, all that's left are women, children and grandparents. Languages are being lost and individual rights learned in the United States conflict with the collective rights that have bonded Oaxaca's indigenous people for centuries. Oaxaca de Juárez, the state capital, is a beautiful tourist destination for international travelers, but the farmworkers in Oregon come from villages and mountains that aren't on the route of any tour bus. "Where they're from, there's no work, no tourism," Stephen said. "It's a part of Oaxaca where no one wants to go." While some immigrants speak of Oaxaca longingly, others say living in their new home -- Oregon -- has changed them. "Home will always be home," said Dagoberto Garcia of Salem who grew up in Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca. "But, dreams change over time. Everything changes when you are here." Copyright 2005 Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 13 19:36:22 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 12:36:22 -0700 Subject: How babies use their eyes in learning language (fwd link) Message-ID: How babies use their eyes in learning language Infants begin pulling off an amazing feat sometime in the final three months of their first year of life. They learn an important social interaction by following the gaze of an adult, a step that scientists believe gives babies a leg up on understanding language. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=33398 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 13 19:39:28 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 12:39:28 -0700 Subject: OHAI Creates Cherokee Software (fwd) Message-ID: OHAI Creates Cherokee Software http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/11/emw308253.htm It is now easy to type Cherokee thanks to OHAI Technologies and the Rice University Linguistics Department. Houston, Texas (PRWEB) November 10, 2005 -- In 1809 Georgia, a Cherokee silversmith named Sequoyah began creating the “Talking Leaves” – a writing system for the Cherokee language. In 1821, 12 years from the original idea, the Cherokee nation adopted Sequoyah's alphabet and within months thousands of Cherokee were literate. Fast-forward 184 years to Houston’s Rice University Linguistics Department where a graduate student and a visiting scholar from a software company create a way to type the Cherokee writing system easily. The graduate student - Chris Koops - has conducted linguistic research on the Cherokee language for the past 2½ years. In October, Chris attended a colloquium given by Daniel Mailman, visiting scholar in the department and CEO of OHAI Technologies – a Houston-based software company. The colloquium was about “Software Technologies that Make Typing Foreign Languages Easier.” After the colloquium, Chris showed Daniel the difficulties of typing the “Talking Leaves.” That conversation led to Chris and Daniel collaborating to create oCherokee – software that actually makes it easy to type the written Cherokee language. According to Chris: “The basic challenge with typing the Cherokee syllabary is that the characters represent syllables – and not sounds, as in the English alphabet. That means that there are a lot more characters than our 26 letters. Previous input systems were difficult to use and time-consuming to learn, as they required the user to memorize the position of over 80 keys. OHAI makes it possible to write the Cherokee syllabary without any memorization at all.” Daniel says: “This was an extremely fun project that shows how fast and easy it is for scholars and software developers to make typing systems for any language. oCherokee isn’t a commercial language product like oChinese, oVietnamese, and our other language products. Nevertheless, we feel that there is social merit to the project, and that it is very much in keeping our commitment to “21st Century Literacy.” OHAI plans to make oCherokee freely available to linguists, scholars, and students of Cherokee. For information, please contact OHAI’s Communications Manager, Tweed Courtney. ### From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 13 19:42:36 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 12:42:36 -0700 Subject: Knowledge Versus Information Societies (fwd) Message-ID: KNOWLEDGE VERSUS INFORMATION SOCIETIES: UNESCO REPORT TAKES STOCK OF THE DIFFERENCE http://www.unesco.ru/eng/articles/2004/polina10112005141145.php A UNESCO report launched today urges governments to expand quality education for all, increase community access to information and communication technology, and improve cross-border scientific knowledge-sharing, in an effort to narrow the digital and “knowledge” divides between the North and South and move towards a “smart” form of sustainable human development. “Towards Knowledge Societies”*, launched in Paris today by UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura, also advocates making linguistic diversity a priority, sharing environmental knowledge and developing statistical tools to measure knowledge and help policy makers define their priorities. Knowledge societies, the authors** stress, are not to be confused with information societies. Knowledge societies contribute to the well-being of individuals and communities, and encompass social, ethical and political dimensions. Singapore, for example, started out as a developing country of shantytowns at independence and achieved economic growth rates that surpass those of most industrialized nations in just four decades by promoting knowledge (education) and creativity. Less well known is Villa El Salvador in Peru, a community of several thousand people who were evicted from Lima in 1971. Settled in the desert, they built, without any outside assistance, schools and education centers and turned their slum into an organized town of more than 400,000 inhabitants. Ninety-eight percent of children in the town go to school, adult illiteracy is the lowest in the country at 4.5 percent and more than 15,000 students are enrolled in the University of Villa El Salvador or in universities in the capital, Lima. Information societies, on the other hand, are based on technological breakthroughs that risk providing little more than “a mass of indistinct data” for those who don’t have the skills to benefit from it. The Report, opens a panorama “that paints the future in both promising and disquieting tones,” says the Director-General, “promising because the potential offered by a rational and purposeful use of the new technologies offers real prospects for human and sustainable development and the building of more democratic societies; disquieting for the obstacles and snares along the way are all too real.” One of the main obstacles, according to the Report, is the disparity in access to information and communication technology that has become known as the digital divide. Only 11 percent of the world’s population has access to the internet and 90 percent of those connected live in industrialized countries. This digital divide is itself the consequence of a more serious split. “The knowledge divide,” write the authors, “today more than ever, separates countries endowed with powerful research and development potential, highly effective education systems and a range of public learning and cultural facilities, from nations with deficient education systems and research institutions starved of resources, and suffering as a result of the brain drain.” Encouraging the development of knowledge societies requires overcoming these gaps, “consolidating two pillars of the global information society that are still too unevenly guaranteed – access to information for all and freedom of expression.” Cultural and linguistic diversity are also central to the development of knowledge societies, say the authors, pointing out that local and traditional knowledge can be invaluable for agriculture and health, for example. This category of knowledge, often found in societies where no written language exists, is particularly vulnerable. With one language estimated to be dying out every two weeks, much of this traditional knowledge is being lost. Examples illustrating the utilisation of traditional knowledge, for instance in agriculture in Fiji, are included in the report. The stakes are high, stresses the Report, for the cost of ignorance is greater than the cost of education and knowledge sharing. It argues in favour of societies that are able to integrate all their members and promote new forms of solidarity involving both present and future generations. Nobody, it states, should be excluded from knowledge societies, where knowledge is a public good, available to each and every individual. * The first in a new series of World Reports, “Towards Knowledge Societies” will be presented at the World Summit on the Information Society (Tunis, November 16-18). The next World Report, scheduled for 2007, will examine cultural diversity **An international team of leading experts and intellectuals, directed by Jérôme Bindé, Deputy Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences and Director of the Division of Foresight, Philosophy and Human Sciences at UNESCO, contributed to the World Report. Full version of the report “Towards Knowledge Societies" (PDF, 5.5 MB) From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 13 20:02:19 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 13:02:19 -0700 Subject: Rappers rock Pacific jails and charts (fwd) Message-ID: Rappers rock Pacific jails and charts 14 November 2005 http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3478256a4500,00.html PORT MORESBY: The United States may be the home of gangster rap, but in this crime-ridden South Pacific city the gangsters really are rockin' the jails and the music charts. Some of Papua New Guinea's biggest selling music stars have had their careers interrupted by a stint behind bars for bank robbery, armed hold-up or theft. Their chart-busting songs tell of a life of crime, often in Port Moresby where raskol (criminal) gangs rule a city which has had 114 murders so far this year, but also of freedom and love. In a country of 800 tribal languages, these gangster rappers have a unique South Pacific style, singing in English, pidgin English and their native tribal language. Their music is also a blend of rhyming rap, reggae, traditional Papua New Guinea sounds, gospel and pop. Some openly admit that without music they would now be dead. "If I didn't find music I would have died long ago," said a nuggety Willie Tropu, a former bank robber who carries the scars down his right leg from a police shotgun. Advertisement Advertisement Tropu now works as head of security for a bank in downtown Port Moresby when he is not recording his latest album. Simon Tazzi, a former raskol rapper turned music producer, vividly remembers his life in the "Silent Shadows" gang. "I got shot by police a lot of times. A lot of bullets taken out of our bodies a lot of times. A lot of friends die," Tazzi told Reuters at a recording studio in Port Moresby. Like others, Tazzi discovered music while behind bars and once out of jail started recording. But under pressure from his old gang Tazzi found himself wielding a gun in armed robberies, car thefts and burglaries, and eventually back in jail. One of his hits, Kake IB Car (Police Car), tells of a police chase around Port Moresby's dusty streets where houses are hidden behind metal fences and razor wire to keep out raskols. Rapper K. Dumen was serving time for armed robbery when he recorded his music video in jail. Clinging to a prison fence he sings about his lost freedom in Freedom Bilong Me. Warders allowed the video if they were filmed locking Dumen in his cell. Crime is an accepted way of life in PNG for many people struggling to survive in a country where 80 percent of the 5.4 million people eke out subsistence lives in villages, life expectancy is 55.3 years and GDP per capita is $US2619. So far this year in Port Moresby alone there have been 114 murders, 151 rapes, 577 robberies, 671 car thefts, 377 break-ins, 317 assaults and 28 abductions, according to police statistics. "You have thousands of kids coming out of school with no future, no prospect of a job, so the only thing they turn to is crime," said Tazzi. "Some of us who are lucky find another avenue – for me it was music," he said, adding that he now demands that street kids give up their life of crime before he records them. For the past 25 years PNG's CHM has been building a mini-music empire, recording 3,000 albums, and is now set to launch some of its biggest artists on the international scene. CHM is one of PNG's major electrical importers and retailers, but owner Raymond Chin has always loved music and started playing bass guitar in the 1960s in a band called the "Strangers". Frustrated with the lack of local music on radio stations, he started recording PNG artists and paying stations to play it. The sounds that wafted on the hot, humid airwaves quickly hit a chord with listeners, who rely on radios, not television, for news and entertainment in this mountainous land. As his music label grew, Chin started staging 20,000-strong rock concerts, but this is a tough land and people started throwing rocks at concerts. "A rock concert in PNG really is a rock concert. When someone stands up in front, someone at the back throws a rock and then everyone starts throwing rocks," said Chin. "Law and order problems" eventually made it too risky to attend his concerts at the annual Port Moresby show. Live music shows are now held in secure venues, like the Port Moresby Country Club, behind razor wire and electrified fences, security gates and a caged front door. Chin's CHM Supersound Studios manufactures 60,000 cassette tapes a year (CD players are far too expensive for most people), records artists, produces music videos and broadcasts a regular TV music video programme. "PNG artists are not educated in music school, most are street kids and their talent is raw, but they have a passion to be successful," Chin told Reuters. "There is no charge. We find them and record them free and promote them. Nowhere else in the world can someone walk off the street and become an instant pop star and it costs them nothing." Singer Chris Cassimis is the new face of PNG music. He is dressed in a blue tie-dyed T-shirt and dreadlocks. He looks like a fresh-faced reggae star, but prefers dreamy rhythm and blues. Cassimis is a gang member from the Kaugeree shanty settlement, one of Port Moresby's toughest suburbs, and he is about to record his debut album called Tumbunaman (Ancestor). He no longer steals, but his raskol friends do, and he is often the beneficiary. PNG is a society based on "wantok" or extended family, an unofficial social welfare system. "I don't steal any more but they steal and when they do stuff like that they come and give me money. They are all my brothers," laughs Cassimis. Cassimis says life on the streets is tough. "You have to be careful what you do in Port Moresby. Now heaps of young people hold up people and kill people in PNG. It's scary," he said. "They (my gang) are my protection. If anyone comes up to me and wants to fight me, I just have to go and tell them and they would probably get shot." Cassimis says many PNG musicians are raskols and their rap-style music is fuelled by the pain of their lives. "People sing about crime, their life in prison, life on the street and their life being hungry," he said. "Overseas you have gangster rappers but here heaps of gangsters sing PNG music, you know who they are from what they are singing. When you look at them, you see scary faces." From MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Sun Nov 13 20:32:34 2005 From: MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 13:32:34 -0700 Subject: How babies use their eyes in learning language (fwd link) In-Reply-To: <20051113123622.n4g0cw8c0c48cg8g@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Alan Metzoff is Pat Kuhl's husband, and Pat Kuhl is one of the foremost researchers in how babies model language before they begin to speak. I used all her research in my master's thesis. She has cool (Kuhl) graphs of how babies develop phonemic understandings. I always thought that her research, and her husband's, had much to offer for revitalization - but nobody much agrees with me. Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of phil cash cash Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2005 12:36 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] How babies use their eyes in learning language (fwd link) How babies use their eyes in learning language Infants begin pulling off an amazing feat sometime in the final three months of their first year of life. They learn an important social interaction by following the gaze of an adult, a step that scientists believe gives babies a leg up on understanding language. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=33398 From jtucker at starband.net Mon Nov 14 13:06:09 2005 From: jtucker at starband.net (Jan Tucker) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 08:06:09 -0500 Subject: OHAI Creates Cherokee Software (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20051113123928.aauosgo4k0ggo88o@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Phil, this is exciting, I emailed them to see if they will let me try out oCherokee software. The font is available at Chorokee.org, and I was able to use it on the experimental site I've been working on for some time now. I'm at the stage of just storing lessons, and experimenting with the free version of hotpotatoes to make flash cards and quizzes to go along with the lessons. When I get some time I'll be putting everything together and create lessons with sound bites from Cherokee I. Then will set up classes and invite others test and give feedback. I'm geting the mp3 audio files of the lessons to add. It would be wonderful to collaborate with a Cherokee language instructor. I plan to offer this freely to interested students when it's set up since the actual live course fills up quickly. Jan Tucker -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]On Behalf Of phil cash cash Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2005 2:39 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] OHAI Creates Cherokee Software (fwd) OHAI Creates Cherokee Software http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/11/emw308253.htm It is now easy to type Cherokee thanks to OHAI Technologies and the Rice University Linguistics Department. Houston, Texas (PRWEB) November 10, 2005 -- In 1809 Georgia, a Cherokee silversmith named Sequoyah began creating the “Talking Leaves” – a writing system for the Cherokee language. In 1821, 12 years from the original idea, the Cherokee nation adopted Sequoyah's alphabet and within months thousands of Cherokee were literate. Fast-forward 184 years to Houston’s Rice University Linguistics Department where a graduate student and a visiting scholar from a software company create a way to type the Cherokee writing system easily. The graduate student - Chris Koops - has conducted linguistic research on the Cherokee language for the past 2½ years. In October, Chris attended a colloquium given by Daniel Mailman, visiting scholar in the department and CEO of OHAI Technologies – a Houston-based software company. The colloquium was about “Software Technologies that Make Typing Foreign Languages Easier.” After the colloquium, Chris showed Daniel the difficulties of typing the “Talking Leaves.” That conversation led to Chris and Daniel collaborating to create oCherokee – software that actually makes it easy to type the written Cherokee language. According to Chris: “The basic challenge with typing the Cherokee syllabary is that the characters represent syllables – and not sounds, as in the English alphabet. That means that there are a lot more characters than our 26 letters. Previous input systems were difficult to use and time-consuming to learn, as they required the user to memorize the position of over 80 keys. OHAI makes it possible to write the Cherokee syllabary without any memorization at all.” Daniel says: “This was an extremely fun project that shows how fast and easy it is for scholars and software developers to make typing systems for any language. oCherokee isn’t a commercial language product like oChinese, oVietnamese, and our other language products. Nevertheless, we feel that there is social merit to the project, and that it is very much in keeping our commitment to “21st Century Literacy.” OHAI plans to make oCherokee freely available to linguists, scholars, and students of Cherokee. For information, please contact OHAI’s Communications Manager, Tweed Courtney. ### From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 14 16:23:56 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 09:23:56 -0700 Subject: Ecuadorian professor gives U students indigenous perspectives (fwd) Message-ID: Ecuadorian professor gives U students indigenous perspectives By: Jed Layton Issue date: 11/14/05 Section: News http://media.www.dailyutahchronicle.com/media/paper244/news/2005/11/14/News/Ecuadorian.Professor.Gives.U.Students.Indigenous.Perspectives-1056374.shtml?sourcedomain=www.dailyutahchronicle.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com [photo inset - Media Credit: Maegan Burr Luz Maria de la Torre, a professor at Arizona State University, shared her experiences with students while visiting the U last week.] Luz Maria de la Torre considers herself lucky to be where she is today-a professor at Arizona State University. Originally from an indigenous population in Ecuador, de la Torre, now an outreach coordinator for ASU, struggled to become educated in a hostile environment. "My father said women should not be able to study," de la Torre explained. "But my mother helped me to get through high school and eventually university." De la Torre-speaking through a Spanish translator-shared her experiences and knowledge with students and faculty while visiting the U. De la Torre said the experiences and knowledge she has gained in American universities will benefit both the universities she visits and her own home country. "The history of my indigenous people has been very negative until now," she said. "This is not only a great experience for me, it is a great experience for them." Isabel Dulfano, an assistant professor of Spanish, applied for the Dee grant that brought de la Torre to the U. She said that de la Torre was invited because she is a pioneer in indigenous culture and language. "Maria is one of an emerging group of indigenous intellectuals," she said. "These intellectuals are linked to opposition to neoliberal reforms that have impoverished native populations." While visiting, de la Torre worked in collaboration with multiple U professors, like Ken Jamison in economics, and even taught individual classes. She also worked with professors in history, Spanish and linguistics. Dulfano said she especially appreciated the knowledge de la Torre has in languages and enjoyed the two lectures de la Torre gave on Spanish and Kichwa languages. De la Torre grew up speaking the indigenous language of Kichwa and learned Spanish at the age of 7. "As a teenager, I learned two other indigenous languages," she said. "I also studied French while in France." De la Torre said that American institutions-especially the U-are different from those in Ecuador and most of South America. "In Ecuador we say a big university has 3,000 students," she said. "But the U is a big, large university with many more students." She also noted that American universities place greater importance on gaining an understanding of indigenous people and languages than do the universities of South America. j.layton at chronicle.utah.edu From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 14 16:28:29 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 09:28:29 -0700 Subject: Illiniwek appeal denied (fwd) Message-ID: The Daily Illini - News Issue: 11/14/05 Illiniwek appeal denied By Courtney Linehan http://www.dailyillini.com/media/paper736/news/2005/11/14/News/Illiniwek.Appeal.Denied-1056207.shtml Chief Illiniwek is hostile and abusive despite the University's "good intentions and best efforts," the NCAA announced Friday as it denied Illinois' appeal of its inclusion in a policy banning American Indian imagery from postseason contests. Four weeks after receiving Illinois' appeal, the NCAA staff review committee changed its tune of the past few months, stating the names "Illini" and "Fighting Illini" are not American Indian-based and therefore do not create a "hostile and abusive" environment on campus. Chief Illiniwek, the association said, is another case. "By continuing to use Native American nicknames, mascots and imagery, institutions assume responsibility over an environment which they cannot fully control," Bernard Franklin, NCAA senior vice-president for governance and membership, said in a prepared statement released Friday. "Fans, opponents and others can and will exhibit behaviors that indeed are hostile and abusive to Native Americans." The NCAA refused to comment beyond Franklin's one-page statement. A request Friday to speak to media relations representatives was denied and e-mails earlier in the week were not returned. University spokesman Tom Hardy said the University sees the NCAA response as a victory on the Illini and Fighting Illini names, but a setback in regard to Chief Illiniwek and the Board of Trustees' work toward its own decision. "The case was basically that the Board has its self-autonomous institutional process and should be able to carry that out without interference from the NCAA," Hardy said. Franklin's statement did not mention anything about the University's argument that the NCAA policy interfered with the Board of Trustees' own guiding principles regarding Illiniwek. In 2004 the Board adopted a "consensus resolution" policy, saying it hoped to bring Illiniwek supporters and opponents together to find the best solution for the campus and community. The Board approved a set of guidelines for coming to this resolution at its July meeting, a few weeks prior to the NCAA policy's release. "Obviously, the University and the Board of Trustees felt institutional autonomy and self-determination are a major reason for the institution to be exempt from the list," Hardy said. "It is apparent by its response that the NCAA wasn't persuaded by that argument yet, as they had minimal response to that in their decision announced Friday." Board Chairman Lawrence Eppley said in a press release that he is grateful the NCAA agreed with the University that "Illini" is a term derived from the name of the state and is not a reference to the people who once lived here. "I am pleased the NCAA recognized what we've maintained all along," Eppley said. "'Illini' is taken from the name of our patron state and 'Fighting Illini' refers to our University's winning spirit and drive to excel." Hardy said the official response sent to the University addressed the 1995 U.S. Office of Civil Rights finding that Chief Illiniwek did not create a hostile environment on campus. He said the NCAA cited anecdotal evidence suggesting there have been instances of hostility since then, but he added that the University recently began a faculty-led inquest into whether Chief Illiniwek affects students' educations. "It's a bit of a head scratcher when you consider that the Office of Civil Rights is an entire agency to ensure the enforcement of the Civil Rights Act," Hardy said. "They came in, spent time on campus, talked to a lot of people and watched Chief Illiniwek perform." Franklin's statement said the NCAA's decision was based on the staff review committee's own research, discussions with relevant American Indian groups and information provided by the University. While the NCAA release did not provide further detail, John Froman, chief of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, said the NCAA did contact him. The Peoria are the descendents of members of the "Illiniwek" confederation. Froman said he told the NCAA that the term "Illini" was not a part of the Peoria language, and that his tribe was never called the Illini. He said the NCAA asked if he'd had recent contact with the University regarding the Chief, and what the tribe's official position regarding Chief Illiniwek was. "I told them the Chief was not representative of our tribe and culture, mainly because the costume is Sioux," Froman said. Hardy said the Board has not decided how to handle the NCAA's denial of the Chief Illiniwek portion of the appeal. The next appeal option is for the University to go directly to the NCAA executive committee. The NCAA continuously reiterates that its goal is not to force any school to alter its mascot, logo, or nickname. The requirement, the association says, is that member institutions comply with the NCAA's non-discrimination policy and "promote an atmosphere of respect for and sensitivity to the dignity of every person." "At an ever-increasing rate of occurrence and volume, Native Americans have expressed their objections to the use of names, terms, imagery and mascots associated with athletic teams," Franklin's statement said. No immediate change is planned at Illinois; Chief Illiniwek appeared as scheduled at volleyball and women's basketball games this weekend. He will perform when men's basketball opens its regular season against South Dakota State on Friday and when football closes its season against Northwestern on Saturday. While the Board is not scheduled to meet again until January, it could possibly add a meeting to discuss the NCAA decision. "The Board hasn't determined when it's going to make a decision about what the next approach is going to be," Hardy said. The NCAA policy, which goes into effect Feb. 1, 2006, prohibits the display of American Indian mascots, logos and nicknames in NCAA-sponsored postseason competitions. It also prohibits NCAA members using American Indian imagery from hosting postseason events. These include NCAA-sanctioned Division-I bowl games, men's and women's basketball NIT tournaments and post-season tournaments for all NCAA sports. So far, at least half of the 18 schools originally deemed "hostile and abusive" have appealed: -The Florida State Seminoles, Utah Utes and Central Michigan Chippewas got the OK because namesake tribes supported the uses. -The Bradley Braves, Newberry College Indians and Illinois Fighting Illini appealed but lost and remain on the list. -The North Dakota Fighting Sioux appealed, lost and are currently awaiting a decision on their second appeal. -The Indiana University-Pennsylvania Indians and McMurray University Indians appealed, but have not received word from the NCAA. -The Catawba College Indians and University of Louisiana-Monroe Indians are both preparing appeals. -The Arkansas State Indians are considering an appeal. The Southeastern Oklahoma State Savages are re-evaluating the use of their nickname. -Midwestern State dropped its "Indians" name to avoid application of the NCAA policy. Carthage College changed its nickname from "Redmen" to "Red Men," which the NCAA approved. -Alcorn State, the only school on the list with a representative on the NCAA Executive Committee, says it has no plans to appeal and is considering a name change. -Calls to Chowan College (Braves) and Mississippi College (Choctaws) were not returned by press time. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 14 16:40:04 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 09:40:04 -0700 Subject: Turia Speech: Opening of Te Ra o Te Reo Festival (fwd) Message-ID: Turia Speech: Opening of Te Ra o Te Reo Festival Monday, 14 November 2005, 8:45 am Speech: The Maori Party http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0511/S00154.htm Te Rauparapa Park; Porirua Tariana turia, co-leader, maori party member of parliament for te tai hauauru saturday 12 November 2005; 10am E nga mana, e nga reo, tena koutou. Ngati Toa Rangatira, tena koutou. E nga kaiwhakahaere o tenei hui, tena hoki koutou. Na te ngutukura ko te hinengaro, na te hinengaro ko te mahara, na te mahara ko te whakaaro, na te whakaaro ko te korero, ma te korero ka tu he tikanga, he taonga nui te reo. I tipu mai te reo i te whenua, ahakoa kei whea, i nga tipuna ahakoa ko wai. Ma te reo ka mohiotia no whea, ko wai hoki tatou. I was so humbled to be invited to come along today, to Te Ra o te Reo, mai i nga tipuna. Sometimes life can be pretty hard-going - this week we have felt that perhaps more than most - and we all need to find ways to restore and regain a sense of joy, of pride, of well-being. And what better way than to be here, celebrating the sharing of our language across our diverse and wonderful cultures. I want to really acknowledge the hard work of Jacqui Keelan and the support of Ma Te Reo, Auahi Kore, Waru Records and all the others that have made today possible. Language is to be treasured - it is from our words and our korero that our customs and our culture is affirmed. The language of the people is the language of the land regardless of where that land may be, it is also of the ancestors regardless of who they may be. Language identifies where we are from and from whose birth waters we have come. >From where I come from we say, ‘Ko au te awa, ko te awa ko awa’ which places me as uri, descendant of the Whanganui River. Literally I am the river and the river is me. In those nine small kupu, the connections to our cultural and natural heritage are summed up. It distinguishes between the physical and spiritual dimension that binds the people to the river as it travels from the mountains to the sea. It also speaks of the well-being of te awa tupuna, our ancestral river, as being intertwined with own well-being. And all it took was nine words! That importance of the connection between our language and our identity is core to the source of magic for the best of RnR hip hop in te reo - with the roopu, Ko Au. I have had the pleasure of meeting Ko Au a number of times over the last few years, and it is so exciting to hear their fresh, rap sound in te reo. They bring with them the best of being Ngati Porou, Whanau a Apanui, being tangata whenua. Ko Au - and they’re playing here this afternoon. Another of the artists that will be here this afternoon, Sane Sagala, has spoken about his decision to reflect the pride of his language, the strength of his whakapapa, in his use of the name, Dei Hamo. He said: “Dei Hamo; meaning "I am Samoan", is a strong statement about identity and representation. Yes, to represent, it's the unbroken code of hip-hop, affirmation of self, family, street and community. Without that you just got nothin'”. Whether it’s te reo, or Niue, or Samoan, or Mandarin - our language is the way in which we explain our world. It preserves and protects our whakapapa, our identity, our culture. Our language expresses not just what we think but how we think. It expresses not just what we are saying but who we are. A people's language is a priceless treasure and no culture can survive without it. Sir James Henare talked of the language as being the core of our Maori culture and mana, the indigenous tongue of this land. Ko te reo te mauri o te mana Mäori If the language dies, as some predict, what do we have left to us? Then, I ask our own people who are we?... Therefore the taonga, our Mäori language, as far as our people are concerned, is the very soul of the Mäori people. It doesn’t have to be hard. It doesn’t have to be a full on whaikorero, delivered with all the force of our finest orators. Sometimes it may be as simple as two words. But even two words can change the world. Twenty years ago in 1984, Aotearoa was brought to a standstill by exactly that - just two words. >From the day Naida Glavich started working at the Post Office in 1971 she had always said “Kia ora, Tolls here” as a greeting indigenous to this country, a tangata whenua right - a way of connecting to the callers who rang through on the switchboard. That simple salutation did not meet with the approval of a new supervisor, who wanted to standardise the greetings. Naida was told at her age, that language was unacceptable and she was placed on ‘off-board’ duties. Naida got into her car and drove away, pondering her next move. “I heard this voice in my ear saying to me “Nui ake tenei take ia koe” - this issue is far greater than just you. I thought it was the wind whistling away, so I wound the window up. I heard the voice again. At that point I realised I couldn’t back off”. We all need to listen out for those voices inside us, that remind us of who we are, and take small steps to make the impossible possible. I had a laugh last night looking at a NZ tourism website where it explained the New Zealand welcome as: “kia ora means hello or in NZ speak gidday. The young ones tend to say "kia ora bro" and the old ones tend to say "kia ora" and give you a hongi. So haven’t we come a long way - from the simple resistance of one telephone operator to our reo becoming the NZ norm. Thinking back to that ‘kia ora story’, Selwyn Muru once said “I have timed the length of time it takes to say kia ora, its shorter than the length of time it takes to say good evening or good morning. However to expect a Maori to say good morning or good evening is like expecting a kaka to sound like a seagull.” What we can all celebrate here today is that whether we are a kaka or a seagull, the path we fly will be unique to us - and Te Ra o te Reo is here to shout out loud, to be proud, to be who we are. Ki a koutou, nga matua, nga whanau - kia ora koutou, kia ora tatou katoa. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 14 16:49:20 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 09:49:20 -0700 Subject: Learning around the drum (fwd) Message-ID: Sat November 12, 2005 Learning around the drum By Judy Gibbs Robinson The Oklahoman http://newsok.com/article/1675792/?template=home/main NORMAN -- Eleven men and one boy sit around a powwow drum, thumping it with padded sticks to a slow rhythm set by the leader, whose eyes are closed. [test inset - American Indian songs. Indian songs are passed orally from singer to singer, and in recent years from tape to singer -- not written down. The most popular form of Plains powwow singing and dancing is the war dance or grass dance. All war dance songs have a recognized compositional form, accepted by all Plains tribes. Many Plains songs are composed entirely of vocables -- sounds with no linguistic meaning. This allowed songs to be passed from one tribe to another for hundreds of years, regardless of language. Source: "A Brief Introduction to Plains Indian Singing" by Tony Isaacs, 1990, at www.indianhouse.com] When a half-minute passes with no voice joining in, the drummers dart glances at John Kemble, a Ponca elder leading this powwow singing class at the Jacobson House in Norman. Kemble's eyes remain closed; his brow furrowed. He covers his lips with one hand, muttering to himself. Finally, the hand drops, and he sings -- high and loud and clear. The others join in. Later, Kemble explains the delay getting started: "I forgot the words," he said, smiling sheepishly. Because powwow singing is an oral tradition, every generation has more to learn and remember as the body of songs increases. Kemble, who is 70, guesses he knows hundreds of them and has composed a few himself in more than 50 years of powwow singing. Now he hopes to pass on some of his knowledge in a four-week class that includes experienced powwow drummers, music students and true beginners. The Jacobson House, a center devoted to both Indian and Scandinavian cultures, offers the singing classes every year. Last year, the emphasis was on Northern style singing, which is done in a high falsetto. This year Kemble is teaching the Southern style as the Poncas practice it. "I think he's the right guy for the job," said Jacobson House director Russ Tall Chief. "There's a lot of good people who can do it, but he does it in a way that's accessible to students." Kemble begins one class by discussing drum circle etiquette -- dress nicely; don't eat or drink except from a shared water bucket; don't enter or leave the drum circle without permission from the head singer. "These rules, they're not written. Nobody tells you," Kemble said. "You learn these things as you go out to the drums." The songs, likewise, are unwritten. "There's no book or anything. The songs I learned, I learned around the drum and through practical experience," Kemble said. Kim Tiger, a Creek woman who has been singing around the drum since she was 12, said she, too, learned by years of listening. "There's so many songs today. And it isn't like a jukebox. It's something you have to have so you can recollect at a moment's notice," Tiger said. Kemble called on her to describe the role of women in the drum circle. They participate as backup singers but never sit at the drum. "It's difficult to explain when to come in. You just know," Tiger told the class. Many powwow songs contain no real words, Kemble said. Others have a few words that convey broad meanings. For example, one song with the Ponca words for "behold," "flag," and "warriors" can be interpreted broadly as an incitement to patriotism, he said. Another song includes Ponca words that translate literally as "a message came down from the mountain." Kemble said it is about a sentinel sending word to the tribe that danger was coming. The Ponca language proved a challenge for Cynthia Baker of Norman, who is taking the class to further her appreciation of Indian culture. "I've gone to powwows as a spectator. I thought it would be very beneficial if I had some idea what it was I was hearing. So I came to see if I could learn some of the lyrics and how the songs are structured," she said. After two Wednesday night lessons, Baker still was having trouble distinguishing between the Ponca words and the vocables -- sounds such as "yo-he-yo" that are composed into the songs but have no linguistic meaning. "I'm hoping the practice tape will help," she said. Bill Dengler of Norman started going to powwows after moving to Oklahoma about eight years ago. His goal is to learn more about the songs and improve his rapport with the people he meets at powwows. "I don't see myself really learning all the songs. That would be nice, but I don't think I really have the language ability to really start," Dengler said. Kemble admits learning powwow singing is a challenge. Baker said the effort is worthwhile if it helps keep Indian traditions alive. "It's a very interesting and beautiful culture, and I want to see it survive -- not just for the people who are Native Americans but for the rest of us. And I'd like to help by understanding as much as I can," she said. From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Mon Nov 14 19:09:09 2005 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 12:09:09 -0700 Subject: Fwd: Passing of Vine In-Reply-To: <20051114112117.88y1fk0g88cggg8c@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: ----- Forwarded message from andrekar at ncidc.org ----- Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 09:35:25 -0800 From: Andre Cramblit Reply-To: Andre Cramblit Subject: Passing of Vine Friends: Vine Deloria, Jr., passed away yesterday. Here is the Colorado AIM Blog site. And below is my note to the Iliff faculty last night. Apologies to those who got my email last night, but I wanted you all to see the Colorado AIM Blog about Vine. http://www.coloradoaim.org/blog/2005/11/in-honor-of-vine-deloria-jr -1933-2005.html Dear colleagues: At six am this morning I lost a mentor and a friend who was also a friend of Iliff School of Theology. The American Indian world lost a great champion. Professor Vine Deloria, Jr., had been struggling, as many of you know, with colon surgery from more than a month ago. About two weeks ago that was complicated with an abdominal aneurysm and underwent surgery for that. He died of complication from the latter after a couple of follow-up surgeries this past week. He was a giant among American Indian intellectuals, teachers, and writers. He will be terribly missed by much more than myself. Since this has just transpired and I have just this evening returned from Palestine, I do not know what the arrangements are. Indeed, Barbara will not be able to contact a funeral home until tomorrow, since Vine passed on a Sunday. She has asked that we give her another day or two in personal retreat before we begin to contact her with condolences, etc. Their children have already gathered around her. For those who are interested, I will pass on the information as it becomes available. I know I do not need to rehearse the multitude of his accomplishments for most of you. I was told in 1985 when I was first hired at Iliff that it was his letter of recommendation that pushed my name to the top of the stack. He was not on my list of referees. At that point in my career, I would not have dreamed of even asking him. But Iliff had its own relationship with Vine and approached him unbeknownst to me. In a curious turn-about, the University of Colorado asked me for a letter of reference on his behalf in the process leading to their offering a position to him a few years later. He had retired as an emeritus professor from CU only about three or four years ago. I believe he was 73 years old. I was not prepared to lose such an important discourse partner. The American Indian world is hurt by this loss. He was not yet done writing. Tink Dr. Tink Tinker (Osage Nation) Professor of American Indian Cultures and Religious Traditions Iliff School of Theology ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D. Department of English Affiliate faculty: Department of Linguistics and the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching Program American Indian Language Development Institute Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 3352 bytes Desc: not available URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Nov 15 20:53:29 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 13:53:29 -0700 Subject: Navajos turn sights on schools (fwd) Message-ID: Deseret Morning News, Tuesday, November 15, 2005 http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635161241,00.html Navajos turn sights on schools Navajo Nation steps forward and creates its own department of education By Deborah Bulkeley Deseret Morning News For many American Indian youths, the educational outlook is bleak. In some cases, youths are more likely to drop out of high school than to graduate. [photo inset - Students are bused in to Monument Valley High School, located on the Navajo Indian Reservation south of Blanding. San Juan School District] The Navajo Nation has taken a step towards putting education into its own hands by creating a department of education. Leland Leonard, Navajo tribal education director, said there hasn't been much improvement for Navajo youths since No Child Left Behind became law in 2001. In 2004, the State Office of Education reported that just under 71 percent of American Indian youths in Utah graduated from high school. "The states and the (Bureau of Indian Affairs) are not doing it," Leonard said. "This is an initiative of exercising our sovereignty, our inherited right to reform the educational system on the Navajo Nation." Leonard said in July the Navajo Nation amended its Title 10 education code to create its own department of education and is also establishing a school board. The department will look at the "unique language and culture and incorporating those into the curriculum" over the next decade at about 180 schools in the Four Corners region. "The Navajo language and character development, those are all essential tools our kids need to learn," he said. Shirlee Silversmith, Indian education specialist at the State Office of Education, said the Navajo Nation already had an education director, and the restructuring provides more authority in areas such as accessing data. "There would be a greater direction for cooperation as well as collaboration," she said. "A lot of this is based on sovereignty rights of tribes. It puts our American Indians in a unique status that will allow tribes to establish themselves as state departments of education." Many tribes, she said, conduct their own research and analysis of data so they can better assist students and parents. "The Navajo Nation is probably one of the largest tribes across the nation and is in the forefront as far as developing and establishing themselves as a tribal education department," she said. [photo inset - Seniors at Monument Valley High participate in the school's annual homecoming parade. San Juan School District] Silversmith said every Utah tribe has an education director, and she believes that eventually, the others may move in the same direction as the Navajos. She pointed to a charter high school on the Uintah-Ouray Indian Reservation in eastern Utah as another empowering move. Toni Turk, federal programs administrator for San Juan School District in southeastern Utah, said his district's graduation rate is about 95 percent. Last year, his district reported five dropouts — three were American Indian, two were white. The San Juan School District educates 1,643 American Indian students, the overwhelming majority of them Navajo. San Juan is unique in Utah, in that more than half of the district's 2,921 students are American Indian. There are Navajo students in 11 of 12 schools, some of which are adjacent to or on the reservation. "Their role is to support public education," Turk said. "They were emphatic about the fact this is not intended as a takeover of public education, nor is it a raid on the resources. "To some degree this is going to impact most of the schools in the district," he said. For some schools, in which nearly all students are Navajo, "they are going to have much bigger involvement." Turk said San Juan is already doing some things that would fall under the new accountability standards, such as teaching the Navajo language in grades K-12 and incorporating cultural instruction. "In Navajo language and culture instruction, they see us as a partner. They would like to have other districts emulate the San Juan District." Cameron Cuch, former Ute education director, said that tribe's charter high school is in its seventh year of opening doors for youth achievement. Cuch said the reservation's dropout rate has ranged from 60 percent to 80 percent since the 1960s, and the charter school is helping reduce that rate. More American Indian students graduate from the school than from both off-reservation public high schools in the area, he said. [photo inset - Kasfondra Morgan, left, and Mariah Taylor are dressed up for Navajo Culture Day at Monument Valley High School. San Juan School District] "It's within our own community, and kids are getting a lot more opportunities than they are in other high schools," he said. Youths have more opportunities to participate in sports or take field trips, such as last year's trip to the Sundance Film Festival, he said. There's also the matter of being able to teach tribal priorities, such as caring for people and protecting lands, wildlife and water rights. "When we operate our own schools, we can instill that sense of responsibility into young people," he said. Leaders hope they'll continue their education and return to serve as teachers, lawyers, doctors, or in whatever profession they choose, he said. Research into tribal education has found that students who have support from traditional families and communities have a more positive educational experience, said Carol Ward, associate sociology professor at Brigham Young University and author of "Native Americans in the School System: Family, Community and Academic Achievement." "Many tribes have responded to the complexity of schooling for Native American students," she said. "They have responded by saying 'I think we can do schooling better.' " That happens by integrating culture and language into the curriculum in a way that makes education more relevant, she said. Ward looked at three schools on the Northern Cheyenne reservation in Montana in the late 1980s and early '90s — a public school and a Catholic school, both off the reservation, and a community tribal school. Her research found that students who went to their local tribal school did better, in large part because of increased parental involvement. "The interaction between parents and kids and the school . . . the relationships they have can create a really positive environment," she said. "When the parents are involved, that tells the kids, 'This is important.' " [photo inset - Wanda Ketchum, a White Mesa Ute Indian and elementary aide at Blanding Elementary School, works with Robert Turk, a fifth-grade teacher at Blanding. The district's graduation rate is about 95 percent. San Juan School District] She said parents also help to bridge the cultural gap at schools where most teachers aren't American Indians. At schools where students were bused from their community, it was more difficult to establish that relationship. She said the tribal school's dropout rate was just over half, but for just the students from the town where it was located, it was only about 10 percent. "What the Navajo Nation is also trying to address, is more people be involved in schooling and their own work," she said, "more of a partnership between the community and the school." E-mail: dbulkeley at desnews.com © 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 16 18:54:31 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 11:54:31 -0700 Subject: One language for 'children of different colours' (fwd) Message-ID: One language for 'children of different colours' [photo inset - Getting to know you: Wesley grade 3 pupils Harry Fortune and Stephanie Fung, both 9, with Bayulu Community School pupils Hayden Smith and Edmond Smiler, both 11. Photo: Penny Stephens] By Chee Chee Leung, Education Reporter November 17, 2005 http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/one-language-for-children-of-different-colours/2005/11/16/1132016861347.html?oneclick=true# THERE are nearly twice as many students attending Wesley College as there are people living in the largely Aboriginal town of Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia. But these two communities, almost at opposite ends of the country, have joined forces in a bid to preserve an endangered indigenous language. In a trial project to be announced tonight, Wesley College will spend a term next year teaching the Bunuba language and culture to its grade 4 pupils. It is believed to be the first time the language will be taught to schoolchildren outside the indigenous communities of Western Australia. June Oscar, chairwoman of the Kimberley Language Resource Centre, said there were only about 60 older people who could speak the language fluently. "If we don't know our language, we don't know our country, we don't know how we live," said Ms Oscar, a Bunuba speaker. "It's a great and fantastic opportunity for both our community and the Wesley community. "With an understanding of the language, a whole new world is able to be understood." Grade 3 student Stephanie Fung is one Wesley pupil looking forward to the Bunuba classes. "It's fun when you learn different languages," the nine-year-old said. "You learn about how they live and what they do." Wesley College is among a number of independent schools — including Scotch College and Carey Baptist Grammar School in Melbourne's east — that have pursued relationships with Aboriginal communities. The Bunuba language initiative at Wesley is part of a broader partnership between the independent school and the Fitzroy Valley community of the Kimberley region. The town of Fitzroy Crossing, within the Fitzroy Valley, is about 2600 kilometres north-east of Perth. Wesley pupils and teachers visited the town in August, and a group of Fitzroy Crossing pupils have been in Melbourne since Sunday. "It's nice and cold — too cold," said Edmond Smiler, of the Bayulu Community School. The 11-year-old also noticed that there were many children "of different colours" at Wesley. "You make friends out of them," he said. REACHING OUT SCHOOL PROJECTS ? Carey Baptist Grammar School has developed a relationship with the Robinson River School, in a remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory. Student exchanges that started this year are expected to continue, and teacher secondments are under consideration. ? Trinity Grammar School offers four scholarships a year for indigenous students, in partnership with Melbourne University. Among the recipients for next year are two boys from the Northern Territory. ? Scotch College offers two scholarships each year to students from the Tiwi Islands, north of Darwin, where boys spend a term as boarders at the school. So far six students from the Tiwi Islands have attended Scotch under this program. ? Wesley College has established a partnership with the Fitzroy Valley community in Western Australia, which includes student and teacher exchanges, and plans to develop a curriculum to teach Aboriginal languages. