Handheld 'Phraselator' helps preserve North American native languages (fwd)

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Handheld 'Phraselator' helps preserve North American native languages

Christina Good Voice
Canadian Press

Sunday, August 27, 2006
http://www.canada.com/topics/technology/news/gizmos/story.html?id=c6945d61-849d-4be6-85d4-d9eb30fb0948&k=86402

WHITE EAGLE, Okla. (AP) - Suzanne White Eagle never dreamed in her 71
years she would see her native tongue - the Ponca language - speak back
at her the way it did with new technology.

White Eagle, a Ponca tribal citizen and Henry Lieb, 80, are two of the
few people who speak the Ponca language. The Ponca Tribe has only about
two dozen fluent speakers among its 3,000 tribal members, said Dan
Jones, tribal chairman.

With the help of the Phraselator P2, a handheld device capable of
recording and playing back thousands of phrases, words, songs and
stories, White Eagle and Lieb recorded their native language Wednesday.

The Phraselator was developed for the U.S. military after the Sept. 11,
2001, terrorist attacks but Don Thornton, a Cherokee citizen from
California, knew this device could be useful for more than just
national security.

"My mother was part of that boarding school era, where Indian kids were
made to be ashamed to be Indian," Thornton said.

After a couple of years of endless requests, Thornton finally was able
to purchase the Phraselator from defence contractor Voxtec
International to be used for native language-revitalization. He said he
spent about $12 million developing the device for use by tribes. The
Phraselator costs about $3,300.

"It's the only thing invented for communication," Thornton said.

"The inventor of the device never imagined it could be used for
language-revitalization."

Thornton and his wife, Kara, run Thornton Media Inc., which is based in
Banning, Calif. They spend most of their time travelling around the
country and Canada recording the language of many different tribes.

Some of the tribes in Oklahoma whose languages have been recorded are
the Choctaw Nation, United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, Comanche
Nation, Ponca Tribe and the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribe of Oklahoma.

About a dozen tribes have already recorded their speakers and have
purchased the Phraselator.

Thornton said the next couple of stops to record with tribes include the
Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and tribes in Montana and Alberta.

The Ponca speakers said they can't believe they are going to have this
sort of help in preserving their language.

White Eagle has lived most of her life in White Eagle, which is about
eight kilometres south of Ponca City and has the namesake of her
husband's grandfather. She moved away for about 15 years while her
husband was in the military.

White Eagle said even before she left home she felt her tribe's language
was "fading away."

"It scared me - to see our language slipping away," White Eagle said.

"So I said: 'Let's get started. Let's teach our language."'

White Eagle said despite her determination and willingness to help teach
the language, she knew it was going to take much more than just her.

"So I thought: 'I'm going to pray about this,"' White Eagle said.

Tuesday, White Eagle's prayers were answered.

The Thorntons recorded with White Eagle and Lieb for two days and by
mid-afternoon Wednesday, the two had recorded several hundred words and
phrases.

"It will take a couple of years - it'll happen when it's meant to be,"
Jones said.

"Then we'll have it forever."

Lieb, a well-known tribal elder and language instructor said he is a
fluent speaker, if he can find someone to talk with.

"English is my second language. I was born on a reservation - the
language is all I know," Lieb said.

Lieb's been pushing for the tribe to begin language courses since 1998.
He's a Ponca language instructor at Frontier high school and he teaches
a community course to Ponca men once a week.

White Eagle teaches a course for Ponca women because men and women speak
the language slightly different from one another.

Lieb has developed a language program which he hopes to have in place by
fall 2007.

Jones said the Phraselator means a lot to the tribe because it will
speed up the learning process.

The tribal chairman said the tribe recently purchased two Phraselators
from Thornton Media Inc. and also bought 25 language apparatuses aimed
at children as young as four.

"From everything I've learned, it's the easiest age to learn a foreign
language," Jones said.

"They're so much more able to adapt in learning it."

The language device for the children is called the Little Linguist and
it's a round kid-friendly device that has two large buttons on it. The
device comes with several separate pieces in the forms of animals,
trees and mountains.

When a child places the toy into the device, it speaks the word in
whatever language is on the small disk that's inserted into its side.

"It's ironic," Thornton said.

"That this tool, created by the U.S. government may help to save the
languages that they attempted to wipe out for generations. With
Phraselator tribes can now have full control over their languages
without the help of outsiders."

© The Canadian Press 2006