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 16 19:25:23 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 12:25:23 -0700 Subject: Women Increasingly Pick Husbands' Surnames Over Their Own (fwd) Message-ID: Wed Nov 16 09:22:25 2005 Pacific Time University of Florida Study: Women Increasingly Pick Husbands' Surnames Over Their Own http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20051116.070823&time=09%2022%20PST&year=2005&public=1 GAINESVILLE, Fla., Nov. 16 (AScribe Newswire) -- What's in a name - or two names? Quite a bit, says a University of Florida professor, whose research finds that a growing number of brides are returning to tradition when taking a man's hand in marriage, assuming his name instead of keeping their own as a symbol of independent identity. "Adopting a husband's last name remains an entrenched tradition that is on the upswing, despite a temporary blip in the '70s, '80s and early '90s where many young women tended to want to hold on to their birth names," said UF linguistics professor Diana Boxer, who led a series of studies. "I think it reflects how men's power continues to influence American society despite the fact that women have made great advances economically and socially." The exception is highly educated women in academic and professional positions, said Boxer, whose research was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The survey involved 134 married women ranging in age from their 20s to their 70s who lived in various parts of the United States. Boxer found that only 24 -- 18 percent -- had kept their own names, compared with 107 -- 77 percent -- who took a husband's name. The rest used hyphenated or other names. Family unity was the most frequently mentioned reason. "Taking on my husband's last name was an outward sign of our union," explained one woman. "It served to make me feel that I was 'really married' and that we were forming a brand new family." Children were the most important issue of family unity for these women, who sought to avoid the hassle and confusion of having more than one surname in the family, Boxer said. But while divorced women would not return to their birth surname because they wanted the same name as their children, they did not hesitate to adopt a new husband's name at remarriage, even though it meant their name now differed from that of their children, she said. While all the women who retained their birth surnames were satisfied with their choice, some who changed expressed regret, Boxer said. "I associate my new surname with my husband's relatives, whom I dislike," said one participant. Another woman was disappointed to lose a symbol of her ethnic heritage in giving up her Italian name. Understanding naming traditions is important because they give clues about underlying social patterns and shifts in attitudes about expected roles for women, said Boxer, who presented some of the findings at the International Association of Applied Linguistics meeting in Madison, Wis., in July. "People say 'It's only a name, what's in a name?' Well, we think there's a lot in a name," she said. "Linguistic symbols tell us how people are treated in society." The practice of women automatically taking their husband's surnames was first challenged in the mid-19th century by abolitionist Lucy Stone, Boxer said. From then on, women who retained their birth names after marriage came to be called "Lucy Stoners," with negative connotations, she said. "In a 1997 study of more than 10,000 Midwesterners, men thought women who kept their surnames were more likely to work outside the home, less likely to enjoy cooking, less likely to attend church and - this is the clincher - less likely to make good wives," she said. Other cultures are more accepting, Boxer said. In rural Pakistan, women retain their birth names unless they need to request a government document, while in Norway children automatically receive the mother's name unless a couple tells authorities otherwise, she said. Among 103 Russian women whom Boxer's co-author, Elena Gritsenko, surveyed in a cross-cultural comparison, only 17 percent retained their birth surname at marriage. But while most Russian women mentioned cultural traditions and the desire to maintain good relations with their husband's family, American women expressed more romantic notions, she said. "Ever since I have been a little girl, I've been dreaming of the day I change my name to my future husband's name, and I still feel that way," said one young woman in Boxer's class. Among 18 female students in Boxer's sociolinguistics class that she interviewed as part of a separate study, 11 said they would take their husband's surname, three would hyphenate, three would use both names, and only one said she would retain her birth surname. While women say taking their partner's surname symbolizes their union, few men have such sentiments, said Boxer, noting that it is rare for the male partner to consider changing his surname. "Why do even young women who hold feminist viewpoints look forward to taking their husband's surname?" she said. "Why do women do the merging?" Marlis Hellinger, a linguistics professor at the University of Frankfurt/Main, said naming practices are a "central issue in research on language and gender. Boxer's important contribution focuses on questions of change and explanations, but also opens up the field to include cross-cultural perspectives." - - - - CONTACTS: Diana Boxer, 352-466-0880, 283-1172, dboxer at ufl.edu Cathy Keen, UF News Office, 352-392-0186, ckeen at ufl.edu From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 16 19:38:25 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 12:38:25 -0700 Subject: Women Increasingly Pick Husbands' Surnames Over Their Own (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20051116122523.8g0co0cc0004w4kw@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: my apologies...this news item was meant for a linguistic anthropology listserv and not ILAT. Please enjoy the reading though. Phil UofA ILAT Quoting phil cash cash : > Wed Nov 16 09:22:25 2005 Pacific Time > > University of Florida Study: Women Increasingly Pick Husbands' > Surnames Over Their Own > From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 16 19:46:53 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 12:46:53 -0700 Subject: African-led fund aimed at digital divide (fwd link) Message-ID: Posted 11/13/2005 5:15 PM African-led fund aimed at digital divide By Anick Jesdanun, Associated Press An African-led initiative that will use high-speed Internet connections to treat AIDS patients in Burundi and Burkina Faso offers inspiration for those working to bridge the world's digital divide. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2005-11-13-africa-digital-divide_x.htm From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Thu Nov 17 13:26:39 2005 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (d_z_o) Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 13:26:39 -0000 Subject: Fwd: International Indigenous Business and Entrepreneurship Conference, Expo, M Message-ID: FYI... DZO --- In MINEL at yahoogroups.com, Gordon Bronitsky wrote: We are delighted to announce that the website is finally on-line for the International Indigenous Business and Entrepreneurship Conference, June 19-22, 2006, Albuquerque, NM USA. Please visit http:/iibec.mgt.unm.edu. The theme will be "Fostering Indigenous Entrepreneurship" Who Should Attend? Academicians, business professionals, government, NGOs, students, and anyone interested in learning and sharing experiences pertaining to Indigenous Entrepreneurship and Economic Development. Call for Papers: Papers should focus on the conference main theme and related topics such as financing of Indigenous Entrepreneurship, marketing Indigenous products, services, and technologies, indigenous gaming industry, media, entertainment, fashion & design, culture, Indigenous literature (Indigenous languages and National languages), traditional values, ethics and entrepreneurship, biopiracy, mining, fishing and gaming, environmentally friendly technologies, indigenous sustainable entrepreneurship, and the role of regional, federal and multilateral agencies and NGOs in promoting indigenous entrepreneurship. Case studies on indigenous entrepreneurship in Asia, Oceania, Africa, Latin America, North America, and Europe are invited. The website also contains information about registration and sponsorship opportunities. Sandia Pueblo's new Resort and Casino is hosting the Conference, and the website also contains reservation information for your stay at this stunning new tribally-owned resort. A major part of the entertainment at IIBEC will be IndigeNOW, an international evening of contemporary Indigenous music. Please ask any interested contemporary Indigenous musicians in any genre to contact Gordon Bronitsky as soon as possible. Another key component of IIBEC will be an International Indigenous Business Expo in which Indigenous businesspeople, entrepreneurs, communities and regions can showcase their experience, products, tourism, and more. Again, please contact Gordon Bronitsky as soon as possible if you are interested in being an exhibitor. We also hope to work with Conference participants to create an International Indigenous Business and Entrepreneurship Association. We hope to see you in New Mexico in June! Gordon Bronitsky, PhD Senior Consultant International Indigenous Business and Entrepreneurship Conference Jaye Francis Conference Coordinator International Indigenous Business and Entrepreneurship Conference Raul Gouvea, PhD Conference Chair International Indigenous Business and Entrepreneurship Conference --- End forwarded message --- From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 17 17:21:28 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 10:21:28 -0700 Subject: Cheap laptops are planned for kids (fwd link) Message-ID: The Associated Press/TUNIS, Tunisia By MATT MOORE Associated Press Writer Cheap laptops are planned for kids NOV. 17 10:18 A.M. ET A cheap laptop boasting wireless network access and a hand-crank to provide electricity are expected to start shipping in February or March to help extend technology to school-aged children worldwide. http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8DU9ULG0.htm?campaign_id=apn_tech_down&chan=tc From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Nov 18 00:28:40 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 17:28:40 -0700 Subject: 2nd Annual Sahaptian Conference - February 24-26, 2006 Message-ID: NILI and Heritage University are excited to be hosting the 2nd Annual Sahaptian Conference on February 24-26, in Toppenish WA. We had an amazing turnout last year, and it was a wonderful event of sharing and reunion. This year we invite teachers and learners of all Sahaptin and Nez Perce dialects to join us for workshops, discussions, and presentations focusing on: 1) language curriculum development and sharing, 2) how to promote community and tribal government interest in your language program, 3) other issues, possibly related to the master/apprentice approach to language learning. More details will follow as we work them out. Please register by sending your name, organization (and/or language you're working with), and complete contact info to or the address below. And please pass this message on to those you think would be interested... See you in February, Jesse Blackburn Morrow Assistant to the Director Northwest Indian Language Institute 1290 University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403 541.346.3199 (vm) nwili at uoregon.edu http://babel.uoregon.edu/nili/ From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Nov 18 20:52:10 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 13:52:10 -0700 Subject: Internet: A New Space for African Languages (fwd) Message-ID: Internet: A New Space for African Languages Highway Africa News Agency (Grahamstown) November 18, 2005 By Ansbert Ngurumo Geneva http://allafrica.com/stories/200511180584.html Concerns that African languages could become extinct are almost over. The internet is becoming a refuge for the continent's languages that would otherwise become extinct. Despite the powerful influence of English, French and Portuguese as official languages in certain African countries, indigenous African languages are proving that technology belongs to no language. Kiswahili, a language spoken by about 80 million people in Eastern and Central Africa and recently adopted as one of African Union's official languages, is extensively used on internet websites by newspapers and bloggers. Linguists interested in African languages are increasingly turning their interests to translate and teach Kiswahili on the internet. The Kamusi Project by Yale University www.yale.edu.swahili is a recent initiative aimed at translating Kiswahili into English. Tanzania is probably Africa's central place for development of Kiswahili. 99 percent of the country's 35 million people speak Kiswahili. Sections of daily newspapers, portals, national websites and other relevant information is now accessible on Internet, making the internet a new space for African languages. Other languages enjoying similar advancements include Uganda's Luganda, Kenya's Kikuyu, Burundi's Kirundi, Rwanda's Kinyarwanda, Somalia's Somali, and Nigeria's Hausa. The proliferation of African languages on the internet is giving these languages a new breath of life. The internet has provided a platform for Africans to communicate with friends, relatives and in the diaspora in their indigenous languages. Several Africans now maintain blogs where they write in different African languages. See www.ngurumo.blogspot.com www.jikomboe.blogspot.com From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Sat Nov 19 01:04:33 2005 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 20:04:33 -0500 Subject: Internet: A New Space for African Languages (fwd) Message-ID: Great News. Break out the champaigne..... Who writes this stuff?? Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Nov 19 23:26:37 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 16:26:37 -0700 Subject: Bible translated into endangered creole language of African slaves (fwd) Message-ID: Saturday, November 19, 2005 Bible translated into endangered creole language of African slaves By BRUCE SMITH Associated Press Writer http://www.dhonline.com/articles/2005/11/18/news/religion/religion01.txt ST. HELENA ISLAND, S.C. — More than a quarter century after the laborious work began, the New Testament has finally been translated into Gullah, the creole language spoken by slaves and their descendants for generations along the sea islands of the Southeast coast. Gullah is an oral language, so the translation was painstaking, beginning in 1979 with a team of Gullah speakers who worked with Pat and Claude Sharpe, translation consultants with Wycliffe Bible Translators. Many efforts have been made over the years to preserve Gullah, which mixed West African languages with English, and experts believe the translated Bible will be a major contribution toward that goal. “I think this makes the language universal,’’ said Ervena Faulkner, co-manager of history and culture at the Penn Center, which is dedicated to preserving the threatened sea island culture. “People have done Gullah cookbooks, they have done African-American sayings, they have done proverbs,’’ Faulkner said. “But for the Bible to go out with the Gullah sends a message. It means we can speak the Word.’’ Nestled amid spreading oaks dripping Spanish moss on this island just east of Beaufort, the center is located on the site of the Penn School, which was founded in 1862 to educate slaves newly freed by advancing Union troops. The culture — called Gullah in the Carolinas and Geechee in Florida and Georgia — remained intact with descendants of slaves because of the isolation of the region’s sea islands. Now, about 250,000 Gullahs live in the four-state coastal area and about 10,000 of them speak Gullah as their main language. “De Nyew Testament,’’ published by the American Bible Society, went on sale this month. As an example, the verse John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God,’’ was translated to read, “Fo God mek de wol, de Wod been dey. De Wod been dey wid God, an de Wod been God. — De Good Nyews Bout Jedus Christ Wa John Write 1:1.’’ The Bible is written with the English translation in the margins. “That’s the beauty of the way it’s written,’’ said Emory Campbell, who retired three years ago after 22 years as executive director at the Penn Center. “The non-Gullah speakers can easily translate what the written Gullah is about. In a way, we are going to be training other people how to speak Gullah.’’ For generations, the language was something native speakers tried to abandon, because they feared it would hurt their chances of getting ahead in the wider world. “It was a put down,’’ Campbell recalled. “You were looked on as being ignorant and at a low intelligence level if that’s the language you spoke. We tried at all costs to avoid speaking it.’’ For that reason, Campbell at first would not help with the translation, until he spoke with a professor from the University of California who told him Gullah is indeed a language. Creole languages develop when speakers of two languages who can’t understand each other remain in long contact, as the African slaves did with their masters. David Frank, a translation consultant who joined the project after Pat Sharpe died in 2002, said Gullah was frequently dismissed as “broken English,’’ not a language in its own right. There are structural differences between Gullah and English which justify Gullah being recognized as a separate language, Frank said. The translation was based on several different versions of the New Testament, along with varied Bible commentaries. Some of the Bible books were released when they were completed, with the Gospel of Luke published in 1994 and the Gospel of John released two years ago. Dolores Pringle, head of the Penn Center board of trustees, said the Bible can help blacks connect with their heritage. “It can strengthen our relationship back to West Africa,’’ she said. “Every group that has emigrated to this country has had a very strong connection back to their home country whether it’s Italy, Ireland or whether it’s England,’’ she said. “I’m not sure our African-American youth have had that kind of connection back to Africa.’’ With the New Testament finished, talk has started of translating the Old Testament into Gullah — a task that could also take years. “It would not be beyond us,’’ Campbell said. “We would be glad to make sure that the Word is in our language throughout,’’ he said. “I hope that more younger people will join the team and move forward.’’ From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 23 19:38:56 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 12:38:56 -0700 Subject: Salmon help kids with math in Tlingit immersion program (fwd) Message-ID: Salmon help kids with math in Tlingit immersion program JUNEAU: Blending culture into curriculum meant to boost interest, self-esteem. By ERIC MORRISON Juneau Empire (Published: November 21, 2005) http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/7224295p-7136321c.html JUNEAU -- Harborview Elementary School teacher Shgen George has been teaching math to her second- and third-grade class this fall in an unusual way -- with fish. George, one of the school's Tlingit Culture, Language and Literacy Program teachers, has been using salmon this autumn to engage her students in the classroom by mixing aspects of the culture with the district's curriculum. She said it has proven to be both important and effective. "It's amazing. When we talk about this as our culture and how this is important to us you can see them sit up straighter and get that spark in their eyes," George said. "They feel like it is them and they care about it so they want to learn." The district's curriculum has all third-graders studying area, volume, multiplication using repeated addition, and finding medians. George's students took a more hands-on approach, jarring salmon to learn about volume and counting the number of fish scales on squares of fish skin to learn about area. George said these and other similar activities help the students better grasp the curriculum. "They have stories to share and they connect to it and it doesn't seem like some abstract thing to study area when we have the salmon right here and they are already connected to it," she said. Third-grader Cora Bontrager, 9, said she enjoys learning more about her culture. "We were studying the salmon and measuring it and weighing it," she said. "I learned about their life cycle and that they spawn and die." Now in its sixth year, the culture program at Harborview has grown from one kindergarten and first-grade split-class to having three classrooms dedicated full time to integrating Tlingit culture into the contemporary learning environment. There is also a fourth- and fifth-grade split-class. Painted paper salmon hang from the ceiling in George's classroom along with cutouts of Alaska's five different types of salmon strung up together displaying the species name in Tlingit. Ray Wilson, a Kiksadi elder, was visited George's classroom recently to discuss traditional fishing techniques with the aid of a cod spreader that he received at a potlatch in Kake. "I wanted to bring this to show you how smart your ancestors were," he told the children, who were huddled around and engaged by the spreader's craftsmanship. Wilson said he hopes to be a good role model for the children so they will take pride in their culture. By giving them a cultural connection within the school, he said, he hopes Native children will become more successful students in the modern classroom. "To me the big thing is trying to build self-esteem in our Native children so that they can endure whatever they have to," Wilson said. "There are a lot of things going on in the schools that aren't very pleasant, so we want them to endure anything that may come along." Sharon Parks, a cultural specialist and para-educator with the school district who helps in the program's three classrooms, agrees with Wilson. "I think that this program is important because it's showing these children they have something to be proud of," Parks said. "I think that if a child has pride in who they are, has pride in where they come from, and pride in what they are doing it can really help make them successful." Wilson said he hopes the program will translate to higher graduation rates among Native students -- a continuing issue for the school district. "We're trying to find ways to keep our children in school," he said. "Hopefully this is one of the ways that will help them to stay in school and go on to college where they can compete in the work force." George said she hopes this program will help Native families be more proactive with education. "There's a high percentage of families who have bad experiences with schools," she said. "It's important getting the families, not just the kids, but families to have positive experiences in school and with schools and be excited about learning." Copyright ? 2005 The Anchorage Daily News (www.adn.com) From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 23 19:44:00 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 12:44:00 -0700 Subject: Gov't expands northern court translation service (fwd) Message-ID: Gov't expands northern court translation service Betty Ann Adam The StarPhoenix Monday, November 21, 2005 http://www.canada.com/saskatoon/starphoenix/news/local/story.html?id=0db5404d-4a12-41bb-92d7-8b06345a2d12 Full-time Cree and Dene translators will soon be working in northwestern Saskatchewan courts. The Aboriginal Provincial Court Party, as it will be known, will be based in Meadow Lake and will travel to other communities in northwestern Saskatchewan. It will be in place by the end of this fiscal year, said Justice Department spokesperson Debbie McEwen. The expanded translation service is one of several initiatives outlined earlier this year in the government's response to the aboriginal justice reform commission, which in 2004 recommended changes to improve justice services to Natives in Saskatchewan. The government has also promised to appoint a Cree-speaking Justice of the Peace to a Cree community and a Dene justice of the peace to a Dene community. In an effort to increase the number of aboriginal people serving as jurors, the province will also increase the fee paid for jury duty and "provide increased resources for transportation and mileage to court for potential jurors, where necessary," the government's report states. The Saskatchewan provincial court has provided a Cree court since 2001, which has a Cree-speaking judge to hear matters in that language eight days per month at four sites. The prosecutor and court clerk also speak Cree. Dene translation services are currently available at court points served from La Ronge. Cree and Dene translation services are also available in Prince Albert and at court points served from Prince Albert. The government will add locations for provincial courts in more First Nations and Metis communities where the workload warrants it and where suitable court facilities are available. The Justice Department also promised to consult with aboriginal communities and the provincial court about installing appropriate cultural symbols in the Meadow Lake and La Ronge provincial court buildings. © The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 23 19:51:28 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 12:51:28 -0700 Subject: Missionaries’ mission is at issue (fwd) Message-ID: Missionaries’ mission is at issue Caracas, Wednesday November 23,2005 http://www.thedailyjournalonline.com/article.asp?ArticleId=205470&CategoryId=10717 PUERTO AYACUCHO – Earnest and God-fearing, jungle missionary Gary Greenwood may not look like a spy for the CIA. But President Hugo Chávez says the lanky young man from central Michigan is no less than an advance scout for an imminent U.S. invasion of Venezuela. Last month, Chávez ordered the expulsion of about 200 evangelical Baptist missionaries from the country’s Amazon rain forest. He accused them of spying, mining, exploiting indigenous tribes and using jungle airstrips for “imperialist penetration.” Last week, the missionaries were given 90 days to leave the zone. Greenwood laughs off the charges and said there was no time for espionage in Cuwa, the isolated Yanomami Indian village where he and his family lived for four years. Although he and other missionaries acknowledge that their primary goal was to convert Indians to Christianity, the 33-year-old said he spent most of his days helping them: drilling wells, fixing outboard motors, and making their huts more livable. As for the issue of U.S. intentions, Greenwood jokingly wondered why the Pentagon would launch an invasion from the dense jungle of the Amazon, where movement of troops or military vehicles would be problematic. “Wouldn’t the Caribbean coastline make more sense?” he asked as he made his way out of the jungle from this Orinoco River port town. The seemingly outlandish accusations illustrate the deterioration in Chávez’ relations with the United States, a once-close ally that still depends on Venezuela for 12 percent of its oil imports. Chávez blames the “imperialist” United States for a host of social ills in Latin America, rhetoric that polls show is resonating in a continent impatient for change. Some observers see the expulsion, which targeted the Florida-based New Tribes Mission and its offshoots, as a part of a hardening attitude toward religious groups since U.S. televangelist Pat Robertson suggested in August that someone assassinate Chávez – for which he later apologized. The Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints announced last month that it had withdrawn all 219 of its U.S. missionaries from the country because of increasing delays and difficulty in obtaining or renewing visas. Chávez has also sparred with the Roman Catholic Church. Retired Cardinal Rosalio Castillo Lara, a Venezuelan who was a confidant of the late Pope John Paul II, has accused Chávez of being increasingly autocratic. “Chávez needs confrontation, because this allows him, among other things, to lessen tensions within his coalition,” said Javier Corrales, a political scientist at Amherst College and a Venezuela specialist. “He is also trying to weaken organized groups that are autonomous, especially if they are foreign.” Some anthropologists and government officials cheered Chávez’ action, saying the expulsion was a welcome conclusion to a 60-year debate in Venezuela over whether the evangelicals threaten cultural diversity by forcing assimilation and modernity on the tribes, even as they deliver much-needed services. The problems posed by the missionaries, they say, are not espionage or unbridled capitalism, but the religious and behavioral changes that critics say the missionaries force on tribes in exchange for material and medical help. Those changes are destroying the tribes’ primitive rituals and robbing people of what the United Nations has termed world cultural patrimony, the critics claim. “New Tribes activity amounts to cultural genocide for which the state has to share responsibility,” anthropologist and former Sen. Alexander Luzardo said in an interview in Caracas, the capital. “The state tolerated their presence in those areas too long, and ceded to them its responsibilities in health and education services too long.” But many of the estimated 45,000 indigenous people in the Amazon basin resent the expulsion order, saying the missionaries have improved their lives. Ingrid Turon, a city councilwoman and member of the Yeguana indigenous community in the village of Toki, six hours by outboard motorboat from here, said those who oppose missionaries want to deprive indigenous people of the advantages of modern life. “For them, we are like animals in the zoo that people should pay to come see, so they can charge admission, publish their books and take pictures,” Turon said. “They want to deny us the progress that they want, that the entire world wants.” Greenwood says living among the Indians as a “friend and neighbor” gives him a different – and, he says, more caring – perspective than that of the anthropologists who visit periodically to study the communities and their customs. “That’s where we are a little bit critical of the scientists who look on the Yanomami as a classroom project. These aren’t objects – these are people,” Greenwood said. “If you have a textbook approach to them, rather than relational, the Indians suffer as a result.” Greenwood doesn’t deny that he wanted to teach the Indians the Bible, which has been translated to the Yanomami language, and to show them the “way of the Lord.” Those teachings include discouraging Yanomami from taking alcoholic or hallucinatory substances, from committing polygamy and incest, and from engaging in intertribal violence. But he insisted that none of the Indians in Cuwa were denied clothing, food or medicine for failing to follow his religious teachings. The son of a contractor, Greenwood is a self-described Mr. Fix-It, and much of his activity is spent “fixing” Yanomami living practices he views as unhealthy. For instance, he installed concrete floors and built tables and benches for many of the huts in Cuwa as part of an effort to dissuade the Indians from eating on the floor, which leads to diseases such as amoebic dysentery. But he has learned not to intrude in some areas, especially politics. “We never criticize the president. These people are very patriotic.” A relatively small part of Greenwood’s day was dedicated to religion, he said. He spent most of it helping the Yanomami stay fed, clothed and healthy, always a struggle in the unforgiving Amazon. His wife, Sarah, a nurse, operated a clinic where she treated the dysentery, malaria and snake bites suffered by the 120 Indians who live in Cuwa, which in Yanomami means “you are here.” Some proponents of the expulsion view it as a positive sign that the Venezuelan government is finally assuming responsibility for the indigenous. Chávez has in recent months sent outboard motors, food and generators to isolated Amazon communities. Liborio Guarulla, the first indigenous governor of Amazonas state and a Chávez ally, said in an interview that Chávez was defending diversity in Venezuela. Guarulla called it a reversal of previous presidents’ policy of favoring “cultural unity,” a goal that he said the missionaries brought closer by speeding assimilation of the tribes. “What you saw on analysis was a disconcerting picture – the New Tribes Mission imposing an apocalyptic, compulsory view on the indigenous that the end of the world was near,” Guarulla said. He says the Chávez government is making a commitment to provide the health and education services that missionaries have shouldered in the past. But anthropologist Isam Madi, who favors the presence of the missionaries, fears that the new government impulse will fade after local elections in December. He warned that death rates among the Yanomami and other tribes, which have fallen with the presence of the missionaries such as Sarah Greenwood, will rise again, especially among newborns and infants, once the missionaries have left. “Yes, there is a cultural change that comes with missionaries, but I prefer the cultural change if it comes with a lower death rate,” said Madi, who runs a charitable foundation called Foundation for Indigenous Democracy in Santa Elena, Bolívar state. The Greenwoods last month changed affiliation to a Venezuelan church in hopes of being allowed to stay. They are now in Caracas, having applied for a visa that would permit them to go to a different Yanomami community. “We’ve prayed about it and we think that’s what the Lord wants, that we keep helping these people,” he said. By Chris Kraul The Los Angeles Times From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Nov 26 19:32:33 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 12:32:33 -0700 Subject: Across Indian Country, students’ English skills trail peers (fwd) Message-ID: Across Indian Country, students’ English skills trail peers By JOHN MILLER - Associated Press Writer - 11/26/05 http://www.helenair.com/articles/2005/11/26/montana/c08112605_01.txt FORT HALL, Idaho - One of Michele Hernandez’s earliest memories from 1960s southern Idaho is calling across the playground to a kindergarten classmate. Suddenly, a teacher pulled her inside the schoolhouse by the arm and washed her mouth out with soap. The punishment wasn’t for profanity. It was for speaking Shoshone, her grandmother’s language. I was living in two worlds,’’ said Hernandez, now a tutor at IT Stoddard Elementary in Blackfoot. You always had to keep a look out for the other side, depending on who was looking.’’ Her job today: She helps teach English to American Indian youngsters classified by Idaho as Limited English Proficient,’’ or LEP. While students are no longer punished for speaking their native tongues, English in Indian Country remains sensitive, because Native American students continue to trail white peers in language skills, records from several states show. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, many schools with large Indian populations, could eventually be forced to take radical steps if the achievement gap doesn’t narrow, including transporting students to higher-performing schools or painful re-organizations. It certainly has directed attention to the problem, which has existed for a long, long time,’’ said Jon Reyhner, a professor at Northern Arizona University and Indian literacy expert. Indian kids come in to school behind, in terms of vocabulary.’’ According to a 2005 Mississippi State University report, rural American Indian and Alaska Native children were the least likely of major ethnic sub-groups in rural America to be proficient at letter recognition upon kindergarten entry. State education records from Idaho, Montana and nearby North Dakota show Native American children trail virtually every other category of students in meeting No Child Left Behind targets. For instance, among North Dakota 8th graders, just 39.9 percent of Indians were reading at grade level, compared with 75 percent of white students, according to 2003-2004 figures. In Montana, 22 percent of students at the Crow Agency public school on the Crow Indian Reservation read at grade level. Across the state, Native Americans from 17 different Indian language backgrounds account for 11 percent of the public school population and 90 percent of its 6,952 LEP students. The average Indian child starts school with a vocabulary of about 3,000 words,’’ said Joe Lamson, a spokesman for the Montana Office of Public Instruction in Helena. The average white student starts with a vocabulary of 15,000.’’ Children raised in Indian country may also learn a different dialect of English, one that includes native words. Chris Loether, an anthropology professor at Idaho State University in Pocatello, said many Fort Hall-area residents speak what they call Red English.’’ They’ve got this dialect, which to them is an identity marker,’’ Loether said. And it gets stronger as they get older.’’ There were 592 Indian children in Idaho’s $8 million LEP program last year. In public schools in Indian communities, including Fort Hall Elementary and IT Stoddard, are already facing No Child Left Behind sanctions, according to Idaho Department of Education records. Deep poverty is major reason that Indian children struggle with their English skills, experts say. At Fort Hall, for instance, reservation unemployment is at 37 percent more than seven times the state average. Montana reservation unemployment averages as much as 70 percent, according to state officials. You look at what’s available in the home: computers, reading materials, storybooks,’’ said Harold Ott, superintendent of the Lapwai School District, located near the Nez Perce Indian Reservation in north-central Idaho. For families in poverty, there are fewer of those kinds of opportunities available.’’ As dimensions of the achievement gap have emerged following No Child Left Behind’s passage in 2001, Indian leaders say they have mixed feelings about the education reforms: They’re pleased schools must pay attention to the issue, but fear the law may be ill-suited to address educational shortcomings among Native Americans. At the National Congress of American Indians in Tulsa, Okla., on Oct. 31, tribal leaders condemned the act as a one-size-fits-all’’ approach that doesn’t address indigenous people’s cultural and linguistic traditions. I don’t think the philosophical model of this current legislation is consistent with education programs that work with Native Americans,’’ said Mari Rasmussen, head of North Dakota’s bilingual and language acquisition. Still, some Indians are optimistic about a new plan announced last Friday by U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to allow up to 10 states to measure not just how students are performing, but how that performance is changing over time. Gains have been made by our students, but we were coming from so far behind,’’ said Lillian Sparks, director of the National Indian Education Association in Washington, D.C. The aim, say Indians who for decades starting in the late 19th century were shipped by the U.S. government to boarding schools to make them more American,’’ is a system that helps Indians boost their English without sacrificing their native heritage. In Fort Hall, Michele Hernandez knows the consequences if such a system is missing: Today, she cannot speak Shoshone, the language she was once punished for using on the playground. Growing up in the 1960s, everybody was supposed to be transformed into being white,’’ Hernadez said. We had do everything they did, and our language was not the thing that was supposed to be spoken in the school.’’ From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Nov 26 20:00:43 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:00:43 -0700 Subject: New software for speakers of Maori (fwd) Message-ID: New software for speakers of Maori 26.11.05 By Jon Stokes http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&ObjectID=10357064 The growing number of Maori language speakers will soon get a boost to their computing needs with the launch of te reo versions of Microsoft Windows and Office. A Maori version of the world's leading computer operating system and home and office software package will be launched at the World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education in Hamilton next week. The enhancement, a development between the Maori Language Commission and the software giant, will allow the download of a Maori language interface which will convert existing Windows and Office versions to te reo. The Office version is available on Tuesday and the Windows software from December 9. The Language Interface Packs were developed as part of the Microsoft Maori Linguistic Partnership Project, launched in April last year to cater for the growing number of Maori language speakers in New Zealand. About 130,000 adults speak Maori, with about 326,000 students enrolled in Maori immersion or learning te reo. The initiative is part of a global linguistic partnership project. Maori added to other international indigenous languages incorporated into the leading software packages including Ireland, Spain and France. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Nov 26 20:09:06 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:09:06 -0700 Subject: Turning the tide of assimilation (fwd) Message-ID: Turning the tide of assimilation © Indian Country Today November 25, 2005. All Rights Reserved Posted: November 25, 2005 by: Brenda Norrell / Indian Country Today http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096412003 [photo inset - Click to Enlarge Brenda Norrell Indian Country -- Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians Jacqueline Johnson and Olympic gold medalist Billy Mills led the fitness walk during NCAI's annual convention in Tulsa.] Speakers urge preservation of languages, promotion of self-worth and fitness TULSA, Okla. - During the National Congress of American Indians' 62nd annual convention, Ryan Wilson, Lakota and president of the National Indian Education Association, and Red Lake Ojibwe Chairman Floyd Jourdain Jr., urged Indian country to make children and teenagers a priority. Praising NCAI for its focus on youths, Wilson said Indian young peoples' self-worth must be defended and bi-cultural and relevant education must turn the tides of assimilation. He stressed the importance of creating venues and educational opportunities to preserve Native languages. ''We have a chance here to be the most educated people in America, but that will not happen without preserving Native languages. These languages are leaving us at a rate that is staggering.'' Wilson praised the Akwesasne Freedom School, Cherokee Language Revitalization Project and the beauty of children in Alaska who speak their Native languages. In Jemez Pueblo in New Mexico, many students are fluent in English, Spanish and Jemez. Urging the preservation of indigenous languages, Wilson said cowards ask if an idea is safe, while vanity prompts one to ask if it is popular. Still others question whether an idea represents politics. ''You can't ask if it is safe, if it is popular, or if it is politics; you can't ask that. We have to ask if it is right.'' Speaking during NCAI's general assembly, Jourdain said the great tragedy in March of 2005 devastated the community. Referring to the shooting deaths of students and adults in Red Lake, he said it is now time to work hard to empower Indian youths across Indian country. ''They are really out there hurting,'' Jourdain said. ''We need to look at our Native youths and put them in the forefront,'' he said. When the crisis occurred, he said, support poured in from across the nation. But when the counselors, news reporters and everyone else went home, it was the Indian people who maintained their support. ''Young people out there are saying, 'You need to listen to us,''' Jourdain said. ''Let's put our money where our mouth is and take this to a new level.'' Jourdain showed a video of the ''Honor the Youth Spiritual Run,'' which took place in August. Red Lake youths joined other Native youths, running from Red Lake in Minnesota to Standing Rock Sioux Nation, located on both sides of the South Dakota and North Dakota border, a community with a high number of teen suicides. During the youth run, the Women of Nations organization, with the hope of saving lives, kicked off their toll-free number, (877) 209-1266, for Natives - especially young people - in need of someone to talk to who would listen. One of the highlights of NCAI's annual convention was the fitness walk, an opportunity for a brisk morning walk with Olympic gold medalist Billy Mills, outgoing NCAI President Tex Hall and singer Jana. Beneath Tulsa's warm sunny skies, Hall kicked off the fitness walk for the third annual National Health and Fitness Day, sponsored in conjunction with Nike Inc. and the IHS. Hall spoke of the need for exercise and diet for healthy lives. ''We are walking the talk and it feels great. Each step is bringing us closer to our goal. ''By eating our traditional food and turning off our televisions, we can make an example every day.'' Jana told the crowd, ''We can't exercise and then just eat McDonald's every day,'' adding that healthy foods taste good. She offered tips for eating healthy, including drinking lots of water and eating salads, while staying away from creamy salad dressings and using balsamic vinegar instead. ''If I ate McDonald's every day, I don't think I could raise a leg; I couldn't dance.'' Mills, Lakota, told the walkers, ''The signing of our treaties was a defining moment for the people and the nations.'' Mills said after capturing the Olympic medal and setting records for seven of the fastest times ran in the world, he began to have problems. He knows now those were the symptoms of low blood sugar. But, he said, at the time the news media blamed his problems on low self-esteem and poverty. During the general assembly, Dr. Charles Grim, a member of the Cherokee Nation and the director of IHS, spoke to NCAI concerning health and disease. Grim pointed out that mental health issues are being recognized more than ever for their role in disease, as evidenced by teen suicides. Further, Grim said recent surveys show that 40 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives using IHS are overweight or obese. Disabilities also afflict American Indians in disproportionate numbers, with 25 percent of American Indians affected.        From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Nov 26 20:11:31 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:11:31 -0700 Subject: Language barrier to Aboriginal health (fwd) Message-ID: Language barrier to Aboriginal health 24-Nov-2005 by Eleanor Limprecht http://news.australiandoctor.com.au/articles/8b/0c03898b.asp  A critical lack of communication between Aboriginal patients and doctors has sparked calls for a greater number of specially trained Indigenous health interpreters in doctors surgeries. The Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health (CRCAH) and Charles Darwin University highlighted the seriously underestimated level of misunderstanding between Aboriginal patients and health professionals in their Sharing the True Stories report, launched last week. Based on fours years of research in Arnhem Land in the NT, the reports authors said they found a widespread lack of understanding by health professionals of Aboriginal language and culture that led to compromised quality of care and lowered patients ability to make informed choices about their health. The research was done in collaboration with Aboriginal speakers of the Yolngu Matha language, who often had very different ways of understanding their bodies, health, disease and treatment than health professionals. Currently, there are Aboriginal health interpreter services only in the NT and in the Kimberley region of WA. CEO of the research centre, Mr Mick Gooda, said other state governments ought to become more serious about offering Aboriginal health interpreter services. Solutions lie with better training of medical staff, particularly doctors, and the use of fully trained interpreters so Aboriginal patients arent burdened with trying to understand often complex medical advice in a language of which they have limited understanding, he said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Nov 26 20:13:36 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:13:36 -0700 Subject: Students launch Web site to lend insight about Native Americans (fwd) Message-ID: Students launch Web site to lend insight about Native Americans A link to Indian news, culture Betty Reid The Arizona Republic Nov. 23, 2005 12:00 AM http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/1123natweb23.html# A group of urban Native American high school students launched a Web site that acts as an educational site for the public and a useful source to Valley Native Americans, especially parents. Www.northhighnatives.com, a link to Phoenix Union High School District's North High, launched in October. The Native American Youth Council of North High built the interactive site, which posts information about such council activities as fry bread sales, a car wash and out-of-district events such as local powwows or Native parades in Phoenix. Of interest on the site is a "numbers system" written in the language of the Western Apache, Salt River-Maricopa, Cherokee, Navajo and Objibwe. The site also offers an "indigenous geography" of Phoenix that shows the location of ancient settlements of the Hohokam peoples, who built irrigation systems in the Gila River Valley from 350 B.C. to A.D. 1450. "I believe this project will allow more people to gain an understanding of the importance of the land they walk upon each and everyday here in the Valley," North High senior Brian Bex said. The Navajo 17-year-old is the Webmaster of the youth council's site. April Manywhisker, vice president of the North High's youth council, said she is incredulous about how many people don't know about Native tribes. People believe all tribes are the same, although each has a distinct culture, language and worship, she said. The plan for the site is to collect information about all 400-plus of federally recognized tribes in the United States. Northhighnatives.com will list contact information of each tribe on the site so that high school students and their parents are informed about tribal scholarships. Cody Johnson, an aspiring fashion designer and a member of Tohono O'odham, plans to add video to the site. The 17-year-old junior at North High student envisions a project in which students speak their native language on the site. Reach the reporter at betty.reid at arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8049. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Nov 26 20:20:27 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:20:27 -0700 Subject: Kids learn the Tewa spoken by ancestors (fwd) Message-ID: Kids learn the Tewa spoken by ancestors By John Sena The Associated Press http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3250540 SANTA FE, N.M. - In one corner of the lunchroom at Tesuque Elementary School, a group of students and two teachers stood in a circle exchanging such day-to-day phrases such as ''How are you?'' and ''My name is.'' But they were doing it in Tewa. The students spoke softly, unsure if they were saying the phrases right and looking to their teachers for guidance. After a small correction and a nod of approval from an instructor, the students smiled and continued. The group of 10, members of the school's Tewa language program, meets three times a week for 45 minutes and is led by Thelma Tapia and Arlene Herrera. The program, limited to students from Tesuque Pueblo, is unique and something officials readily call attention to. ''The biggest plus is that children from Tesuque Pueblo get a chance to continue their language and culture,'' Principal Cliff Cisneros said. ''There are not many children who are speaking the language,'' said Tapia, who learned it from her parents and grandparents. She said many children understand Tewa but respond in English. Herrera, who was part of a similar program that started at the school in 1996 but ended two years later, said the push to speak Tewa also exists outside the school. ''There's more encouragement, more effort in the community to speak the language.'' she said. For Cisneros, in his eighth year as principal, the Tewa language program is just one of the many good things happening at Tesuque. Mr. C, as his students call him, can run down a list off the top of his head: the school garden on land belonging to a neighbor, the art program and a dedicated and close-knit staff; not to mention being one of 12 schools in the district to make adequate yearly progress last year under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Cisneros said he loves coming to school because of Tesuque's rural setting. ''I come onto campus in the mornings and hear roosters,'' he said. The school's isolation, just 10 minutes from Santa Fe but nestled at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, also means it serves a small population. Tesuque has only 139 students who come from nearby communities such as Rio En Medio and Chupadero as well as Tesuque and Tesuque Pueblo. ''I know every kid by name,'' Cisneros said. ''I know all of their families.'' But being a rural school, where more than 70 percent of the students receive free or reduced-price lunch, brings its share of difficulties. Tesuque doesn't have access to some resources that students in Santa Fe have, such as a public library. Student lunches are prepared at Atalaya Elementary School and shipped in daily. While the school's population is much lower than that of many other elementary schools in Santa Fe, it still has outgrown its facilities. The crowded intimacy of a small school and the sound of creaking wood floors might ring nostalgic, but they are not ideal for a 21st century school trying to accommodate new technology in one main building and several portables. That problem will soon be remedied, though. At the end of this school year, most of the buildings will be torn down to make way for a new school. During construction, Tesuque Elementary School will be relocated to portables on the campus of Gonzales Elementary School. Cisneros said the community is excited about the change and that staff members can survive a year at ''Camp Tesuque,'' as he calls the temporary site, if it means getting new facilities. Removing portables will also mean more outdoor space for students, who have lately been caught up in a jump-rope craze. During recess, warm weather or cold, students gather in groups swinging ropes. So many students participate that school officials scheduled a competition later this year. While Cisneros doesn't know why the activity is so popular all of a sudden, second-grader Kristin Lujan said the reason is pretty obvious. ''We just like to jump rope,'' she said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Nov 26 20:23:07 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:23:07 -0700 Subject: Bilingual toys spell fun for kids in any language (fwd) Message-ID: Friday, November 25, 2005 - 12:00 AM Bilingual toys spell fun for kids in any language By Jill Sell Newhouse News Service http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2002643032_bilingualtoys25.html Whenever 23-month-old Sofia Drage sees someone she doesn't know, she hides behind her mother. With reassurance, Sofia will peek around her mother's leg. If she thinks a visitor is worthy, Sofia will count, "One, two, three ... " all the way to 12. Then she'll do it again, only this time, it's "uno, dos, tres ... " Sofia's parents, Diega Bravo and Brendan Drage, of Kirtland, Ohio, are teaching their daughter English and Spanish. Bravo believes conversations, reading and singing with her daughter are the most important ways to expose her to two languages. Sofia also plays with bilingual toys. They're catching on Dolls and plush animals that speak two languages, puzzles with layers of pieces in different languages and play kitchens that warn little cooks that the "burner" is caliente are getting more attention from toy manufacturers and consumers, said Jim Silver, co-publisher of Toy Wishes magazine. The popular Dora the Explorer character was introduced several years ago on Nickelodeon and CBS. The bilingual toy tie-ins to the 7-year-old Hispanic heroine opened the way for more bilingual toys to hit the mainstream market. Fisher-Price's Dora and the Hispanic Maya & Miguel dolls — based on characters in Scholastic Entertainment's hit PBS show "Kids Go!" — represent smart economics for toy makers. According to the U.S. Census, the number of Hispanic children in the United States is expected to increase 22 percent between 2001 and 2010. The total number of children in this country increased by about 14 percent in the 1990s, but the number of minority children rose about 43 percent. Dolls have appeal Cincinnati entrepreneur Selina Yoon is president of Master Communications, a company she founded in 1994. It operates Asia for Kids and Culture for Kids, online and catalog stores that sell bilingual books, electronic media and toys. "When I started this business, I thought I would be selling only educational videos. I didn't think I would be selling dolls," the Korean-born Yoon said. "But so many asked me for them." Today, her Web site, Asia for Kids (www.asiaforkids.com), sells Language Littles, soft-bodied, 16-inch dolls that offer a human-recorded voice when pressed. Languages available include Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish. The electronic Spanish-speaking Elmo is one of the most popular bilingual toys available from eToys Direct (www.etoys.com), an online and catalog store. And public-relations director Sheliah Gilliland said it isn't just bilingual households that are buying the toys. English-only speaking parents want their young children to know some Spanish words so they can interact with others in their classrooms, particularly if they live in areas with significant Hispanic populations, she said. Many parents also know that young children easily can pick up second languages. Buttons push skills Giving bilingual toys to children who live in monolingual families will not make them fluent in a foreign language. But parents such as Bravo appreciate them because young children enjoy pressing buttons and getting a response. The repetition reinforces vocabulary skills in more than one language. Parents shopping for bilingual toys should pay attention to sound quality, making sure the words are clear, spoken loudly enough and by a native speaker. Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company From djcunlif at GLAM.AC.UK Mon Nov 28 13:16:34 2005 From: djcunlif at GLAM.AC.UK (Cunliffe D J (Comp)) Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 13:16:34 -0000 Subject: Language barrier to Aboriginal health (fwd) Message-ID: Hi, People who are interested in this story might be interested to know that you can download the full reports from: http://www.crcah.org.au/index.cfm?attributes.fuseaction=whatsHappening#572 Stage 1 Report Improving communication between health staff and Aboriginal patients Stage 2 Report Evaluating strategies to improve communication between health staff and Aboriginal patients Be seeing you, Daniel. -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of phil cash cash Sent: 26 Tachwedd 2005 20:12 To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Language barrier to Aboriginal health (fwd) Language barrier to Aboriginal health 24-Nov-2005 by Eleanor Limprecht http://news.australiandoctor.com.au/articles/8b/0c03898b.asp  A critical lack of communication between Aboriginal patients and doctors has sparked calls for a greater number of specially trained Indigenous health interpreters in doctors surgeries. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 28 17:39:24 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 10:39:24 -0700 Subject: Reviving a legacy (fwd) Message-ID: Reviving a legacy Far-flung members of North County tribe are returning, with their hearts on the reservation and their eyes off it By Chet Barfield UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER November 27, 2005 http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20051127-9999-1n27ysabel.html SANTA YSABEL INDIAN RESERVATION – When his 95-year-old mother died last year, Ken Ponchetti took her ashes up to the 6,000-foot peak where she was born and raised. Praying in an ancient language, he sprinkled a pinch of her remains in each of the four directions. [photo inset - EDUARDO CONTRERAS / Union-Tribune Christian Dominquez, 7, got some homework help from teacher Theresa Gregor at the Santa Ysabel reservation, which the band is trying to revive after decades of poverty.] It might seem unusual for a man who spent his long professional career off the reservation to say goodbye the Indian way. But the retired General Dynamics executive is, in blood and spirit, a Diegueño, an Ipai, a Santa Ysabel Indian. Ponchetti is part of a large and diverse North County tribe that is undergoing a transformation. Under new leadership after decades of disconnection, the far-flung members of the Santa Ysabel Band of Diegueño Indians are coming back to their tribe, and they're changing what it is. These modern-day Indians are revising the sad legacy of Santa Ysabel, creating a different kind of tribe, a tribe with its heart on the reservation and its eyes on the outside world. They'll tell you that the small casino they're about to build is only part of the story, that this journey is about more than money. It's about healing old wounds, about re-weaving a fabric that has been unraveling for more than a century. "We're headed in a new direction," tribal Chairman Johnny Hernandez said. "We want to make this a reservation our people are proud of and make the land itself proud of the people who are on it." Pride has long been scarce on this 15,500-acre reservation 65 miles northeast of San Diego. Its forested mountains abound with beauty, but its people are among the poorest and most oppressed in the region. Over generations, families fled the reservation, mostly for economic survival. Today more than two-thirds of the tribe's 770 members are scattered throughout California and other states. But lately, more and more are coming to tribal meetings, from Orange County, Los Angeles or farther. Some are even moving back to the reservation, as Ponchetti did in 1984 and Hernandez did in 2000. What's bringing them back? The push for a casino? Opportunities for free land? Family connections? A voice in tribal decisions? According to dozens of members, all those factors play a part and fuel frictions between old and new thinking, between factions on and off the reservation. For many, however, the pull comes from something deeper. "A lot of them wanted to come back to their roots to find out who the hell they were," said Ponchetti, 67, whose father was a prominent tribal leader in the 1950s. "They were Indian, but they didn't know what that meant." Santa Ysabel's roots began splintering long ago. Before being renamed Diegueño by Spanish missionaries, the natives here called themselves Ipai (EE-pay). Cousins of the Kumeyaay to the south, they occupied nine villages between what is now Ramona, Warner Springs and Anza Borrego. [photo inset - Tribal Chairman Johnny Hernandez sat atop a mountain above the site of a planned casino. "We're headed in a new direction," he said.] Two hundred years ago, the priests came to change their religion. A small mission was erected in 1818 near what later would become the reservation. The church graveyard is filled with tribal members, from the 1800s to this year. After California became a state in 1850, the Ipai villages were displaced by settlers. The Indians were forced onto the reservation, established in 1893. "In the very beginning, Santa Ysabel had no tribe," said one elder, Don Beresford. "We never had a government of any kind. We never had a chief. We were just a bunch of families. "They came in and they fenced in the place and pushed the Indians up in it and said all the Indians living on or near it will be known as the Santa Ysabel band of mission Indians." The government built a one-room school on the reservation and made the federal Indian agent headmaster. The Ipai were not to speak their language or practice their ceremonies. Those who did might be thrown in a small jail, the ruins of which still stand, roofless. And so the exodus began. Children were sent to boarding schools and assimilated. Many left to look for work. Some found success and raised their kids to be self-supporting. Many of those offspring would become what today are the more than 100 Santa Ysabel members who hold or are pursuing college degrees. A governing council elected three years ago reflects the makeup of the tribe itself. The six officers have roots on the reservation and experience off it. One has a business degree and was an accountant for Lexus dealerships. Another attended a New Mexico art college and teaches Indian culture. Another studied environmental sciences and manages the reservation's natural resources. Hernandez, 53, grew up hunting rabbits in Santa Ysabel's mountains, surrounded by elders who filled his head and heart with stories of suffering. He attended San Diego State University and thought about law school but instead took a job with Pacific Bell that turned into a 30-year career. As an installation technician, working from Escondido to Hollywood, Hernandez learned as much about societal diversity as he did about technology. And when he retired and moved back to Santa Ysabel five years ago, he brought his wider horizons with him. "We've got to deal with the outside world," Hernandez said. "We can't stay still in today's society. Nobody can. Things change. We can't be using old typewriters when everybody's got a laptop." Almost everyone on the reservation has lived somewhere else. And others "out there" maintain ties to the tribe. Mesa College professor Roy Cook has close relationships with many of Santa Ysabel's "urban Indians." Like them, his day-to-day life in San Diego is far removed from the Arizona tribe of his ancestors. "It's like running parallel lives," Cook said. "Your actual base, your rock, your tie, your essence, is in the land-based reservation. That's where your heart is. But your mind functions . . . in the Western world." Karen Vignault, 47, is one of Santa Ysabel's "off-rez" members, as they are called. She has a degree in filmmaking, lives in North Park and works at a Kearny Mesa business college. But she feels deeply connected to her tribe and likes where it's heading. "The new council has brought the urban Indian experience to shed light on the reservation and balance both worlds," she said. "The new people that are coming in are helping to bring back the old traditions." [photo inset - JOHN GASTALDO / Union-Tribune Javier Dominguez, 9, retied his bandanna during a break in the action at a Santa Ysabel tribal festival in August. The annual cultural celebration, which the tribe has revived, features traditional songs and dances.] Vignault and others had grown disheartened over recent decades as the reservation foundered in poverty and discord, made worse by alcohol and drug abuse. Members accused elected officers of plundering what little federal funding the tribe got. Still, a handful of elders remained who spoke the old language, who remembered the stories and bird songs that the U.S. government and boarding schools had tried so hard to quash. Like flickering candles, the elders kept Ipai culture from dying out. As the 21st century dawned, some of their grandchildren would try to fan those flames again. But as important as it is to connect with the past, it is also important to look to the future. "Indian tribes are not stuck in a time warp. They're more than missions and baskets and bird songs," said Cook, the Mesa College professor. "We have to realize the process of enlightenment, from fire to bows and arrows to ATVs and SUVs." Santa Ysabel has basic needs: housing, electricity, running water. The reservation infrastructure – the homes clustered near state Route 79, the power lines running only a mile or less up into the hills – was built almost entirely with federal funds. For any real comeback, Santa Ysabel would need an economic engine of its own. Nine months after the new council was sworn in, the tribe signed a gambling compact with then-Gov. Gray Davis. Members had argued for years whether to go down that road. Doubters said the reservation was too remote for a casino. Some feared the tribe would lose its land, or its soul, to outside business interests. But supporters, including most off-reservation voters, wanted to give it a shot. As with most tribes, Santa Ysabel members don't have to live on the reservation to collect casino dividends or revenue-sharing proceeds from other tribes that have gaming. Santa Ysabel signed a $27 million deal last year with Arizona's Yavapai Apache tribe to build a casino with 350 slot machines. Construction has been delayed for months, heightening fears of yet another tribal failure. But the bulldozers finally are scheduled to begin grading early next month. [photo inset - Marcelino Osuna (left) of the Santa Ysabel reservation competed with his grandson Harold Hale Jr. of the Barona reservation during the cultural celebration.] The casino is expected to open in about a year, but the Yavapai will have to be repaid before Santa Ysabel starts making any real profits. In the meantime, the tribal council is aggressively using federal grants and revenue-sharing funds to resuscitate the reservation. A social services department has been created to address drug, alcohol and family issues. A full-time tribal police officer has been hired to stem drug dealing, domestic violence and other crimes. A tribal youth coordinator tutors children after school. A visiting instructor teaches native arts, games and culture. Santa Ysabel has also revived its annual cultural gathering, sharing traditional songs and dances. Nearly two-thirds of the tribe's $3 million budget is earmarked for developing housing and extending electrical power to the 15 to 20 homes lacking it now. Electricity also is needed for the dozens of off-reservation members who want to move back. If their applications are approved, they can have a free acre of land, but they can't get a federally subsidized home unless they have electricity for a well pump. At least 20 members have moved onto the reservation in the past few years, living in trailer homes, hauling their own water, running appliances on gas-powered generators. One of them is Stan Rodriguez, 50. He grew up in Fresno, raised by parents who left Santa Ysabel to harvest crops. He returned to San Diego County in 1979 and has spent the decades since learning the native language, songs and spirituality. Rodriguez works as a military contractor, teaching alcohol-and drug-abuse prevention. He also sings traditional bird songs and teaches Kumeyaay language classes at a community college on the Sycuan reservation. Rodriguez moved to Santa Ysabel in 2002, towing a mobile home to a hilltop plot beyond the power lines. "I have a master's degree, and I run my house off of a generator. I have to truck my water in water tanks," he said. But he added that those sacrifices – and the 70-mile commute to work in San Diego – are worth being re-connected to his tribe. "We are in a period of transition," he said. "People who are moving back to the reservation are bringing their experiences. Sometimes it'll flow, and sometimes there's conflict."    Tribal leaders must contend with conflicts and infighting. One persistent source of criticism is Tammy Leo, 33, who dropped out of school at 16 and is raising three children in a travel trailer with no electricity. Leo wants more of the intertribal revenue-sharing money. At Santa Ysabel, half goes to members and half goes into tribal development. The occasional checks, divided among a roster of 770, have ranged from a few hundred dollars to less than a hundred. Leo thinks the off-reservation newcomers who pack tribal meetings mainly want to build the casino and get bigger checks in the mail. "I see a lot of white faces, a lot of black faces. I don't even know who they are," she said. "They all want the right to vote, but none of them live up here and live the hardship. The people who live up here should have more of a say." Tribal leaders acknowledge that they can't please everyone. They say they want youth on and off the reservation to grow up to be like Vice Chairwoman Brandie Taylor, who is putting her business education to use for the tribe. Or Santa Ysabel's in-house attorney, Devon Reed Lomayesva, who left the reservation as a child but has remained close all her life through her family. Lomayesva, 34, put herself through college and law school on loans. She says Santa Ysabel is on its way to a new beginning. "We're trying to recapture our identity and our place on our land," she said. "It's not about the money. It's about redefining ourselves, putting ourselves back on the map." Hernandez, the tribal chairman, said Santa Ysabel is rediscovering a sense of hope. "I take pride in this tribe because of all the people in the past who have suffered," he said. "We were forced here, put here. . . . Nobody asked to be put here, but now we're here. "This is a great tribe. We have so many diverse people. Whether people like each other, that's not the point. We're still here." Chet Barfield: (619) 542-4572; chet.barfield at uniontrib.com   Find this article at: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20051127-9999-1n27ysabel.html   From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 28 17:48:48 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 10:48:48 -0700 Subject: Maori version of Office out tomorrow (fwd) Message-ID: Maori version of Office out tomorrow 28 November 2005 By REUBEN SCHWARZ http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3492527a28,00.html A Maori language version of Microsoft Office 2003 will be available free to existing Office users from tomorrow, with a Maori version of Windows XP to follow in two weeks. Microsoft worked with the Maori Language Commission and Waikato University's School of Maori and Pacific Development to create the software, which is a "skin" that sits on top of the English-language versions of Office applications Word, Excel and Powerpoint. It translates most of the text seen on screen by people using the software, such as the contents of drop-down menus, dialogue boxes and error messages. Maori Language Commission chief executive Haami Piripi sees the project as another step in refreshing the image of Maori. "It's a natural progression for languages to extend into new domains," he says. The cyber domain is a very important cutting-edge domain for up-and-coming generations of citizens. A language must be able to survive in the IT world if it's going to survive as a language in the future." The commission and Waikato University translated 325,000 words for Windows and 303,000 words for Office, inventing 2500 terms to translate technical terms such as "hyperlink", or "honongaitua". Mr Piripi expects "quite a big uptake" of the software. The commission estimates that 130,000 adults speak Maori. The Office 2003 skin will be released tomorrow at the World Indigenous People's Education Conference in Hamilton. The development costs were met by Microsoft, with only incidental costs to the commission. It is one of a series of translations carried out by Microsoft which is creating skins for Office and Windows XP in more than 40 indigenous languages, such as Basque and Catalan. It is available for download free from http://www.microsoft.com/nz/maori/default.mspx . Copies are also available on CD for $15. From MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Mon Nov 28 17:52:40 2005 From: MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish) Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 10:52:40 -0700 Subject: Maori version of Office out tomorrow (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20051128104848.icadwsc0ok0s444o@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Excellent! And people always say Microsoft doesn't care. Now, if we only had access to that "skin" so we could make one for All the Languages. It would be something to keep the Tribal students busy, and, to get them involved in developing technology for their tribes. (Yep, we always see things from the point of view of our personal visions). Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of phil cash cash Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 10:49 AM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Maori version of Office out tomorrow (fwd) Maori version of Office out tomorrow 28 November 2005 By REUBEN SCHWARZ http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3492527a28,00.html A Maori language version of Microsoft Office 2003 will be available free to existing Office users from tomorrow, with a Maori version of Windows XP to follow in two weeks. Microsoft worked with the Maori Language Commission and Waikato University's School of Maori and Pacific Development to create the software, which is a "skin" that sits on top of the English-language versions of Office applications Word, Excel and Powerpoint. It translates most of the text seen on screen by people using the software, such as the contents of drop-down menus, dialogue boxes and error messages. Maori Language Commission chief executive Haami Piripi sees the project as another step in refreshing the image of Maori. "It's a natural progression for languages to extend into new domains," he says. The cyber domain is a very important cutting-edge domain for up-and-coming generations of citizens. A language must be able to survive in the IT world if it's going to survive as a language in the future." The commission and Waikato University translated 325,000 words for Windows and 303,000 words for Office, inventing 2500 terms to translate technical terms such as "hyperlink", or "honongaitua". Mr Piripi expects "quite a big uptake" of the software. The commission estimates that 130,000 adults speak Maori. The Office 2003 skin will be released tomorrow at the World Indigenous People's Education Conference in Hamilton. The development costs were met by Microsoft, with only incidental costs to the commission. It is one of a series of translations carried out by Microsoft which is creating skins for Office and Windows XP in more than 40 indigenous languages, such as Basque and Catalan. It is available for download free from http://www.microsoft.com/nz/maori/default.mspx . Copies are also available on CD for $15. From keola at LEOKI.UHH.HAWAII.EDU Mon Nov 28 17:57:22 2005 From: keola at LEOKI.UHH.HAWAII.EDU (Keola Donaghy) Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 07:57:22 -1000 Subject: Maori version of Office out tomorrow (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20051128175246.CEC6B3B2F@listserv.arizona.edu> Message-ID: We've talked about doing it for Hawaiian, but it is a daunting task. We've translated a few programs with between 5,000 and 10,000 strings (each string being a a single word, short phrase, full sentence or a paragraph), and each took us several months (usually with a team of 2) to complete. 300,000+ strings for each Windows and Office would be a huge undertaking for anyone, particularly when you consider maintenance of the translation as new versions ship. With the FirstClass Client, which we've been translating into Hawaiian for the past 11 years, each new release contains 10-20% of strings which are either new or contain significant changes and require retranslation, even when you can leverage previous work. I received a copy of the new lexicon wordlist from the Maori and even creating the necessary terminology would be a huge task. Needless to say we're passing on it ourselves, for now, at least. I'm not trying to discourage anyone, but for those on the list who have not done other program localizations, I'd strongly suggest starting with someone a bit more modest than Windows or Office ;-) Keola Penei ka ‘ölelo a Indigenous Languages and Technology : >Now, if we only had access to that "skin" so we could make one for All the >Languages. It would be something to keep the Tribal students busy, and, to >get them involved in developing technology for their tribes. (Yep, we >always >see things from the point of view of our personal visions). ======================================================================= Keola Donaghy Assistant Professor of Hawaiian Studies Ka Haka 'Ula O Ke'elikolani keola at leoki.uhh.hawaii.edu University of Hawai'i at Hilo http://www2.hawaii.edu/~donaghy/ ======================================================================= From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Nov 29 22:07:32 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:07:32 -0700 Subject: Spreading the Arnhem word (fwd) Message-ID: Spreading the Arnhem word Ebru Yaman 30nov05 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17408201%255E12332,00.html THE Yolngu language belongs to the indigenous people of East Arnhem Land and there are up to 30 different registers. Teaching this complex, living tongue to Japanese "didgeridoo freaks", then, is some feat. "We have a strong online course," Charles Darwin University's Michael Christie, one of the course's creators, said last night. "It attracts a lot of international students." It has a particular appeal to Japanese students interested in Aboriginal culture. Indeed, almost all of the 50 or so students - undergraduate and postgraduate - are not indigenous but have been drawn to the study from other areas. Associate Professor Christie said the course was especially popular among health professionals - doctors and nurses - who wanted to know more about the culture, history and ancestral stories of the Yolngu people. The course, the only university-level one of its kind, is mostly taught by indigenous speakers of Yolngu and has the authority of Aboriginal elders. As such, it is unique. Professor Christie, a linguist, created the course 12 years ago with colleague Waymamba Gaykamangu, a senior Yolngu woman. She was a teacher in Arnhem Land when she helped develop the course. Professor Christie, Ms Gaykamangu and CDU colleagues Betty Marrnganyin, who is also a senior Yolngu woman and teacher, and John Greatorex, a linguist and researcher, last night won two Australian Awards for University Teaching. As a team they won a teaching award in the humanities and arts category, and also won the overall Prime Minister's Award for University Teacher of the Year. Federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson said the award was for the group's "outstanding work on developing teaching and learning resources as part of the Yolngu Studies Project". Professor Christie said while the Yolngu language was in no danger of dying out, it was at some risk of losing its vital links to the land and to kinship. "Our teaching is based on stories about land ownership, ancestral stories, kinship and history," he said. "These are all integral to the language and its use. "The Yolngu language is not so much in danger of being lost as being depleted and its links to land and culture and ceremony being lost." He said relationships in part determined the use of and variations in the Yolngu language. To demonstrate that, students are introduced to the kinship system. "Every student is put into the kinship system and they must learn to use that to relate to each other, so they can understand the use of the language." The 2005 Australian Awards for University Teaching, sponsored by The Australian, were established by the federal Government in 1997 to recognise and reward excellence in university teaching and aim to raise the status of the profession. The CDU team receive a total of $75,000 from a prize pool of $565,000. Winners were announced last night at a function at Parliament House in Canberra. Eleven university teachers and five university teams received awards. This year, 117 applications were received from 35 universities in 12 categories. >From next year, the awards will be known as the Carrick Awards for University Teaching and will be managed by the Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. Next year, the awards receive a boost: they will be worth $3 million in total and 251 prizes will be given. For a full list of award winners and information on the Yolngu Studies Project, go to the following websites: www.theaustralian.com.au/highered www.cdu.edu.au/yolngustudies privacy terms © The Australian From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Nov 29 22:10:04 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:10:04 -0700 Subject: Ojibway and Cree Cultural Centre celebrates 30 years (fwd) Message-ID: Ojibway and Cree Cultural Centre celebrates 30 years In celebration of its 30th anniversary, staff at the Ojibway and Cree Cultural Centre want to remind the public of their presence and the services they have to offer the community and surrounding areas. By Heather Duhn Monday November 28, 2005 http://www.timminstimes.com/story.php?id=198882 Staff at the Ojibway and Cree Cultural Centre are pleased to be celebrating 30 years of existence in the community. They offer a wide variety of resources and encourage members of the community to stop in and see what they have to offer. [inset Photo by Heather Duhn. Timmins Times — In celebration of its 30th anniversary, staff at the Ojibway and Cree Cultural Centre want to remind the public of their presence and the services they have to offer the community and surrounding areas.] OCCC is a non-profit organization that was established in 1975 under the direction of Grand Council #9, now known as the Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN). The OCCC started as a cultural education program, one of the many programs of NAN. Its role and function was to address the cultural, traditional and language issues and concerns of the communities within Nishnawbe Aski area. The OCCC currently operates out of Timmins with a head office in Mattagami First Nation. It provides programs and services for 49 First Nation communities with the Nishnawbe Aski area. The focus of the OCCC programs and services are to retain, maintain, and preserve the culture, tradition and languages of the Aboriginal people of these communities. “Our aims and objectives at the centre are to encourage and be supportive of NAN communities in their efforts towards self-determination, and to promote and encourage the establishment of library and information services in the communities of Nishnawbe Aski Nation,” said executive director Diane Riopel. “We are also here to develop culturally relevant educational and language materials. We work with the Aboriginal communities and schools on educational and cultural matters and are available to make presentations to schools in order to heighten cultural awareness.” Riopel said she would also like to encourage members of the public to visit the centre and see what they have to offer. The OCCC also promotes and assists in cultural events and activities that will help instill and maintain the customs, knowledge, skills, values and arts of the NAN people. They work to keep in close harmony with other organizations whose aims and objectives are similar to that of the OCCC, and involve Elders and youth in meeting the objectives of the OCCC. Key components of the OCCC include its world-renowned library resource centre, educational program and language program. The resource centre is a Native-oriented library with a unique collection of materials focusing on the Aboriginal people of NAN and North America. Approximately 6,500 titles are available for loan to NAN members, organizations, and Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal members of the community. “The resource centre is one of the major accomplishments of the OCCC,” said Riopel. “It is widely used throughout its catchment area as well as other parts of the province and other provinces of Canada. The OCCC has even received requests from the United States and European countries as well. Under the OCCC’s mandate, it is the resource centre’s responsibility to ensure that every community has access to every source of information and knowledge as it pertains to their personal and community growth and development. Therefore, as a program of the Cultural Centre, the resource centre works toward the goals of ensuring ready access to sources of information and knowledge by providing for the collection and research of library acquisitions as they relate to the interest, relevancy and need of the communities and is people.” Library hours are Monday to Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The educational aspect of the centre offers assistance in the development and production of resource materials for the schools within the NAN area. In addition, this program provides advocacy and information on matters of educational concern and importance. The objectives of the education program are to provide assistance to the NAN schools, upon request, in the planning and development of school programs, curriculum and professional development. It also helps to promote cross-cultural awareness in mainstream education programs and institutions through presentations, workshops, and conferences. The language program encourages the use of the Aboriginal languages (Cree, Oji-Cree, and Ojibway) spoken within the NAN. The language program believes that the spirit, culture, history and philosophy of a people is past on and preserved from generation to generation through language. Without the language, a culture can not survive. It is for this reason it is imperative that the knowledge of our Elders be regained and retained. Again, they encourage members of the community to visit the centre and see what they have to offer. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Nov 29 22:16:14 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:16:14 -0700 Subject: Nepali version of Microsoft windows launched (fwd) Message-ID: Nepali version of Microsoft windows launched http://english.people.com.cn/200511/29/eng20051129_224426.html Unlimited NuMedia Private Limited and Microsoft Corporation jointly launched Nepali version of Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2003 in Kathmandu on Tuesday. "Preservation of culture, tradition and language through the use of new technology will be more easier and effective," vice chancellor of Royal Nepal Academy Basudev Tripathi said. He said that Nepali version of Windows will be a window to the world for Nepalese people. Inaugurating the new version, the chancellor said that it will now be possible to bring the advantages of information technology to the rural masses, where the biggest challenge so far has been the language barriers, as less than 10 percent of the Nepali people are well versed in English. "It will also help bridge the gap created by the existing digital divide in information technology and to extend Nepali language to the national and international level," Tripathi added. The people with computer access will be increased to 55 percent from the present 2 percent and the sale of personal computers will be multiplied by many folds with the introduction of the new Nepali version of windows, according to Allen Tuladhar, CEO of Unlimited NuMedia. The record shows that there were 500,000 computer sales in the past 15 years but the same amount will be sold in a year now, Tuladhar said. Microsoft has decided not to charge any license fees for the use of the localized editions of the new product, which has been under development for the last one year together with its local partner Unlimited NuMedia. Source: Xinhua From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Nov 29 22:13:14 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:13:14 -0700 Subject: New Lakota Leader Puts Emphasis on Language (fwd) Message-ID: New Lakota Leader Puts Emphasis on Language By Susan Logue Fort Yates, ND 29 November 2005 Logue report (Download MP3) 856 KB Logue report (Real Audio) - Download 567 KB Listen to Logue report (Real Audio) http://www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/2005-11-29-voa42.cfm [photo inset - Sitting Bull] Ron His Horse Is Thunder is the newly-elected tribal leader of the Standing Rock Lakota and a descendent of one of the most famous Indian leaders of all time: Sitting Bull. But growing up in the shadow of the famous Lakota medicine man who fought to keep his people off the reservation didn't make Ron His Horse Is Thunder, 47, special in the eyes of his peers. "I was told growing up as a child that 'yes, yes you are a descendent of Sitting Bull and you need to make a contribution to the people,'" he recalls. That sense of responsibility is one of the reasons he went to law school and why he [photo inset - Ron His Horse Is Thunder] decided to run for tribal chair this year. "In our tribe, your measure in life or your status in life is measured on what you do with your own life," he says. "So I went off and got a law degree and immediately came home and have been working for the tribe for the last 17 years." Eleven of those years were spent as president of Sitting Bull Tribal College on the Standing Rock Reservation, where he initiated programs to increase students' awareness and appreciation of Lakota history and to provide technical assistance for business development on the Reservation. Now, as tribal chair, Ron His Horse Is Thunder heads a community of 18,000. About half of the Standing Rock Lakota live on the reservation that straddles the border between North and South Dakota. Unemployment runs as high as 76%, and the economy is a top priority for Mr. His Horse Is Thunder, who took office on October 12. Less than a week later, he hosted a conference on the reservation to explore business opportunities for tribal members. But he says, the community needs more than jobs and money; it needs to feel a sense of pride in the Lakota language and culture. That's especially important where young people are concerned, he says, because suicide has reached epidemic levels among Lakota teens. "My grandparents -- lived in extreme poverty, but they were proud of who they were," he says. "They were proud of being Lakota. They spoke the language. They understood the ceremonies. They understood the culture. Poverty isn't what is causing our children commit suicide. It's being lost in their identity." Mr. His Horse Is Thunder says tribes rarely make their language important in the day-to-day lives of their members and the Lakota are no exception. "Most tribal governments meet and talk in English. In schools, English is the primary language," he says. "In Indian schools there are classes in Indian language - Lakota language here - but that is the only place in the whole school where Indian language is spoken. Street signs are written in English. Almost everything is in English." The newly-elected tribal chair would like to see that change on the Standing Rock reservation. "If we are going to save our languages, we need to show our children that it has value. That it is not something you can get by without." Making Lakota the primary language on the Standing Rock reservation will take some doing. Currently, only 25 to 30 percent of tribal members are fluent. Ron His Horse is Thunder is not among them. But he made a campaign promise to learn the language if elected, so government meetings could be conducted in Lakota. He renewed that pledge when he took office in October, saying if he has not learned the language by the time his term is up, he would not seek re-election in 2009. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Nov 29 22:37:45 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:37:45 -0700 Subject: Horomia: Mãori Language Versions Windows (fwd) Message-ID: Horomia: Mãori Language Versions Windows Wednesday, 30 November 2005, 9:32 am Speech: New Zealand Government 29 November 2005 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0511/S00429.htm Launch Of Mãori Language Versions Windows Xp And Microsoft Office Mihi I am delighted to offer my congratulations to all those involved in producing the Mãori Language Interface Packs for Windows and Office. To the representatives of Microsoft I thank you for the commitment you have shown to the Mãori language and indeed for the farsighted approach to indigenous languages you have taken worldwide. To the team from Waikato University - I acknowledge the skills you have displayed in both the IT area and in your continued dedication to excellence in the Mãori language. To Te Taura Whiri thank you again for your efforts in implementing the Governments Mãori language policies. It is my sincere belief that the launch of these products is a significant step in the road to revitalising the Mãori Language. We have seen a significant increase in the numbers of Mãori and other New Zealanders learning the language over the last decade. It is important that they now have access to tools to support them in using the language in everyday situations. The Government has in place a strategy that aims to see the place of the Mãori language in our nation strengthened to the point that it is a normal part of everyday life. The strategy seeks to achieve this through: · enhanced Mãori language education; · the expanded use of the language in the home and community; · and encouraging the appreciation of the language by all New Zealanders. The availability of Microsoft applications in Mãori has the potential to contribute to all three of these areas if the applications are widely used by those with the language skills to do so. It is also important that the numbers of Mãori who are utilising the latest in information and communication technology is expanded. Presently only one in four Mãori homes are connected to the internet. The availability of Microsoft applications in the Mãori Language will facilitate the expansion of ICT use by Mãori. I am sure that as the next generation of Mãori come of age, they will be making much wider use of ICT than my generation has to date. I am especially pleased that the Interface Packs have the potential to significantly boost the IT resources of children in Mãori medium education. Though significant steps have been taken in revitalising the language since the 1970s, there is still much work that needs to be done. The Mãori language is no longer in danger of disappearing off the face of the earth. However, there remains a real danger that it will become a kind of Latin confined to use in ceremony and education only rather than being a language with a self-perpetuating pool of native speakers. For this reason, innovations such as the Language Interface Packs that expand the domains in which the language can be used are vital for the future of the Mãori Language. We need more such innovations to provide tools that enable the language to be normalized in information technology, communications technology, media and entertainment. The project to develop Mãori Language capacity for Microsoft Office and Windows has been a true collaboration between the public and private sectors, as well as the academic and commercial sectors. Both the Government and Microsoft have much to gain from the success of this project the Government in seeing its goals for language revitalisation met and Microsoft in terms of the expansion of its customer base into demographics that have been under represented in technology uptake. The innovative solutions developed by Microsoft with the aid of Te Taura Whiri, Waikato University and others highlight the advantages of such collaborations. I dont believe that any one sector alone will be able to meet the ongoing challenges the Mãori language faces in the 21st century. We therefore need more of the kinds of partnerships that have resulted in the production of these Language Interface Packs as we look to expand the use of Mãori in communications, media and education. Mãori have shown a remarkable desire to adapt to the opportunities and challenges that colonisation has brought. In the early 19th century, Mãori appropriated the technology of the Pãkehã in their commercial activity, education, and warfare with considerable dynamism. I believe we are entering a similar period of technological innovation as Mãori take the lead in appropriating the new technology of the post-industrial era to meet their needs. The partnership with Microsoft is one example of this. For Mãori to fulfil their potential, there is still considerable work to be done in this area. I look forward to seeing the new and exciting innovations that Mãori, in partnership with Government and the private sector, will produce in their near future. Ka mutu ENDS From anggarrgoon at gmail.com Tue Nov 29 23:41:18 2005 From: anggarrgoon at gmail.com (Anggarrgoon) Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 17:41:18 -0600 Subject: Spreading the Arnhem word (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20051129150732.k708wcc84484koc8@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: It's really great that they won this award! It's a pity, though, that the article doesn't recognise the fact that there are at least 3 mutually unintelligible Yolngu languages, and the Yolngu Matha materials that the Yolngu Studies team have produced actually have samples of most of the clan varieties. Claire From MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Wed Nov 30 15:55:29 2005 From: MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 08:55:29 -0700 Subject: Maori Website In-Reply-To: <20051129151614.j5xwokwwo8s8ogsk@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Hi, all, I really liked the idea that there was a Microsoft Office in Maori. I wrote to them, and the people sent back this link: http://www.tetaurawhiri.govt.nz/ It is one of the most beautiful websites I have ever seen. I strongly encourage everyone to go look, even the people who always/too/perpetually "busy". And it is So Refreshing to see something in something other than the standard, "popular" languages. . . like English . . . . Russian . . . Mia From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 30 18:28:28 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 11:28:28 -0700 Subject: Maori Website In-Reply-To: <20051130155548.758935BCE@listserv.arizona.edu> Message-ID: thanks Mia, that was a great site. :) Phil Quoting Mia Kalish : > Hi, all, > > I really liked the idea that there was a Microsoft Office in Maori. I wrote > to them, and the people sent back this link: > http://www.tetaurawhiri.govt.nz/ > > > It is one of the most beautiful websites I have ever seen. I strongly > encourage everyone to go look, even the people who always/too/perpetually > "busy". And it is So Refreshing to see something in something other than the > standard, "popular" languages. . . like English . . . . Russian . . . > > > > Mia From mona at ALLIESMEDIAART.COM Wed Nov 30 20:58:32 2005 From: mona at ALLIESMEDIAART.COM (Smith) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 14:58:32 -0600 Subject: INFINITE GENEALOGY - Conf. --- Call for pres. Message-ID: > Call for proposals > The Infinite Genealogy: Intercultural Approaches to New Media Art > Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, May 2006 > > The Infinite Genealogy is a conference for international scholars, > artists, and researchers from a variety of fields to explore > non-Western genealogies and intercultural understandings of > contemporary new media art. Submissions are invited for papers and > artists’ presentations and performances. > > The premise of this conference is that contemporary new media are > already informed by the histories, knowledges, and worldviews that > come to us from Chinese, Indian, Arab, African, indigenous, and other > worlds of science, mathematics, cosmology, spirituality, and > technology. We are interested not only in non-Western adaptations and > critiques of new media, but also in affinities and historical > connections between new media and traditional and “hybrid” cultural > practices. The goal is to refresh our understandings of new media in > the light of traditional cultural paradigms; and to locate the most > interesting emergent approaches that result. The conference will bring > together people from the disciplines of art history, cinema and media > studies, music, communications, anthropology, history of technology, > history of science, history of mathematics, computer programming, > biology, and physics; and artists working in and across these > disciplines. > > Examples of topics: Traditional cosmologies as models for digital > virtuality; ethnomathematics and new media; non-Western models for > algorithmic and computative art forms (e.g. calligraphy); traditional > understandings of autopoesis and artificial life; worldviews from > which to approach genetics; how cultural understandings of > communication inform new media practice; specific ways in which > spirituality and mysticism inform new media; how traditional > algorithms inform musical composition; textiles as proto-digital > media; cross-cultural understandings of embodiment and performance. > > Submissions for papers and artists’ presentations should include a > 500-word abstract, equipment requirements, and a curriculum vitae. We > plan to accommodate a variety of lengths and formats of presentation, > but presentations of 30 minutes stand the best chance of acceptance. > > Deadline: December 1, 2005 > Send to: Laura Marks, lmarks at sfu.ca (Please DO NOT send to > bi_elbi at telus.net) > For inquiries and to be on mailing list: lmarks at sfu.ca _____________ ... the lessons of labor history are invisible in the mass media and largely absent from public discourse. Time now for holiday gift donations!! Help build the future! http://www.uslabormuseum.org   -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 3087 bytes Desc: not available URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Nov 1 16:42:41 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2005 09:42:41 -0700 Subject: Learning the language (fwd) Message-ID: Learning the language ? Indian Country Today November 01, 2005. All Rights Reserved Posted: November 01, 2005 by: Staff Reports / Indian Country Today http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096411838 [Photo courtesy University of Wyoming -- Wayne C'Hair (right), from the Wind River Indian Reservation, and Skott Vigil, a University of Wyoming graduate student from Berthoud, Colo., chat informally at a weekly after-class gathering. C'Hair, who at age 60 is thought to be the youngest fluent Northern Arapaho speaker, teaches Northern Arapaho language at UW.] Language course preserves Northern Arapaho culture LARAMIE, Wyo. - More than a dozen University of Wyoming students, their family members and friends sit outside on a pleasant Friday night in September. They eat their fill of traditional American Indian foods and swap stories of their upbringings, career goals, and even Dallas Cowboy football. It doesn't feel like it, but they are in a class. The Wyoming Council for the Humanities, and additional financial support from the College of Arts and Sciences and the American Indian Studies Program, have enabled UW this year to offer eight credit hours of Northern Arapaho language instruction through the Department of Modern and Classical Languages. Course instructor Wayne C'Hair travels from the Wind River Indian Reservation to Laramie to teach the class for eight consecutive weekends the first half of each semester. Students go to class for four hours on Fridays and then have a meal together which they all prepare and share. The class meets for an additional 3.5 hours Saturday mornings. Northern Arapaho was offered in 2003, but its new association with the language department means that when completed with a grade ''C'' or above, the class now fulfills the College of Arts and Sciences' foreign language requirement. ''We support this type of course,'' said Klaus Hanson, former languages department head. ''This certainly represents a new opportunity for interested students, who now can learn a foreign language that is in fact much 'closer' in significance to Wyoming students in particular.'' Jenny Ingram, WCH publications and development coordinator, agreed and noted that the grant committee felt the relationship added strength to the program. According to Ingram, the grant proposal, submitted by AIS Program Director Judy Antell, was a perfect fit for a narrow WCH grant line earmarked for language preservation projects in Wyoming involving Wyoming Indian languages. The funds for the grant were generated from a 1994 project between the Arapaho Nation and Walt Disney Company. The unlikely pair teamed up to dub the animated classic ''Bambi'' into Northern Arapaho and distributed videotapes throughout the reservation. The profits were given back to the Arapaho Nation to help continue language preservation efforts. ''Combined with the two other language preservation grants WCH awarded this summer, we have now expended all the funds for the grant line, so we are no longer in the 'Bambi' business,'' Ingram said. ''But we hope this grant will serve as seed money for the Northern Arapaho language program and spark interest for future sources of funding.'' Class member Yolanda Hvizdak, an enrolled member of the Northern Arapaho Nation studying women's and American Indian studies at UW, said she is thankful for the course and hopes the university is able to offer it every year. ''I think it's important for us to have that connection while we're here going to school - to still be able to stay in touch with our culture and our traditions. ''Hopefully we can learn our language and be able to speak it and communicate with our elders. We need to go back home and teach it to our little ones so they don't lose it. The language is almost gone. It's up to our generation to bring it back.'' C'Hair is trying to help his people do just that. He cites new technology introduced to the reservation 40 years ago as the reason for the decline in the Native language. ''When I was a kid, I would go to my grandma and grandpa's house and grandma would cook us something like frybread or a berry gravy. Then we'd form a circle and she would tell us these Arapaho legends and we would use our imagination,'' he explained. ''But then later on, when electricity and television came to the homes, the kids, they put the language and the culture aside for what they thought was more exciting.'' C'Hair, who at age 60 is thought to be the youngest person fluent in Northern Arapaho, said that without the language, Arapaho people are in danger of losing their cultural identities because the two are inseparable. ''The language is who you are. If you speak Arapaho, you are Arapaho. You speak Shoshone, you are Shoshone. It is very important that our kids get their language back because they are not complete without it,'' he said. Northern Arapaho language is taught at the three reservation schools, and C'Hair, an Arapaho elder who teaches Arapaho language and culture at Central Wyoming College, the Wind River Tribal College and St. Stephens Indian School, is happy to have the opportunity to teach the class at UW. ''I want our kids to bring the language back, and keep it going, but I also want non-Native students and people at UW to be aware that the language is still spoken and to try and understand our way of life. Arapahos are still here and this was our land at one time,'' he said. Both Native and non-Native students should benefit from the class, which aims to reflect and preserve the culture of the Arapaho Nation, according to Antell. ''Language is a vital expression of culture and this project promotes cultural learning through the use of traditional stories, songs, games and expressions of the Arapaho people,'' Antell said, noting the dinners provide a perfect opportunity to add depth to the classroom experience. Hvizdak agreed, saying, ''One of the things we do back home is eat together. This is really good that we have this sense of community. That really means a lot, because this is how it would be if we were back at home.'' From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Nov 1 16:46:11 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2005 09:46:11 -0700 Subject: Tribes, Ed Leader Debate Left Behind Act (fwd) Message-ID: Tribes, Ed Leader Debate Left Behind Act By KELLY KURT The Associated Press Monday, October 31, 2005; 9:37 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/31/AR2005103101444.html TULSA, Okla. -- American Indian leaders argued Monday that the No Child Left Behind Act is too rigid and has forced rural schools to cut tribal culture and language classes. The leaders attending the meeting of the National Congress of American Indians also said President Bush's school reform law makes it difficult for rural districts to recruit and retain qualified teachers. Thousands of North Dakota teachers were found to lack the schooling to be considered highly qualified under the law. The Education Department gave veteran teachers a reprieve, but it's a problem faced by rural schools nationwide where teachers do double-duty in a variety of subjects, said Tex Hall, the group's president. "You might have a major in music and a minor in special education" and teach both, Hall said. "But now, they're saying your minor isn't good enough. It's devastating for a rural school district to say you just lost your special ed teacher." U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings defended the law, telling the meeting that it has resulted in Indian children gaining in reading and math. "For the first time ever ... we are holding ourselves accountable as a nation for closing the achievement gap between white and minority students within a decade," she said. "It's about time." The tribal leaders' concerns echo those contained in a preliminary report released earlier in October by the National Indian Education Association. Lillian Sparks, the NIEA's executive director, said the group believes the intent of the law is laudable and that it has shown where achievement gaps are. But "culture and language isn't being considered," particularly in parts of the law on teacher recruitment, she said. Spellings said she would work with tribes on improving communication on a "goverment-to-goverment basis." ? 2005 The Associated Press From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 2 17:54:32 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 10:54:32 -0700 Subject: Native American Family Technology Journey Seeks to Preserve Heritage... (fwd) Message-ID: Native American Family Technology Journey Seeks to Preserve Heritage Through Innovation and Encourage Internet Access Today http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=99861 ARMONK, NY -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 11/01/2005 -- While technology is hailed by many for its potential to advance today's society, Native Americans are encouraged by the promise it holds to help sustain languages and cultures several centuries old. The 2005 Native American Family Technology Journey (The Journey), launching on November 1, will offer Native People across the United States a chance to explore what technology and innovation can mean for their families as they embrace the full potential of the Internet. A study released by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, titled Falling Through The Net: Defining The Digital Divide, found that Native Americans "are not able to access the important information resources via computers and on the Internet that are quickly becoming essential for success." "With studies indicating that access to computers among many Native American households lags behind the national average by 15% and access to the Internet by roughly 19%, it's clear that more has to be done to make Native American families aware of the advantages and opportunities that are associated with bringing technology into their lives," said Terry Braun (Seneca Hawk), Director, Americas Solution Design Center, IBM Global Services and Native American Family Technology Journey national co-chair. "The Journey is providing American Indian families with an opportunity to not just hear about technology, but also to experience it. I've seen children delight in constructing bridges out of steel on a computer, and adults marvel at how easily they can access information on the Internet. Technology can make a tremendous difference in the Native community. As we reach these young people, IBM is hoping to inspire them to not only learn about the benefits of technology but to also consider careers in technology," said Braun. "We are truly honored to work with IBM and Career Communications Group on The Journey," said Marcella Perrano, a member of the Ramapough-Lenape nation and director of Title VII Indian Education. "We are very excited and believe that the events comprising this national initiative will provide a fun-filled learning experience for all of the participants. Our goal is to increase technical education and computer literacy among Native American Families, by assisting them in incorporating science and technology into their daily lives. With this in mind, it is our hope that these events will encourage our Native American students to pursue university degrees in science, technology and/or business." Sponsored by IBM and Career Communications Group (CCG), The Journey will play host to computer and Internet workshops, educational and career seminars, and interactive demonstrations, which will provide Native Americans residing in urban centers, rural areas and on tribal lands technology access and training. The Journey will also establish a forum in which Native people can learn more about technology's potential to help pass the languages, stories and customs that distinguish their tribes from one generation to another. IBM, for example, is partnering with the Indigenous Language Institute to establish a Language Materials Development Center that will assist various tribes in preserving, teaching and sharing their language. The company has also developed the Native Keyboard Input Method Editor, which allows a user to switch from English to another language with a simple "hotkey" or command. In addition, IBM is partnering with the Abenaki Tribe in Swanton, Vermont to offer Native American families classes covering basic to intermediate computer skills, including Windows, the Internet, web page creation and using business productivity software. The classes will take place in the computer lab IBM gifted to the community. From naomi.fox at UTAH.EDU Thu Nov 3 01:27:32 2005 From: naomi.fox at UTAH.EDU (Naomi Fox) Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 18:27:32 -0700 Subject: Upcoming Conference Message-ID: I wanted to bring this upcoming conference to the attention of the list. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. --Naomi CONFERENCE ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES AND CULTURES OF NATIVE AMERICA Call for Papers Dates: The Conference on Endangered Languages and Cultures of Native America (2nd annual CELCNA conference) will be held March 31-April 2, 2006, on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City, Utah. Keynote speaker: Victor Golla. Call for papers: We invite papers dealing with any aspect of endangered Native American languages, in particular on documentation or revitalization. Native American participants are especially invited. Papers are 20 minutes each in length, with an additional 10 minutes for discussion. Deadline: ABSTRACTS MUST BE RECEIVED by Jan. 16, 2006. The program committee will attempt to provide notification of acceptance by Jan. 30 (by e-mail). Features to note: Session in Spanish (ponencias en espa?ol): One session will be set aside on Sunday morning, April 2, for papers in Spanish. Abstracts in Spanish (or English) can be submitted for consideration for this session. (Due to popular demand.) Posters: Abstracts are also invited for the poster session. This can include also demonstration of tools and toys for language documentation. Forum discussions: The program will include open discussion sessions dedicated to: (1) Discussion of training for documentation of endangered languages, and employment considerations for students dedicated to work with endangered languages. (2) Databasing and aids for language documentation. (3) Open forum to address matters that arise during the conference. Abstract submission guidelines: The abstract should be no more than 500 words in length. It should include the title of the paper and the name (or names) of the author/ authors, together with the author?s/authors? affiliation. (If the paper is accepted, this abstract will be reproduced in conference materials to be distributed to other participants.) Abstracts should be submitted by e-mail. Submissions should be in Microsoft Word Format (.doc), Rich Text Format (RTF), or Portable Document Format (PDF). If possible, avoid special fonts (or arrange with the organizers so they can be read). Please include with your abstract appropriate contact details, which include: contact author?s name, e-mail address for the period of time from January to April 2006, and a telephone contact number. Only one abstract per person may be submitted. (The only exception may be in instances where at least one of the papers has multiple authors.) Address: Please send abstracts to: cail.utah at gmail.com. Questions should be addressed to z.pischnotte at utah.edu (by Jan. 16, 2006). Accommodations: University Guest House, the official conference hotel ? 100 yards from the meeting venue (Officers? Club) and CAIL (Center for American Indian Languages). To book accommodations, please contact the Guest House directly (mention CELCNA for the conference booking): University Guest House University of Utah 110 South Fort Douglas Blvd. Salt Lake City, Utah 84113-5036 Toll free: 1-888-416-4075 (or 801-587-1000), Fax 801-587-1001 Website www.guesthouse.utah.edu (Please make reservations early, since rooms will be held for the conference only until early March.) Sponsors: The sponsors of this conference are: (1) Center for American Indian Languages (CAIL), University of Utah, (2) Smithsonian Institution Department of Anthropology of the National Museum of Natural History, (3) Department of Linguistics, U of Utah and (4) College of Humanities, University of Utah. Registration fee: $35. Additional information: for further information contact: Zeb Pischnotte z.pischnotte at utah.edu, or for particular questions, write to Lyle Campbell at lyle.campbell at linguistics.utah.edu. If you need information not easily arranged via e-mail, please call: Tel. 801-587-0720 or 801-581-3341 during business hours (Mountain Standard Time), or Fax 801-585-7351. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 3 17:49:03 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 10:49:03 -0700 Subject: Fort Gibson Schools To Offer Cherokee Instruction (fwd) Message-ID: Fort Gibson Schools To Offer Cherokee Instruction http://www.kotv.com/main/home/stories.asp?whichpage=1&id=92923 FORT GIBSON, Okla. (AP) -- The Fort Gibson Public School District plans to offer instruction in Cherokee culture and customs. Assistant Superintendent Linda Clinkenbeard says the district is working to get state certification in the Cherokee language. The district has a 40 percent American Indian student population, most of them Cherokee. Clinkenbeard says she believes there should be an interest in the language. A 2002 study by the Cherokee Nation indicated less than seven percent of tribal members in northeastern Oklahoma can speak Cherokee. Created: 11/3/2005 Updated: 11/3/2005 6:25:58 AM Source: Associated Press www.KOTV.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 3 18:12:21 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 11:12:21 -0700 Subject: English-Speaking Web Users a Minority on the Internet (fwd) Message-ID: English-Speaking Web Users a Minority on the Internet, Says Byte Level Research http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/11/emw305575.htm According to Byte Level's Internet Language Index, emerging markets are putting the "world" into "World Wide Web." English-speakers now make up less than 30% of all Internet users, and this percentage will continue to fall. (PRWEB) November 3, 2005 -- According to a new study published by Byte Level Research, less than 30% of the world's Internet users are native-English speakers. By 2010, that number will drop to less than 25% as such emerging markets as China, Russia, and Brazil drive millions of non-English-speaking people to the Internet. ?This data makes clear that the next Internet revolution will not be in English,? said John Yunker, president of Byte Level Research. "While English isn't becoming any less important on the Internet, other languages, such as Chinese, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese, are becoming comparatively more important. Web globalization will become increasingly vital to succeeding in this emerging global marketplace." Of the roughly one billion people who now have Internet access, English is spoken by 300 million, followed by 128 million Chinese speakers and 80 million Japanese speakers. Looking ahead, Chinese speakers online will grow at the fastest pace, doubling over the next five years. The Internet Language Index tracks 30 languages across 75 countries and is a new regular feature of the monthly Web globalization publication Global By Design. Members of the media may receive a full copy of the index and methodology; please contact Annie Blaise at +1 (760) 317-2001. About Global By Design Global By Design is a paid monthly newsletter devoted to best practices and innovations in business and content globalization. Subscribers to Global By Design include FedEx, Panasonic, Dow Corning, Lionbridge, SDL, Neteller, and many more. For more information, please visit www.globalbydesign.com About Byte Level Research Byte Level Research, founded in 2000, is the world?s leading authority on Web and content globalization. Serving many of the world?s leading multinationals and their vendors, Byte Level has pioneered a number of Web globalization best practices. John Yunker, president chief analyst of Byte Level Research, is author of Beyond Borders: Web Globalization Strategies. ### From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 3 18:16:49 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 11:16:49 -0700 Subject: Kiowa language expert Alecia Gonzales named to USAO Alumni Hall of Fame (fwd) Message-ID: Kiowa language expert Alecia Gonzales named to USAO Alumni Hall of Fame http://www.chickashanews.com/viewarticle.php?id=3666 EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third in a four-part series about homecoming and honoring the distinguished individuals named to the USAO Alumni Hall of Fame this fall. Known for her lifelong devotion to teaching and preserving the Kiowa language, author and educator Alecia Keahbone Gonzales will be named to the USAO Alumni Hall of Fame on Saturday, Nov. 5. Im speechless, Gonzales said Tuesday. This is an overwhelming honor. I am so grateful. I love to share the ways of my people, the Kiowa, she said. Gonzales work has made her a celebrity of sorts for her knowledge and enthusiasm about Kiowa history. In fact, visitors to the new Smithsonians National Museum of the American Indian in Washington hear Gonzales voice in recorded segments on an audio tour. Museum officials chose only one voice to represent each of five geographic areas in America. For the central United States, they chose Gonzales. With the 2001 release of her Kiowa language textbook, the first of its kind in America, Gonzales may have secured the Kiowa language's future and created a veritable template for other Native American tribes to use for sustaining their own languages. Gonzales teaches Kiowa language classes at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma (USAO) in Chickasha, where she approaches the Kiowa language from a bicultural viewpoint using two distinctly different languages. She also teaches at Anadarko High School. She takes pride in training student interns at the college who can assist in teaching the Kiowa language. The title is Thaun Khoiye Tdoen Gyah: Beginning Kiowa Language, which illustrates the book's relationship between the Kiowa and English languages. Beginning Kiowa Language was published by USAO Foundation. Copies of the textbook are available at the USAO Campus Bookstore, 405-574-1304. Born in Ft. Cobb, the Kiowa-Apache author and teacher was surrounded by a mixture of Kiowa and American cultures. She was Apache Tribal Princess as a young girl. In the 1950s, Gonzales presented The Lord's Prayer in Indian sign language on the first color television broadcast of The Dave Garraway and Arlene Francis Show. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy presented her with a lifesaving award. She graduated from the Oklahoma College for Women (now USAO) with a bachelor of arts degree in 1965, then obtained her master of arts degree at Southwestern State College in 1974. Gonzales has been a speech pathologist, a dean of student services, a guidance counselor, and always an educator. She has also been a member of various groups, such as the Oklahoma Federation of Indian Women, the National Education Association, the Caddo County Education Association, and she was the 1993-94 recipient of the Indian Woman of the Year award. In recent years, Gonzales has taken legendary Kiowa folk songs and is giving them life through childrens storybooks. Printed by USAO, these bilingual childrens books include Little Red Buffalo Song, A Mother Birds Song, and Grandma Spiders Song. They are available in the USAO Bookstore and from Anadarko Daily News and the Apache Tribal Smoke Shop in Anadarko. Readers see the story in both Kiowa and English shown parallel to one another. For non-native speakers, a special CD-ROM is included that features the author reading the story in both languages. The two remaining books in the collection, Grandmothers Song and The Prairie Dog Song are set for release in 2006. After that, Gonzales hopes to publish a Kiowa vocabulary textbook with audio CD. I didn't do all this myself, Gonzales said. I have the educational background, I have the know-how to do it, but if it weren't for the people in my life, the Kiowa and non-Kiowa, I wouldn't have been able to do it, she said. She credits her aunts and uncles, who served as my working dictionary, she said. After the death of her parents and other elders, Gonzales says she realized the language would die without a systematic, written method of teaching it. I was nurtured by my grandparents into education, Gonazales said. They believed deeply in the value of education, especially the tribal form of education. This was the seed from which weve grown todays high-tech preservation of language. Today we publish a CD that helps people learn to hear and speak the language. Gonzales sees herself not so much as a pioneer but as a contributer to a long tradition of preserving the language. Her heroes include Parker Mackenzie of the Mountain View area, who assisted John P. Harrington in early preservation of the Kiowa language in the 1920s. Harringtons work eventually earned him the doctorate, Gonzales said. My work is using Harringtons work and my experience as a child to assist others in carrying forward our great language. Probably her greatest influence, she said, came from her grandfather, Tennyson Berry, a longtime resident of Caddo County. He was a musician and was a protege of John Philip Sousa, Gonzales said. He was a debater in the Ivy League schools and made friends with men who became lawyers and senators, people he could call on to help regarding government-tribal relations. He was probably the most significant influence of my life. Another great influence came from her grandmother, Annie Jones, of Verden. She taught me cultural aspects and critical skills: beading, tanning hides, and cooking, as well as the moral standards of our tribe, Gonzales recalled. Four other individuals will be honored at Homecoming. Author and actress Claire Clemons Cowan and educator Ann OBar also will be inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame. The Outstanding Young Alumni Awards will be given to artist-educator Brandon Wood of Tuttle and teacher Susan Wyant of Purcell. From taniag at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 3 19:12:28 2005 From: taniag at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Tania Granadillo) Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 12:12:28 -0700 Subject: Fwd:CELCNA Message-ID: CONFERENCE ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES AND CULTURES OF NATIVE AMERICA Call for Papers Dates: The Conference on Endangered Languages and Cultures of Native America (2nd annual CELCNA conference) will be held March 31-April 2, 2006, on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City, Utah. Keynote speaker: Victor Golla. Call for papers: We invite papers dealing with any aspect of endangered Native American languages, in particular on documentation or revitalization. Native American participants are especially invited. Papers are 20 minutes each in length, with an additional 10 minutes for discussion. Deadline: ABSTRACTS MUST BE RECEIVED by Jan. 16, 2006. The program committee will attempt to provide notification of acceptance by Jan. 30 (by e-mail). Features to note: Session in Spanish (ponencias en espa?ol): One session will be set aside on Sunday morning, April 2, for papers in Spanish. Abstracts in Spanish (or English) can be submitted for consideration for this session. (Due to popular demand.) Posters: Abstracts are also invited for the poster session. This can include also demonstration of tools and toys for language documentation. Forum discussions: The program will include open discussion sessions dedicated to: (1) Discussion of training for documentation of endangered languages, and employment considerations for students dedicated to work with endangered languages. (2) Databasing and aids for language documentation. (3) Open forum to address matters that arise during the conference. Abstract submission guidelines: ? The abstract should be no more than 500 words in length. It should include the title of the paper and the name (or names) of the author/authors, together with the author?s/authors? affiliation. (If the paper is accepted, this abstract will be reproduced in conference materials to be distributed to other participants.) ? Abstracts should be submitted by e-mail. Submissions should be in Microsoft Word document, Rich Text Format (RTF), or Portable Document Format (PDF). If possible, avoid special fonts (or arrange with the organizers so they can be read). ? Please include with your abstract appropriate contact details, which include: contact author?s name, e-mail address for the period of time from January to April 2006, and a telephone contact number. ? Only one abstract per person may be submitted. (The only exception may be in instances where at least one of the papers has multiple authors.) ? Address: Please send abstracts to: cail.utah at gmail.com (by Jan. 16, 2006). Accommodations: University Guest House, the official conference hotel ? 100 yards from the meeting venue (Officers? Club) and CAIL (Center for American Indian Languages). To book accommodations, please contact the Guest House directly (mention CELCNA for the conference booking): University Guest House University of Utah 110 South Fort Douglas Blvd. Salt Lake City, Utah 84113-5036 Toll free: 1-888-416-4075 (or 801-587-1000), Fax 801-587-1001 Website www.guesthouse.utah.edu (Please make reservations early, since rooms will be held for the conference only until early March.) Sponsors: The sponsors of this conference are: (1) Center for American Indian Languages (CAIL), University of Utah, (2) Smithsonian Institution Department of Anthropology of the National Museum of Natural History, (3) Department of Linguistics, U of Utah and (4) College of Humanities, University of Utah. Registration fee: $35. Additional information: for further information contact: Zeb Pischnotte z.pischnotte at utah.edu, or for particular questions, write to Lyle Campbell at lyle.campbell at linguistics.utah.edu. If you need information not easily arranged via e-mail, please call: Tel. 801-587-0720 or 801-581-3341 during business hours (Mountain Standard Time), or Fax 801-585-7351. ----- End forwarded message ----- -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 4605 bytes Desc: not available URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 3 22:00:20 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 15:00:20 -0700 Subject: THE LINGUISTICS OF ENDANGERED LANGUAGES (fwd link) Message-ID: fyi, THE LINGUISTICS OF ENDANGERED LANGUAGES KOBE, JAPAN, 2-5 APRIL 2006 http://kobeinst.com/3lg01.htm The Third Oxford-Kobe Linguistics Seminar, on 'The Linguistics of Endangered Languages', is being organized at the St. Catherine's College (University of Oxford) Kobe Institute, in Kobe, Japan, by Peter Austin (SOAS, University of London), Masayoshi Shibatani (Rice University & Kobe University), and John Charles Smith (University of Oxford), between 2 and 5 April 2006. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 3 22:55:44 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 15:55:44 -0700 Subject: Saving ‘DNA of a culture’(fwd) Message-ID: Saving ?DNA of a culture?: Doctoral student recording endangered language of Sandia Pueblo?s natives The University of Chicago Chronicle November 3, 2005 - Vol. 25 No. 4 By Jennifer Carnig News Office http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/051103/endangered-language.shtml The results of Erin Debenport?s research in New Mexico hold more than her dissertation in the balance?the future of an entire language is resting on her work. Debenport, a doctoral student in Linguistics, is the recipient of a Documenting Endangered Languages grant, a new multiyear effort that partners the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation in an endeavor to preserve records of ?key languages? before they become extinct. She was awarded a $40,000 fellowship?one of 13, with most having been awarded to faculty at major universities?to support her research in recording and revitalizing Southern Tiwa, a Native American language spoken at Sandia Pueblo, New Mexico. Debenport is part of ?a rescue mission to save endangered languages,? said NEH Chairman Bruce Cole. ?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.? About half of the 6,000 to 7,000 languages currently used in the world are headed for oblivion, experts at the NEH and NSF estimate. ?Fortunately, with the aid of modern technology and these federal funds, linguistic scholars can document and record these languages before they become extinct,? Cole said. In Debenport?s project, she is recording and archiving audio materials in Southern Tiwa and training tribal members in linguistic methods. This will allow for the creation of an online dictionary, as well as a dialogue-based curriculum for teaching the language. The result will be an archive of a language that had never been recorded, and the immersion of non-Tiwa speaking members of the tribe in the language of their parents and ancestors. Southern Tiwa is a Mesoamerican heritage language dating back to precolonial times, one of four different languages from three different language families in the New Mexico Pueblo community. Sandia Pueblo, where Southern Tiwa is spoken, is located 10 miles north of Albuquerque and has a population of 500 to 600 people. Less than 40 members of the pueblo are able to speak the language, none younger than 58. As with many other indigenous communities in North America, the ?postcontact? or postcolonial period has been typified by a shift away from indigenous language use, Debenport explained. In this case, both English and Spanish have fundamentally replaced the aboriginal language. The proximity of the pueblo to Albuquerque, combined with a history of forced assimilation in Indian boarding schools and stigmatization, has only accelerated the trend. A sign on the wall of the Sandia Pueblo Learning Resource Center illustrates the direness of the situation. It reads ?Tiwa? with a red slash through it. The caption below says, ?Once, we were told we could not speak our language. Don?t let it be lost again.? ?In many ways, this is a critical time; if something isn?t done to save this language soon, it will die out,? Debenport said. ?But things are also more complicated than that in many ways. Language is political power. It is emblematic of sovereignty. There are issues of colonization, power, race, religion, identity, economics and politics all wrapped up in this one issue.? This time also marks a turning point in the tribe?s history. Once dominated by severe economic depression, the pueblo now runs a successful casino. With the influx of revenue come tourists, developers, and land and economic disputes, with many outsiders now claiming that they, too, are members of the tribe. One way that people can prove their connection to the community is through the Southern Tiwa language. In her work with the pueblo, Debenport must navigate her way around all of these issues. She is not a native Southern Tiwa speaker, and in many ways her interest in the language carries with it the painful baggage of the record of indignities forced on Native Americans. The history of anthropologic and language research is intertwined with a history of missionary work, colonialism and a pattern of members of the academe treating indigenous communities as ?objects or a living museum,? Debenport said. Only recently, she continued, has a real interest in reframing these relationships and forging genuine partnerships between researchers and the community been demonstrated. One of the first steps has been to expand the idea of what it means to be an ?expert.? Debenport?s current project builds on three years of predissertation fieldwork at Sandia Pueblo, and an ongoing partnership with the tribe?s education staff, the real experts, Debenport said. On its own, the community created a position within its Education and Wellness Department to concentrate on issues of language and cultural preservation. In the fall of 2002, Debenport, then working with a linguist at the University of New Mexico, was invited to work with the tribe to create a dictionary. The resulting work is an orthography capable of accurately capturing the sounds of Southern Tiwa, while remaining close enough to the English alphabet to encourage ease of use. A basic interactive dictionary was created with the capability of sorting by English, Tiwa, semantic field and part of speech. In many ways, this first step was revolutionary for the tribal community. Southern Tiwa has for thousands of years been an oral language. The choice to embrace a written form was not made lightly, but most agreed it was that or risk the extinction of the language. Subsequent independent work with the tribal education staff has built on the steps already taken, with Debenport and three native speakers already designing a curriculum for use in adult language classes and recording audio materials to supplement each lesson, as well as recording more lengthy texts for the sake of preservation. The partnership worked so well that Debenport was invited to stay and continue working with the tribe?s education team on the dictionary and curriculum, which soon will be introduced in Head Start classes. She also was given permission to work on her dissertation and to make extensive recordings of the language. ?I?m simply aiding the tribe in the way that they?ve asked me to,? Debenport said. ?And in exchange, I get to see firsthand this amazing historical moment when a language is moving from oral to written.? One issue she had to overcome in the negotiations was the question of where the materials would be kept?would they be Debenport?s or the University?s, or would they belong to the pueblo? ?Because language typifies culture, there is an understandably conservative attitude toward letting outsiders come in and study them and their language,? she said. ?And there?s also the concern about this being used for profit or in ways they can?t control.? So the written, and possibly oral, materials will be kept at the pueblo. ?It?s a real personal relationship,? Debenport continued. ?There?s a lot of trust on both ends. They trust me with their culture, and I trust them with my dissertation.? But what she will receive may be more valuable even than her doctoral degree. ?Just being here is an honor for me,? Debenport said. ?I will gladly commit the rest of my life to seeing this project through.? From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 3 22:58:27 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 15:58:27 -0700 Subject: Linguistics researchers reintroduce indigenous communities to ancestral languages, cultures (fwd) Message-ID: Linguistics researchers reintroduce indigenous communities to ancestral languages, cultures The University of Chicago Chronicle November 3, 2005 - Vol. 25 No. 4 By Jennifer Carnig News Office http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/051103/linguistics.shtml For many Americans, it is hard to grasp why language matters. It is a point of view that John Goldsmith, the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor in Linguistics, said he is constantly combating. ?I think it?s something difficult for people to understand, unless their language is threatened,? Goldsmith said. ?But if you even go somewhere as close as Quebec, you get it instantly. Language matters ? it is your culture and your history.? With about half of the world?s currently used human languages heading toward extinction, according to the National Endowment for the Humanities, this is a critical historical moment in the preservation of both language and culture. With that in mind, Goldsmith and a team of University faculty and staff, including John Lucy, the William Benton Professor in Comparative Human Development, are leading a project in the hopes of preserving and saving several North, Central and South American Indian languages. Some of the languages the project seeks to preserve include the Algonquian languages Meskwaki and Cree, Greenlandic Eskimo and Inuktitut. The team behind the project, ?Digital Preservation of Mesoamerican Linguistic Archives,? has been awarded a grant by the NEH and the National Science Foundation as part of a new effort partnering the organizations to save endangered languages. The project allows the Language Laboratories and Archives, an organization within the Humanities Division that supports language study and linguistic research, to digitize its unique recordings of world languages. In doing so, these resources will become publicly available for the first time to an international community of scholars and students via the Web. The materials include audio field and studio recordings that faculty and students in Linguistics and Anthropology have collected. The LLA staff members are making digital masters of recordings currently at risk and unavailable for public consumption. Based on prior audio preservation experience, Goldsmith said that over the two-year period of the grant, he expects the project will make accessible about 850 hours of audio recordings. ?We?re doing some serious first aid with this project, and we?re just in time,? Goldsmith said. ?Many of these languages are not going to be around in 50 years, so if we don?t preserve these recordings, they could simply be gone.? The project, which started July 1, is reflective of a trend moving through the field of linguistics as a whole, Goldsmith said. In moving the audio recordings to the Web, they will now be available to indigenous communities, in some cases for the first time. ?It used to be that your constituency was your academic community,? he said, explaining that when many of these recordings were first made, as long as 100 years ago in some instances, it was the norm that the information became the property of the researcher, university or college. ?Now we can see more clearly the ethical implications of those actions, and so your constituency is as much the indigenous community as it is the academic community.? By posting the languages online, researchers are reintroducing ?important cultural artifacts? to communities, such as discussions of everyday life, legends and even some music. Some of the stories may have been lost to the native community, or they may have changed their form. Making them available will allow comparison with current cultural artifacts, Goldsmith said. The project also reflects another trend in linguistics. Formerly part of anthropology, the field of linguistics broke off on its own in the 1920s. Here at the University, the Department of Linguistics was established in 1928. At that time, most research was conducted on documenting North American languages. With the Chomskian revolution, however, the mental aspects of language dominated the study of linguistics between the 1960s and the 1990s. Only now has there been resurgence in the field of documentation. Alan Yu, Assistant Professor in Linguistics, is working on his own language documentation project for the Washo community, Native Americans living in California and Nevada around Lake Tahoe. Of the 1,000 to 2,000 Washo tribe members alive today, only about 13 people, all in their 60s, speak the language fluently. Yu, who is still in the beginning stages of applying for funding, hopes to first document the language and then help create a pedagogical program so others in the community can learn it. ?This is why documentation projects are so important,? Yu said. ?You can?t teach a language until you know what you?re teaching.? Yu has been making a few one- or two-week-long trips a year to Lake Tahoe for the past couple of years to begin taping. So far, he has collected creation stories, descriptions of food preparation and tales of rituals and interactions with neighboring tribes. To get that sort of access, he first had to promise that he would not own or profit from any of the recordings. Another linguist previously made 50 years of recordings, but now will not share the tapes with the tribe. ?There is a new surge of cooperation between communities and linguists, and we have to be very careful with that if we want to avoid the distrust that existed for so long,? Yu said. ?What you can learn scientifically from languages is so important, but there is more at stake than that. Because you?re not just learning a language, you?re learning a culture and a way of life, one that in many cases is no longer in existence.? From anguksuar at YAHOO.COM Fri Nov 4 12:10:17 2005 From: anguksuar at YAHOO.COM (Richard LaFortune) Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 04:10:17 -0800 Subject: NATB request for scripts In-Reply-To: <20051103150020.ieop08ccow48ww0c@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Sararesa Begay (402) 472-3522 NAPT (402) 472-8675 fax PO Box 83111 sbegay2 at unl.edu Lincoln, NE 68501 LINCOLN, Neb. To share the art of storytelling, the Native American Public Telecommunications Native Radio Theatre Project has a call out for radio play scripts. This is a project of the Native American Public Telecommunications and Native Voices at The National Autry Center with planning funds from the Ford Foundation. The script entry deadline is November 15, 2005, and to get application procedure information visit http://www.airos.org/theatre/. The goal of NRT project is to bring audio theater to the American Indian Radio on Satellite by Native authors, theater and recording artists. Selections will be announced during mid-April 2006. Native American and Canadian First Nations theatre companies, authors and playwrights who are located in the United States are eligible. The criteria for submission is short works, 10-minute plays and one-acts will be considered. Existing plays from theatre companies will be considered, based on the panel members? assessment of their adaptability to an audio production. Like any good theater, radio theater always beings with a well written, perceptive, entertaining script. Use of sound and appropriateness to the medium is considered. The applicant must secure production, performance broadcast and recording rights. Any genres will be considered with preference given to contemporary Native stories. Application Process Complete and sign application form. Submit six copies of the script, using 8.5 x 11 paper with 1-inch margins and a 12-point standard typeface. The title page should include the title of the script, names of all authors, name and address, phone and fax numbers, and email address of the corresponding author. The subsequent pages should include only the manuscript title and page numbers. The judging will be "blind." Submit the $15 readers fee with the application package. Include a self-addressed stamped postcard for receipt notification. Send to NAPT, PO Box 83111, Lincoln, NE 68501, or street address: 1800 N. 33rd St. Lincoln, NE 68583. For more information about the project and opportunities for Native Theater and audio artists, visit http://www.airos.org or http://www.museumoftheamericanwest.org/visit/nativevoices.php. For more information about National Audio Theatre Festivals visit http://www.natf.org/ NAPT is a non-profit radio and television program development and distribution organization based in Lincoln, Neb. at Nebraska Educational Telecommunications with a mission to support the creation, distribution and promotion of Native Public Media. __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 7 17:25:26 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 10:25:26 -0700 Subject: Prof, students help ancient culture live on (fwd) Message-ID: Prof, students help ancient culture live on November 3, 2005 http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/2005/fall/129.htm English Associate Professor Troi Carleton is determined to save Zapotec, a language indigenous to Mexico -- and to do it before it is lost to new generations transformed by technology and social change. "When a language dies, its culture dies, too," Carleton said. This summer Carleton took eight students to Oaxaca, Mexico, where 23 dialects of Zapotec are spoken. The Zapotecs called Mexico their home for thousands of years before Spain colonized Mexico and made Spanish -- a completely foreign tongue -- the country's official language. "What makes me terribly sad is the thought of it [Zapotec] dying without it being written down anywhere. Once it disappears, there's no record it ever existed," said Carleton, who has been teaching in the linguistics and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages programs at SFSU since 1996. This was the second year Carleton's students worked on preserving the Zapotec language, which is being overwhelmed by Spanish. The field experience provides a rare opportunity for students with little to no experience in field linguistics and language documentation. "Dr. Carleton's efforts in this project have put all of us way ahead of the curve," said Jason Fraser, a graduate student who participated this summer. "She is doing her students a great service." The students, who must take preparatory linguistics classes and speak Spanish to participate in the ongoing project, focused on Zapotec Teotitlan Del Valle, a dialect from a small town named Teotitlan in the Oaxaca valley. Joining Teotitlan officials, community elders and local university students, they worked toward three goals: developing a Spanish/Zapotec dictionary, a grammar accessible to all Zapotec community members and an archive of oral history for the town museum. Carleton wanted to integrate SFSU students in a first-hand, language preservation project, but the Oaxaca mountain communities were poor, dangerous and could not sustain a group of students for the three weeks needed for research. She turned to Teotitlan, a wealthier town known for its textile production and successful international market for rugs. The people of Teotitlan are eager to preserve their language and culture and welcome SFSU into to their community, Carleton said. "They are extremely hard-working, amazing people," said Charlie Kaupp, a graduate student who has been a part of the Zapotec preservation project since it started. "They wake up early ... and they work well into the evening. But even with all this work, they still find time for family and friends to have a Coronita." Carleton began the Zapotec preservation project after working for seven years to help preserve Chatino, another Zapotec dialogue. She produced the first Chatino/Spanish/English dictionary and published several articles on grammatical- and discourse-related issues in Chatino. Earlier in her career, she worked in Malawi, Africa. Carleton will continue to bring students each summer to gather more language and cultural information and to contribute to the Teotitlan museum, which includes sections on the town's history, individual stories, cultural practices, and traditional storytelling, myths and legends. The archive is owned by both Teotitlan and Carleton. Carleton's students, who are already preparing for next year's trip, are working on developing a Spanish/Zapotec dictionary of at least 5,000 words. -- Student Writer Lisa Rau with Matt Itelson From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Nov 8 21:35:15 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 14:35:15 -0700 Subject: Language celebration honors Alutiiq Elders (fwd) Message-ID: Language celebration honors Alutiiq Elders Article published on Monday, November 7th, 2005 By ANDREW WELLNER Mirror Writer http://www.kodiakdailymirror.com/?pid=19&id=2261 The Kodiak Senior Center played host to the Alutiiq Language Council?s Alutiiq Language Celebration and Elder Honoring Saturday. Approximately 50 people turned out to eat a potluck dinner, win door prizes and to celebrate the Alutiiq language. April Laktonen, Alutiiq language manager at the Alutiiq Museum, played master of ceremonies for the event. She said the event comes before meetings to discuss the ongoing language program. With .05 percent of the Alutiiq population of Kodiak fluent in the language, ?we?re basically at the most extreme state of language loss,? Laktonen said. The language program, which matches a native-speaking Elder with an apprentice, is a part of the ?process of trying to revitalize our language,? she said. At the potluck, organizers drew winners for a raffle the group had organized this fall to raise money for the program. Laktonen announced that, in addition to tickets sold that night, the raffle generated $6,000. Also at the dinner, the program honored Alutiiq Elders with roses ? pink for women and yellow for men. A single rose, Laktonen said, ?doesn?t mean much in itself but it represents the respect and the affection we have for our Elders.? Without the Elders, she added, ?we wouldn?t have a language.? The group also took the opportunity Saturday to present certificates of appreciation to various organizations which have supported the program. The evening ended with a performance by the Alutiiq Language Singers and a presentation about Kodiak?s delegation to the World Indigenous People?s Conference on Education. Mirror writer Andrew Wellner can be reached via e-mail at awellner at kodiakdailymirror.com. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 9 17:03:44 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:03:44 -0700 Subject: ENJOY FREE ACCESS TO SMITHSONIAN FOLKWAYS RECORDINGS THROUGH NOV. 23 (fwd) Message-ID: ENJOY FREE ACCESS TO SMITHSONIAN FOLKWAYS RECORDINGS THROUGH NOV. 23 Alexander Street Press is offering free access to Smithsonian Folkways Recordings through November 23, 2005, to let librarians, students, and educators enjoy all 35,000 audio tracks from around the world. No passwords or trial sign-ups are necessary. Simply visit http://glmu.classical.com and be connected to the entire database. Listeners can choose from their favorite sounds ? American Folk, Blues, Bluegrass, Old Time Country, American Indian, Jazz, Classical & Broadway, Spoken Word & Sounds, or Children's. Listeners can browse by artist, cultural group, country, instrument, or other fields. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. For more information, contact Rita Patrick at Amigos, 1-800-843-8482 (972-851-8000 in the Dallas area), ext. 2850, mailto:patrick at amigos.org, or Debbie Nelson at Alexander Street Press, 1-800-889-5937, ext. 214, or dnelson at alexanderstreet.com. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 9 17:49:13 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:49:13 -0700 Subject: Indigenous group works towards saving culture (fwd) Message-ID: Indigenous group works towards saving culture Tuesday, 8 November 2005. 11:12 (AWST) http://www.abc.net.au/news/items/200511/1500358.htm?northwestwa An Aboriginal organisation working to preserve the Yindjibarndi people's culture has celebrated the launch of four new projects. The Juluwarlu Aboriginal Corporation in Roebourne, in north-west Western Australia, engages in cultural and historical recording, publishing and video and multimedia production. Last week, Juluwarlu celebrated a new DVD version of AFI winning film Exile in the Kingdom, a book detailing fauna from an Yindjibarndi perspective, a digital archiving system and JTV - Roebourne's new Aboriginal-owned TV channel. Juluwarlu's operations manager Michael Woodley says its work will be available for the future generations to see. "It's ensuring to our elders that their history that they have been taught verbally is being documented in the format of film, whether it's DVD or CD-ROM or whether it's a publication and it's good to have that," he said. "I mean, for our young generations once they get more mature and, you know, more serious about their language and their history then they can just go to the shelf and pick it up." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 9 17:47:50 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:47:50 -0700 Subject: Indigenous body seeks more funds for language programs (fwd) Message-ID: Wednesday, 9 November 2005, 20:50:18 AEDT Indigenous body seeks more funds for language programs http://abc.net.au/message/news/stories/ms_news_1501555.htm A national Indigenous advisory group wants the Federal Government to increase funding to Aboriginal language programs. Community leaders from around Australia are meeting in Adelaide to discuss ways of preserving native languages. Denise Karpany from the Federation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages Corporation says community-based projects are suffering. "This state is thriving in the schools and kindergartens and places like that, the universities and that, but for the community-based programs, they're not thriving really," she said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 9 17:55:46 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:55:46 -0700 Subject: School program will focus on Natives (fwd) Message-ID: School program will focus on Natives PILOT: Staff members will train to become more sensitive to their needs. By KATIE PESZNECKER Anchorage Daily News Published: November 9, 2005 Last Modified: November 9, 2005 at 07:19 AM http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/7187360p-7097479c.html Willow Crest Elementary and Romig Middle School will try out a program to make education more inviting and suited for Alaska Natives, Anchorage School District officials and Native education advocates said Tuesday. The program aims to make school staff members more sensitive to the culture and communication styles of Alaska Native kids and to establish better relationships with Native parents, administrators said. The move stems from a meeting earlier this school year when about 300 people, mostly Alaska Natives, crowded Central Lutheran Church to share sometimes painful stories about their experiences in local schools. Parents complained they felt ignored and invisible and were horrified by data showing their children are more likely to fail tests and drop out of school. They asked Superintendent Carol Comeau for a pilot program to make education better for Native children. She agreed, and since has met with Native representatives to pick two schools for such a program. "Romig and Willow Crest are anxious to do it too," said Patty Jacobus, a moderator at the earlier meeting. She helped with the research and home visits that led to that gathering. "They were willing and happy and excited that they were picked." Diane Hoffbauer is principal at Willow Crest, where more than one-quarter of the students are Alaska Native, representing all Native-language groups and from as far away as the North Slope and Atka in the Aleutians. "This will help us recognize and support a large segment of our school, because very few of us have lived in rural Alaska and grown up in a remote Alaska lifestyle," said Hoffbauer, who previously worked in Barrow. "They can only imagine how hard the transition is to Anchorage. So we can become a staff that's well educated about where our kids come from." Willow Crest and Romig might not seem obvious picks. At the fall meeting in which the complaints were aired, Native advocates focused on schools with larger Native numbers such as North Star Elementary, Mountain View Elementary and Clark Middle School. But Willow Crest and Romig have more Native students than the district's average. With about 13 percent Native enrollment overall, it's 16 percent at Romig and more than 25 percent at Willow Crest. "And even though they say they're doing well with their students, we still find their scores are very low" for Natives, said Sister Donna Kramer with the Catholic Native Ministry. Her church and the Alaska Native Lutheran Church brought forth the pilot program request. The project calls for cross-cultural training for all school staff members with a focus on "cultural and communication techniques of Alaska Natives." "It's about educating the staff about how to communicate better with the Native people, because they do have a different style than white folks have," Kramer said. "And also the outreach part of the project is to have teachers go out and visit families in their homes and get to know the Native parents." Comeau calls it "customer service with a culturally sensitive twist." The training should rub off so staff members are more welcoming to all families, she said. She said she thinks Romig and Willow Crest are good fits. For one, Willow Crest students later attend Romig, so families with students in both schools will benefit. Romig students eventually go to West High, Comeau said, so she'd like to see the program eventually expand to that level too. Also, both Romig and Willow Crest's principals have worked in rural Alaska, she said. The next step is to develop training, with help from local Native leaders and organizations such as the Native Heritage Center and Cook Inlet Tribal Council. Comeau wants to start schooling staff members in early 2006. "We couldn't have asked for a warmer reception," Kramer said. "I think (Comeau) said she had no idea that this kind of stuff was still going on. She was just on fire with correcting the wrongs that have been done to these kids and their families, making it right for the future for all minority groups." Daily News reporter Katie Pesznecker can be reached at kpesznecker at adn.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 9 17:59:42 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:59:42 -0700 Subject: What Future For Pacific Languages? (fwd) Message-ID: Find this page online at: http://www.news.vu/en/living/Events/051108-Vanuatu-languages-special-feature.shtml What Future For Pacific Languages? By Darrell Tryon Posted Tuesday, November 8, 2005 Overview The languages of the Pacific include all of the vernacular languages of greater New Guinea (including West Papua and Papua New Guinea), the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Polynesia and Micronesia. This represents a total of about 1250 distinct languages, which are members of two very large language families, the Papuan Family (or Families) and the Austronesian or Malayo-Polynesian Family. The Papuan languages are spoken in nearly all of the non-coastal areas of greater New Guinea, in some islands in eastern Indonesia. To the east of the great island of New Guinea, Papuan languages are also found in New Ireland, New Britain and Bougainville (all part of Papua New Guinea), with a sprinkling of Papuan languages in the Solomons. The Austronesian family of languages extends from Taiwan, where there are twenty indigenous Austronesian languages, through the Philippines, most of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. Nearer to home, Austronesian languages are spoken in most coastal regions of greater New Guinea, in most of the Solomons, and throughout Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji (with the exception of the Indian population), and all of the islands of Micronesia and Polynesia as far east as Easter Island. In addition to these vernacular languages, there are three major metropolitan languages, English, French and Spanish, and a number of pidgins and creoles, including Tok Pisin (Papua New Guinea), Pijin (Solomon Islands) and Bislama (Vanuatu), to say nothing of Pidgin Fijian and Fiji Hindi. Another phenomenon to be considered is that of Pacific Islander diaspora, which describes the situation in which many Pacific Islands states have large overseas populations, for example Niue (with 1,800 on Niue and 16,000 in NZ), Samoa (with nearly 200,000 in NZ and a similar number at home). The same applies to Tonga, Fiji, the Cook Islands and Wallis and Futuna. We will discuss the consequences of this diaspora a little later. Language and dialect What is the difference between a language and a dialect? A commonly made distinction is based on mutual comprehensibility. Where two speech varieties are mutually intelligible, they are normally considered to constitute dialects of one and the same language. Where intelligibility is marginal, very limited or non-existent between two speech communities, then it is usually considered that we are dealing with separate languages. Why so many languages? The Pacific area boasts the greatest linguistic diversity in the world, with more than a thousand indigenous tongues. Not only are there astounding numbers of languages, but the languages themselves are very diverse. This is probably due to extensive contact between the more recently arrived Austronesian-speaking populations and the Papuan populations whose presence in Papua New Guinea goes back almost 50,000 years. The Papuan languages themselves have become very diverse, simply because of regular change and development over a very long period. (In fact they have become so diverse that linguists have yet to demonstrate that they are all genetically related. However at least 430 of the 750 Papuan languages have now been shown to be related, and ongoing research is likely to demonstrate that they all related, albeit distantly in some cases). The surprisingly high number of languages is may be ascribed to a number of factors, including physical isolation and separation, as well as Melanesian agricultural techniques, which constantly requires new land. The roles of the languages The metropolitan languages, English and French in the main, play a major national role in most of the Pacific Island states, primarily as languages of education. These are the major languages of communication with the outside world. The pidgin and creole languages, Bislama in the case of Vanuatu, act as languages of inter-island and inter-community communication across local language boundaries. This is especially useful in Vanuatu, where both English and French are the official languages of education, with little real bilingualism between the two. The vernacular languages generally play a local role, used for family and community communication within each island in Vanuatu. They are extremely important cultural identity markers, reflecting the cultural richness of the country. Vernacular languages number just over 100 in Vanuatu today, with an average of one language per two thousand inhabitants, one of the highest ratios in the world. Language endangerment Right across the Pacific, many of the vernacular languages are under threat from one direction or another. Even some of the bigger languages face serious danger of disappearance. In New Caledonia, for example, the largest language is Drehu, the language of the island of Lifou in the Loyalty Islands. This language has roughly 15,000 speakers. Normally such a language would not be considered to be under threat. However, this is rapidly becoming the case. For there is a very large Lifou population living in the greater Noumea area as there is a strong move to the New Caledonian mainland, chiefly for economic reasons. This is not a new phenomenon. However, the result is alarming in that large numbers of young Lifou people are today no longer to speak their mother tongue with confidence. The language of opportunity in the Southern Province of New Caledonia is French, the language of instruction throughout the country. Children are sent to their original home island over the long summer school break in the hope that they will somehow acquire the language skills in Drehu that are lacking on the New Caledonian mainland. The results are far from satisfactory, the role of Drehu being rapidly limited to communication with grand-parents and customary greetings and exchanges. Lifou community leaders in Noumea are expressing increasing concern at the emerging situation. Indeed, a recent study of language practice in mixed Melanesian communities around Noumea, focusing on the Riviere Salee community, showed that hardly any of those interviewed use their mother tongue except for communicating with older members of their home communities. Rather, they almost always express themselves in French. Indeed, the author of the study (Sophie Barneche, Gens de Noumea, Paris: L?Harmattan 2005) reveals that the residents of the Riviere Salee community acknowledge that they speak a non-standard, some would say sub-standard, French. Community members have made a deliberate choice, in the absence of a local vernacular mother tongue, to use this particular variety of French as their identity marker. In French Polynesia, the major indigenous language, Tahitian, is undergoing considerable pressure from French and from the Anglophone world. At the same time the French spoken by the majority of the Polynesian population is strongly marked by Tahitian language structures and expressions. In Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, Melanesian pidgins are used as the major language of all three parliaments. What emerges is often a basic pidgin heavily overlaid with English terms and expressions, often incomprehensible to rural listeners. The major vector of language endangerment, and indeed of the language mixing so common today, is rapidly increasing urbanization, as people move into the towns in search of employment as the old subsistence economy gives way to a cash economy. The nearer a local vernacular language is to a major urban area, the greater the threat to its long term survival. To this, we should add parents? expectations for their children. In many parts of the Pacific parents see a mastery of English or French as the key to economic success, and are prepared to sacrifice even their mother tongues in this quest. Does it matter? Does it really matter that local vernaculars may be sacrificed on the altar of economic advancement? The answer is a resounding ?Yes?. It is important that communities around the world resist the pressures of ever increasing globalization and preserve their precious cultural and linguistic heritage. For each language encapsulates an individual culture, a way of conceptualizing the world. The way in which Pacific languages conceptualise time and space, the way in which people and objects are categorized, is far removed from the concepts which underlie European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages, for example. Even within Vanuatu each language has a subtly different way of expressing its view of the world, in the same way as English and French, both European languages, express very different ways of organizing their conceptual worlds. Inevitably languages will be lost, even in Vanuatu, over the coming decades. However, the languages which are passed down from parent to child will continue to survive for as long as this investment by parents is made, and as long as the roles of local vernacular languages are maintained at present levels, that they fully serve their communities and are not reduced to play a simply ceremonial role. Darrell Tryon Men?s Fieldworkers? Workshop Vanuatu Cultural Centre From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 9 18:05:27 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 11:05:27 -0700 Subject: Raiders to broadcast game in Navajo (fwd) Message-ID: San Francisco Business Times - 1:31 PM PST Tuesday Raiders to broadcast game in Navajo http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2005/11/07/daily20.html The Oakland Raiders announced a deal to have the team's Nov. 13 game broadcast on the radio in Navajo. Radio station KTNN-AM of Window Rock, Ariz., will carry the game with two announcers. The station's 50,000-watt signal reaches into New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Arizona. Raiders' CEO Amy Trask said she decided to join with KTNN for the upcoming home game versus the Denver Broncos as "another way to expand our multi-cultural initiatives." The team has web sites and merchandise in German, Chinese and Spanish and has two staff members who coordinate multi-cultural events. The Raiders picked KTNN because the station has done sports broadcasting in the past, including covering Super Bowl XXX in 1996. More than 100,000 Navajo people speak the language, making it among the most-spoken Native American languages in the United States. During World War II, a code based on Navajo was used by code talkers to send secure military messages over radio. The Raiders' regular English broadcast on KSFO-AM and Spanish broadcast on KZSF-AM will take place Nov. 13 as well. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 10 17:50:24 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 10:50:24 -0700 Subject: Taiwan: Indigenous Peoples Get More Recognition (fwd) Message-ID: Taiwan: Indigenous Peoples Get More Recognition http://www.unpo.org/news_detail.php?arg=50&par=3204 Taiwan's legislature this year passed a law guaranteeing autonomy for the island's 12 indigenous tribes, which have endured centuries of repression. VOA's Steve Herman recently visited Taiwan and discovered the island is making other efforts to reverse the legacy of discrimination, something that has not gone unnoticed by the mainland Chinese government. The newscast on cable channel 16, at first, appears no different than any other on the dozens of Mandarin language television channels in Taiwan. But then something different happens, one of the anchors begins speaking in a language most people on the island cannot understand. It is the tongue of the Amis people, the largest indigenous minority of Taiwan. The broadcast airs daily on the island's newest channel, the Indigenous Television Network, ITV. There are about 140,000 Amis people, a matrilineal tribe, who mostly live in the eastern valleys and coastal areas. They are one of 12 recognized aboriginal tribes of Taiwan, totaling less than two percent of the population. ITV also recently began broadcasting snippets of news in two other tribal languages, Atayal and Bunun. The tribes have cultural and genetic links to ethnic groups in Malaysia and Indonesia, not to the Han Chinese who dominate both Taiwan and mainland China. Some tribe members are identifiable because of their larger eyes and darker skin than the Han, but others, largely because of marriage with Chinese or Japanese over the centuries, are less distinguishable. For centuries, they were looked down on by the Han, and faced social discrimination. One survey taken about a decade ago found that 70 percent of Chinese Taiwanese parents would not want their children to marry tribal people. But in recent years, members of Taiwan's tribes have gained prominence and popularity, especially in contemporary music and sports. This comes after a long period of tension between the Han Chinese, who began migrating to Taiwan in large numbers from the mid-14th century, and the indigenous people, whose history there goes back thousands of years. The director of the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines, Eric Yu, says the native people had good reason to be wary of their new neighbors. "When they moved to this island from mainland China they tried to cheat, rob - they did a lot of bad things to take the property from the indigenous people," he explained. But the new immigrants viewed the natives as barbarians, in no small part because many of them were headhunters and tattooed their faces. The Han forced the aboriginals to take Mandarin names. When the Japanese colonized Taiwan in 1895, the situation went from bad to worse. The colonial masters wanted the aboriginal people to take on Japanese identities and, to reinforce the message, shelled some villages or bombarded them with mustard gas. Taiwan returned to Chinese control in 1945, and in 1949, Nationalist forces, which had lost a civil war with the Chinese communists, took over the island. The new rulers regarded the tribes as either collaborators with the Japanese or sympathizers with the communists. However, with the advent of Taiwanese democracy in the past decade, tribal people gradually began to speak out against their unfair treatment. The government responded by enacting laws to protect tribal lands and giving preferential treatment to ethnic minorities in competitive high school and university entrance examinations. Walis Pelin is a former Catholic priest from the Atayal tribe. He is now the government minister overseeing the Council of Indigenous Peoples. Mr. Walis says the pursuit of rights by Taiwan's indigenous people was a grassroots movement, not something the government pursued for its own domestic or international interests. He says the struggle has its roots in the near total destruction of tribal society during the Japanese colonial era. Sylvia Feng, now a senior producer for Taiwan's Public Television Service Foundation, led the fight to broadcast the island's first programs produced by indigenous minorities. They're not afraid to say 'I'm from this nation or that nation, I speak a language different from yours and I have a different culture.' Whereas when we started the training program it was totally different. They were easily intimidated. We were discouraged by a lot of people and we did encounter some very unfriendly treatment," she recalled. Now just about everybody seems eager to embrace the Amis, the Atayal, the Bunun, the Rukai, the Yami and the other tribes, as well. Several months ago, Taiwan's prime minister, Frank Hsieh, said he believes his great-grandmother was an aboriginal, because whenever he hears music of the Bunun tribe he becomes "excited and emotional." The improvement comes as Taiwan grapples with its own identity. Some Taiwanese favor eventual unification with China, while others yearn for a declaration of independence or insist the island is already de facto independent. For the separatists, the indigenous tribes represent a unique history and culture distinguishing Taiwan from the Chinese mainland. Ms. Feng of public television says the Beijing government has not hesitated to try to lure Taiwanese aboriginal figures into its camp. "They do try to get in touch with some of the indigenous people here though organized efforts, establish contact and have them go over to China to show that they support Chinese unification," she noted. Beijing considers Taiwan's indigenous people as among China's 56 official ethnic groups. But for most of the indigenous people their priorities have little to do with cross-strait politics. Poorer and less educated than Han Chinese, the priorities of the indigenous people are better jobs, education and housing and improved rights to ancient tribal lands. Kolas, an ITV news anchorwoman from the Amis tribe, who mentors the station's ethnic reporters, says her major challenge is bringing the traditional tongues, most of which have no written tradition, into the age of electronic media. "Most [of the] young generation in Taiwan, they can't speak native tongue. But the elder one[s], most of them can't get used to the modern infrastructures [technology] and they even can't use a computer, so that is the most serious problem facing us," she explained. The challenge has not deterred the indigenous broadcasters. They've already introduced the first Bunun soap opera. Until more directors and producers can be trained to create programs in the native languages, the bulk of ITV's schedule will air in the Mandarin. However, there is an upside to that. Mainstream Taiwanese are tuning in and learning more about their island's increasingly trendy minorities. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 10 17:55:54 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 10:55:54 -0700 Subject: Navajo radio picks up NFL broadcast (fwd) Message-ID: Navajo radio picks up NFL broadcast By ED ODEVEN Sun Sports Staff 11/10/2005 http://www.azdailysun.com/non_sec/nav_includes/story.cfm?storyID=118896 KTNN 660 AM will broadcast Sunday's Oakland Raiders-Denver Broncos in Navajo. The game begins at 2 p.m. KTNN covered Super Bowl XXX 10 years ago. That marked the first time a Super Bowl was broadcast in a Native American language. The station has also broadcast Phoenix Suns, Phoenix Mercury and Arizona Cardinals in that span. "KTNN has been broadcasting as the Voice of the Navajo Nation for the last 20 years and we're proud to be broadcasting the Raiders game in the Navajo language," KTNN's program director Jay Allen said. Oakland Raiders chief executive Amy Trask said, "This presents an exciting opportunity to unite the Raider Nation. This association is yet another example of our commitment to our global fan base and our ever-expanding multi-cultural initiatives." L.A. Williams, KTNN's sports director who regularly covers prep football, basketball and volleyball, and 33-year radio veteran Ernie Manuelito will handle the broadcast duties. The duo won the 1996 Native American Journalism Association award for best bilingual sportscasters. A KTNN press release addressed the question of how basic football terms will be translated into Navajo. "This will be a team effort and it's all about describing what's happening on the field and what our listeners will understand back home," the release stated. The Oakland Raiders have broadcast each of their games in Spanish for the past four years. The team's Web site publishes coverage in English, Spanish, Chinese and German. KTNN, a 50,000-watt clear channel signal reaches the entire western United States and northern Mexico. Ed Odeven can be reached at eodeven at azdailysun.com or 556-2251. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 10 18:02:28 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 11:02:28 -0700 Subject: Music: Indigenous Radio Benefit with Maneja Beto (fwd) Message-ID: Music: Indigenous Radio Benefit with Maneja Beto http://www.austin360.com/event/events/Entertainment/event?hidActionName=PreviewEvent&eventid=66830 >From the Promoter: Austin-based Colectivo Caracol invites the public to a benefit to a benefit on November 11, 2005 for three indigenous community radio stations in Southern Mexico. The event begins at 8:30 p.m. at Ruta Maya International Headquarters, 3601 South Congress Ave., with music by DJ E Be Lo, Alteza, and Maneja Beto. The proceeds will go directly to three indigenous community radio stations whose organizers live here in Austin and attend the University of Texas. A five dollar donation is requested. The Colectivo Caracol, who also produce the program Radio Caracol airing Thursdays on KVRX UT Student Radio, have organized the November 11 benefit to kick off a campaign of news and technical exchange between community radio programs in Mexico and Austin. The three stations broadcast in Spanish and local indigenous languages. They are Radio Antzetik, a Tsotsil language station in Oventik, Chiapas; Radio Ayuuk, a Mixe language station in Guichicovi, Oaxaca; and the newly forming Radio Cieneguilla, which will broadcast in Chatino. Said Emiliana Cruz, a Chatina woman from Cieneguilla and UT-Austin graduate student, "This radio station will support the Chatino language revitalization project begun two years ago." The three stations have the common objective of keeping the local people informed and allowing communities to have their own means of communication. The three stations are part of a new wave of native language stations that began in 2003. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Nov 11 00:00:48 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 17:00:48 -0700 Subject: FATSIL Guide to Community Protocols for Indigenous Language Projects 2004 (fwd link) Message-ID: fyi, here is an very interesting example on community protocols from the Federation of Aboriginal & Torre Strait Islander Languages (FATSIL). Well worth reading. Phil Cash Cash, ILAT ~~~ FATSIL Guide to Community Protocols for Indigenous Language Projects 2004 http://www.fatsil.org/ From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 13 18:56:08 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 11:56:08 -0700 Subject: SIL Bird flu materials (fwd msg) Message-ID: FYI ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 16:08:48 +1100 From: "Gerry (Mobile) Beimers" Subject: SIL Bird flu materials Those of you with an applied language development angle in your creole work may have a significant interest the following notice from my SIL colleagues. Gerry Beimers Solomon Islands Pijin Old Testament www.pijinplus.net Dear Colleagues, IMPORTANT NOTICE from the SIL International Literacy Department NOTICE: The following is an abbreviated version of important materials that are posted on the www.sil.org/literacy website. AVIAN FLU, BIRD FLU, H5N1, AVIAN INFLUENZA AVIAN FLU EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS - FREE DOWNLOADS AVAILABLE FOR IMMEDIATE USE The materials consist of the following: Avian Flu Risk & Prevention Booklet (various versions in PDF, Publisher, and Word) > - Avian Flu Booklet - Illustrations only - (35 drawings) > - Avian Flu Booklet - audio version > - Avian Flu Poster > - Avian Flu Fact Sheet (See the recommendations for their use at the end of this notice.) "BIRD FLU" INFORMATION FOR ETHNIC LANGUAGE COMMUNITIES The ethnic minority communities we work in are among the highest risk for Avian or "Bird" Flu. Yet, as you know, they are least likely to have access to accurate information about the disease. The threat of a potential Avian Flu pandemic prompts us to inform ethnic groups about some preventive measures their communities can take. More than just millions of wild and domestic flocks will die if this flu begins to spread among humans. Dr. Dianne Mathews (MD, MPH), an SIL member serving in Asia; and Dr. Indarto, the Indonesian veterinarian in charge of communicable animal diseases for Papua Province, both understand the threat of Avian Flu. Following the suggestion of SIL's Asia Area Director, Dr. Larry Jones, they collaborated to research the topic. Assisted by SIL technicians, Larry Mathews and Dennis Conroy, they have developed some informative material on Avian Flu for ethnic groups in Indonesia. The materials could be easily adapted to other contexts. A booklet and audio version provides basic risk and prevention information in story form, a means that many ethnic groups use to transmit information. The master copy of the booklet is diglot (English and Indonesian). The story text could be translated into other languages. Two sets of illustrations for the Avian Flu booklet reflect Papuan and Asian cultures. However, the line drawings are generic enough to be used "as is" or modified as needed for African or other ethnic groups. In other words, this booklet is a "shellbook " and easily adapted. SIL International and SIL's Asia Area field office are making these materials available to anyone who wants them as free downloadable files for translation, distribution, and immediate use worldwide. You or anyone else may download this material from our literacy website www.sil.org/literacy THE FOLLOWING IS THE PERMISSION STATEMENT FOR USE OF THE MATERIALS: These materials are produced as a service for ethnic communities. Any or all parts of the materials, including the illustrations, may be copied, reproduced or adapted by anyone in order to meet local needs, with the provision that the items reproduced are distributed free or at cost - not for commercial profit. Any person or organization wishing to copy, reproduce, or adapt these materials for commercial purposes should first obtain permission from SIL International. (See Terms of Use for SIL products: www.sil.org/policies.htm#term ) We feel this Avian Flu booklet is very IMPORTANT - that the communities we work in should have access to this information. They are the people at highest risk to lose flocks and family during an outbreak. They need information in a language they understand to prompt them to take preventative action. We highly encourage SIL and other field personnel to make this a priority and facilitate the translation and distribution of the materials. The audio of course could be made available for local radio broadcasting. We also encourage you to make copies of the materials available to your local Ministry of Health offices and to other health workers. AVIAN FLU EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS - SIL FREE DOWNLOADABLE FILES The Bird Flu educational materials available on the SIL Literacy website consist of the following items. These items may be used "as-is" or portions may be used to produce locally appropriate materials. > AVIAN FLU RISK & PREVENTION BOOKLET > > ENGLISH TITLE: Terpen Village Avoids Avian Influenza > BAHASA INDONESIAN TITLE: Desa Terpen Terhindar Dari Penyakit Flu Burung > > AVIAN FLU RISK & PREVENTION BOOKLET - COMPLETE SHELLS OR MODELS > (Available http://www.sil.org/literacy or on the W&D CD Rom) > > ENGLISH- INDONESIAN VERSION, ENGLISH AND INDONESIAN ON SAME PAGE, > PAPUAN ILLUSTRATIONS > Publisher 2003 file (1.9 MB) > Publisher 2000 file (8.5 MB) > PDF file (1 MB) > > ENGLISH- INDONESIAN VERSION, ENGLISH AND INDONESIAN ON SAME PAGE, > ASIAN ILLUSTRATIONS > Publisher 2003 file (1.9 MB) > Publisher 2000 file (7.9 MB) > PDF file (1 MB) > > BAHASA INDONESIAN VERSION, ENGLISH IN BACK OF BOOK, ASIAN > ILLUSTRATIONS > Publisher 2003 file (1.8 MB) > Publisher 2000 file (7.9 MB) > PDF fle (963 KB) > > ENGLISH ONLY VERSION, ASIAN ILLUSTRATIONS > Publisher 2003 file (1.8 MB) > Publisher 2000 file (7.9 MB) > PDF file (1.1 MB) > > ENGLISH ONLY VERSION, PAPUAN ILLUSTRATIONS > Publisher 2003 file (2.7 MB) > Publisher 2000 file (15.7 MB) > PDF file (1.5 MB) > > INDIVIDUAL PARTS > **PERMISSION AND FRONT MATTER ** > English, Front Matter & Forward (MS Word, 24 KB) > English, Permission Statement (MS Word, 20 KB) > > STORY TEXT > ** English (MS Word, 39 KB) ** > Indonesian (MS Word, 48 KB) > Spanish Available soon > > ILLUSTRATIONS (35 DRAWINGS) > Sequence of illustrations and text (MS Word, 45 KB) > Asian illustrations (zipped tif files, 4.9 MB) > Papuan illustrations (zipped tif files, 4.8 MB) > > AUDIO VERSION > English text audio Available soon > > AVIAN FLU POSTER > English Available soon > > AVIAN FLU LEAFLET > ** English, How to Avoid Bird Flu at Home (MS Word, 302 KB) ** > > AVIAN FLU FACT SHEET FOR COMMUNITY FIELD WORKERS > English fact sheet (MS Word, 23 KB) From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 13 19:15:30 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 12:15:30 -0700 Subject: Native Americans used symbols and syllables in writing systems (fwd) Message-ID: Native Americans used symbols and syllables in writing systems DENNIS ADAMS, Packet columnist Published Sunday, November 13, 2005 http://www.islandpacket.com/editorial/col/adams/story/5329457p-4827406c.html While researching the Beaufort County branch library's display for National American Indian Heritage Month (Nov. 1-30), I found facts about two writing systems native to the Western Hemisphere. The glyphs of the Mayas were in use centuries before Europeans came to Central America. The second system was the Cherokee syllabary, developed in United States territory (present-day Arkansas) in the early 19th century. In "Maya and Other Mesoamerican Scripts" (a chapter in "The World's Writing Systems), Martha J. Macri wrote that "a conservative estimate of the number of distinct writing systems" in pre-Columbian Central America is fifteen, "many only known from a single inscription." The Aztecs, Mixtecs and Zapotecs used "codified pictorial systems" that seldom represented the actual sounds of their languages. Instead, these systems relied on logograms, or symbols containing the meaning of an entire word or idea. In order to understand the "shorthand" of these logograms, a person would have had to have been born into the culture of a tribe -- the meanings were strictly "insider knowledge." Scholars today rarely can produce a literal, symbol-by-symbol translation of the paper scrolls that have survived, but must speak of general interpretations of the texts instead of precise decipherments. The Mayas, on the other hand, used "logographic-syllabic" writing. Sound-symbols representing syllables in the language combined with logograms in a system that has been deciphered to a large, if still incomplete, extent. Although the earliest Mayan inscriptions date to before 250 A.D., their origins reach back to at least 500-400 B.C. Most glyphs (by some estimates fewer than 600 symbols) fill the area of a square, and look like elaborate ancestors of our own computer icons. They normally appeared in double columns, read from left to right and from top to bottom. Unlike the ancient Mesopotamians, whose writing system evolved from their need to keep track of daily business transactions, Mesoamericans began writing about the night sky. According to Macri, Mayan script was "inextricably connected with an intricate calendar and seems to have developed partially in response to the desire to record astronomical observations." Cherokee syllabary When Sequoyah (born around 1770, died 1843) first began work on a writing system for his people, he envisioned pictographs somewhat like the pictorial symbols of the Aztecs. According to the Encyclopedia of North American Indians (edited by D. L. Birchfield), Sequoyah had encountered "talking leaves" (written and printed pages) when serving in a Cherokee division of the U. S. Army from 1812-1814, and in other encounters with white people. Native American Biography (edited by Sharon Malinowski and Simon Glickman) said that Sequoyah scrapped pictographs in favor of a syllabary of 85 symbols. While an alphabet forms syllables by combining letter symbols, each character of a syllabary represents a complete syllable of a language. For example, Sequoyah's symbol that resembles the Roman letter "W" stands for the syllable "ta," "S" for "du," and "H" for "mi." Although Sequoyah sometimes used shapes like those in the white man's "talking leaves," he did not borrow their sounds. Many symbols are entirely original, such as a "winged V" ("quo") and an inverted J with an h-like shape on its left side ("tv"). Sequoyah could not read the Roman alphabet, nor could he understand English. But in spite his lack of formal education, he invented a system that, in the words of Theda Perdue (American National Biography), "reportedly could be mastered by a Cherokee speaker in several days." Sequoyah worked on his syllabary for 12 years. At first, his people were hostile to his creation and even accused him of witchcraft. In 1821, however, Sequoyah showed tribal elders how useful his system could be. Soon there were books, newspapers, a Bible and tribal constitution printed in the Cherokee language. Students learned how to write the syllabary in Cherokee schools, and people could finally write letters to each other. Medicine men recorded their formulas and traditions for posterity. Nearly half of Cherokee households had a person literate in the syllabary by 1835, less than 15 years after its endorsement by the tribe. Dennis Adams is Information Services Coordinator for the Beaufort County Public Library System. He can be reached at denseatoms at earthlink.net From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 13 19:26:56 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 12:26:56 -0700 Subject: Indigenous languages replace Spanish in Oregon fields (fwd) Message-ID: Indigenous languages replace Spanish in Oregon fields Agencies reach out to farmworkers who speak neither English nor Spanish GABRIELA RICO Statesman Journal November 12, 2005 http://159.54.226.83/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051112/NEWS/511120306/1001 Just as the Oregon employment department was feeling confident that it offered enough Spanish-speaking farmworker liaisons, everything changed. In the Willamette Valley fields, a growing number of migrant workers arrive speaking Mixteco, Triqui and Zapoteco, indigenous languages from Oaxaca. "Pretty soon, you won't need me in this job," said Daniel Qui?ones, a Spanish-speaking farmworkers representative with the Oregon Employment Department. In the position since 2001, Qui?ones was struck by the blank stares he got when he addressed workers in Spanish. "The people tend to come in groups," he said. "So, I'll ask if anyone in the group speaks Spanish." Usually a man steps forward with limited Spanish skills, but enough to understand what Qui?ones is trying to communicate. "Our job is to educate them that they have rights," he said. "A lot of them don't know that they have rights in the United States." Enforcing minimum-wage laws, workplace safety and child labor laws all are the responsibility of the state, Qui?ones said. The number of indigenous workers from the state of Oaxaca is growing in Oregon, but they maintain an unusually low profile, he said. "They're a different breed of people than we're used to," Qui?ones said. "The reason we know they're here is because there's so many of them." In response to the phenomena, the Oregon Law Center started an outreach program three years ago. The Indigenous Farmworker Project of the Oregon Law Center employs three trilingual outreach workers to communicate with migrant workers and offer legal services, said Julie Samples, an attorney with the Oregon Law Center. One initiative involved putting wage and hour laws and workplace safety information on audio cassettes in these indigenous languages -- the best way to reach migrant workers from Oaxaca who either don't read or speak languages without a common written equivalent. Earlier this year, the Legal Aid Services of Oregon and the Oregon Law Center received a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices division and a visit from the special counsel, William J. Sanchez in recognition of these efforts. Although Oaxaque?os first started migrating into the United States during World War II, the population in Oregon has grown significantly in the past five years, Samples said. It is estimated that tens of thousands of people from Oaxaca now live in Oregon, and this state's demand for these workers continues. Aside from outreach, the project educates employers, police, social-service agencies, medical clinics and schools about indigenous people. The women are less likely to speak Spanish and being able to provide information to them in their native language is rewarding, Samples said. "Watching their eyes light up when someone speaks their language ... it never gets old," she said. Future farmworker outreach employees in Oregon may need to have an indigenous language on their r?sum?. "We're tossing around changes in recruitment to reflect the population," Qui?ones said. "It's all new to us." Copyright 2005 Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 13 19:30:41 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 12:30:41 -0700 Subject: Oaxaca Connection (fwd) Message-ID: Oaxaca Connection The migration of tens of thousands of people from Oaxaca to Oregon is altering both states GABRIELA RICO Statesman Journal November 12, 2005 http://159.54.226.83/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051112/NEWS/511120303/1001 Ignacio, Sergio, Dagoberto, Neftali, Joel. They are among the tens of thousands of people from Oaxaca, Mexico, who are in Oregon trying to make a buck, provide better lives for their families or find a piece of the American dream. They all left villages in the impoverished southern Mexican state because they couldn't make it happen there. Their migration to the United States is the latest chapter in a centuries-old story -- one that is changing them, their families and now the Willamette Valley. Cotton in Texas, chiles in New Mexico, cantaloupes in Arizona, grapes in California, apples in Washington, potatoes in Idaho and berries in Oregon have long been harvested by migrant workers -- predominantly from Mexico. In the past decade, many Mexican immigrants have risen from the fields and become construction workers, cooks, maids and factory workers. But in Oregon, which takes great pride in its agricultural products, someone needs to tend the crops. That someone is the indigenous farmworker from the mountains and villages of southern Mexico, home to ancient cultures and languages. "The manual labor of the indigenous has always been admired," said Jesus Leon Santos, a farmer in Nochixtl?n, Oaxaca. "And it has always been recruited." Oaxaca -- Mexico's second-poorest state -- provides a significant farm labor force, according to Oregon employment and legal experts. Many of these immigrants speak only to the handful of others who understand their language; Spanish is something they learn in the fields of U.S. farms. Discrimination is unremarkable to the men and women who make up 75 percent of the farm labor in Oregon. In their own country, they also are treated like second-class citizens. "They're so accustomed to discrimination, they don't respond even to Spanish speakers in Oregon," said Valentin S?nchez, co-founder of Organizaci?n de Comunidades Ind?genas Migrantes Oaxaque?os (Organization for migrant, indigenous communities from Oaxaca) in Salem. "Many Mexicans don't have pride in where they come from and don't respect the indigenous," said S?nchez, a native of San Juan Cahuayaxi, Oaxaca. "They call us 'Indian, midget, short one,' and the Anglos learn that and think it's OK to treat us like that." In the past five years, there has been a dramatic increase of Mixteco, Triqui and Zapoteco speaking indigenous workers in Oregon. "I knew that it was happening," said Lynn Stephen, a professor of anthropology at the University of Oregon. "What surprised me was that absolutely no one in Oregon -- except for those who work with farmworkers -- knew this was going on." Fernando S?nchez Ugarte, Mexico's consul general in Oregon, said the growth of Oaxaque?os in Oregon has been "explosive" but is difficult to quantify. Although the U.S. Census Bureau counted 260,094 Mexicans in Oregon in 2002, the consulate says with the "uncounted" -- the migrant population and seasonal workers -- that total is closer to 600,000. More than 11 percent are from Oaxaca. Oaxaque?os are the second-largest population of Mexicans in Oregon, behind Michoac?n, if you count only those who register with the consulate for a Matricular identification card. "Many of the farmworkers here don't need these IDs," S?nchez said. "They arrive in groups, live where they work and see no need to interact with the rest of the state." The reason for the growth is no great mystery: they know how to work the fields and are easily exploited, farmworker advocates say. "The bottom line is cheap labor," said Ramon Ramirez, president of Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United. "They'll do the job for cheap. I'm not saying it's right." Stephen, who has extensively studied the connection between Oregon and Oaxaca, said the result of the migration is that in some villages, half of the people are gone. In others, all that's left are women, children and grandparents. Languages are being lost and individual rights learned in the United States conflict with the collective rights that have bonded Oaxaca's indigenous people for centuries. Oaxaca de Ju?rez, the state capital, is a beautiful tourist destination for international travelers, but the farmworkers in Oregon come from villages and mountains that aren't on the route of any tour bus. "Where they're from, there's no work, no tourism," Stephen said. "It's a part of Oaxaca where no one wants to go." While some immigrants speak of Oaxaca longingly, others say living in their new home -- Oregon -- has changed them. "Home will always be home," said Dagoberto Garcia of Salem who grew up in Huajuapan de Le?n, Oaxaca. "But, dreams change over time. Everything changes when you are here." Copyright 2005 Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 13 19:36:22 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 12:36:22 -0700 Subject: How babies use their eyes in learning language (fwd link) Message-ID: How babies use their eyes in learning language Infants begin pulling off an amazing feat sometime in the final three months of their first year of life. They learn an important social interaction by following the gaze of an adult, a step that scientists believe gives babies a leg up on understanding language. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=33398 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 13 19:39:28 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 12:39:28 -0700 Subject: OHAI Creates Cherokee Software (fwd) Message-ID: OHAI Creates Cherokee Software http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/11/emw308253.htm It is now easy to type Cherokee thanks to OHAI Technologies and the Rice University Linguistics Department. Houston, Texas (PRWEB) November 10, 2005 -- In 1809 Georgia, a Cherokee silversmith named Sequoyah began creating the ?Talking Leaves? ? a writing system for the Cherokee language. In 1821, 12 years from the original idea, the Cherokee nation adopted Sequoyah's alphabet and within months thousands of Cherokee were literate. Fast-forward 184 years to Houston?s Rice University Linguistics Department where a graduate student and a visiting scholar from a software company create a way to type the Cherokee writing system easily. The graduate student - Chris Koops - has conducted linguistic research on the Cherokee language for the past 2? years. In October, Chris attended a colloquium given by Daniel Mailman, visiting scholar in the department and CEO of OHAI Technologies ? a Houston-based software company. The colloquium was about ?Software Technologies that Make Typing Foreign Languages Easier.? After the colloquium, Chris showed Daniel the difficulties of typing the ?Talking Leaves.? That conversation led to Chris and Daniel collaborating to create oCherokee ? software that actually makes it easy to type the written Cherokee language. According to Chris: ?The basic challenge with typing the Cherokee syllabary is that the characters represent syllables ? and not sounds, as in the English alphabet. That means that there are a lot more characters than our 26 letters. Previous input systems were difficult to use and time-consuming to learn, as they required the user to memorize the position of over 80 keys. OHAI makes it possible to write the Cherokee syllabary without any memorization at all.? Daniel says: ?This was an extremely fun project that shows how fast and easy it is for scholars and software developers to make typing systems for any language. oCherokee isn?t a commercial language product like oChinese, oVietnamese, and our other language products. Nevertheless, we feel that there is social merit to the project, and that it is very much in keeping our commitment to ?21st Century Literacy.? OHAI plans to make oCherokee freely available to linguists, scholars, and students of Cherokee. For information, please contact OHAI?s Communications Manager, Tweed Courtney. ### From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 13 19:42:36 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 12:42:36 -0700 Subject: Knowledge Versus Information Societies (fwd) Message-ID: KNOWLEDGE VERSUS INFORMATION SOCIETIES: UNESCO REPORT TAKES STOCK OF THE DIFFERENCE http://www.unesco.ru/eng/articles/2004/polina10112005141145.php A UNESCO report launched today urges governments to expand quality education for all, increase community access to information and communication technology, and improve cross-border scientific knowledge-sharing, in an effort to narrow the digital and ?knowledge? divides between the North and South and move towards a ?smart? form of sustainable human development. ?Towards Knowledge Societies?*, launched in Paris today by UNESCO Director-General Ko?chiro Matsuura, also advocates making linguistic diversity a priority, sharing environmental knowledge and developing statistical tools to measure knowledge and help policy makers define their priorities. Knowledge societies, the authors** stress, are not to be confused with information societies. Knowledge societies contribute to the well-being of individuals and communities, and encompass social, ethical and political dimensions. Singapore, for example, started out as a developing country of shantytowns at independence and achieved economic growth rates that surpass those of most industrialized nations in just four decades by promoting knowledge (education) and creativity. Less well known is Villa El Salvador in Peru, a community of several thousand people who were evicted from Lima in 1971. Settled in the desert, they built, without any outside assistance, schools and education centers and turned their slum into an organized town of more than 400,000 inhabitants. Ninety-eight percent of children in the town go to school, adult illiteracy is the lowest in the country at 4.5 percent and more than 15,000 students are enrolled in the University of Villa El Salvador or in universities in the capital, Lima. Information societies, on the other hand, are based on technological breakthroughs that risk providing little more than ?a mass of indistinct data? for those who don?t have the skills to benefit from it. The Report, opens a panorama ?that paints the future in both promising and disquieting tones,? says the Director-General, ?promising because the potential offered by a rational and purposeful use of the new technologies offers real prospects for human and sustainable development and the building of more democratic societies; disquieting for the obstacles and snares along the way are all too real.? One of the main obstacles, according to the Report, is the disparity in access to information and communication technology that has become known as the digital divide. Only 11 percent of the world?s population has access to the internet and 90 percent of those connected live in industrialized countries. This digital divide is itself the consequence of a more serious split. ?The knowledge divide,? write the authors, ?today more than ever, separates countries endowed with powerful research and development potential, highly effective education systems and a range of public learning and cultural facilities, from nations with deficient education systems and research institutions starved of resources, and suffering as a result of the brain drain.? Encouraging the development of knowledge societies requires overcoming these gaps, ?consolidating two pillars of the global information society that are still too unevenly guaranteed ? access to information for all and freedom of expression.? Cultural and linguistic diversity are also central to the development of knowledge societies, say the authors, pointing out that local and traditional knowledge can be invaluable for agriculture and health, for example. This category of knowledge, often found in societies where no written language exists, is particularly vulnerable. With one language estimated to be dying out every two weeks, much of this traditional knowledge is being lost. Examples illustrating the utilisation of traditional knowledge, for instance in agriculture in Fiji, are included in the report. The stakes are high, stresses the Report, for the cost of ignorance is greater than the cost of education and knowledge sharing. It argues in favour of societies that are able to integrate all their members and promote new forms of solidarity involving both present and future generations. Nobody, it states, should be excluded from knowledge societies, where knowledge is a public good, available to each and every individual. * The first in a new series of World Reports, ?Towards Knowledge Societies? will be presented at the World Summit on the Information Society (Tunis, November 16-18). The next World Report, scheduled for 2007, will examine cultural diversity **An international team of leading experts and intellectuals, directed by J?r?me Bind?, Deputy Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences and Director of the Division of Foresight, Philosophy and Human Sciences at UNESCO, contributed to the World Report. Full version of the report ?Towards Knowledge Societies" (PDF, 5.5 MB) From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Nov 13 20:02:19 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 13:02:19 -0700 Subject: Rappers rock Pacific jails and charts (fwd) Message-ID: Rappers rock Pacific jails and charts 14 November 2005 http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3478256a4500,00.html PORT MORESBY: The United States may be the home of gangster rap, but in this crime-ridden South Pacific city the gangsters really are rockin' the jails and the music charts. Some of Papua New Guinea's biggest selling music stars have had their careers interrupted by a stint behind bars for bank robbery, armed hold-up or theft. Their chart-busting songs tell of a life of crime, often in Port Moresby where raskol (criminal) gangs rule a city which has had 114 murders so far this year, but also of freedom and love. In a country of 800 tribal languages, these gangster rappers have a unique South Pacific style, singing in English, pidgin English and their native tribal language. Their music is also a blend of rhyming rap, reggae, traditional Papua New Guinea sounds, gospel and pop. Some openly admit that without music they would now be dead. "If I didn't find music I would have died long ago," said a nuggety Willie Tropu, a former bank robber who carries the scars down his right leg from a police shotgun. Advertisement Advertisement Tropu now works as head of security for a bank in downtown Port Moresby when he is not recording his latest album. Simon Tazzi, a former raskol rapper turned music producer, vividly remembers his life in the "Silent Shadows" gang. "I got shot by police a lot of times. A lot of bullets taken out of our bodies a lot of times. A lot of friends die," Tazzi told Reuters at a recording studio in Port Moresby. Like others, Tazzi discovered music while behind bars and once out of jail started recording. But under pressure from his old gang Tazzi found himself wielding a gun in armed robberies, car thefts and burglaries, and eventually back in jail. One of his hits, Kake IB Car (Police Car), tells of a police chase around Port Moresby's dusty streets where houses are hidden behind metal fences and razor wire to keep out raskols. Rapper K. Dumen was serving time for armed robbery when he recorded his music video in jail. Clinging to a prison fence he sings about his lost freedom in Freedom Bilong Me. Warders allowed the video if they were filmed locking Dumen in his cell. Crime is an accepted way of life in PNG for many people struggling to survive in a country where 80 percent of the 5.4 million people eke out subsistence lives in villages, life expectancy is 55.3 years and GDP per capita is $US2619. So far this year in Port Moresby alone there have been 114 murders, 151 rapes, 577 robberies, 671 car thefts, 377 break-ins, 317 assaults and 28 abductions, according to police statistics. "You have thousands of kids coming out of school with no future, no prospect of a job, so the only thing they turn to is crime," said Tazzi. "Some of us who are lucky find another avenue ? for me it was music," he said, adding that he now demands that street kids give up their life of crime before he records them. For the past 25 years PNG's CHM has been building a mini-music empire, recording 3,000 albums, and is now set to launch some of its biggest artists on the international scene. CHM is one of PNG's major electrical importers and retailers, but owner Raymond Chin has always loved music and started playing bass guitar in the 1960s in a band called the "Strangers". Frustrated with the lack of local music on radio stations, he started recording PNG artists and paying stations to play it. The sounds that wafted on the hot, humid airwaves quickly hit a chord with listeners, who rely on radios, not television, for news and entertainment in this mountainous land. As his music label grew, Chin started staging 20,000-strong rock concerts, but this is a tough land and people started throwing rocks at concerts. "A rock concert in PNG really is a rock concert. When someone stands up in front, someone at the back throws a rock and then everyone starts throwing rocks," said Chin. "Law and order problems" eventually made it too risky to attend his concerts at the annual Port Moresby show. Live music shows are now held in secure venues, like the Port Moresby Country Club, behind razor wire and electrified fences, security gates and a caged front door. Chin's CHM Supersound Studios manufactures 60,000 cassette tapes a year (CD players are far too expensive for most people), records artists, produces music videos and broadcasts a regular TV music video programme. "PNG artists are not educated in music school, most are street kids and their talent is raw, but they have a passion to be successful," Chin told Reuters. "There is no charge. We find them and record them free and promote them. Nowhere else in the world can someone walk off the street and become an instant pop star and it costs them nothing." Singer Chris Cassimis is the new face of PNG music. He is dressed in a blue tie-dyed T-shirt and dreadlocks. He looks like a fresh-faced reggae star, but prefers dreamy rhythm and blues. Cassimis is a gang member from the Kaugeree shanty settlement, one of Port Moresby's toughest suburbs, and he is about to record his debut album called Tumbunaman (Ancestor). He no longer steals, but his raskol friends do, and he is often the beneficiary. PNG is a society based on "wantok" or extended family, an unofficial social welfare system. "I don't steal any more but they steal and when they do stuff like that they come and give me money. They are all my brothers," laughs Cassimis. Cassimis says life on the streets is tough. "You have to be careful what you do in Port Moresby. Now heaps of young people hold up people and kill people in PNG. It's scary," he said. "They (my gang) are my protection. If anyone comes up to me and wants to fight me, I just have to go and tell them and they would probably get shot." Cassimis says many PNG musicians are raskols and their rap-style music is fuelled by the pain of their lives. "People sing about crime, their life in prison, life on the street and their life being hungry," he said. "Overseas you have gangster rappers but here heaps of gangsters sing PNG music, you know who they are from what they are singing. When you look at them, you see scary faces." From MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Sun Nov 13 20:32:34 2005 From: MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 13:32:34 -0700 Subject: How babies use their eyes in learning language (fwd link) In-Reply-To: <20051113123622.n4g0cw8c0c48cg8g@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Alan Metzoff is Pat Kuhl's husband, and Pat Kuhl is one of the foremost researchers in how babies model language before they begin to speak. I used all her research in my master's thesis. She has cool (Kuhl) graphs of how babies develop phonemic understandings. I always thought that her research, and her husband's, had much to offer for revitalization - but nobody much agrees with me. Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of phil cash cash Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2005 12:36 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] How babies use their eyes in learning language (fwd link) How babies use their eyes in learning language Infants begin pulling off an amazing feat sometime in the final three months of their first year of life. They learn an important social interaction by following the gaze of an adult, a step that scientists believe gives babies a leg up on understanding language. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=33398 From jtucker at starband.net Mon Nov 14 13:06:09 2005 From: jtucker at starband.net (Jan Tucker) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 08:06:09 -0500 Subject: OHAI Creates Cherokee Software (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20051113123928.aauosgo4k0ggo88o@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Phil, this is exciting, I emailed them to see if they will let me try out oCherokee software. The font is available at Chorokee.org, and I was able to use it on the experimental site I've been working on for some time now. I'm at the stage of just storing lessons, and experimenting with the free version of hotpotatoes to make flash cards and quizzes to go along with the lessons. When I get some time I'll be putting everything together and create lessons with sound bites from Cherokee I. Then will set up classes and invite others test and give feedback. I'm geting the mp3 audio files of the lessons to add. It would be wonderful to collaborate with a Cherokee language instructor. I plan to offer this freely to interested students when it's set up since the actual live course fills up quickly. Jan Tucker -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]On Behalf Of phil cash cash Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2005 2:39 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] OHAI Creates Cherokee Software (fwd) OHAI Creates Cherokee Software http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/11/emw308253.htm It is now easy to type Cherokee thanks to OHAI Technologies and the Rice University Linguistics Department. Houston, Texas (PRWEB) November 10, 2005 -- In 1809 Georgia, a Cherokee silversmith named Sequoyah began creating the ?Talking Leaves? ? a writing system for the Cherokee language. In 1821, 12 years from the original idea, the Cherokee nation adopted Sequoyah's alphabet and within months thousands of Cherokee were literate. Fast-forward 184 years to Houston?s Rice University Linguistics Department where a graduate student and a visiting scholar from a software company create a way to type the Cherokee writing system easily. The graduate student - Chris Koops - has conducted linguistic research on the Cherokee language for the past 2? years. In October, Chris attended a colloquium given by Daniel Mailman, visiting scholar in the department and CEO of OHAI Technologies ? a Houston-based software company. The colloquium was about ?Software Technologies that Make Typing Foreign Languages Easier.? After the colloquium, Chris showed Daniel the difficulties of typing the ?Talking Leaves.? That conversation led to Chris and Daniel collaborating to create oCherokee ? software that actually makes it easy to type the written Cherokee language. According to Chris: ?The basic challenge with typing the Cherokee syllabary is that the characters represent syllables ? and not sounds, as in the English alphabet. That means that there are a lot more characters than our 26 letters. Previous input systems were difficult to use and time-consuming to learn, as they required the user to memorize the position of over 80 keys. OHAI makes it possible to write the Cherokee syllabary without any memorization at all.? Daniel says: ?This was an extremely fun project that shows how fast and easy it is for scholars and software developers to make typing systems for any language. oCherokee isn?t a commercial language product like oChinese, oVietnamese, and our other language products. Nevertheless, we feel that there is social merit to the project, and that it is very much in keeping our commitment to ?21st Century Literacy.? OHAI plans to make oCherokee freely available to linguists, scholars, and students of Cherokee. For information, please contact OHAI?s Communications Manager, Tweed Courtney. ### From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 14 16:23:56 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 09:23:56 -0700 Subject: Ecuadorian professor gives U students indigenous perspectives (fwd) Message-ID: Ecuadorian professor gives U students indigenous perspectives By: Jed Layton Issue date: 11/14/05 Section: News http://media.www.dailyutahchronicle.com/media/paper244/news/2005/11/14/News/Ecuadorian.Professor.Gives.U.Students.Indigenous.Perspectives-1056374.shtml?sourcedomain=www.dailyutahchronicle.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com [photo inset - Media Credit: Maegan Burr Luz Maria de la Torre, a professor at Arizona State University, shared her experiences with students while visiting the U last week.] Luz Maria de la Torre considers herself lucky to be where she is today-a professor at Arizona State University. Originally from an indigenous population in Ecuador, de la Torre, now an outreach coordinator for ASU, struggled to become educated in a hostile environment. "My father said women should not be able to study," de la Torre explained. "But my mother helped me to get through high school and eventually university." De la Torre-speaking through a Spanish translator-shared her experiences and knowledge with students and faculty while visiting the U. De la Torre said the experiences and knowledge she has gained in American universities will benefit both the universities she visits and her own home country. "The history of my indigenous people has been very negative until now," she said. "This is not only a great experience for me, it is a great experience for them." Isabel Dulfano, an assistant professor of Spanish, applied for the Dee grant that brought de la Torre to the U. She said that de la Torre was invited because she is a pioneer in indigenous culture and language. "Maria is one of an emerging group of indigenous intellectuals," she said. "These intellectuals are linked to opposition to neoliberal reforms that have impoverished native populations." While visiting, de la Torre worked in collaboration with multiple U professors, like Ken Jamison in economics, and even taught individual classes. She also worked with professors in history, Spanish and linguistics. Dulfano said she especially appreciated the knowledge de la Torre has in languages and enjoyed the two lectures de la Torre gave on Spanish and Kichwa languages. De la Torre grew up speaking the indigenous language of Kichwa and learned Spanish at the age of 7. "As a teenager, I learned two other indigenous languages," she said. "I also studied French while in France." De la Torre said that American institutions-especially the U-are different from those in Ecuador and most of South America. "In Ecuador we say a big university has 3,000 students," she said. "But the U is a big, large university with many more students." She also noted that American universities place greater importance on gaining an understanding of indigenous people and languages than do the universities of South America. j.layton at chronicle.utah.edu From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 14 16:28:29 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 09:28:29 -0700 Subject: Illiniwek appeal denied (fwd) Message-ID: The Daily Illini - News Issue: 11/14/05 Illiniwek appeal denied By Courtney Linehan http://www.dailyillini.com/media/paper736/news/2005/11/14/News/Illiniwek.Appeal.Denied-1056207.shtml Chief Illiniwek is hostile and abusive despite the University's "good intentions and best efforts," the NCAA announced Friday as it denied Illinois' appeal of its inclusion in a policy banning American Indian imagery from postseason contests. Four weeks after receiving Illinois' appeal, the NCAA staff review committee changed its tune of the past few months, stating the names "Illini" and "Fighting Illini" are not American Indian-based and therefore do not create a "hostile and abusive" environment on campus. Chief Illiniwek, the association said, is another case. "By continuing to use Native American nicknames, mascots and imagery, institutions assume responsibility over an environment which they cannot fully control," Bernard Franklin, NCAA senior vice-president for governance and membership, said in a prepared statement released Friday. "Fans, opponents and others can and will exhibit behaviors that indeed are hostile and abusive to Native Americans." The NCAA refused to comment beyond Franklin's one-page statement. A request Friday to speak to media relations representatives was denied and e-mails earlier in the week were not returned. University spokesman Tom Hardy said the University sees the NCAA response as a victory on the Illini and Fighting Illini names, but a setback in regard to Chief Illiniwek and the Board of Trustees' work toward its own decision. "The case was basically that the Board has its self-autonomous institutional process and should be able to carry that out without interference from the NCAA," Hardy said. Franklin's statement did not mention anything about the University's argument that the NCAA policy interfered with the Board of Trustees' own guiding principles regarding Illiniwek. In 2004 the Board adopted a "consensus resolution" policy, saying it hoped to bring Illiniwek supporters and opponents together to find the best solution for the campus and community. The Board approved a set of guidelines for coming to this resolution at its July meeting, a few weeks prior to the NCAA policy's release. "Obviously, the University and the Board of Trustees felt institutional autonomy and self-determination are a major reason for the institution to be exempt from the list," Hardy said. "It is apparent by its response that the NCAA wasn't persuaded by that argument yet, as they had minimal response to that in their decision announced Friday." Board Chairman Lawrence Eppley said in a press release that he is grateful the NCAA agreed with the University that "Illini" is a term derived from the name of the state and is not a reference to the people who once lived here. "I am pleased the NCAA recognized what we've maintained all along," Eppley said. "'Illini' is taken from the name of our patron state and 'Fighting Illini' refers to our University's winning spirit and drive to excel." Hardy said the official response sent to the University addressed the 1995 U.S. Office of Civil Rights finding that Chief Illiniwek did not create a hostile environment on campus. He said the NCAA cited anecdotal evidence suggesting there have been instances of hostility since then, but he added that the University recently began a faculty-led inquest into whether Chief Illiniwek affects students' educations. "It's a bit of a head scratcher when you consider that the Office of Civil Rights is an entire agency to ensure the enforcement of the Civil Rights Act," Hardy said. "They came in, spent time on campus, talked to a lot of people and watched Chief Illiniwek perform." Franklin's statement said the NCAA's decision was based on the staff review committee's own research, discussions with relevant American Indian groups and information provided by the University. While the NCAA release did not provide further detail, John Froman, chief of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, said the NCAA did contact him. The Peoria are the descendents of members of the "Illiniwek" confederation. Froman said he told the NCAA that the term "Illini" was not a part of the Peoria language, and that his tribe was never called the Illini. He said the NCAA asked if he'd had recent contact with the University regarding the Chief, and what the tribe's official position regarding Chief Illiniwek was. "I told them the Chief was not representative of our tribe and culture, mainly because the costume is Sioux," Froman said. Hardy said the Board has not decided how to handle the NCAA's denial of the Chief Illiniwek portion of the appeal. The next appeal option is for the University to go directly to the NCAA executive committee. The NCAA continuously reiterates that its goal is not to force any school to alter its mascot, logo, or nickname. The requirement, the association says, is that member institutions comply with the NCAA's non-discrimination policy and "promote an atmosphere of respect for and sensitivity to the dignity of every person." "At an ever-increasing rate of occurrence and volume, Native Americans have expressed their objections to the use of names, terms, imagery and mascots associated with athletic teams," Franklin's statement said. No immediate change is planned at Illinois; Chief Illiniwek appeared as scheduled at volleyball and women's basketball games this weekend. He will perform when men's basketball opens its regular season against South Dakota State on Friday and when football closes its season against Northwestern on Saturday. While the Board is not scheduled to meet again until January, it could possibly add a meeting to discuss the NCAA decision. "The Board hasn't determined when it's going to make a decision about what the next approach is going to be," Hardy said. The NCAA policy, which goes into effect Feb. 1, 2006, prohibits the display of American Indian mascots, logos and nicknames in NCAA-sponsored postseason competitions. It also prohibits NCAA members using American Indian imagery from hosting postseason events. These include NCAA-sanctioned Division-I bowl games, men's and women's basketball NIT tournaments and post-season tournaments for all NCAA sports. So far, at least half of the 18 schools originally deemed "hostile and abusive" have appealed: -The Florida State Seminoles, Utah Utes and Central Michigan Chippewas got the OK because namesake tribes supported the uses. -The Bradley Braves, Newberry College Indians and Illinois Fighting Illini appealed but lost and remain on the list. -The North Dakota Fighting Sioux appealed, lost and are currently awaiting a decision on their second appeal. -The Indiana University-Pennsylvania Indians and McMurray University Indians appealed, but have not received word from the NCAA. -The Catawba College Indians and University of Louisiana-Monroe Indians are both preparing appeals. -The Arkansas State Indians are considering an appeal. The Southeastern Oklahoma State Savages are re-evaluating the use of their nickname. -Midwestern State dropped its "Indians" name to avoid application of the NCAA policy. Carthage College changed its nickname from "Redmen" to "Red Men," which the NCAA approved. -Alcorn State, the only school on the list with a representative on the NCAA Executive Committee, says it has no plans to appeal and is considering a name change. -Calls to Chowan College (Braves) and Mississippi College (Choctaws) were not returned by press time. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 14 16:40:04 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 09:40:04 -0700 Subject: Turia Speech: Opening of Te Ra o Te Reo Festival (fwd) Message-ID: Turia Speech: Opening of Te Ra o Te Reo Festival Monday, 14 November 2005, 8:45 am Speech: The Maori Party http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0511/S00154.htm Te Rauparapa Park; Porirua Tariana turia, co-leader, maori party member of parliament for te tai hauauru saturday 12 November 2005; 10am E nga mana, e nga reo, tena koutou. Ngati Toa Rangatira, tena koutou. E nga kaiwhakahaere o tenei hui, tena hoki koutou. Na te ngutukura ko te hinengaro, na te hinengaro ko te mahara, na te mahara ko te whakaaro, na te whakaaro ko te korero, ma te korero ka tu he tikanga, he taonga nui te reo. I tipu mai te reo i te whenua, ahakoa kei whea, i nga tipuna ahakoa ko wai. Ma te reo ka mohiotia no whea, ko wai hoki tatou. I was so humbled to be invited to come along today, to Te Ra o te Reo, mai i nga tipuna. Sometimes life can be pretty hard-going - this week we have felt that perhaps more than most - and we all need to find ways to restore and regain a sense of joy, of pride, of well-being. And what better way than to be here, celebrating the sharing of our language across our diverse and wonderful cultures. I want to really acknowledge the hard work of Jacqui Keelan and the support of Ma Te Reo, Auahi Kore, Waru Records and all the others that have made today possible. Language is to be treasured - it is from our words and our korero that our customs and our culture is affirmed. The language of the people is the language of the land regardless of where that land may be, it is also of the ancestors regardless of who they may be. Language identifies where we are from and from whose birth waters we have come. >From where I come from we say, ?Ko au te awa, ko te awa ko awa? which places me as uri, descendant of the Whanganui River. Literally I am the river and the river is me. In those nine small kupu, the connections to our cultural and natural heritage are summed up. It distinguishes between the physical and spiritual dimension that binds the people to the river as it travels from the mountains to the sea. It also speaks of the well-being of te awa tupuna, our ancestral river, as being intertwined with own well-being. And all it took was nine words! That importance of the connection between our language and our identity is core to the source of magic for the best of RnR hip hop in te reo - with the roopu, Ko Au. I have had the pleasure of meeting Ko Au a number of times over the last few years, and it is so exciting to hear their fresh, rap sound in te reo. They bring with them the best of being Ngati Porou, Whanau a Apanui, being tangata whenua. Ko Au - and they?re playing here this afternoon. Another of the artists that will be here this afternoon, Sane Sagala, has spoken about his decision to reflect the pride of his language, the strength of his whakapapa, in his use of the name, Dei Hamo. He said: ?Dei Hamo; meaning "I am Samoan", is a strong statement about identity and representation. Yes, to represent, it's the unbroken code of hip-hop, affirmation of self, family, street and community. Without that you just got nothin'?. Whether it?s te reo, or Niue, or Samoan, or Mandarin - our language is the way in which we explain our world. It preserves and protects our whakapapa, our identity, our culture. Our language expresses not just what we think but how we think. It expresses not just what we are saying but who we are. A people's language is a priceless treasure and no culture can survive without it. Sir James Henare talked of the language as being the core of our Maori culture and mana, the indigenous tongue of this land. Ko te reo te mauri o te mana M?ori If the language dies, as some predict, what do we have left to us? Then, I ask our own people who are we?... Therefore the taonga, our M?ori language, as far as our people are concerned, is the very soul of the M?ori people. It doesn?t have to be hard. It doesn?t have to be a full on whaikorero, delivered with all the force of our finest orators. Sometimes it may be as simple as two words. But even two words can change the world. Twenty years ago in 1984, Aotearoa was brought to a standstill by exactly that - just two words. >From the day Naida Glavich started working at the Post Office in 1971 she had always said ?Kia ora, Tolls here? as a greeting indigenous to this country, a tangata whenua right - a way of connecting to the callers who rang through on the switchboard. That simple salutation did not meet with the approval of a new supervisor, who wanted to standardise the greetings. Naida was told at her age, that language was unacceptable and she was placed on ?off-board? duties. Naida got into her car and drove away, pondering her next move. ?I heard this voice in my ear saying to me ?Nui ake tenei take ia koe? - this issue is far greater than just you. I thought it was the wind whistling away, so I wound the window up. I heard the voice again. At that point I realised I couldn?t back off?. We all need to listen out for those voices inside us, that remind us of who we are, and take small steps to make the impossible possible. I had a laugh last night looking at a NZ tourism website where it explained the New Zealand welcome as: ?kia ora means hello or in NZ speak gidday. The young ones tend to say "kia ora bro" and the old ones tend to say "kia ora" and give you a hongi. So haven?t we come a long way - from the simple resistance of one telephone operator to our reo becoming the NZ norm. Thinking back to that ?kia ora story?, Selwyn Muru once said ?I have timed the length of time it takes to say kia ora, its shorter than the length of time it takes to say good evening or good morning. However to expect a Maori to say good morning or good evening is like expecting a kaka to sound like a seagull.? What we can all celebrate here today is that whether we are a kaka or a seagull, the path we fly will be unique to us - and Te Ra o te Reo is here to shout out loud, to be proud, to be who we are. Ki a koutou, nga matua, nga whanau - kia ora koutou, kia ora tatou katoa. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 14 16:49:20 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 09:49:20 -0700 Subject: Learning around the drum (fwd) Message-ID: Sat November 12, 2005 Learning around the drum By Judy Gibbs Robinson The Oklahoman http://newsok.com/article/1675792/?template=home/main NORMAN -- Eleven men and one boy sit around a powwow drum, thumping it with padded sticks to a slow rhythm set by the leader, whose eyes are closed. [test inset - American Indian songs. Indian songs are passed orally from singer to singer, and in recent years from tape to singer -- not written down. The most popular form of Plains powwow singing and dancing is the war dance or grass dance. All war dance songs have a recognized compositional form, accepted by all Plains tribes. Many Plains songs are composed entirely of vocables -- sounds with no linguistic meaning. This allowed songs to be passed from one tribe to another for hundreds of years, regardless of language. Source: "A Brief Introduction to Plains Indian Singing" by Tony Isaacs, 1990, at www.indianhouse.com] When a half-minute passes with no voice joining in, the drummers dart glances at John Kemble, a Ponca elder leading this powwow singing class at the Jacobson House in Norman. Kemble's eyes remain closed; his brow furrowed. He covers his lips with one hand, muttering to himself. Finally, the hand drops, and he sings -- high and loud and clear. The others join in. Later, Kemble explains the delay getting started: "I forgot the words," he said, smiling sheepishly. Because powwow singing is an oral tradition, every generation has more to learn and remember as the body of songs increases. Kemble, who is 70, guesses he knows hundreds of them and has composed a few himself in more than 50 years of powwow singing. Now he hopes to pass on some of his knowledge in a four-week class that includes experienced powwow drummers, music students and true beginners. The Jacobson House, a center devoted to both Indian and Scandinavian cultures, offers the singing classes every year. Last year, the emphasis was on Northern style singing, which is done in a high falsetto. This year Kemble is teaching the Southern style as the Poncas practice it. "I think he's the right guy for the job," said Jacobson House director Russ Tall Chief. "There's a lot of good people who can do it, but he does it in a way that's accessible to students." Kemble begins one class by discussing drum circle etiquette -- dress nicely; don't eat or drink except from a shared water bucket; don't enter or leave the drum circle without permission from the head singer. "These rules, they're not written. Nobody tells you," Kemble said. "You learn these things as you go out to the drums." The songs, likewise, are unwritten. "There's no book or anything. The songs I learned, I learned around the drum and through practical experience," Kemble said. Kim Tiger, a Creek woman who has been singing around the drum since she was 12, said she, too, learned by years of listening. "There's so many songs today. And it isn't like a jukebox. It's something you have to have so you can recollect at a moment's notice," Tiger said. Kemble called on her to describe the role of women in the drum circle. They participate as backup singers but never sit at the drum. "It's difficult to explain when to come in. You just know," Tiger told the class. Many powwow songs contain no real words, Kemble said. Others have a few words that convey broad meanings. For example, one song with the Ponca words for "behold," "flag," and "warriors" can be interpreted broadly as an incitement to patriotism, he said. Another song includes Ponca words that translate literally as "a message came down from the mountain." Kemble said it is about a sentinel sending word to the tribe that danger was coming. The Ponca language proved a challenge for Cynthia Baker of Norman, who is taking the class to further her appreciation of Indian culture. "I've gone to powwows as a spectator. I thought it would be very beneficial if I had some idea what it was I was hearing. So I came to see if I could learn some of the lyrics and how the songs are structured," she said. After two Wednesday night lessons, Baker still was having trouble distinguishing between the Ponca words and the vocables -- sounds such as "yo-he-yo" that are composed into the songs but have no linguistic meaning. "I'm hoping the practice tape will help," she said. Bill Dengler of Norman started going to powwows after moving to Oklahoma about eight years ago. His goal is to learn more about the songs and improve his rapport with the people he meets at powwows. "I don't see myself really learning all the songs. That would be nice, but I don't think I really have the language ability to really start," Dengler said. Kemble admits learning powwow singing is a challenge. Baker said the effort is worthwhile if it helps keep Indian traditions alive. "It's a very interesting and beautiful culture, and I want to see it survive -- not just for the people who are Native Americans but for the rest of us. And I'd like to help by understanding as much as I can," she said. From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Mon Nov 14 19:09:09 2005 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 12:09:09 -0700 Subject: Fwd: Passing of Vine In-Reply-To: <20051114112117.88y1fk0g88cggg8c@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: ----- Forwarded message from andrekar at ncidc.org ----- Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 09:35:25 -0800 From: Andre Cramblit Reply-To: Andre Cramblit Subject: Passing of Vine Friends: Vine Deloria, Jr., passed away yesterday. Here is the Colorado AIM Blog site. And below is my note to the Iliff faculty last night. Apologies to those who got my email last night, but I wanted you all to see the Colorado AIM Blog about Vine. http://www.coloradoaim.org/blog/2005/11/in-honor-of-vine-deloria-jr -1933-2005.html Dear colleagues: At six am this morning I lost a mentor and a friend who was also a friend of Iliff School of Theology. The American Indian world lost a great champion. Professor Vine Deloria, Jr., had been struggling, as many of you know, with colon surgery from more than a month ago. About two weeks ago that was complicated with an abdominal aneurysm and underwent surgery for that. He died of complication from the latter after a couple of follow-up surgeries this past week. He was a giant among American Indian intellectuals, teachers, and writers. He will be terribly missed by much more than myself. Since this has just transpired and I have just this evening returned from Palestine, I do not know what the arrangements are. Indeed, Barbara will not be able to contact a funeral home until tomorrow, since Vine passed on a Sunday. She has asked that we give her another day or two in personal retreat before we begin to contact her with condolences, etc. Their children have already gathered around her. For those who are interested, I will pass on the information as it becomes available. I know I do not need to rehearse the multitude of his accomplishments for most of you. I was told in 1985 when I was first hired at Iliff that it was his letter of recommendation that pushed my name to the top of the stack. He was not on my list of referees. At that point in my career, I would not have dreamed of even asking him. But Iliff had its own relationship with Vine and approached him unbeknownst to me. In a curious turn-about, the University of Colorado asked me for a letter of reference on his behalf in the process leading to their offering a position to him a few years later. He had retired as an emeritus professor from CU only about three or four years ago. I believe he was 73 years old. I was not prepared to lose such an important discourse partner. The American Indian world is hurt by this loss. He was not yet done writing. Tink Dr. Tink Tinker (Osage Nation) Professor of American Indian Cultures and Religious Traditions Iliff School of Theology ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D. Department of English Affiliate faculty: Department of Linguistics and the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching Program American Indian Language Development Institute Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 3352 bytes Desc: not available URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Nov 15 20:53:29 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 13:53:29 -0700 Subject: Navajos turn sights on schools (fwd) Message-ID: Deseret Morning News, Tuesday, November 15, 2005 http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635161241,00.html Navajos turn sights on schools Navajo Nation steps forward and creates its own department of education By Deborah Bulkeley Deseret Morning News For many American Indian youths, the educational outlook is bleak. In some cases, youths are more likely to drop out of high school than to graduate. [photo inset - Students are bused in to Monument Valley High School, located on the Navajo Indian Reservation south of Blanding. San Juan School District] The Navajo Nation has taken a step towards putting education into its own hands by creating a department of education. Leland Leonard, Navajo tribal education director, said there hasn't been much improvement for Navajo youths since No Child Left Behind became law in 2001. In 2004, the State Office of Education reported that just under 71 percent of American Indian youths in Utah graduated from high school. "The states and the (Bureau of Indian Affairs) are not doing it," Leonard said. "This is an initiative of exercising our sovereignty, our inherited right to reform the educational system on the Navajo Nation." Leonard said in July the Navajo Nation amended its Title 10 education code to create its own department of education and is also establishing a school board. The department will look at the "unique language and culture and incorporating those into the curriculum" over the next decade at about 180 schools in the Four Corners region. "The Navajo language and character development, those are all essential tools our kids need to learn," he said. Shirlee Silversmith, Indian education specialist at the State Office of Education, said the Navajo Nation already had an education director, and the restructuring provides more authority in areas such as accessing data. "There would be a greater direction for cooperation as well as collaboration," she said. "A lot of this is based on sovereignty rights of tribes. It puts our American Indians in a unique status that will allow tribes to establish themselves as state departments of education." Many tribes, she said, conduct their own research and analysis of data so they can better assist students and parents. "The Navajo Nation is probably one of the largest tribes across the nation and is in the forefront as far as developing and establishing themselves as a tribal education department," she said. [photo inset - Seniors at Monument Valley High participate in the school's annual homecoming parade. San Juan School District] Silversmith said every Utah tribe has an education director, and she believes that eventually, the others may move in the same direction as the Navajos. She pointed to a charter high school on the Uintah-Ouray Indian Reservation in eastern Utah as another empowering move. Toni Turk, federal programs administrator for San Juan School District in southeastern Utah, said his district's graduation rate is about 95 percent. Last year, his district reported five dropouts ? three were American Indian, two were white. The San Juan School District educates 1,643 American Indian students, the overwhelming majority of them Navajo. San Juan is unique in Utah, in that more than half of the district's 2,921 students are American Indian. There are Navajo students in 11 of 12 schools, some of which are adjacent to or on the reservation. "Their role is to support public education," Turk said. "They were emphatic about the fact this is not intended as a takeover of public education, nor is it a raid on the resources. "To some degree this is going to impact most of the schools in the district," he said. For some schools, in which nearly all students are Navajo, "they are going to have much bigger involvement." Turk said San Juan is already doing some things that would fall under the new accountability standards, such as teaching the Navajo language in grades K-12 and incorporating cultural instruction. "In Navajo language and culture instruction, they see us as a partner. They would like to have other districts emulate the San Juan District." Cameron Cuch, former Ute education director, said that tribe's charter high school is in its seventh year of opening doors for youth achievement. Cuch said the reservation's dropout rate has ranged from 60 percent to 80 percent since the 1960s, and the charter school is helping reduce that rate. More American Indian students graduate from the school than from both off-reservation public high schools in the area, he said. [photo inset - Kasfondra Morgan, left, and Mariah Taylor are dressed up for Navajo Culture Day at Monument Valley High School. San Juan School District] "It's within our own community, and kids are getting a lot more opportunities than they are in other high schools," he said. Youths have more opportunities to participate in sports or take field trips, such as last year's trip to the Sundance Film Festival, he said. There's also the matter of being able to teach tribal priorities, such as caring for people and protecting lands, wildlife and water rights. "When we operate our own schools, we can instill that sense of responsibility into young people," he said. Leaders hope they'll continue their education and return to serve as teachers, lawyers, doctors, or in whatever profession they choose, he said. Research into tribal education has found that students who have support from traditional families and communities have a more positive educational experience, said Carol Ward, associate sociology professor at Brigham Young University and author of "Native Americans in the School System: Family, Community and Academic Achievement." "Many tribes have responded to the complexity of schooling for Native American students," she said. "They have responded by saying 'I think we can do schooling better.' " That happens by integrating culture and language into the curriculum in a way that makes education more relevant, she said. Ward looked at three schools on the Northern Cheyenne reservation in Montana in the late 1980s and early '90s ? a public school and a Catholic school, both off the reservation, and a community tribal school. Her research found that students who went to their local tribal school did better, in large part because of increased parental involvement. "The interaction between parents and kids and the school . . . the relationships they have can create a really positive environment," she said. "When the parents are involved, that tells the kids, 'This is important.' " [photo inset - Wanda Ketchum, a White Mesa Ute Indian and elementary aide at Blanding Elementary School, works with Robert Turk, a fifth-grade teacher at Blanding. The district's graduation rate is about 95 percent. San Juan School District] She said parents also help to bridge the cultural gap at schools where most teachers aren't American Indians. At schools where students were bused from their community, it was more difficult to establish that relationship. She said the tribal school's dropout rate was just over half, but for just the students from the town where it was located, it was only about 10 percent. "What the Navajo Nation is also trying to address, is more people be involved in schooling and their own work," she said, "more of a partnership between the community and the school." E-mail: dbulkeley at desnews.com ? 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 16 18:54:31 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 11:54:31 -0700 Subject: One language for 'children of different colours' (fwd) Message-ID: One language for 'children of different colours' [photo inset - Getting to know you: Wesley grade 3 pupils Harry Fortune and Stephanie Fung, both 9, with Bayulu Community School pupils Hayden Smith and Edmond Smiler, both 11. Photo: Penny Stephens] By Chee Chee Leung, Education Reporter November 17, 2005 http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/one-language-for-children-of-different-colours/2005/11/16/1132016861347.html?oneclick=true# THERE are nearly twice as many students attending Wesley College as there are people living in the largely Aboriginal town of Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia. But these two communities, almost at opposite ends of the country, have joined forces in a bid to preserve an endangered indigenous language. In a trial project to be announced tonight, Wesley College will spend a term next year teaching the Bunuba language and culture to its grade 4 pupils. It is believed to be the first time the language will be taught to schoolchildren outside the indigenous communities of Western Australia. June Oscar, chairwoman of the Kimberley Language Resource Centre, said there were only about 60 older people who could speak the language fluently. "If we don't know our language, we don't know our country, we don't know how we live," said Ms Oscar, a Bunuba speaker. "It's a great and fantastic opportunity for both our community and the Wesley community. "With an understanding of the language, a whole new world is able to be understood." Grade 3 student Stephanie Fung is one Wesley pupil looking forward to the Bunuba classes. "It's fun when you learn different languages," the nine-year-old said. "You learn about how they live and what they do." Wesley College is among a number of independent schools ? including Scotch College and Carey Baptist Grammar School in Melbourne's east ? that have pursued relationships with Aboriginal communities. The Bunuba language initiative at Wesley is part of a broader partnership between the independent school and the Fitzroy Valley community of the Kimberley region. The town of Fitzroy Crossing, within the Fitzroy Valley, is about 2600 kilometres north-east of Perth. Wesley pupils and teachers visited the town in August, and a group of Fitzroy Crossing pupils have been in Melbourne since Sunday. "It's nice and cold ? too cold," said Edmond Smiler, of the Bayulu Community School. The 11-year-old also noticed that there were many children "of different colours" at Wesley. "You make friends out of them," he said. REACHING OUT SCHOOL PROJECTS ? Carey Baptist Grammar School has developed a relationship with the Robinson River School, in a remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory. Student exchanges that started this year are expected to continue, and teacher secondments are under consideration. ? Trinity Grammar School offers four scholarships a year for indigenous students, in partnership with Melbourne University. Among the recipients for next year are two boys from the Northern Territory. ? Scotch College offers two scholarships each year to students from the Tiwi Islands, north of Darwin, where boys spend a term as boarders at the school. So far six students from the Tiwi Islands have attended Scotch under this program. ? Wesley College has established a partnership with the Fitzroy Valley community in Western Australia, which includes student and teacher exchanges, and plans to develop a curriculum to teach Aboriginal languages. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 16 19:25:23 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 12:25:23 -0700 Subject: Women Increasingly Pick Husbands' Surnames Over Their Own (fwd) Message-ID: Wed Nov 16 09:22:25 2005 Pacific Time University of Florida Study: Women Increasingly Pick Husbands' Surnames Over Their Own http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20051116.070823&time=09%2022%20PST&year=2005&public=1 GAINESVILLE, Fla., Nov. 16 (AScribe Newswire) -- What's in a name - or two names? Quite a bit, says a University of Florida professor, whose research finds that a growing number of brides are returning to tradition when taking a man's hand in marriage, assuming his name instead of keeping their own as a symbol of independent identity. "Adopting a husband's last name remains an entrenched tradition that is on the upswing, despite a temporary blip in the '70s, '80s and early '90s where many young women tended to want to hold on to their birth names," said UF linguistics professor Diana Boxer, who led a series of studies. "I think it reflects how men's power continues to influence American society despite the fact that women have made great advances economically and socially." The exception is highly educated women in academic and professional positions, said Boxer, whose research was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The survey involved 134 married women ranging in age from their 20s to their 70s who lived in various parts of the United States. Boxer found that only 24 -- 18 percent -- had kept their own names, compared with 107 -- 77 percent -- who took a husband's name. The rest used hyphenated or other names. Family unity was the most frequently mentioned reason. "Taking on my husband's last name was an outward sign of our union," explained one woman. "It served to make me feel that I was 'really married' and that we were forming a brand new family." Children were the most important issue of family unity for these women, who sought to avoid the hassle and confusion of having more than one surname in the family, Boxer said. But while divorced women would not return to their birth surname because they wanted the same name as their children, they did not hesitate to adopt a new husband's name at remarriage, even though it meant their name now differed from that of their children, she said. While all the women who retained their birth surnames were satisfied with their choice, some who changed expressed regret, Boxer said. "I associate my new surname with my husband's relatives, whom I dislike," said one participant. Another woman was disappointed to lose a symbol of her ethnic heritage in giving up her Italian name. Understanding naming traditions is important because they give clues about underlying social patterns and shifts in attitudes about expected roles for women, said Boxer, who presented some of the findings at the International Association of Applied Linguistics meeting in Madison, Wis., in July. "People say 'It's only a name, what's in a name?' Well, we think there's a lot in a name," she said. "Linguistic symbols tell us how people are treated in society." The practice of women automatically taking their husband's surnames was first challenged in the mid-19th century by abolitionist Lucy Stone, Boxer said. From then on, women who retained their birth names after marriage came to be called "Lucy Stoners," with negative connotations, she said. "In a 1997 study of more than 10,000 Midwesterners, men thought women who kept their surnames were more likely to work outside the home, less likely to enjoy cooking, less likely to attend church and - this is the clincher - less likely to make good wives," she said. Other cultures are more accepting, Boxer said. In rural Pakistan, women retain their birth names unless they need to request a government document, while in Norway children automatically receive the mother's name unless a couple tells authorities otherwise, she said. Among 103 Russian women whom Boxer's co-author, Elena Gritsenko, surveyed in a cross-cultural comparison, only 17 percent retained their birth surname at marriage. But while most Russian women mentioned cultural traditions and the desire to maintain good relations with their husband's family, American women expressed more romantic notions, she said. "Ever since I have been a little girl, I've been dreaming of the day I change my name to my future husband's name, and I still feel that way," said one young woman in Boxer's class. Among 18 female students in Boxer's sociolinguistics class that she interviewed as part of a separate study, 11 said they would take their husband's surname, three would hyphenate, three would use both names, and only one said she would retain her birth surname. While women say taking their partner's surname symbolizes their union, few men have such sentiments, said Boxer, noting that it is rare for the male partner to consider changing his surname. "Why do even young women who hold feminist viewpoints look forward to taking their husband's surname?" she said. "Why do women do the merging?" Marlis Hellinger, a linguistics professor at the University of Frankfurt/Main, said naming practices are a "central issue in research on language and gender. Boxer's important contribution focuses on questions of change and explanations, but also opens up the field to include cross-cultural perspectives." - - - - CONTACTS: Diana Boxer, 352-466-0880, 283-1172, dboxer at ufl.edu Cathy Keen, UF News Office, 352-392-0186, ckeen at ufl.edu From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 16 19:38:25 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 12:38:25 -0700 Subject: Women Increasingly Pick Husbands' Surnames Over Their Own (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20051116122523.8g0co0cc0004w4kw@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: my apologies...this news item was meant for a linguistic anthropology listserv and not ILAT. Please enjoy the reading though. Phil UofA ILAT Quoting phil cash cash : > Wed Nov 16 09:22:25 2005 Pacific Time > > University of Florida Study: Women Increasingly Pick Husbands' > Surnames Over Their Own > From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 16 19:46:53 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 12:46:53 -0700 Subject: African-led fund aimed at digital divide (fwd link) Message-ID: Posted 11/13/2005 5:15 PM African-led fund aimed at digital divide By Anick Jesdanun, Associated Press An African-led initiative that will use high-speed Internet connections to treat AIDS patients in Burundi and Burkina Faso offers inspiration for those working to bridge the world's digital divide. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2005-11-13-africa-digital-divide_x.htm From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Thu Nov 17 13:26:39 2005 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (d_z_o) Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 13:26:39 -0000 Subject: Fwd: International Indigenous Business and Entrepreneurship Conference, Expo, M Message-ID: FYI... DZO --- In MINEL at yahoogroups.com, Gordon Bronitsky wrote: We are delighted to announce that the website is finally on-line for the International Indigenous Business and Entrepreneurship Conference, June 19-22, 2006, Albuquerque, NM USA. Please visit http:/iibec.mgt.unm.edu. The theme will be "Fostering Indigenous Entrepreneurship" Who Should Attend? Academicians, business professionals, government, NGOs, students, and anyone interested in learning and sharing experiences pertaining to Indigenous Entrepreneurship and Economic Development. Call for Papers: Papers should focus on the conference main theme and related topics such as financing of Indigenous Entrepreneurship, marketing Indigenous products, services, and technologies, indigenous gaming industry, media, entertainment, fashion & design, culture, Indigenous literature (Indigenous languages and National languages), traditional values, ethics and entrepreneurship, biopiracy, mining, fishing and gaming, environmentally friendly technologies, indigenous sustainable entrepreneurship, and the role of regional, federal and multilateral agencies and NGOs in promoting indigenous entrepreneurship. Case studies on indigenous entrepreneurship in Asia, Oceania, Africa, Latin America, North America, and Europe are invited. The website also contains information about registration and sponsorship opportunities. Sandia Pueblo's new Resort and Casino is hosting the Conference, and the website also contains reservation information for your stay at this stunning new tribally-owned resort. A major part of the entertainment at IIBEC will be IndigeNOW, an international evening of contemporary Indigenous music. Please ask any interested contemporary Indigenous musicians in any genre to contact Gordon Bronitsky as soon as possible. Another key component of IIBEC will be an International Indigenous Business Expo in which Indigenous businesspeople, entrepreneurs, communities and regions can showcase their experience, products, tourism, and more. Again, please contact Gordon Bronitsky as soon as possible if you are interested in being an exhibitor. We also hope to work with Conference participants to create an International Indigenous Business and Entrepreneurship Association. We hope to see you in New Mexico in June! Gordon Bronitsky, PhD Senior Consultant International Indigenous Business and Entrepreneurship Conference Jaye Francis Conference Coordinator International Indigenous Business and Entrepreneurship Conference Raul Gouvea, PhD Conference Chair International Indigenous Business and Entrepreneurship Conference --- End forwarded message --- From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Nov 17 17:21:28 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 10:21:28 -0700 Subject: Cheap laptops are planned for kids (fwd link) Message-ID: The Associated Press/TUNIS, Tunisia By MATT MOORE Associated Press Writer Cheap laptops are planned for kids NOV. 17 10:18 A.M. ET A cheap laptop boasting wireless network access and a hand-crank to provide electricity are expected to start shipping in February or March to help extend technology to school-aged children worldwide. http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8DU9ULG0.htm?campaign_id=apn_tech_down&chan=tc From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Nov 18 00:28:40 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 17:28:40 -0700 Subject: 2nd Annual Sahaptian Conference - February 24-26, 2006 Message-ID: NILI and Heritage University are excited to be hosting the 2nd Annual Sahaptian Conference on February 24-26, in Toppenish WA. We had an amazing turnout last year, and it was a wonderful event of sharing and reunion. This year we invite teachers and learners of all Sahaptin and Nez Perce dialects to join us for workshops, discussions, and presentations focusing on: 1) language curriculum development and sharing, 2) how to promote community and tribal government interest in your language program, 3) other issues, possibly related to the master/apprentice approach to language learning. More details will follow as we work them out. Please register by sending your name, organization (and/or language you're working with), and complete contact info to or the address below. And please pass this message on to those you think would be interested... See you in February, Jesse Blackburn Morrow Assistant to the Director Northwest Indian Language Institute 1290 University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403 541.346.3199 (vm) nwili at uoregon.edu http://babel.uoregon.edu/nili/ From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Nov 18 20:52:10 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 13:52:10 -0700 Subject: Internet: A New Space for African Languages (fwd) Message-ID: Internet: A New Space for African Languages Highway Africa News Agency (Grahamstown) November 18, 2005 By Ansbert Ngurumo Geneva http://allafrica.com/stories/200511180584.html Concerns that African languages could become extinct are almost over. The internet is becoming a refuge for the continent's languages that would otherwise become extinct. Despite the powerful influence of English, French and Portuguese as official languages in certain African countries, indigenous African languages are proving that technology belongs to no language. Kiswahili, a language spoken by about 80 million people in Eastern and Central Africa and recently adopted as one of African Union's official languages, is extensively used on internet websites by newspapers and bloggers. Linguists interested in African languages are increasingly turning their interests to translate and teach Kiswahili on the internet. The Kamusi Project by Yale University www.yale.edu.swahili is a recent initiative aimed at translating Kiswahili into English. Tanzania is probably Africa's central place for development of Kiswahili. 99 percent of the country's 35 million people speak Kiswahili. Sections of daily newspapers, portals, national websites and other relevant information is now accessible on Internet, making the internet a new space for African languages. Other languages enjoying similar advancements include Uganda's Luganda, Kenya's Kikuyu, Burundi's Kirundi, Rwanda's Kinyarwanda, Somalia's Somali, and Nigeria's Hausa. The proliferation of African languages on the internet is giving these languages a new breath of life. The internet has provided a platform for Africans to communicate with friends, relatives and in the diaspora in their indigenous languages. Several Africans now maintain blogs where they write in different African languages. See www.ngurumo.blogspot.com www.jikomboe.blogspot.com From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Sat Nov 19 01:04:33 2005 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 20:04:33 -0500 Subject: Internet: A New Space for African Languages (fwd) Message-ID: Great News. Break out the champaigne..... Who writes this stuff?? Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Nov 19 23:26:37 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 16:26:37 -0700 Subject: Bible translated into endangered creole language of African slaves (fwd) Message-ID: Saturday, November 19, 2005 Bible translated into endangered creole language of African slaves By BRUCE SMITH Associated Press Writer http://www.dhonline.com/articles/2005/11/18/news/religion/religion01.txt ST. HELENA ISLAND, S.C. ? More than a quarter century after the laborious work began, the New Testament has finally been translated into Gullah, the creole language spoken by slaves and their descendants for generations along the sea islands of the Southeast coast. Gullah is an oral language, so the translation was painstaking, beginning in 1979 with a team of Gullah speakers who worked with Pat and Claude Sharpe, translation consultants with Wycliffe Bible Translators. Many efforts have been made over the years to preserve Gullah, which mixed West African languages with English, and experts believe the translated Bible will be a major contribution toward that goal. ?I think this makes the language universal,?? said Ervena Faulkner, co-manager of history and culture at the Penn Center, which is dedicated to preserving the threatened sea island culture. ?People have done Gullah cookbooks, they have done African-American sayings, they have done proverbs,?? Faulkner said. ?But for the Bible to go out with the Gullah sends a message. It means we can speak the Word.?? Nestled amid spreading oaks dripping Spanish moss on this island just east of Beaufort, the center is located on the site of the Penn School, which was founded in 1862 to educate slaves newly freed by advancing Union troops. The culture ? called Gullah in the Carolinas and Geechee in Florida and Georgia ? remained intact with descendants of slaves because of the isolation of the region?s sea islands. Now, about 250,000 Gullahs live in the four-state coastal area and about 10,000 of them speak Gullah as their main language. ?De Nyew Testament,?? published by the American Bible Society, went on sale this month. As an example, the verse John 1:1, ?In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God,?? was translated to read, ?Fo God mek de wol, de Wod been dey. De Wod been dey wid God, an de Wod been God. ? De Good Nyews Bout Jedus Christ Wa John Write 1:1.?? The Bible is written with the English translation in the margins. ?That?s the beauty of the way it?s written,?? said Emory Campbell, who retired three years ago after 22 years as executive director at the Penn Center. ?The non-Gullah speakers can easily translate what the written Gullah is about. In a way, we are going to be training other people how to speak Gullah.?? For generations, the language was something native speakers tried to abandon, because they feared it would hurt their chances of getting ahead in the wider world. ?It was a put down,?? Campbell recalled. ?You were looked on as being ignorant and at a low intelligence level if that?s the language you spoke. We tried at all costs to avoid speaking it.?? For that reason, Campbell at first would not help with the translation, until he spoke with a professor from the University of California who told him Gullah is indeed a language. Creole languages develop when speakers of two languages who can?t understand each other remain in long contact, as the African slaves did with their masters. David Frank, a translation consultant who joined the project after Pat Sharpe died in 2002, said Gullah was frequently dismissed as ?broken English,?? not a language in its own right. There are structural differences between Gullah and English which justify Gullah being recognized as a separate language, Frank said. The translation was based on several different versions of the New Testament, along with varied Bible commentaries. Some of the Bible books were released when they were completed, with the Gospel of Luke published in 1994 and the Gospel of John released two years ago. Dolores Pringle, head of the Penn Center board of trustees, said the Bible can help blacks connect with their heritage. ?It can strengthen our relationship back to West Africa,?? she said. ?Every group that has emigrated to this country has had a very strong connection back to their home country whether it?s Italy, Ireland or whether it?s England,?? she said. ?I?m not sure our African-American youth have had that kind of connection back to Africa.?? With the New Testament finished, talk has started of translating the Old Testament into Gullah ? a task that could also take years. ?It would not be beyond us,?? Campbell said. ?We would be glad to make sure that the Word is in our language throughout,?? he said. ?I hope that more younger people will join the team and move forward.?? From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 23 19:38:56 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 12:38:56 -0700 Subject: Salmon help kids with math in Tlingit immersion program (fwd) Message-ID: Salmon help kids with math in Tlingit immersion program JUNEAU: Blending culture into curriculum meant to boost interest, self-esteem. By ERIC MORRISON Juneau Empire (Published: November 21, 2005) http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/7224295p-7136321c.html JUNEAU -- Harborview Elementary School teacher Shgen George has been teaching math to her second- and third-grade class this fall in an unusual way -- with fish. George, one of the school's Tlingit Culture, Language and Literacy Program teachers, has been using salmon this autumn to engage her students in the classroom by mixing aspects of the culture with the district's curriculum. She said it has proven to be both important and effective. "It's amazing. When we talk about this as our culture and how this is important to us you can see them sit up straighter and get that spark in their eyes," George said. "They feel like it is them and they care about it so they want to learn." The district's curriculum has all third-graders studying area, volume, multiplication using repeated addition, and finding medians. George's students took a more hands-on approach, jarring salmon to learn about volume and counting the number of fish scales on squares of fish skin to learn about area. George said these and other similar activities help the students better grasp the curriculum. "They have stories to share and they connect to it and it doesn't seem like some abstract thing to study area when we have the salmon right here and they are already connected to it," she said. Third-grader Cora Bontrager, 9, said she enjoys learning more about her culture. "We were studying the salmon and measuring it and weighing it," she said. "I learned about their life cycle and that they spawn and die." Now in its sixth year, the culture program at Harborview has grown from one kindergarten and first-grade split-class to having three classrooms dedicated full time to integrating Tlingit culture into the contemporary learning environment. There is also a fourth- and fifth-grade split-class. Painted paper salmon hang from the ceiling in George's classroom along with cutouts of Alaska's five different types of salmon strung up together displaying the species name in Tlingit. Ray Wilson, a Kiksadi elder, was visited George's classroom recently to discuss traditional fishing techniques with the aid of a cod spreader that he received at a potlatch in Kake. "I wanted to bring this to show you how smart your ancestors were," he told the children, who were huddled around and engaged by the spreader's craftsmanship. Wilson said he hopes to be a good role model for the children so they will take pride in their culture. By giving them a cultural connection within the school, he said, he hopes Native children will become more successful students in the modern classroom. "To me the big thing is trying to build self-esteem in our Native children so that they can endure whatever they have to," Wilson said. "There are a lot of things going on in the schools that aren't very pleasant, so we want them to endure anything that may come along." Sharon Parks, a cultural specialist and para-educator with the school district who helps in the program's three classrooms, agrees with Wilson. "I think that this program is important because it's showing these children they have something to be proud of," Parks said. "I think that if a child has pride in who they are, has pride in where they come from, and pride in what they are doing it can really help make them successful." Wilson said he hopes the program will translate to higher graduation rates among Native students -- a continuing issue for the school district. "We're trying to find ways to keep our children in school," he said. "Hopefully this is one of the ways that will help them to stay in school and go on to college where they can compete in the work force." George said she hopes this program will help Native families be more proactive with education. "There's a high percentage of families who have bad experiences with schools," she said. "It's important getting the families, not just the kids, but families to have positive experiences in school and with schools and be excited about learning." Copyright ? 2005 The Anchorage Daily News (www.adn.com) From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 23 19:44:00 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 12:44:00 -0700 Subject: Gov't expands northern court translation service (fwd) Message-ID: Gov't expands northern court translation service Betty Ann Adam The StarPhoenix Monday, November 21, 2005 http://www.canada.com/saskatoon/starphoenix/news/local/story.html?id=0db5404d-4a12-41bb-92d7-8b06345a2d12 Full-time Cree and Dene translators will soon be working in northwestern Saskatchewan courts. The Aboriginal Provincial Court Party, as it will be known, will be based in Meadow Lake and will travel to other communities in northwestern Saskatchewan. It will be in place by the end of this fiscal year, said Justice Department spokesperson Debbie McEwen. The expanded translation service is one of several initiatives outlined earlier this year in the government's response to the aboriginal justice reform commission, which in 2004 recommended changes to improve justice services to Natives in Saskatchewan. The government has also promised to appoint a Cree-speaking Justice of the Peace to a Cree community and a Dene justice of the peace to a Dene community. In an effort to increase the number of aboriginal people serving as jurors, the province will also increase the fee paid for jury duty and "provide increased resources for transportation and mileage to court for potential jurors, where necessary," the government's report states. The Saskatchewan provincial court has provided a Cree court since 2001, which has a Cree-speaking judge to hear matters in that language eight days per month at four sites. The prosecutor and court clerk also speak Cree. Dene translation services are currently available at court points served from La Ronge. Cree and Dene translation services are also available in Prince Albert and at court points served from Prince Albert. The government will add locations for provincial courts in more First Nations and Metis communities where the workload warrants it and where suitable court facilities are available. The Justice Department also promised to consult with aboriginal communities and the provincial court about installing appropriate cultural symbols in the Meadow Lake and La Ronge provincial court buildings. ? The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 23 19:51:28 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 12:51:28 -0700 Subject: Missionaries’ mission is at issue (fwd) Message-ID: Missionaries? mission is at issue Caracas, Wednesday November 23,2005 http://www.thedailyjournalonline.com/article.asp?ArticleId=205470&CategoryId=10717 PUERTO AYACUCHO ? Earnest and God-fearing, jungle missionary Gary Greenwood may not look like a spy for the CIA. But President Hugo Ch?vez says the lanky young man from central Michigan is no less than an advance scout for an imminent U.S. invasion of Venezuela. Last month, Ch?vez ordered the expulsion of about 200 evangelical Baptist missionaries from the country?s Amazon rain forest. He accused them of spying, mining, exploiting indigenous tribes and using jungle airstrips for ?imperialist penetration.? Last week, the missionaries were given 90 days to leave the zone. Greenwood laughs off the charges and said there was no time for espionage in Cuwa, the isolated Yanomami Indian village where he and his family lived for four years. Although he and other missionaries acknowledge that their primary goal was to convert Indians to Christianity, the 33-year-old said he spent most of his days helping them: drilling wells, fixing outboard motors, and making their huts more livable. As for the issue of U.S. intentions, Greenwood jokingly wondered why the Pentagon would launch an invasion from the dense jungle of the Amazon, where movement of troops or military vehicles would be problematic. ?Wouldn?t the Caribbean coastline make more sense?? he asked as he made his way out of the jungle from this Orinoco River port town. The seemingly outlandish accusations illustrate the deterioration in Ch?vez? relations with the United States, a once-close ally that still depends on Venezuela for 12 percent of its oil imports. Ch?vez blames the ?imperialist? United States for a host of social ills in Latin America, rhetoric that polls show is resonating in a continent impatient for change. Some observers see the expulsion, which targeted the Florida-based New Tribes Mission and its offshoots, as a part of a hardening attitude toward religious groups since U.S. televangelist Pat Robertson suggested in August that someone assassinate Ch?vez ? for which he later apologized. The Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints announced last month that it had withdrawn all 219 of its U.S. missionaries from the country because of increasing delays and difficulty in obtaining or renewing visas. Ch?vez has also sparred with the Roman Catholic Church. Retired Cardinal Rosalio Castillo Lara, a Venezuelan who was a confidant of the late Pope John Paul II, has accused Ch?vez of being increasingly autocratic. ?Ch?vez needs confrontation, because this allows him, among other things, to lessen tensions within his coalition,? said Javier Corrales, a political scientist at Amherst College and a Venezuela specialist. ?He is also trying to weaken organized groups that are autonomous, especially if they are foreign.? Some anthropologists and government officials cheered Ch?vez? action, saying the expulsion was a welcome conclusion to a 60-year debate in Venezuela over whether the evangelicals threaten cultural diversity by forcing assimilation and modernity on the tribes, even as they deliver much-needed services. The problems posed by the missionaries, they say, are not espionage or unbridled capitalism, but the religious and behavioral changes that critics say the missionaries force on tribes in exchange for material and medical help. Those changes are destroying the tribes? primitive rituals and robbing people of what the United Nations has termed world cultural patrimony, the critics claim. ?New Tribes activity amounts to cultural genocide for which the state has to share responsibility,? anthropologist and former Sen. Alexander Luzardo said in an interview in Caracas, the capital. ?The state tolerated their presence in those areas too long, and ceded to them its responsibilities in health and education services too long.? But many of the estimated 45,000 indigenous people in the Amazon basin resent the expulsion order, saying the missionaries have improved their lives. Ingrid Turon, a city councilwoman and member of the Yeguana indigenous community in the village of Toki, six hours by outboard motorboat from here, said those who oppose missionaries want to deprive indigenous people of the advantages of modern life. ?For them, we are like animals in the zoo that people should pay to come see, so they can charge admission, publish their books and take pictures,? Turon said. ?They want to deny us the progress that they want, that the entire world wants.? Greenwood says living among the Indians as a ?friend and neighbor? gives him a different ? and, he says, more caring ? perspective than that of the anthropologists who visit periodically to study the communities and their customs. ?That?s where we are a little bit critical of the scientists who look on the Yanomami as a classroom project. These aren?t objects ? these are people,? Greenwood said. ?If you have a textbook approach to them, rather than relational, the Indians suffer as a result.? Greenwood doesn?t deny that he wanted to teach the Indians the Bible, which has been translated to the Yanomami language, and to show them the ?way of the Lord.? Those teachings include discouraging Yanomami from taking alcoholic or hallucinatory substances, from committing polygamy and incest, and from engaging in intertribal violence. But he insisted that none of the Indians in Cuwa were denied clothing, food or medicine for failing to follow his religious teachings. The son of a contractor, Greenwood is a self-described Mr. Fix-It, and much of his activity is spent ?fixing? Yanomami living practices he views as unhealthy. For instance, he installed concrete floors and built tables and benches for many of the huts in Cuwa as part of an effort to dissuade the Indians from eating on the floor, which leads to diseases such as amoebic dysentery. But he has learned not to intrude in some areas, especially politics. ?We never criticize the president. These people are very patriotic.? A relatively small part of Greenwood?s day was dedicated to religion, he said. He spent most of it helping the Yanomami stay fed, clothed and healthy, always a struggle in the unforgiving Amazon. His wife, Sarah, a nurse, operated a clinic where she treated the dysentery, malaria and snake bites suffered by the 120 Indians who live in Cuwa, which in Yanomami means ?you are here.? Some proponents of the expulsion view it as a positive sign that the Venezuelan government is finally assuming responsibility for the indigenous. Ch?vez has in recent months sent outboard motors, food and generators to isolated Amazon communities. Liborio Guarulla, the first indigenous governor of Amazonas state and a Ch?vez ally, said in an interview that Ch?vez was defending diversity in Venezuela. Guarulla called it a reversal of previous presidents? policy of favoring ?cultural unity,? a goal that he said the missionaries brought closer by speeding assimilation of the tribes. ?What you saw on analysis was a disconcerting picture ? the New Tribes Mission imposing an apocalyptic, compulsory view on the indigenous that the end of the world was near,? Guarulla said. He says the Ch?vez government is making a commitment to provide the health and education services that missionaries have shouldered in the past. But anthropologist Isam Madi, who favors the presence of the missionaries, fears that the new government impulse will fade after local elections in December. He warned that death rates among the Yanomami and other tribes, which have fallen with the presence of the missionaries such as Sarah Greenwood, will rise again, especially among newborns and infants, once the missionaries have left. ?Yes, there is a cultural change that comes with missionaries, but I prefer the cultural change if it comes with a lower death rate,? said Madi, who runs a charitable foundation called Foundation for Indigenous Democracy in Santa Elena, Bol?var state. The Greenwoods last month changed affiliation to a Venezuelan church in hopes of being allowed to stay. They are now in Caracas, having applied for a visa that would permit them to go to a different Yanomami community. ?We?ve prayed about it and we think that?s what the Lord wants, that we keep helping these people,? he said. By Chris Kraul The Los Angeles Times From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Nov 26 19:32:33 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 12:32:33 -0700 Subject: Across Indian Country, students’ English skills trail peers (fwd) Message-ID: Across Indian Country, students? English skills trail peers By JOHN MILLER - Associated Press Writer - 11/26/05 http://www.helenair.com/articles/2005/11/26/montana/c08112605_01.txt FORT HALL, Idaho - One of Michele Hernandez?s earliest memories from 1960s southern Idaho is calling across the playground to a kindergarten classmate. Suddenly, a teacher pulled her inside the schoolhouse by the arm and washed her mouth out with soap. The punishment wasn?t for profanity. It was for speaking Shoshone, her grandmother?s language. I was living in two worlds,?? said Hernandez, now a tutor at IT Stoddard Elementary in Blackfoot. You always had to keep a look out for the other side, depending on who was looking.?? Her job today: She helps teach English to American Indian youngsters classified by Idaho as Limited English Proficient,?? or LEP. While students are no longer punished for speaking their native tongues, English in Indian Country remains sensitive, because Native American students continue to trail white peers in language skills, records from several states show. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, many schools with large Indian populations, could eventually be forced to take radical steps if the achievement gap doesn?t narrow, including transporting students to higher-performing schools or painful re-organizations. It certainly has directed attention to the problem, which has existed for a long, long time,?? said Jon Reyhner, a professor at Northern Arizona University and Indian literacy expert. Indian kids come in to school behind, in terms of vocabulary.?? According to a 2005 Mississippi State University report, rural American Indian and Alaska Native children were the least likely of major ethnic sub-groups in rural America to be proficient at letter recognition upon kindergarten entry. State education records from Idaho, Montana and nearby North Dakota show Native American children trail virtually every other category of students in meeting No Child Left Behind targets. For instance, among North Dakota 8th graders, just 39.9 percent of Indians were reading at grade level, compared with 75 percent of white students, according to 2003-2004 figures. In Montana, 22 percent of students at the Crow Agency public school on the Crow Indian Reservation read at grade level. Across the state, Native Americans from 17 different Indian language backgrounds account for 11 percent of the public school population and 90 percent of its 6,952 LEP students. The average Indian child starts school with a vocabulary of about 3,000 words,?? said Joe Lamson, a spokesman for the Montana Office of Public Instruction in Helena. The average white student starts with a vocabulary of 15,000.?? Children raised in Indian country may also learn a different dialect of English, one that includes native words. Chris Loether, an anthropology professor at Idaho State University in Pocatello, said many Fort Hall-area residents speak what they call Red English.?? They?ve got this dialect, which to them is an identity marker,?? Loether said. And it gets stronger as they get older.?? There were 592 Indian children in Idaho?s $8 million LEP program last year. In public schools in Indian communities, including Fort Hall Elementary and IT Stoddard, are already facing No Child Left Behind sanctions, according to Idaho Department of Education records. Deep poverty is major reason that Indian children struggle with their English skills, experts say. At Fort Hall, for instance, reservation unemployment is at 37 percent more than seven times the state average. Montana reservation unemployment averages as much as 70 percent, according to state officials. You look at what?s available in the home: computers, reading materials, storybooks,?? said Harold Ott, superintendent of the Lapwai School District, located near the Nez Perce Indian Reservation in north-central Idaho. For families in poverty, there are fewer of those kinds of opportunities available.?? As dimensions of the achievement gap have emerged following No Child Left Behind?s passage in 2001, Indian leaders say they have mixed feelings about the education reforms: They?re pleased schools must pay attention to the issue, but fear the law may be ill-suited to address educational shortcomings among Native Americans. At the National Congress of American Indians in Tulsa, Okla., on Oct. 31, tribal leaders condemned the act as a one-size-fits-all?? approach that doesn?t address indigenous people?s cultural and linguistic traditions. I don?t think the philosophical model of this current legislation is consistent with education programs that work with Native Americans,?? said Mari Rasmussen, head of North Dakota?s bilingual and language acquisition. Still, some Indians are optimistic about a new plan announced last Friday by U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to allow up to 10 states to measure not just how students are performing, but how that performance is changing over time. Gains have been made by our students, but we were coming from so far behind,?? said Lillian Sparks, director of the National Indian Education Association in Washington, D.C. The aim, say Indians who for decades starting in the late 19th century were shipped by the U.S. government to boarding schools to make them more American,?? is a system that helps Indians boost their English without sacrificing their native heritage. In Fort Hall, Michele Hernandez knows the consequences if such a system is missing: Today, she cannot speak Shoshone, the language she was once punished for using on the playground. Growing up in the 1960s, everybody was supposed to be transformed into being white,?? Hernadez said. We had do everything they did, and our language was not the thing that was supposed to be spoken in the school.?? From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Nov 26 20:00:43 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:00:43 -0700 Subject: New software for speakers of Maori (fwd) Message-ID: New software for speakers of Maori 26.11.05 By Jon Stokes http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&ObjectID=10357064 The growing number of Maori language speakers will soon get a boost to their computing needs with the launch of te reo versions of Microsoft Windows and Office. A Maori version of the world's leading computer operating system and home and office software package will be launched at the World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education in Hamilton next week. The enhancement, a development between the Maori Language Commission and the software giant, will allow the download of a Maori language interface which will convert existing Windows and Office versions to te reo. The Office version is available on Tuesday and the Windows software from December 9. The Language Interface Packs were developed as part of the Microsoft Maori Linguistic Partnership Project, launched in April last year to cater for the growing number of Maori language speakers in New Zealand. About 130,000 adults speak Maori, with about 326,000 students enrolled in Maori immersion or learning te reo. The initiative is part of a global linguistic partnership project. Maori added to other international indigenous languages incorporated into the leading software packages including Ireland, Spain and France. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Nov 26 20:09:06 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:09:06 -0700 Subject: Turning the tide of assimilation (fwd) Message-ID: Turning the tide of assimilation ? Indian Country Today November 25, 2005. All Rights Reserved Posted: November 25, 2005 by: Brenda Norrell / Indian Country Today http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096412003 [photo inset - Click to Enlarge Brenda Norrell Indian Country -- Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians Jacqueline Johnson and Olympic gold medalist Billy Mills led the fitness walk during NCAI's annual convention in Tulsa.] Speakers urge preservation of languages, promotion of self-worth and fitness TULSA, Okla. - During the National Congress of American Indians' 62nd annual convention, Ryan Wilson, Lakota and president of the National Indian Education Association, and Red Lake Ojibwe Chairman Floyd Jourdain Jr., urged Indian country to make children and teenagers a priority. Praising NCAI for its focus on youths, Wilson said Indian young peoples' self-worth must be defended and bi-cultural and relevant education must turn the tides of assimilation. He stressed the importance of creating venues and educational opportunities to preserve Native languages. ''We have a chance here to be the most educated people in America, but that will not happen without preserving Native languages. These languages are leaving us at a rate that is staggering.'' Wilson praised the Akwesasne Freedom School, Cherokee Language Revitalization Project and the beauty of children in Alaska who speak their Native languages. In Jemez Pueblo in New Mexico, many students are fluent in English, Spanish and Jemez. Urging the preservation of indigenous languages, Wilson said cowards ask if an idea is safe, while vanity prompts one to ask if it is popular. Still others question whether an idea represents politics. ''You can't ask if it is safe, if it is popular, or if it is politics; you can't ask that. We have to ask if it is right.'' Speaking during NCAI's general assembly, Jourdain said the great tragedy in March of 2005 devastated the community. Referring to the shooting deaths of students and adults in Red Lake, he said it is now time to work hard to empower Indian youths across Indian country. ''They are really out there hurting,'' Jourdain said. ''We need to look at our Native youths and put them in the forefront,'' he said. When the crisis occurred, he said, support poured in from across the nation. But when the counselors, news reporters and everyone else went home, it was the Indian people who maintained their support. ''Young people out there are saying, 'You need to listen to us,''' Jourdain said. ''Let's put our money where our mouth is and take this to a new level.'' Jourdain showed a video of the ''Honor the Youth Spiritual Run,'' which took place in August. Red Lake youths joined other Native youths, running from Red Lake in Minnesota to Standing Rock Sioux Nation, located on both sides of the South Dakota and North Dakota border, a community with a high number of teen suicides. During the youth run, the Women of Nations organization, with the hope of saving lives, kicked off their toll-free number, (877) 209-1266, for Natives - especially young people - in need of someone to talk to who would listen. One of the highlights of NCAI's annual convention was the fitness walk, an opportunity for a brisk morning walk with Olympic gold medalist Billy Mills, outgoing NCAI President Tex Hall and singer Jana. Beneath Tulsa's warm sunny skies, Hall kicked off the fitness walk for the third annual National Health and Fitness Day, sponsored in conjunction with Nike Inc. and the IHS. Hall spoke of the need for exercise and diet for healthy lives. ''We are walking the talk and it feels great. Each step is bringing us closer to our goal. ''By eating our traditional food and turning off our televisions, we can make an example every day.'' Jana told the crowd, ''We can't exercise and then just eat McDonald's every day,'' adding that healthy foods taste good. She offered tips for eating healthy, including drinking lots of water and eating salads, while staying away from creamy salad dressings and using balsamic vinegar instead. ''If I ate McDonald's every day, I don't think I could raise a leg; I couldn't dance.'' Mills, Lakota, told the walkers, ''The signing of our treaties was a defining moment for the people and the nations.'' Mills said after capturing the Olympic medal and setting records for seven of the fastest times ran in the world, he began to have problems. He knows now those were the symptoms of low blood sugar. But, he said, at the time the news media blamed his problems on low self-esteem and poverty. During the general assembly, Dr. Charles Grim, a member of the Cherokee Nation and the director of IHS, spoke to NCAI concerning health and disease. Grim pointed out that mental health issues are being recognized more than ever for their role in disease, as evidenced by teen suicides. Further, Grim said recent surveys show that 40 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives using IHS are overweight or obese. Disabilities also afflict American Indians in disproportionate numbers, with 25 percent of American Indians affected. ? ???? From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Nov 26 20:11:31 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:11:31 -0700 Subject: Language barrier to Aboriginal health (fwd) Message-ID: Language barrier to Aboriginal health 24-Nov-2005 by Eleanor Limprecht http://news.australiandoctor.com.au/articles/8b/0c03898b.asp? A critical lack of communication between Aboriginal patients and doctors has sparked calls for a greater number of specially trained Indigenous health interpreters in doctors surgeries. The Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health (CRCAH) and Charles Darwin University highlighted the seriously underestimated level of misunderstanding between Aboriginal patients and health professionals in their Sharing the True Stories report, launched last week. Based on fours years of research in Arnhem Land in the NT, the reports authors said they found a widespread lack of understanding by health professionals of Aboriginal language and culture that led to compromised quality of care and lowered patients ability to make informed choices about their health. The research was done in collaboration with Aboriginal speakers of the Yolngu Matha language, who often had very different ways of understanding their bodies, health, disease and treatment than health professionals. Currently, there are Aboriginal health interpreter services only in the NT and in the Kimberley region of WA. CEO of the research centre, Mr Mick Gooda, said other state governments ought to become more serious about offering Aboriginal health interpreter services. Solutions lie with better training of medical staff, particularly doctors, and the use of fully trained interpreters so Aboriginal patients arent burdened with trying to understand often complex medical advice in a language of which they have limited understanding, he said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Nov 26 20:13:36 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:13:36 -0700 Subject: Students launch Web site to lend insight about Native Americans (fwd) Message-ID: Students launch Web site to lend insight about Native Americans A link to Indian news, culture Betty Reid The Arizona Republic Nov. 23, 2005 12:00 AM http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/1123natweb23.html# A group of urban Native American high school students launched a Web site that acts as an educational site for the public and a useful source to Valley Native Americans, especially parents. Www.northhighnatives.com, a link to Phoenix Union High School District's North High, launched in October. The Native American Youth Council of North High built the interactive site, which posts information about such council activities as fry bread sales, a car wash and out-of-district events such as local powwows or Native parades in Phoenix. Of interest on the site is a "numbers system" written in the language of the Western Apache, Salt River-Maricopa, Cherokee, Navajo and Objibwe. The site also offers an "indigenous geography" of Phoenix that shows the location of ancient settlements of the Hohokam peoples, who built irrigation systems in the Gila River Valley from 350 B.C. to A.D. 1450. "I believe this project will allow more people to gain an understanding of the importance of the land they walk upon each and everyday here in the Valley," North High senior Brian Bex said. The Navajo 17-year-old is the Webmaster of the youth council's site. April Manywhisker, vice president of the North High's youth council, said she is incredulous about how many people don't know about Native tribes. People believe all tribes are the same, although each has a distinct culture, language and worship, she said. The plan for the site is to collect information about all 400-plus of federally recognized tribes in the United States. Northhighnatives.com will list contact information of each tribe on the site so that high school students and their parents are informed about tribal scholarships. Cody Johnson, an aspiring fashion designer and a member of Tohono O'odham, plans to add video to the site. The 17-year-old junior at North High student envisions a project in which students speak their native language on the site. Reach the reporter at betty.reid at arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8049. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Nov 26 20:20:27 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:20:27 -0700 Subject: Kids learn the Tewa spoken by ancestors (fwd) Message-ID: Kids learn the Tewa spoken by ancestors By John Sena The Associated Press http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3250540 SANTA FE, N.M. - In one corner of the lunchroom at Tesuque Elementary School, a group of students and two teachers stood in a circle exchanging such day-to-day phrases such as ''How are you?'' and ''My name is.'' But they were doing it in Tewa. The students spoke softly, unsure if they were saying the phrases right and looking to their teachers for guidance. After a small correction and a nod of approval from an instructor, the students smiled and continued. The group of 10, members of the school's Tewa language program, meets three times a week for 45 minutes and is led by Thelma Tapia and Arlene Herrera. The program, limited to students from Tesuque Pueblo, is unique and something officials readily call attention to. ''The biggest plus is that children from Tesuque Pueblo get a chance to continue their language and culture,'' Principal Cliff Cisneros said. ''There are not many children who are speaking the language,'' said Tapia, who learned it from her parents and grandparents. She said many children understand Tewa but respond in English. Herrera, who was part of a similar program that started at the school in 1996 but ended two years later, said the push to speak Tewa also exists outside the school. ''There's more encouragement, more effort in the community to speak the language.'' she said. For Cisneros, in his eighth year as principal, the Tewa language program is just one of the many good things happening at Tesuque. Mr. C, as his students call him, can run down a list off the top of his head: the school garden on land belonging to a neighbor, the art program and a dedicated and close-knit staff; not to mention being one of 12 schools in the district to make adequate yearly progress last year under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Cisneros said he loves coming to school because of Tesuque's rural setting. ''I come onto campus in the mornings and hear roosters,'' he said. The school's isolation, just 10 minutes from Santa Fe but nestled at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, also means it serves a small population. Tesuque has only 139 students who come from nearby communities such as Rio En Medio and Chupadero as well as Tesuque and Tesuque Pueblo. ''I know every kid by name,'' Cisneros said. ''I know all of their families.'' But being a rural school, where more than 70 percent of the students receive free or reduced-price lunch, brings its share of difficulties. Tesuque doesn't have access to some resources that students in Santa Fe have, such as a public library. Student lunches are prepared at Atalaya Elementary School and shipped in daily. While the school's population is much lower than that of many other elementary schools in Santa Fe, it still has outgrown its facilities. The crowded intimacy of a small school and the sound of creaking wood floors might ring nostalgic, but they are not ideal for a 21st century school trying to accommodate new technology in one main building and several portables. That problem will soon be remedied, though. At the end of this school year, most of the buildings will be torn down to make way for a new school. During construction, Tesuque Elementary School will be relocated to portables on the campus of Gonzales Elementary School. Cisneros said the community is excited about the change and that staff members can survive a year at ''Camp Tesuque,'' as he calls the temporary site, if it means getting new facilities. Removing portables will also mean more outdoor space for students, who have lately been caught up in a jump-rope craze. During recess, warm weather or cold, students gather in groups swinging ropes. So many students participate that school officials scheduled a competition later this year. While Cisneros doesn't know why the activity is so popular all of a sudden, second-grader Kristin Lujan said the reason is pretty obvious. ''We just like to jump rope,'' she said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Nov 26 20:23:07 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:23:07 -0700 Subject: Bilingual toys spell fun for kids in any language (fwd) Message-ID: Friday, November 25, 2005 - 12:00 AM Bilingual toys spell fun for kids in any language By Jill Sell Newhouse News Service http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2002643032_bilingualtoys25.html Whenever 23-month-old Sofia Drage sees someone she doesn't know, she hides behind her mother. With reassurance, Sofia will peek around her mother's leg. If she thinks a visitor is worthy, Sofia will count, "One, two, three ... " all the way to 12. Then she'll do it again, only this time, it's "uno, dos, tres ... " Sofia's parents, Diega Bravo and Brendan Drage, of Kirtland, Ohio, are teaching their daughter English and Spanish. Bravo believes conversations, reading and singing with her daughter are the most important ways to expose her to two languages. Sofia also plays with bilingual toys. They're catching on Dolls and plush animals that speak two languages, puzzles with layers of pieces in different languages and play kitchens that warn little cooks that the "burner" is caliente are getting more attention from toy manufacturers and consumers, said Jim Silver, co-publisher of Toy Wishes magazine. The popular Dora the Explorer character was introduced several years ago on Nickelodeon and CBS. The bilingual toy tie-ins to the 7-year-old Hispanic heroine opened the way for more bilingual toys to hit the mainstream market. Fisher-Price's Dora and the Hispanic Maya & Miguel dolls ? based on characters in Scholastic Entertainment's hit PBS show "Kids Go!" ? represent smart economics for toy makers. According to the U.S. Census, the number of Hispanic children in the United States is expected to increase 22 percent between 2001 and 2010. The total number of children in this country increased by about 14 percent in the 1990s, but the number of minority children rose about 43 percent. Dolls have appeal Cincinnati entrepreneur Selina Yoon is president of Master Communications, a company she founded in 1994. It operates Asia for Kids and Culture for Kids, online and catalog stores that sell bilingual books, electronic media and toys. "When I started this business, I thought I would be selling only educational videos. I didn't think I would be selling dolls," the Korean-born Yoon said. "But so many asked me for them." Today, her Web site, Asia for Kids (www.asiaforkids.com), sells Language Littles, soft-bodied, 16-inch dolls that offer a human-recorded voice when pressed. Languages available include Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish. The electronic Spanish-speaking Elmo is one of the most popular bilingual toys available from eToys Direct (www.etoys.com), an online and catalog store. And public-relations director Sheliah Gilliland said it isn't just bilingual households that are buying the toys. English-only speaking parents want their young children to know some Spanish words so they can interact with others in their classrooms, particularly if they live in areas with significant Hispanic populations, she said. Many parents also know that young children easily can pick up second languages. Buttons push skills Giving bilingual toys to children who live in monolingual families will not make them fluent in a foreign language. But parents such as Bravo appreciate them because young children enjoy pressing buttons and getting a response. The repetition reinforces vocabulary skills in more than one language. Parents shopping for bilingual toys should pay attention to sound quality, making sure the words are clear, spoken loudly enough and by a native speaker. Copyright ? 2005 The Seattle Times Company From djcunlif at GLAM.AC.UK Mon Nov 28 13:16:34 2005 From: djcunlif at GLAM.AC.UK (Cunliffe D J (Comp)) Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 13:16:34 -0000 Subject: Language barrier to Aboriginal health (fwd) Message-ID: Hi, People who are interested in this story might be interested to know that you can download the full reports from: http://www.crcah.org.au/index.cfm?attributes.fuseaction=whatsHappening#572 Stage 1 Report Improving communication between health staff and Aboriginal patients Stage 2 Report Evaluating strategies to improve communication between health staff and Aboriginal patients Be seeing you, Daniel. -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of phil cash cash Sent: 26 Tachwedd 2005 20:12 To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Language barrier to Aboriginal health (fwd) Language barrier to Aboriginal health 24-Nov-2005 by Eleanor Limprecht http://news.australiandoctor.com.au/articles/8b/0c03898b.asp? A critical lack of communication between Aboriginal patients and doctors has sparked calls for a greater number of specially trained Indigenous health interpreters in doctors surgeries. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 28 17:39:24 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 10:39:24 -0700 Subject: Reviving a legacy (fwd) Message-ID: Reviving a legacy Far-flung members of North County tribe are returning, with their hearts on the reservation and their eyes off it By Chet Barfield UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER November 27, 2005 http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20051127-9999-1n27ysabel.html SANTA YSABEL INDIAN RESERVATION ? When his 95-year-old mother died last year, Ken Ponchetti took her ashes up to the 6,000-foot peak where she was born and raised. Praying in an ancient language, he sprinkled a pinch of her remains in each of the four directions. [photo inset - EDUARDO CONTRERAS / Union-Tribune Christian Dominquez, 7, got some homework help from teacher Theresa Gregor at the Santa Ysabel reservation, which the band is trying to revive after decades of poverty.] It might seem unusual for a man who spent his long professional career off the reservation to say goodbye the Indian way. But the retired General Dynamics executive is, in blood and spirit, a Diegue?o, an Ipai, a Santa Ysabel Indian. Ponchetti is part of a large and diverse North County tribe that is undergoing a transformation. Under new leadership after decades of disconnection, the far-flung members of the Santa Ysabel Band of Diegue?o Indians are coming back to their tribe, and they're changing what it is. These modern-day Indians are revising the sad legacy of Santa Ysabel, creating a different kind of tribe, a tribe with its heart on the reservation and its eyes on the outside world. They'll tell you that the small casino they're about to build is only part of the story, that this journey is about more than money. It's about healing old wounds, about re-weaving a fabric that has been unraveling for more than a century. "We're headed in a new direction," tribal Chairman Johnny Hernandez said. "We want to make this a reservation our people are proud of and make the land itself proud of the people who are on it." Pride has long been scarce on this 15,500-acre reservation 65 miles northeast of San Diego. Its forested mountains abound with beauty, but its people are among the poorest and most oppressed in the region. Over generations, families fled the reservation, mostly for economic survival. Today more than two-thirds of the tribe's 770 members are scattered throughout California and other states. But lately, more and more are coming to tribal meetings, from Orange County, Los Angeles or farther. Some are even moving back to the reservation, as Ponchetti did in 1984 and Hernandez did in 2000. What's bringing them back? The push for a casino? Opportunities for free land? Family connections? A voice in tribal decisions? According to dozens of members, all those factors play a part and fuel frictions between old and new thinking, between factions on and off the reservation. For many, however, the pull comes from something deeper. "A lot of them wanted to come back to their roots to find out who the hell they were," said Ponchetti, 67, whose father was a prominent tribal leader in the 1950s. "They were Indian, but they didn't know what that meant." Santa Ysabel's roots began splintering long ago. Before being renamed Diegue?o by Spanish missionaries, the natives here called themselves Ipai (EE-pay). Cousins of the Kumeyaay to the south, they occupied nine villages between what is now Ramona, Warner Springs and Anza Borrego. [photo inset - Tribal Chairman Johnny Hernandez sat atop a mountain above the site of a planned casino. "We're headed in a new direction," he said.] Two hundred years ago, the priests came to change their religion. A small mission was erected in 1818 near what later would become the reservation. The church graveyard is filled with tribal members, from the 1800s to this year. After California became a state in 1850, the Ipai villages were displaced by settlers. The Indians were forced onto the reservation, established in 1893. "In the very beginning, Santa Ysabel had no tribe," said one elder, Don Beresford. "We never had a government of any kind. We never had a chief. We were just a bunch of families. "They came in and they fenced in the place and pushed the Indians up in it and said all the Indians living on or near it will be known as the Santa Ysabel band of mission Indians." The government built a one-room school on the reservation and made the federal Indian agent headmaster. The Ipai were not to speak their language or practice their ceremonies. Those who did might be thrown in a small jail, the ruins of which still stand, roofless. And so the exodus began. Children were sent to boarding schools and assimilated. Many left to look for work. Some found success and raised their kids to be self-supporting. Many of those offspring would become what today are the more than 100 Santa Ysabel members who hold or are pursuing college degrees. A governing council elected three years ago reflects the makeup of the tribe itself. The six officers have roots on the reservation and experience off it. One has a business degree and was an accountant for Lexus dealerships. Another attended a New Mexico art college and teaches Indian culture. Another studied environmental sciences and manages the reservation's natural resources. Hernandez, 53, grew up hunting rabbits in Santa Ysabel's mountains, surrounded by elders who filled his head and heart with stories of suffering. He attended San Diego State University and thought about law school but instead took a job with Pacific Bell that turned into a 30-year career. As an installation technician, working from Escondido to Hollywood, Hernandez learned as much about societal diversity as he did about technology. And when he retired and moved back to Santa Ysabel five years ago, he brought his wider horizons with him. "We've got to deal with the outside world," Hernandez said. "We can't stay still in today's society. Nobody can. Things change. We can't be using old typewriters when everybody's got a laptop." Almost everyone on the reservation has lived somewhere else. And others "out there" maintain ties to the tribe. Mesa College professor Roy Cook has close relationships with many of Santa Ysabel's "urban Indians." Like them, his day-to-day life in San Diego is far removed from the Arizona tribe of his ancestors. "It's like running parallel lives," Cook said. "Your actual base, your rock, your tie, your essence, is in the land-based reservation. That's where your heart is. But your mind functions .?.?. in the Western world." Karen Vignault, 47, is one of Santa Ysabel's "off-rez" members, as they are called. She has a degree in filmmaking, lives in North Park and works at a Kearny Mesa business college. But she feels deeply connected to her tribe and likes where it's heading. "The new council has brought the urban Indian experience to shed light on the reservation and balance both worlds," she said. "The new people that are coming in are helping to bring back the old traditions." [photo inset - JOHN GASTALDO / Union-Tribune Javier Dominguez, 9, retied his bandanna during a break in the action at a Santa Ysabel tribal festival in August. The annual cultural celebration, which the tribe has revived, features traditional songs and dances.] Vignault and others had grown disheartened over recent decades as the reservation foundered in poverty and discord, made worse by alcohol and drug abuse. Members accused elected officers of plundering what little federal funding the tribe got. Still, a handful of elders remained who spoke the old language, who remembered the stories and bird songs that the U.S. government and boarding schools had tried so hard to quash. Like flickering candles, the elders kept Ipai culture from dying out. As the 21st century dawned, some of their grandchildren would try to fan those flames again. But as important as it is to connect with the past, it is also important to look to the future. "Indian tribes are not stuck in a time warp. They're more than missions and baskets and bird songs," said Cook, the Mesa College professor. "We have to realize the process of enlightenment, from fire to bows and arrows to ATVs and SUVs." Santa Ysabel has basic needs: housing, electricity, running water. The reservation infrastructure ? the homes clustered near state Route 79, the power lines running only a mile or less up into the hills ? was built almost entirely with federal funds. For any real comeback, Santa Ysabel would need an economic engine of its own. Nine months after the new council was sworn in, the tribe signed a gambling compact with then-Gov. Gray Davis. Members had argued for years whether to go down that road. Doubters said the reservation was too remote for a casino. Some feared the tribe would lose its land, or its soul, to outside business interests. But supporters, including most off-reservation voters, wanted to give it a shot. As with most tribes, Santa Ysabel members don't have to live on the reservation to collect casino dividends or revenue-sharing proceeds from other tribes that have gaming. Santa Ysabel signed a $27 million deal last year with Arizona's Yavapai Apache tribe to build a casino with 350 slot machines. Construction has been delayed for months, heightening fears of yet another tribal failure. But the bulldozers finally are scheduled to begin grading early next month. [photo inset - Marcelino Osuna (left) of the Santa Ysabel reservation competed with his grandson Harold Hale Jr. of the Barona reservation during the cultural celebration.] The casino is expected to open in about a year, but the Yavapai will have to be repaid before Santa Ysabel starts making any real profits. In the meantime, the tribal council is aggressively using federal grants and revenue-sharing funds to resuscitate the reservation. A social services department has been created to address drug, alcohol and family issues. A full-time tribal police officer has been hired to stem drug dealing, domestic violence and other crimes. A tribal youth coordinator tutors children after school. A visiting instructor teaches native arts, games and culture. Santa Ysabel has also revived its annual cultural gathering, sharing traditional songs and dances. Nearly two-thirds of the tribe's $3 million budget is earmarked for developing housing and extending electrical power to the 15 to 20 homes lacking it now. Electricity also is needed for the dozens of off-reservation members who want to move back. If their applications are approved, they can have a free acre of land, but they can't get a federally subsidized home unless they have electricity for a well pump. At least 20 members have moved onto the reservation in the past few years, living in trailer homes, hauling their own water, running appliances on gas-powered generators. One of them is Stan Rodriguez, 50. He grew up in Fresno, raised by parents who left Santa Ysabel to harvest crops. He returned to San Diego County in 1979 and has spent the decades since learning the native language, songs and spirituality. Rodriguez works as a military contractor, teaching alcohol-and drug-abuse prevention. He also sings traditional bird songs and teaches Kumeyaay language classes at a community college on the Sycuan reservation. Rodriguez moved to Santa Ysabel in 2002, towing a mobile home to a hilltop plot beyond the power lines. "I have a master's degree, and I run my house off of a generator. I have to truck my water in water tanks," he said. But he added that those sacrifices ? and the 70-mile commute to work in San Diego ? are worth being re-connected to his tribe. "We are in a period of transition," he said. "People who are moving back to the reservation are bringing their experiences. Sometimes it'll flow, and sometimes there's conflict." ?? Tribal leaders must contend with conflicts and infighting. One persistent source of criticism is Tammy Leo, 33, who dropped out of school at 16 and is raising three children in a travel trailer with no electricity. Leo wants more of the intertribal revenue-sharing money. At Santa Ysabel, half goes to members and half goes into tribal development. The occasional checks, divided among a roster of 770, have ranged from a few hundred dollars to less than a hundred. Leo thinks the off-reservation newcomers who pack tribal meetings mainly want to build the casino and get bigger checks in the mail. "I see a lot of white faces, a lot of black faces. I don't even know who they are," she said. "They all want the right to vote, but none of them live up here and live the hardship. The people who live up here should have more of a say." Tribal leaders acknowledge that they can't please everyone. They say they want youth on and off the reservation to grow up to be like Vice Chairwoman Brandie Taylor, who is putting her business education to use for the tribe. Or Santa Ysabel's in-house attorney, Devon Reed Lomayesva, who left the reservation as a child but has remained close all her life through her family. Lomayesva, 34, put herself through college and law school on loans. She says Santa Ysabel is on its way to a new beginning. "We're trying to recapture our identity and our place on our land," she said. "It's not about the money. It's about redefining ourselves, putting ourselves back on the map." Hernandez, the tribal chairman, said Santa Ysabel is rediscovering a sense of hope. "I take pride in this tribe because of all the people in the past who have suffered," he said. "We were forced here, put here. .?.?. Nobody asked to be put here, but now we're here. "This is a great tribe. We have so many diverse people. Whether people like each other, that's not the point. We're still here." Chet Barfield: (619) 542-4572; chet.barfield at uniontrib.com ? Find this article at: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20051127-9999-1n27ysabel.html ? From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Nov 28 17:48:48 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 10:48:48 -0700 Subject: Maori version of Office out tomorrow (fwd) Message-ID: Maori version of Office out tomorrow 28 November 2005 By REUBEN SCHWARZ http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3492527a28,00.html A Maori language version of Microsoft Office 2003 will be available free to existing Office users from tomorrow, with a Maori version of Windows XP to follow in two weeks. Microsoft worked with the Maori Language Commission and Waikato University's School of Maori and Pacific Development to create the software, which is a "skin" that sits on top of the English-language versions of Office applications Word, Excel and Powerpoint. It translates most of the text seen on screen by people using the software, such as the contents of drop-down menus, dialogue boxes and error messages. Maori Language Commission chief executive Haami Piripi sees the project as another step in refreshing the image of Maori. "It's a natural progression for languages to extend into new domains," he says. The cyber domain is a very important cutting-edge domain for up-and-coming generations of citizens. A language must be able to survive in the IT world if it's going to survive as a language in the future." The commission and Waikato University translated 325,000 words for Windows and 303,000 words for Office, inventing 2500 terms to translate technical terms such as "hyperlink", or "honongaitua". Mr Piripi expects "quite a big uptake" of the software. The commission estimates that 130,000 adults speak Maori. The Office 2003 skin will be released tomorrow at the World Indigenous People's Education Conference in Hamilton. The development costs were met by Microsoft, with only incidental costs to the commission. It is one of a series of translations carried out by Microsoft which is creating skins for Office and Windows XP in more than 40 indigenous languages, such as Basque and Catalan. It is available for download free from http://www.microsoft.com/nz/maori/default.mspx . Copies are also available on CD for $15. From MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Mon Nov 28 17:52:40 2005 From: MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish) Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 10:52:40 -0700 Subject: Maori version of Office out tomorrow (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20051128104848.icadwsc0ok0s444o@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Excellent! And people always say Microsoft doesn't care. Now, if we only had access to that "skin" so we could make one for All the Languages. It would be something to keep the Tribal students busy, and, to get them involved in developing technology for their tribes. (Yep, we always see things from the point of view of our personal visions). Mia -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of phil cash cash Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 10:49 AM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Maori version of Office out tomorrow (fwd) Maori version of Office out tomorrow 28 November 2005 By REUBEN SCHWARZ http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3492527a28,00.html A Maori language version of Microsoft Office 2003 will be available free to existing Office users from tomorrow, with a Maori version of Windows XP to follow in two weeks. Microsoft worked with the Maori Language Commission and Waikato University's School of Maori and Pacific Development to create the software, which is a "skin" that sits on top of the English-language versions of Office applications Word, Excel and Powerpoint. It translates most of the text seen on screen by people using the software, such as the contents of drop-down menus, dialogue boxes and error messages. Maori Language Commission chief executive Haami Piripi sees the project as another step in refreshing the image of Maori. "It's a natural progression for languages to extend into new domains," he says. The cyber domain is a very important cutting-edge domain for up-and-coming generations of citizens. A language must be able to survive in the IT world if it's going to survive as a language in the future." The commission and Waikato University translated 325,000 words for Windows and 303,000 words for Office, inventing 2500 terms to translate technical terms such as "hyperlink", or "honongaitua". Mr Piripi expects "quite a big uptake" of the software. The commission estimates that 130,000 adults speak Maori. The Office 2003 skin will be released tomorrow at the World Indigenous People's Education Conference in Hamilton. The development costs were met by Microsoft, with only incidental costs to the commission. It is one of a series of translations carried out by Microsoft which is creating skins for Office and Windows XP in more than 40 indigenous languages, such as Basque and Catalan. It is available for download free from http://www.microsoft.com/nz/maori/default.mspx . Copies are also available on CD for $15. From keola at LEOKI.UHH.HAWAII.EDU Mon Nov 28 17:57:22 2005 From: keola at LEOKI.UHH.HAWAII.EDU (Keola Donaghy) Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 07:57:22 -1000 Subject: Maori version of Office out tomorrow (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20051128175246.CEC6B3B2F@listserv.arizona.edu> Message-ID: We've talked about doing it for Hawaiian, but it is a daunting task. We've translated a few programs with between 5,000 and 10,000 strings (each string being a a single word, short phrase, full sentence or a paragraph), and each took us several months (usually with a team of 2) to complete. 300,000+ strings for each Windows and Office would be a huge undertaking for anyone, particularly when you consider maintenance of the translation as new versions ship. With the FirstClass Client, which we've been translating into Hawaiian for the past 11 years, each new release contains 10-20% of strings which are either new or contain significant changes and require retranslation, even when you can leverage previous work. I received a copy of the new lexicon wordlist from the Maori and even creating the necessary terminology would be a huge task. Needless to say we're passing on it ourselves, for now, at least. I'm not trying to discourage anyone, but for those on the list who have not done other program localizations, I'd strongly suggest starting with someone a bit more modest than Windows or Office ;-) Keola Penei ka ??lelo a Indigenous Languages and Technology : >Now, if we only had access to that "skin" so we could make one for All the >Languages. It would be something to keep the Tribal students busy, and, to >get them involved in developing technology for their tribes. (Yep, we >always >see things from the point of view of our personal visions). ======================================================================= Keola Donaghy Assistant Professor of Hawaiian Studies Ka Haka 'Ula O Ke'elikolani keola at leoki.uhh.hawaii.edu University of Hawai'i at Hilo http://www2.hawaii.edu/~donaghy/ ======================================================================= From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Nov 29 22:07:32 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:07:32 -0700 Subject: Spreading the Arnhem word (fwd) Message-ID: Spreading the Arnhem word Ebru Yaman 30nov05 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17408201%255E12332,00.html THE Yolngu language belongs to the indigenous people of East Arnhem Land and there are up to 30 different registers. Teaching this complex, living tongue to Japanese "didgeridoo freaks", then, is some feat. "We have a strong online course," Charles Darwin University's Michael Christie, one of the course's creators, said last night. "It attracts a lot of international students." It has a particular appeal to Japanese students interested in Aboriginal culture. Indeed, almost all of the 50 or so students - undergraduate and postgraduate - are not indigenous but have been drawn to the study from other areas. Associate Professor Christie said the course was especially popular among health professionals - doctors and nurses - who wanted to know more about the culture, history and ancestral stories of the Yolngu people. The course, the only university-level one of its kind, is mostly taught by indigenous speakers of Yolngu and has the authority of Aboriginal elders. As such, it is unique. Professor Christie, a linguist, created the course 12 years ago with colleague Waymamba Gaykamangu, a senior Yolngu woman. She was a teacher in Arnhem Land when she helped develop the course. Professor Christie, Ms Gaykamangu and CDU colleagues Betty Marrnganyin, who is also a senior Yolngu woman and teacher, and John Greatorex, a linguist and researcher, last night won two Australian Awards for University Teaching. As a team they won a teaching award in the humanities and arts category, and also won the overall Prime Minister's Award for University Teacher of the Year. Federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson said the award was for the group's "outstanding work on developing teaching and learning resources as part of the Yolngu Studies Project". Professor Christie said while the Yolngu language was in no danger of dying out, it was at some risk of losing its vital links to the land and to kinship. "Our teaching is based on stories about land ownership, ancestral stories, kinship and history," he said. "These are all integral to the language and its use. "The Yolngu language is not so much in danger of being lost as being depleted and its links to land and culture and ceremony being lost." He said relationships in part determined the use of and variations in the Yolngu language. To demonstrate that, students are introduced to the kinship system. "Every student is put into the kinship system and they must learn to use that to relate to each other, so they can understand the use of the language." The 2005 Australian Awards for University Teaching, sponsored by The Australian, were established by the federal Government in 1997 to recognise and reward excellence in university teaching and aim to raise the status of the profession. The CDU team receive a total of $75,000 from a prize pool of $565,000. Winners were announced last night at a function at Parliament House in Canberra. Eleven university teachers and five university teams received awards. This year, 117 applications were received from 35 universities in 12 categories. >From next year, the awards will be known as the Carrick Awards for University Teaching and will be managed by the Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. Next year, the awards receive a boost: they will be worth $3 million in total and 251 prizes will be given. For a full list of award winners and information on the Yolngu Studies Project, go to the following websites: www.theaustralian.com.au/highered www.cdu.edu.au/yolngustudies privacy terms ? The Australian From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Nov 29 22:10:04 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:10:04 -0700 Subject: Ojibway and Cree Cultural Centre celebrates 30 years (fwd) Message-ID: Ojibway and Cree Cultural Centre celebrates 30 years In celebration of its 30th anniversary, staff at the Ojibway and Cree Cultural Centre want to remind the public of their presence and the services they have to offer the community and surrounding areas. By Heather Duhn Monday November 28, 2005 http://www.timminstimes.com/story.php?id=198882 Staff at the Ojibway and Cree Cultural Centre are pleased to be celebrating 30 years of existence in the community. They offer a wide variety of resources and encourage members of the community to stop in and see what they have to offer. [inset Photo by Heather Duhn. Timmins Times ? In celebration of its 30th anniversary, staff at the Ojibway and Cree Cultural Centre want to remind the public of their presence and the services they have to offer the community and surrounding areas.] OCCC is a non-profit organization that was established in 1975 under the direction of Grand Council #9, now known as the Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN). The OCCC started as a cultural education program, one of the many programs of NAN. Its role and function was to address the cultural, traditional and language issues and concerns of the communities within Nishnawbe Aski area. The OCCC currently operates out of Timmins with a head office in Mattagami First Nation. It provides programs and services for 49 First Nation communities with the Nishnawbe Aski area. The focus of the OCCC programs and services are to retain, maintain, and preserve the culture, tradition and languages of the Aboriginal people of these communities. ?Our aims and objectives at the centre are to encourage and be supportive of NAN communities in their efforts towards self-determination, and to promote and encourage the establishment of library and information services in the communities of Nishnawbe Aski Nation,? said executive director Diane Riopel. ?We are also here to develop culturally relevant educational and language materials. We work with the Aboriginal communities and schools on educational and cultural matters and are available to make presentations to schools in order to heighten cultural awareness.? Riopel said she would also like to encourage members of the public to visit the centre and see what they have to offer. The OCCC also promotes and assists in cultural events and activities that will help instill and maintain the customs, knowledge, skills, values and arts of the NAN people. They work to keep in close harmony with other organizations whose aims and objectives are similar to that of the OCCC, and involve Elders and youth in meeting the objectives of the OCCC. Key components of the OCCC include its world-renowned library resource centre, educational program and language program. The resource centre is a Native-oriented library with a unique collection of materials focusing on the Aboriginal people of NAN and North America. Approximately 6,500 titles are available for loan to NAN members, organizations, and Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal members of the community. ?The resource centre is one of the major accomplishments of the OCCC,? said Riopel. ?It is widely used throughout its catchment area as well as other parts of the province and other provinces of Canada. The OCCC has even received requests from the United States and European countries as well. Under the OCCC?s mandate, it is the resource centre?s responsibility to ensure that every community has access to every source of information and knowledge as it pertains to their personal and community growth and development. Therefore, as a program of the Cultural Centre, the resource centre works toward the goals of ensuring ready access to sources of information and knowledge by providing for the collection and research of library acquisitions as they relate to the interest, relevancy and need of the communities and is people.? Library hours are Monday to Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The educational aspect of the centre offers assistance in the development and production of resource materials for the schools within the NAN area. In addition, this program provides advocacy and information on matters of educational concern and importance. The objectives of the education program are to provide assistance to the NAN schools, upon request, in the planning and development of school programs, curriculum and professional development. It also helps to promote cross-cultural awareness in mainstream education programs and institutions through presentations, workshops, and conferences. The language program encourages the use of the Aboriginal languages (Cree, Oji-Cree, and Ojibway) spoken within the NAN. The language program believes that the spirit, culture, history and philosophy of a people is past on and preserved from generation to generation through language. Without the language, a culture can not survive. It is for this reason it is imperative that the knowledge of our Elders be regained and retained. Again, they encourage members of the community to visit the centre and see what they have to offer. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Nov 29 22:16:14 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:16:14 -0700 Subject: Nepali version of Microsoft windows launched (fwd) Message-ID: Nepali version of Microsoft windows launched http://english.people.com.cn/200511/29/eng20051129_224426.html Unlimited NuMedia Private Limited and Microsoft Corporation jointly launched Nepali version of Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2003 in Kathmandu on Tuesday. "Preservation of culture, tradition and language through the use of new technology will be more easier and effective," vice chancellor of Royal Nepal Academy Basudev Tripathi said. He said that Nepali version of Windows will be a window to the world for Nepalese people. Inaugurating the new version, the chancellor said that it will now be possible to bring the advantages of information technology to the rural masses, where the biggest challenge so far has been the language barriers, as less than 10 percent of the Nepali people are well versed in English. "It will also help bridge the gap created by the existing digital divide in information technology and to extend Nepali language to the national and international level," Tripathi added. The people with computer access will be increased to 55 percent from the present 2 percent and the sale of personal computers will be multiplied by many folds with the introduction of the new Nepali version of windows, according to Allen Tuladhar, CEO of Unlimited NuMedia. The record shows that there were 500,000 computer sales in the past 15 years but the same amount will be sold in a year now, Tuladhar said. Microsoft has decided not to charge any license fees for the use of the localized editions of the new product, which has been under development for the last one year together with its local partner Unlimited NuMedia. Source: Xinhua From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Nov 29 22:13:14 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:13:14 -0700 Subject: New Lakota Leader Puts Emphasis on Language (fwd) Message-ID: New Lakota Leader Puts Emphasis on Language By Susan Logue Fort Yates, ND 29 November 2005 Logue report (Download MP3) 856 KB Logue report (Real Audio) - Download 567 KB Listen to Logue report (Real Audio) http://www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/2005-11-29-voa42.cfm [photo inset - Sitting Bull] Ron His Horse Is Thunder is the newly-elected tribal leader of the Standing Rock Lakota and a descendent of one of the most famous Indian leaders of all time: Sitting Bull. But growing up in the shadow of the famous Lakota medicine man who fought to keep his people off the reservation didn't make Ron His Horse Is Thunder, 47, special in the eyes of his peers. "I was told growing up as a child that 'yes, yes you are a descendent of Sitting Bull and you need to make a contribution to the people,'" he recalls. That sense of responsibility is one of the reasons he went to law school and why he [photo inset - Ron His Horse Is Thunder] decided to run for tribal chair this year. "In our tribe, your measure in life or your status in life is measured on what you do with your own life," he says. "So I went off and got a law degree and immediately came home and have been working for the tribe for the last 17 years." Eleven of those years were spent as president of Sitting Bull Tribal College on the Standing Rock Reservation, where he initiated programs to increase students' awareness and appreciation of Lakota history and to provide technical assistance for business development on the Reservation. Now, as tribal chair, Ron His Horse Is Thunder heads a community of 18,000. About half of the Standing Rock Lakota live on the reservation that straddles the border between North and South Dakota. Unemployment runs as high as 76%, and the economy is a top priority for Mr. His Horse Is Thunder, who took office on October 12. Less than a week later, he hosted a conference on the reservation to explore business opportunities for tribal members. But he says, the community needs more than jobs and money; it needs to feel a sense of pride in the Lakota language and culture. That's especially important where young people are concerned, he says, because suicide has reached epidemic levels among Lakota teens. "My grandparents -- lived in extreme poverty, but they were proud of who they were," he says. "They were proud of being Lakota. They spoke the language. They understood the ceremonies. They understood the culture. Poverty isn't what is causing our children commit suicide. It's being lost in their identity." Mr. His Horse Is Thunder says tribes rarely make their language important in the day-to-day lives of their members and the Lakota are no exception. "Most tribal governments meet and talk in English. In schools, English is the primary language," he says. "In Indian schools there are classes in Indian language - Lakota language here - but that is the only place in the whole school where Indian language is spoken. Street signs are written in English. Almost everything is in English." The newly-elected tribal chair would like to see that change on the Standing Rock reservation. "If we are going to save our languages, we need to show our children that it has value. That it is not something you can get by without." Making Lakota the primary language on the Standing Rock reservation will take some doing. Currently, only 25 to 30 percent of tribal members are fluent. Ron His Horse is Thunder is not among them. But he made a campaign promise to learn the language if elected, so government meetings could be conducted in Lakota. He renewed that pledge when he took office in October, saying if he has not learned the language by the time his term is up, he would not seek re-election in 2009. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Nov 29 22:37:45 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:37:45 -0700 Subject: Horomia: Mãori Language Versions Windows (fwd) Message-ID: Horomia: M?ori Language Versions Windows Wednesday, 30 November 2005, 9:32 am Speech: New Zealand Government 29 November 2005 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0511/S00429.htm Launch Of M?ori Language Versions Windows Xp And Microsoft Office Mihi I am delighted to offer my congratulations to all those involved in producing the M?ori Language Interface Packs for Windows and Office. To the representatives of Microsoft I thank you for the commitment you have shown to the M?ori language and indeed for the farsighted approach to indigenous languages you have taken worldwide. To the team from Waikato University - I acknowledge the skills you have displayed in both the IT area and in your continued dedication to excellence in the M?ori language. To Te Taura Whiri thank you again for your efforts in implementing the Governments M?ori language policies. It is my sincere belief that the launch of these products is a significant step in the road to revitalising the M?ori Language. We have seen a significant increase in the numbers of M?ori and other New Zealanders learning the language over the last decade. It is important that they now have access to tools to support them in using the language in everyday situations. The Government has in place a strategy that aims to see the place of the M?ori language in our nation strengthened to the point that it is a normal part of everyday life. The strategy seeks to achieve this through: ? enhanced M?ori language education; ? the expanded use of the language in the home and community; ? and encouraging the appreciation of the language by all New Zealanders. The availability of Microsoft applications in M?ori has the potential to contribute to all three of these areas if the applications are widely used by those with the language skills to do so. It is also important that the numbers of M?ori who are utilising the latest in information and communication technology is expanded. Presently only one in four M?ori homes are connected to the internet. The availability of Microsoft applications in the M?ori Language will facilitate the expansion of ICT use by M?ori. I am sure that as the next generation of M?ori come of age, they will be making much wider use of ICT than my generation has to date. I am especially pleased that the Interface Packs have the potential to significantly boost the IT resources of children in M?ori medium education. Though significant steps have been taken in revitalising the language since the 1970s, there is still much work that needs to be done. The M?ori language is no longer in danger of disappearing off the face of the earth. However, there remains a real danger that it will become a kind of Latin confined to use in ceremony and education only rather than being a language with a self-perpetuating pool of native speakers. For this reason, innovations such as the Language Interface Packs that expand the domains in which the language can be used are vital for the future of the M?ori Language. We need more such innovations to provide tools that enable the language to be normalized in information technology, communications technology, media and entertainment. The project to develop M?ori Language capacity for Microsoft Office and Windows has been a true collaboration between the public and private sectors, as well as the academic and commercial sectors. Both the Government and Microsoft have much to gain from the success of this project the Government in seeing its goals for language revitalisation met and Microsoft in terms of the expansion of its customer base into demographics that have been under represented in technology uptake. The innovative solutions developed by Microsoft with the aid of Te Taura Whiri, Waikato University and others highlight the advantages of such collaborations. I dont believe that any one sector alone will be able to meet the ongoing challenges the M?ori language faces in the 21st century. We therefore need more of the kinds of partnerships that have resulted in the production of these Language Interface Packs as we look to expand the use of M?ori in communications, media and education. M?ori have shown a remarkable desire to adapt to the opportunities and challenges that colonisation has brought. In the early 19th century, M?ori appropriated the technology of the P?keh? in their commercial activity, education, and warfare with considerable dynamism. I believe we are entering a similar period of technological innovation as M?ori take the lead in appropriating the new technology of the post-industrial era to meet their needs. The partnership with Microsoft is one example of this. For M?ori to fulfil their potential, there is still considerable work to be done in this area. I look forward to seeing the new and exciting innovations that M?ori, in partnership with Government and the private sector, will produce in their near future. Ka mutu ENDS From anggarrgoon at gmail.com Tue Nov 29 23:41:18 2005 From: anggarrgoon at gmail.com (Anggarrgoon) Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 17:41:18 -0600 Subject: Spreading the Arnhem word (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20051129150732.k708wcc84484koc8@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: It's really great that they won this award! It's a pity, though, that the article doesn't recognise the fact that there are at least 3 mutually unintelligible Yolngu languages, and the Yolngu Matha materials that the Yolngu Studies team have produced actually have samples of most of the clan varieties. Claire From MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Wed Nov 30 15:55:29 2005 From: MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 08:55:29 -0700 Subject: Maori Website In-Reply-To: <20051129151614.j5xwokwwo8s8ogsk@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Hi, all, I really liked the idea that there was a Microsoft Office in Maori. I wrote to them, and the people sent back this link: http://www.tetaurawhiri.govt.nz/ It is one of the most beautiful websites I have ever seen. I strongly encourage everyone to go look, even the people who always/too/perpetually "busy". And it is So Refreshing to see something in something other than the standard, "popular" languages. . . like English . . . . Russian . . . Mia From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Nov 30 18:28:28 2005 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 11:28:28 -0700 Subject: Maori Website In-Reply-To: <20051130155548.758935BCE@listserv.arizona.edu> Message-ID: thanks Mia, that was a great site. :) Phil Quoting Mia Kalish : > Hi, all, > > I really liked the idea that there was a Microsoft Office in Maori. I wrote > to them, and the people sent back this link: > http://www.tetaurawhiri.govt.nz/ > > > It is one of the most beautiful websites I have ever seen. I strongly > encourage everyone to go look, even the people who always/too/perpetually > "busy". And it is So Refreshing to see something in something other than the > standard, "popular" languages. . . like English . . . . Russian . . . > > > > Mia From mona at ALLIESMEDIAART.COM Wed Nov 30 20:58:32 2005 From: mona at ALLIESMEDIAART.COM (Smith) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 14:58:32 -0600 Subject: INFINITE GENEALOGY - Conf. --- Call for pres. Message-ID: > Call for proposals > The Infinite Genealogy: Intercultural Approaches to New Media Art > Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, May 2006 > > The Infinite Genealogy is a conference for international scholars, > artists, and researchers from a variety of fields to explore > non-Western genealogies and intercultural understandings of > contemporary new media art. Submissions are invited for papers and > artists? presentations and performances. > > The premise of this conference is that contemporary new media are > already informed by the histories, knowledges, and worldviews that > come to us from Chinese, Indian, Arab, African, indigenous, and other > worlds of science, mathematics, cosmology, spirituality, and > technology. We are interested not only in non-Western adaptations and > critiques of new media, but also in affinities and historical > connections between new media and traditional and ?hybrid? cultural > practices. The goal is to refresh our understandings of new media in > the light of traditional cultural paradigms; and to locate the most > interesting emergent approaches that result. The conference will bring > together people from the disciplines of art history, cinema and media > studies, music, communications, anthropology, history of technology, > history of science, history of mathematics, computer programming, > biology, and physics; and artists working in and across these > disciplines. > > Examples of topics: Traditional cosmologies as models for digital > virtuality; ethnomathematics and new media; non-Western models for > algorithmic and computative art forms (e.g. calligraphy); traditional > understandings of autopoesis and artificial life; worldviews from > which to approach genetics; how cultural understandings of > communication inform new media practice; specific ways in which > spirituality and mysticism inform new media; how traditional > algorithms inform musical composition; textiles as proto-digital > media; cross-cultural understandings of embodiment and performance. > > Submissions for papers and artists? presentations should include a > 500-word abstract, equipment requirements, and a curriculum vitae. We > plan to accommodate a variety of lengths and formats of presentation, > but presentations of 30 minutes stand the best chance of acceptance. > > Deadline: December 1, 2005 > Send to: Laura Marks, lmarks at sfu.ca (Please DO NOT send to > bi_elbi at telus.net) > For inquiries and to be on mailing list: lmarks at sfu.ca _____________ ... the lessons of labor history are invisible in the mass media and largely absent from public discourse. Time now for holiday gift donations!! Help build the future! http://www.uslabormuseum.org ? -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 3087 bytes Desc: not available URL: