From jieikobu at HOTMAIL.COM Sun Apr 1 02:34:29 2007 From: jieikobu at HOTMAIL.COM (Derksen Jacob) Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2007 02:34:29 +0000 Subject: Codetalkers on AZ Quarter In-Reply-To: <004d01c7448e$01fb7510$873f14ac@LFPMIA> Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lameen at GMAIL.COM Mon Apr 2 13:12:17 2007 From: lameen at GMAIL.COM (Lameen Souag) Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2007 14:12:17 +0100 Subject: Online Resources for Endangered Languages Message-ID: The Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project has just updated OREL: Online Resources for Endangered Languages. This bilingual library of annotated and categorised links now includes a total of more than 300 resources in English and Arabic, covering language endangerment and revitalisation, technology and techniques, ethical issues, and funding sources. To access OREL in English, go to http://www.hrelp.org/languages/resources/orel/ ; to access it in Arabic, go to http://www.hrelp.org/languages/resources/orel-ar/. Lameen Souag SOAS From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Apr 2 19:59:03 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2007 12:59:03 -0700 Subject: Funds are sought for tribes' digital communication (fwd) Message-ID: Funds are sought for tribes' digital communication Jessica Coomes The Arizona Republic Apr. 1, 2007 12:00 AM http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0401indian-telecom0401.html Swaths of Indian land in Arizona are cut off from cellphone service and the Internet, which creates problems in responding to emergencies and communicating in an information economy, a state lawmaker said. State Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Flagstaff, wants Congress to grant tribes money to establish communication infrastructure and allow tribes to regulate their own telecommunications. Kirkpatrick is sponsoring House Concurrent Memorial 2007, a letter that would be sent from the Arizona Legislature to Congress, asking that the federal government do more to bridge the tribes' digital divide. The Senate Government Committee approved the measure Monday, 5-0. The full House passed the measure 40-17 last month. "A lot of people don't realize it's a problem," Kirkpatrick said. "We have huge gaps. . . . We do not have a continuous band of telecommunications in northern Arizona." Kirkpatrick said tribes should be allowed to regulate their own telecommunications, in part, because of the red tape communications companies and tribes face in getting approval for services from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. "It takes years to get approval," she said. Immediately after she was sworn into office in 2005, Kirkpatrick said she met with Gov. Janet Napolitano and tribal leaders to talk about remote communities in northern Arizona that were stranded after heavy floods. Kirkpatrick said she has been working on the issue since then. Lobbyist and Navajo Nation member Ron Lee said the digital divide needs to be bridged. "Knowledge is a huge part of the economy, and we need to have the tribal communities connected to better participate in the economy and, today, the global economy," Lee told senators this week. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Apr 3 17:06:28 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2007 10:06:28 -0700 Subject: Ottawa invests in Aboriginal language projects (fwd) Message-ID: Ottawa invests in Aboriginal language projects April 2, 2007 - by Joseph Quesnel http://www.firstperspective.ca/fp_combo_template.php?path=20070402lang The Ministry of Canadian Heritage will be making a significant investment in community-based Aboriginal language retention. Beverley J. Oda, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women, announced recently a commitment of $232,470 in funding for the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) Alberta Regional Office to support community-based First Nations language projects in Alberta. "Canada's New Government is pleased to support an organization that works on a national level to preserve and promote First Nation, Inuit and Métis languages," said Minister Oda. "The strength of these languages is important for Canada's First Nations communities, and they are an important part of Canada's shared heritage." "Our Government is proud to support the efforts of the AFN Alberta Regional Office to preserve ten First Nations languages," said Mr. Calkins. "For Aboriginal groups in the regions, these languages, cultures and traditions are an important part of their identity, and they are a part of the rich heritage of all Canadians." The AFN Alberta Regional Office works in cooperation with the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations, Treaty 7 Management Corporation, and Treaty 8 First Nations of Alberta to manage and distribute funds to their respective communities across the province of Alberta. The ten languages supported through this funding include Cree, Dene, Beaver, Chipewyan, Saulteaux, Nakota, Blackfoot, Kainai, Peikani, and Tsuu T'ina. Selected projects include language workshops, language classes, teacher training, language documentation, immersion camps, Elders reading programs, and the development of language learning materials. The federal government, in a press release, said they provided this funding through the Aboriginal Languages Initiative, which forms part of the Department of Canadian Heritage's Aboriginal Peoples' Program. The Aboriginal Languages Initiative provides $5 million per year to support the preservation, revitalization and promotion of Aboriginal languages by facilitating the use of these languages in community and family settings. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Apr 4 05:45:54 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2007 22:45:54 -0700 Subject: Brazil to offer free Internet access to Amazon tribes (fwd) Message-ID: Brazil to offer free Internet access to Amazon tribes http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/03/30/amazon.internet.ap/index.html RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Brazil's government said it will provide free Internet access to native Indian tribes in the Amazon in an effort to help protect the world's biggest rain forest. The environment and communications ministers signed an agreement Thursday with the Forest People's Network to provide an Internet signal by satellite to 150 communities, including many reachable only by riverboat, allowing them to report illegal logging and ranching, request help and coordinate efforts to preserve the forest. The goal is to "encourage those peoples to join the public powers in the environmental management of the country," Francisco Costa of the Environment Ministry said in a statement. "The government intends to strengthen the Forest People's Network, a digital web for monitoring, protection and education." The ministry said city and state governments must first install telecenters with computers in selected areas, including indigenous lands. The federal government then will provide the satellite connection. The areas in 13 states, including the Pantanal wetlands and the poor northeast, were chosen by the Environment Ministry, the National Indian Foundation, or Funai, and the government environmental protection agency Ibama, the ministry said. Francisco Ashaninka, a native Indian from the Ashaninka tribe who works for the western Acre state government, said the arrival of the Internet was a success for the Forest People's Network, created in 2003. He said there are currently a few telecenters on the outskirts of cities, but that the new ones will be built deep in the forest and will allow Indians easy access to public officials so that they can alert them of illegal miners, loggers and ranchers. "It will be a real chance for the indigenous communities to acquire, share and provide information to public officials," Ashaninka said. He added the Internet would "strengthen indigenous culture by linking them and providing environmental education." Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Find this article at: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/03/30/amazon.internet.ap/index.html From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Apr 4 22:31:52 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 15:31:52 -0700 Subject: Grants aim to preserve and promote Cherokee culture (fwd) Message-ID: week of 4/4/07 Grants aim to preserve and promote Cherokee culture SMN http://www.smokymountainnews.com/issues/04_07/04_04_07/fr_grant_cherokee.html Cherokee Preservation Foundation has awarded 29 grants totaling $3.6 million during its spring cycle. Grants awarded by the Cherokee Preservation Foundation are funded by casino proceeds of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Grants are awarded to efforts that advance the cultural attractions’ heritage programming efforts and to facilitate Cherokee language revitalization efforts. Major new support of heritage tourism includes: • A $500,000 grant to continue an award winning marketing campaign that spotlights the Cherokee Historical Association’s Unto These Hills outdoor drama production and Oconaluftee Indian Village, Qualla Arts & Crafts Mutual, and the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. • A $129,000 grant to offer theatre training to local performers that will help prepare them for involvement in the new, more culturally-oriented production of Unto These Hills, the popular retelling of the Cherokee people’s story. The grant will also provide ticketing for local schools to attend the drama and living history village. • A $75,000 grant will enable training a cadre of cultural ambassadors to enhance the major Cherokee cultural attractions and the making of traditional Cherokee clothing for the ambassadors. • A nearly $120,000 grant will support continuation and expansion of the Festival of Native Peoples, which features performers and artisans from tribes across the United States, Canada and Mexico. The 2007 festival will take place in July. • A $127,000 grant will support an effort led by the new Cherokee Chamber of Commerce to stimulate tourism by creating a clearly identifiable “Cultural District” within Cherokee with the help of signage and banners. • A $15,000 grant will support an initiative by the Museum of the Cherokee Indian to translate Cherokee literary works into the Cherokee language. The first of these is Thirteen Moons, by Charles Frazier. Major support from Cherokee Preservation Foundation for Cherokee language revitalization efforts includes: • A $206,000 grant to develop curriculum and learning materials for language immersion programs, in which students hear and learn their native language during the entire experience, and more conventional community-based language learning programs. • A nearly $85,000 grant to enable the development of a second-level language course that will allow higher level Cherokee speakers to advance their skills more quickly, and to support a Cherokee Language Immersion Camp in the Snowbird Community. The Kituwah Preservation and Education Program and Western Carolina University are in the process of developing a comprehensive Cherokee language revitalization initiative, and the program is being guided by their recognition that language learning must come from the community in order to have an impact. • A $55,000 grant that will enable the Kituwah Preservation and Education Program to develop an operating plan for the Kituwah Academy, a planned facility that will house language immersion programs for children from infancy through fifth grade. • A nearly $235,000 grant to Western Carolina University to create materials for all levels of Cherokee language learners and to develop a Cherokee language degree program and the necessary textbooks for this program. From scoronel at PRINCETON.EDU Fri Apr 6 01:48:04 2007 From: scoronel at PRINCETON.EDU (Serafin M Coronel-Molina (scoronel@Princeton.EDU)) Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2007 21:48:04 -0400 Subject: Andean languages are making a comeback Message-ID: >From the April 03, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0403/p01s03-woam.html Sweeping South America: indigenous pride Andean languages are making a comeback as long discriminated-against cultures push for acceptance. By Sara Miller Llana | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor LIMA, PERU Hilaria Supa stands out in Lima in her brightly hued ancestral clothes and long braids. But she is even more of an iconoclast in the Peruvian legislature, where the congresswoman insists on speaking in her native Quechua. In doing so, Ms. Supa says, she hopes to create a new era of inclusion for the indigenous who have long been discriminated against in Peru. "When we speak in Quechua they say it's rude because they don't understand us," she says. "But my hope is that the language will someday be appreciated; it will be difficult, but not impossible." Across the Andes, similar efforts – some controversial – are bringing new recognition to indigenous culture. In Bolivia, the government hopes to nearly double the number of native language programs in classrooms by next year. In Peru, foreigners and locals alike are enrolling in extracurricular courses. Internationally, the renaissance is getting a boost as well: this past summer Google launched a new page in Quechua and Microsoft unveiled Quechua translations of Windows. It coincides with the indigenous rights movement that has swept across Latin America – contributing to the presidential win of Evo Morales in Bolivia, the competitive run of Ollanta Humala in Peru, and the recently announced presidential bid of Rigoberta Menchu in Guatemala. Each has given a nod to indigenous culture and language in classrooms and the halls of government. "At a grassroots level, indigenous groups are trying to revitalize their identity, their language, culture, and their ideas," says Serafín Coronel-Molina, a linguist at Princeton University in New Jersey, and native Quechua speaker. There are an estimated 10 to 13 million Quechua speakers in South America, most of them in Peru and Bolivia. Bolivia has an estimated 1.5 million Aymara speakers. Andean languages also flourish in Ecuador as well as parts of Colombia and Argentina. But for years, native languages were seen as a sign of inferiority. Miriam Cayetano, who teaches Quechua at San Andres University in La Paz, Bolivia, says parents used to forbid their children to speak their mother tongue. "Before parents thought their children would be undervalued [and discriminated against]," she says. Now enrollment in classes teaching indigenous tongues is rising in universities and private institutions. Concepción Quisbert, a student of Aymara at San Andres University, joins some 250 students enrolled in either Aymara or Quechua. On a recent day, students pulled out their Aymara dictionaries, while their professor holds up erasers and pencils. The students are learning to say words like 'phuyu,' which means 'pen'. The room is packed. "I understand Aymara because I spoke it with my parents, but never learned how to write it," says Ms. Quisbert. "I want to know my culture, and my country." Most in Bolivia cite the rise of President Morales, an Aymara Indian and the nation's first indigenous president, for a boost in native languages. But in Peru enthusiasm is also on the rise. On a recent evening in Cusco, the ancient capital of the Inca empire, a group of students enrolled in intermediary Quechua at the Center of Regional Andean Studies Bartolome de las Casas practice communicating. They are anthropologists, teachers in rural areas, and university students studying for careers such as medicine. Sonia Louiza grew up speaking Quechua but gave it up when she began elementary school. "I was embarrassed, and thought speaking it was something horrible," she says. She enrolled in an intermediate class to recapture what she lost. "It helps me to know who I am." Linguists, ethnologists, and anthropologists have long been interested in Andean languages, but technology has brought it to the mainstream. Not only have Google and Microsoft jumped into the game, so have smaller players, particularly in Quechua. "There are a growing number of websites. There are electronic dictionaries. There are stories, literature, games, everything," says Mr. Coronel-Molina. "It's to promote a new kind of literacy in the 21 st century." But while many embrace native languages, others resist their roots. Amparo Garcia, the director for Spanish and Quechua programs at Acupari Language School in Cusco , says that most of her Quechua students are foreigners. "There is a certain resistance to Quechua among some Peruvians," she says. "Even if they know Quechua, sometimes when they are addressed in it they answer in Spanish, or English." That is why Supa has made it one of her battle cries. Seventeen percent of Peru's residents speak Quechua as a first language. In her home Huallaccocha, outside Cusco, residents address one another in Quechua on the streets and in local stores. Some don't speak Spanish at all. But it is a different story along the coast, where most of the political and economic power lies. In July, Supa made headlines when she swore her oath of office not on the Bible but in the name of Incan deities. She is also working on a law to introduce indigenous language education to public schools. "If we don't have an identity, then the rest won't value us," Supa says. "The town is so proud of her," says Carlos Huaman, Supa's cousin and a farmer in Huallaccocha, where homes are made with mud and straw, and the streets turn into mud slicks in the rainy season. "She can help the indigenous." Not everyone has celebrated giving more space to indigenous culture. Last year in Bolivia, plans to replace Roman Catholic education in public schools with a course that would place more emphasis on indigenous faith, as well as to require that all schools teach native languages, was scrapped after citizens balked – despite the fact that well over half of the population speaks a native language, according to the national census. But the Bolivian Education Ministry is pushing to nearly double its native language programs to some 5,000 schools. Currently 2,830 have such programs, up from 540 in 1990. "Learning our culture helps us de-colonize mentally," says Adrian Montalvo, who helps plan the native languages program in the Education Ministry. The goal is to have all functionaries at the national level adept at at least one native language, too. Where many in the younger generations focus on foreign languages for social mobility and work opportunities, Ms. Cayetano, says many students are enrolling in native languages today for the very same reasons. "They are starting to revalue their languages," says Cayetano, whose department offers classes to functionaries in the municipal government of La Paz. "They are going to need it in the future." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Apr 6 16:26:59 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2007 09:26:59 -0700 Subject: UCSB Professors Preserve Native American Language (fwd) Message-ID: UCSB Professors Preserve Native American Language By Kristina Kurasz, April 5, 2007 http://www.independent.com/online_onlys/2007/04/ucsb_professors_preserve_nativ.html The spoken language of the Wappo Native American tribe almost ceased to exist when Laura Somersal, the last remaining fluent speaker, died sixteen years ago. The efforts of UCSB linguistics professors Sandra Thompson and Charles Li have prevented the language from becoming completely extinct. The pair recently published the most extensive data and grammatical research ever conducted on the Wappo language in A Reference Grammar of the Wappo. In the ten years it took to gather information, Li and Thompson traveled to Northern California every six to eight weeks to record Somersal speak and put the language in context. Although research began in 1975, the technology required to properly organize the word structure was not available until recently. This valuable preservation is in keeping with the current movement to document and archive indigenous languages on the verge of extinction. Kristina Kurasz is an Independent intern. From fhm at UNIMELB.EDU.AU Mon Apr 9 11:41:21 2007 From: fhm at UNIMELB.EDU.AU (Felicity Meakins) Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2007 21:41:21 +1000 Subject: UCSB Professors Preserve Native American Language In-Reply-To: <20070406092659.vrki4g4gg84gks08@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: A job/project announcement for Australia: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Eva Sallis > To: Eva Sallis > Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 2:24 PM > Subject: From AAR: Aboriginal Language Project > > > [Australians Against Racism Inc. If you wish to be > removed from this list please email > info at australiansagainstracism.org > with 'unsubscribe' in the header] > > > > > Dear All > > > > > A belated Happy 2007 to all; and, with many, we hope > for change in Australian politics and mainstream > attitudes this year. This mailing list has been > quiet (we still have a few glitches following the > computer crash, and we apologise for this) but we > have been extremely busy. > > > At AAR, we have been working through the past few > months with establishing an Aboriginal language and > culture course, Adnyamathanha Ngawarla Yarramalka. > This will be our major project through 2007 and > beyond, alongside seeing the Rainbow Bird project > through to completion. (News on that below) > > > It is inevitable that our work on racism and > refugees has led us to begin to devise projects for > the greater inclusion of Aboriginal people and > culture in Australia's sense of self, as the > prejudice experienced by Aboriginal people is the > core racism in Australia, the central blindness, and > the source and symptom of much harm - to Aboriginal > people primarily, but also to us all. > > > In New Zealand, children learn Maori and English. > Maori and English are the official languages. > Imagine what it would mean to all Australians, > Aboriginal and non Aboriginal, if Australia > recognised Aboriginal languages as essential to us > all. Imagine what changes could come about, if, > instead of having a Prime Minister call for the end > of teaching Aboriginal children their own language > in schools, all Australians were encouraged to learn > an Australian language at school. > > > We would like to be part of a push for such > acknowledgment of Australian languages in Australia; > and, to start our encouragement to all Australians > to learn an Australian language, we will be running > a course in one of these languages and learning > ourselves at the same time. > > > Adnyamathanha Ngawarla Yarramalka is a project > devised both for (and by) the Adnyamathanha > community, and for the diverse Australian community. > Have a look at the beautiful website, donated by > David Mutton - www.adnyamathanha.com - for more > information > > > How did it come about? > > > Well ... in short, I have been running a language > program in Arabic for kids for the last eight months > - have a look at www.ozarabic.com, if you are > intrigued. Gillian Bovoro suggested that AAR might > be able to do the same for her language, drawing on > my experience. This seemed a wonderful idea. Since > then, Gillian and I have worked on developing the > Adnyamathanha Ngawarla Yarramalka project. Guy > Tunstill from DECS has provided us with an entire > course prepared for teaching Adnyamathanha from year > 1-12, as well as many other resources. Yasmin Aleem > has worked with David Mutton, who joined the team > and designed the website; Gillian took the idea to > the community and got extensive feedback on it; and > we drove up to Port August and Quorn in early March > for meetings with elders to get their advice, > suggestions, and support. The enthusiasm for the > project in the community, here and in Port Augusta > is very encouraging. Tauondi College have agreed to > host it, providing all facilities we could possibly > want. > > > The costs of this project are not high - we need > enough money to pay the teacher and to pay elders > who give guest sessions when they are in Adelaide. > We also need enough to provide some food at each > session. The project will be part funded by the > students who enrol. Consultation with families has > helped us set the fees low enough to make it > possible for many of the poorer families and young > people to attend. The project will be also part > funded by Tauondi, who have offered a $2 per student > donation. AAR will handle the administration of the > course, and will come up with whatever funds are > needed to make the course sustainable week by week > and in the long term. I will be attending every > week, as will Gillian. > > > If you would like to support this project, we would > very much welcome donations. These would be used to > pay teachers and elders who are guests of the > program. When attendance is high, we may have > enough, but at times when it drops, or if we need to > bring in a guest speaker, we will be supplementing > the fund. > > > We have everything in place to start the course > except for a core teacher. If you know anyone, or > are connected with relevant networks and > organisations, please forward this ad to them. > > > > > Adnyamathanha Teacher Wanted > > for Aboriginal Language and Culture Program > > Coordinated by Australians Against Racism Inc, > hosted by Tauondi College, Port Adelaide. > > The successful applicant must have the ability to > teach Adnyamathanha language to a diverse class, > teaching first basic skills and then building on > them. DECS¹ course for teaching Adnyamathanha will > be provided to the teacher > > Experience in teaching is desirable. Classes will > be mixed children (from 5 years) and adults. Classes > could at times be quite large (Up to 30 people), and > will be made up of people from inside and outside > the Adnyamathanha community. > > Applicants must speak Adnyamathanha fluently. > Formal qualifications are desirable but not > essential. > > Rates of pay will be $80 per session, usually one > session per week, in term time only. Sessions are > around 90 minutes. > > This language program is a community based > initiative and will be part funded by the families > enrolled. > > For more information, see www.adnyamathanha.com or > phone 8447 8586. > > Please post cover letter and CV by March 30th. In > the letter please outline your skills and > experience. > > Attn: Eva Sallis and Gillian Bovoro > > Adnyamathanha Ngawarla Yarramalka > > AAR Inc > > PO Box 107 > > Enfield Plaza SA 5085 > > > > > > > > > > > > > Finally, On Rainbow Bird > Rainbow Bird will go to printers in the next four > weeks, we hope. Deborah Baldassi has been working > with Czenya on finalising design. It is an > extraordinary book, and I hope you are all crazy > with anticipation. You won't be disappointed. (We > are hoping for a launch after mid year) > > > > > > > warmest wishes > > > > > > > Eva and all at AAR > > > ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ > Dr Eva Sallis > Visiting Research Fellow > Department of English > University of Adelaide SA 5005 > www.evasallis.com > > > President, Australians Against Racism Inc > www.australiansagainstracism.org > From scoronel at PRINCETON.EDU Wed Apr 11 19:55:27 2007 From: scoronel at PRINCETON.EDU (Serafin M Coronel-Molina (scoronel@Princeton.EDU)) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 15:55:27 -0400 Subject: New Literacies in Indigenous Languages Message-ID: ACLA 2007: Puebla, Mexico Seminar: New Literacies in Indigenous Languages: The Role of Mass Media in Mexico, Central and South America Coloquio: Nuevas literacidades en lenguas indígenas: el rol de los medios de comunicación social en México, Centroamérica y Sudamérica http://dev.cdh.ucla.edu/acla2007/?p=109 Seminar Organizer: Hana Muzika Kahn & Serafín M. Coronel-Molina Affiliation: The College of New Jersey, Princeton University Email: kahn at tcnj.edu Email: scoronel at princeton.edu Description: Television, radio, cinema and computers, in addition to print media, have greatly expanded access to culture and information produced in indigenous languages in Mexico, Central and South America. In the 21st century, literatures in both traditional and emerging genres are being presented through the media as performances, in written and oral forms, and more recently in Internet multi-media formats. How do these developments support the revitalization of indigenous languages and cultures in these territories? Are they accessible to all members of the community? How are literary genres evolving in terms of these new modes of transmission? What are the implications of moving from traditional literacy to new multi-media literacies in the context of the educational and socio-economic situations of indigenous communities? This seminar will be an opportunity to examine indigenous literature in the mass media, and to exchange information about indigenous language films and recordings, radio and television programs and performances, computer programs, websites, newspapers and magazines, and other mass media adaptations and recordings of literary materials in indigenous languages. Papers may be in Spanish or English. La televisión, la radio, el cine y las computadoras, además de los medios de comunicación impresos, han incrementado formidablemente el acceso a la cultura y a la información producida en lenguas indígenas en México, Centroamérica y Sudamérica. En el siglo XXI, las literaturas tanto en géneros tradicionales como en géneros emergentes son presentados a través de los medios de comunicación social como performances en forma escrita y oral, y más recientemente en formatos multimedia en Internet. ¿De qué manera apoyan estos adelantos a la revitalización de las lenguas y culturas indígenas en los mencionados territorios? ¿Son ellas accesibles a todos los miembros de la comunidad? ¿De qué modo se están desarrollando los géneros literarios en relación a estas nuevas formas de transmisión? ¿Cuáles son las consecuencias del cambio de la literacidad tradicional a las nuevas literacidades de multimedia dentro de los contextos educativos y socio-económicos de las comunidades indígenas? E l presente seminario constituirá una oportunidad para examinar la literatura indígena en los medios de comunicación social, y para intercambiar información en torno a películas y grabaciones, programas y actuaciones de radio y televisión, programas de computadora, portales, periódicos y revistas, y otros tipos de adaptaciones y grabaciones de los medios de comunicación respecto a los materiales literarios en lenguas indígenas. Las ponencias pueden ser en español o inglés. Papers for this Topic Stream C Friday, April 20th, 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Chair: Serafín Coronel-Molina Title: Límites de la traducción, lugares de la tradición: la obra poética de Maruch Sántiz Gómez. Author: Perla Masi Affiliation: Princeton University Email: pmasi at princeton.edu Title: Preserving Mayan Oral Tradition on the Internet Author: Hana Muzika Kahn Affiliation: The College of New Jersey Email: kahn at tcnj.edu Title: La televisión y la enseñanza del maya yucateco Author: Bella Flor Canche Teh Affiliation: Universidad de Oriente, Valladolid, Yucatán Email: nictemucuy at yahoo.com.mx Title: Informatics and the Future of Indigenous Languages Author: Michael Gasser Affiliation: School of Informatics, Indiana University Email: gasser at indiana.edu Saturday, April 21st, 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Chair: Hana Muzika Kahn Title: Hojas de Coca y Hojas de Papel en la Educación de los Niños Muinane. Amazonia Colombiana Author: Giovanna Micarelli Affiliation: UIUC Email: itauba at yahoo.com Title: The Inga Language Project at Indiana University: Leaping into Online Literacy Author: John McDowell Affiliation: Indiana University Email: mcdowell at indiana.edu Title: Nuevas literacidades en lenguas originarias en Bolivia/New literacies in indigenous languages in Bolivia Author: Utta von Gleich Affiliation: Center for Linguistics, Hamburg University Email: utta at vongleich.de Title: Las NTICS y el quechua: entre la inclusión y la exclusión Author: Jorge Alderetes & Leila Ines Albarracin Affiliation: Universidad Nacional De Tucuman, Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero Email: adilq at arnet.com.ar Title: ¿Puede la Web ayudar a preservar y revitalizar el quechua y el aimara? Author: Serafín Coronel-Molina Affiliation: Princeton University Email: scoronel at princeton.edu From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Apr 12 16:49:41 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 09:49:41 -0700 Subject: Stoney schools work to preserve language (fwd) Message-ID: Stoney schools work to preserve language [Maxine Achurch - photo Stoney-Nakoda language teacher Kim Fox helps Darris Bearspaw and Lane Hunter with their Grade 4 Nakoda lesson] By Rob Alexanader - Reporter Apr 11 2007 http://www.rockymountainoutlook.ca/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=128&cat=23&id=961684&more= Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the 15th and 16th centuries, Canada was home to at least 60 aboriginal languages, but in the roughly 400 years following colonization, the majority of Canada’s aboriginal languages are now either at risk or on the verge of disappearing. Currently, Canada’s aboriginal languages are among the most endangered languages in the world, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. In the past century alone, 10 once-thriving languages have vanished with another dozen, such as Haida with 240 speakers, and Kutenai at 120, at risk. In fact, only three of Canada’s 50 still-surviving aboriginal languages – Inukitut, Cree and Ojibway – are expected to survive into the future as each has more than 20,000 speakers. On the Stoney-Nakoda First Nation reserve, the challenge is keeping the language alive when the number of people in the Stoney-Nakoda First Nation, while growing, is still relatively small at roughly 4,000. Add to that the predominance of English in this region and in the media; music, movies, television and magazines, and it is a mix that Kim Fox, one of three language teachers at Morley, believes could lead to the demise of the Nakoda language in the next 50 to 70 years. The 2002 Indian and Northern Affairs report From Generation to Generation: Survival and Maintenance of Canada’s Aboriginal Languages Within Families, Communities and Cities indicates that one of the major threats to any aboriginal language is the off-reserve environment. “Our language survived residential schools, but I feel that will change in 50 years,” Fox said recently. Fox added that at Morley, roughly a third of the 600 students are fluent, one-third are able to understand it, but can’t speak it and one-third cannot understand or speak Nakoda at all. She added that most elementary students speak in English to one another, rather than Stoney. “They all play in English. When I was a kid I played in Stoney,” she said. A member of the Siouian Family of languages that are part of the Greater Sioux Nation, Nakoda has been spoken in the Rocky Mountains since at least the late 1600s when the Mountain Stoneys arrived in this region, following a roughly 50-year, 4,800 kilometre journey that began in the Great Lakes Region. French and British explorers and fur traders began to introduce their trade goods, culture and languages in the Rocky Mountain region in the mid- to late-1700s. Following that period, especially after the signing of Treaty 7 in 1877 and the introduction of residential schools, the Nakoda language — like numerous aboriginal languages and cultures — came under considerable pressure from mainstream society. But today, Nakoda is a living language still being taught to children in their homes and, of course, championed in the schools by people such as Fox, Helmer Twoyoungman, her counterpart at the Eden Valley school and Dr. Gordon Breen, Morley school principal. The Big Horn School, on the Big Horn reserve located near Nordegg, also teaches Stoney as part of the regular curriculum. Originally an oral language, Stoney-Nakoda became a written language in the 1970s. The three schools offer classes in Stoney, beginning with the youngest students through to senior high, which offers Stoney 15, 25 and 35, each worth three credits. The younger grades work with simple concepts such as animals, numbers and common prayers, for example. High school students take an hour a day, which Fox said helps with their retention. But teaching the language is only part of the equation — like anything, it has to be relevant. As a result, the Morley school includes a strong cultural component in its curriculum, of which Nakoda is an integral element, that Breen said attempts to “honour and facilitate cultural aspirations. “Our intention is – our programming is to reinforce the aboriginal identity (Nakoda) – identify and create a solid foundation of personal and academic growth. We see the native culture as an asset to the student’s education or schooling,” he said. Without helping students develop their identity as aboriginal people, the school will have failed, Breen said, as aboriginal schools across Canada failed their charges by not embracing the unique identity of each group. “For years, Aboriginal schools were part of the reason for the failures: it worked against or negated the students’ identity. If they get through the school, many graduate without refinement of their identity as individuals,” he said. “You don’t run against who your community is. A portion is dictated, but another portion is what the community wants.” At the same time, the school has to reach the goals Alberta Learning has for all schools across the province to allow graduates get jobs and go on to university or college. The Nakoda cultural component has its own classroom where students learn about their own culture, their history, even nature, all in their own their language, making the school a richer, more meaningful experience for students and educators alike. Twoyoungman likens the work that happens in this classroom to balancing a drumstick – essentially the idea of promoting harmony through understanding. “Say you have understood your culture, and are more accepting of others,” he said, adding balancing a drumstick allows Nakoda people to function in the white world. “It’s the only way you can live in harmony.” Preserving their language is also a celebration of their culture and an affirmation that they are survivors and that they are not, as once believed, mere charges of the government, but instead, in control of their future and their identity. “That’s the other thing we have to focus on; the positive. Why it’s important. Why it is important to preserve our language,” Fox said. Fox said to help facilitate the preservation of Nakoda, she hopes one day a language centre will be built on the reserve, a building solely dedicated to preserving and teaching their language. © Copyright 2007 Rocky Mountain Outlook From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Apr 12 16:52:56 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 09:52:56 -0700 Subject: Truku dictionary meant to help preserve culture (fwd) Message-ID: Published on Taipei Times http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2007/04/12/2003356291 Truku dictionary meant to help preserve culture LEXICON: Eight years ago, six pastors in Hualien County got together to write the nation's first dictionary for the tribal tongue after realizing what was about to be lost By Loa Iok-sin STAFF REPORTER Thursday, Apr 12, 2007, Page 4 Pastors of the Truku tribe in an Aboriginal township in Hualien have sought to preserve the tribe's culture and language by publishing the nation's first Truku dictionary yesterday. In 1999, six pastors in Sioulin Township (秀林) of Hualien County formed a team to write the nation's first Truku dictionary after realizing that the tribe's language could soon be lost if they didn't put efforts into its preservation, Jiru Haruq, a pastor at a local church and an author of the dictionary, said. Although Sioulin only has about 15,000 inhabitants, it is one of the two major Truku regions in the country, with over 85 percent of the population in the area, according to the township's Web site. In the past, the Truku tribe was considered a subtribe of Atayal because of their close connections, Sioulin Township Mayor Syu Shu-yin (許淑銀) said. Although the writing of the dictionary only began in 1999, the research started in 1953. "In 1953, Pisaw Yudaw, a pastor at a local church, began to translate the Bible into Truku," said Iyuq Ciyang, another author of the dictionary. "After five years working on the translation, Pisaw built a lexicon of 3,000 Truku root words, which became the base for the dictionary," he added. Words in Truku are created by adding prefix, postfix and midfix to root words. A root word can develop into as many as 40 words, Jiru explained. Midfix is added into the middle of a root word by separating the root word. Taking an example from the dictionary, hakawis a root word meaning "bridge" in Truku, hmhakaw becomes "bridge-building", mhakaw is a bridge builder, shakaw is the reason to build a bridge and hkagan is the location where the bridge is built. "Verb tenses and different parts of speech are also constructed by adding prefixes, postfixes or midfixes to a rood word," Iyuq said. "Culture and language are inseparable," Jiru said. "The wisdom of our ancestors and our history are alive in the Truku language." Jiru gave an example of how the Truku language is closely connected to the tribe's collective memory. "Preserving the language is preserving our culture, our customs, and our traditions," Jiru said. Copyright © 1999-2007 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Apr 13 15:55:48 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 08:55:48 -0700 Subject: Métis institute gets money to revive endangered language (fwd) Message-ID: Métis institute gets money to revive endangered language Last Updated: Thursday, April 12, 2007 | 2:52 PM CT CBC News http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2007/04/12/michif.html Métis educators in Saskatchewan hope an infusion of federal cash announced Thursday will help revive an endangered aboriginal language — Michif. On Thursday, Ottawa gave $125,000 to the Gabriel Dumont Institute, a non-profit organization that provides training for Métis students in the province. The funds are meant to help promote the spread of the Michif language from generation to generation. Michif, a mixture of French and Cree with some borrowings from Dene and English, was once widely spoken among the Métis people of Western Canada. These days, like many aboriginal languages, it is in danger of extinction. It is for the most part spoken only in north-west Saskatchewan and a few communities in Alberta and Manitoba. It's believed fewer than 1,000 people speak it. The new funding will be used to try to ensure more children pick up the language, said Geordy McCaffrey, the executive director of the Gabriel Dumont Institute. "Basically we're going to create a number of children's resources, children's books, and we also hold a gathering each year where we bring Michif speakers from across Saskatchewan," McCaffrey said. "They develop an overall plan to make sure Michif is revitalized and stays relevant." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Apr 13 17:26:57 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 10:26:57 -0700 Subject: Technology keeps indigenous languages alive (fwd media link) Message-ID: Technology keeps indigenous languages alive Melissa Marconi-Wentzel SITKA, ALASKA (2007-03-26) Modern technology and contemporary teaching techniques are keeping traditional languages alive in Southeast Alaska. That was one of the messages conveyed by a panel of people working on the frontlines of indigenous language education in Alaska, during the landmark “Sharing our Knowledge” Clan Conference held in Sitka last week. © Copyright 2007, Raven Radio Foundation Inc. ~~~ online radio broadcast at KRBD 105.3FM Community Radio For Southern Southeast Alaska http://krbd.org/modules/local_news/index.php?op=sideBlock&syndicated=true&ID=138 From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sat Apr 14 18:54:52 2007 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2007 11:54:52 -0700 Subject: Language-Immersion Success Story Message-ID: Language-Immersion Success Story There is always an obstacle to overcome before the main characters win the prize. This story is no different. full story @: http://www.edutopia.org/community/spiralnotebook/?p=250 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Apr 15 12:30:20 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 05:30:20 -0700 Subject: Major Effort Is Under Way to Revive and Preserve Hawaii’s Native Tongue (fwd) Message-ID: April 15, 2007 Major Effort Is Under Way to Revive and Preserve Hawaii’s Native Tongue By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/us/15Hawaii.html KE’EAU, Hawaii, April 14 (AP) — Portraits in the school’s library are not of United States presidents but Hawaiian royalty, from King Kamehameha to Princess Ka’iulani. Near the classroom door rubber slippers are tidily lined up by the students, who go barefoot. The calendar shows it is the month of “Malaki.” Hawaiian language and culture fill the hallways and playgrounds of Ke Kula ‘O Nawahiokalani’opu’u Iki and define the mission of the school with the sizable name — Nawahi for short. English is allowed only during the one-hour English class. A major effort is under way to revive and preserve Hawaii’s native tongue — courses in various subjects are taught entirely in Hawaiian. The language was nearly wiped out after being banned from schools across the islands for nearly a century. In 1983, when a small group of educators began a Hawaiian language revival program, fewer than 50 children spoke the language. Today, the rhythmic, fluid sounds of Hawaiian are used proficiently by more than 2,000 children. “It’s important because I’m the only one in my family who speaks Hawaiian,” said Leiali’i Lee, a 10th grade student at Nawahi, one of 23 immersion programs in the state. “I can make a difference and I can revive my language.” While fluency is still rare — just 1 percent of the state’s 180,000 public school students attend immersion programs — Hawaiian words are commonplace around the islands, from vowel-filled town names such as Ka’a’awa and ‘Aiea to popular fish like mahimahi. There is a weekly radio news report in Hawaiian. Tourists often are greeted in the language even before stepping off the plane. Hawaiian is finding its way into more books and Web sites. And it is taught as a second language at many island schools, public and private. The immersion schools carry this teaching further, of course. Nawahi, which has nearly 200 students from preschool through 12th grade, was founded in 1994 as a laboratory school affiliated with the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Students are taught Hawaiian traditions and culture, such as growing sweet potatoes, building canoes and understanding the land. The school has succeeded despite financial and political challenges, and skepticism about educating in Hawaiian, the only indigenous language in the United States that is an official state language. In the tiny school library, books are in Hawaiian, including many originally in English. With very few children’s books available in Hawaiian, parents paste translations on top of the English text. Critics say students could be held back by learning a language that is not “viable” in today’s world. But school officials say Nawahi students have exceeded peers in standardized English tests. “What people don’t realize is that we speak English,” Akala Neves, a junior, said. “Right after we leave this campus, it’s English. When we go home, we speak English. So we have so much English.” State Senator Clayton Hee, a longtime supporter of Hawaiian language programs, was encouraged to speak only English while growing up, like many other Hawaiians. He learned Hawaiian in college and now uses it proudly and often. “It gave me a sense of identity. It gave me a sense of pride,” he said. Kapa’anaokalaokeola Oliveira, an assistant professor of Hawaiian at the University of Hawaii, also expressed encouragement about the once-forbidden language. “Today, I think there’s a revitalization,” Ms. Oliveira said. “People are encouraging their children to speak Hawaiian.” Still, Hawaiian is far from being saved. In 1896, three years after the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, a law was enacted, stating, “The English language shall be the medium and basis of instruction in all public and private schools.” “That was a real death knell,” said Albert J. Schutz, author of “The Voices of Eden: A History of Hawaiian Language Studies.” “That meant the younger people weren’t using it anymore, and it was only the older people that spoke the language.” As the Hawaiian elders died, so did the language. A rare exception was the island of Ni’ihau, where because it was privately owned and isolated from the state’s rules, Hawaiian thrived through the years. Ni’ihau currently has about 160 residents, all of whom speak Hawaiian. With extinction looming elsewhere, a resuscitation movement began in the 1970s. In 1978, Hawaiian was re-established as an official language of the state. In 1990, the federal government adopted a policy of recognizing the right to preserve, use and support indigenous languages. Today, as hula and Hawaiian music spread beyond the islands, even non-Hawaiians are picking up the language. About a fifth of the students at Nawahi have no Hawaiian blood, like the blonde, freckle-faced freshman Kemele Lyon. “The reason I love to speak Hawaiian,” she said, “is because I think it’s the most beautiful language I have ever heard, and every sentence is like poetry.” From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Apr 15 12:35:44 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 05:35:44 -0700 Subject: Talking online dictionary helps keep Oneida language alive (fwd) Message-ID: Posted April 15, 2007 Talking online dictionary helps keep Oneida language alive Database designed to help with pronunciation By Malavika Jagannathan mjaganna at greenbaypressgazette.com http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070415/GPG0101/704150704/1207/GPGnews Learning the Oneida word "ahlukh" — roughly translating to "to know a language" — is a daunting task, especially if you don't know what it should sound like. It's a battle for which language teachers have one more weapon, thanks to a Web site created by University of Wisconsin-Green Bay professor Clifford Abbott with tribal elder Maria Hinton. They're transforming a printed dictionary into a searchable online database that includes sound samples to help those learning the Oneida language. "We decided what we really needed was sound," Abbott said. "It's easy to look up a word, but to know what it should sound like is another story." A language historically steeped in oral tradition, Oneida has been in the written form for only the past few generations. Like other Native American languages, the danger of extinction has catalyzed preservation efforts. Today, students at Oneida Nation schools learn to speak and write it. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, there are 553 speakers of Oneida — 429 of them in Wisconsin. Still, only about a dozen fluent native speakers remain, including Hinton, who at 96 is one of the oldest. In the year and a half they've worked together, she and Abbott have put about 4,000 words online — including about 900 sound samples of pronunciation. For now, only the English-to-Oneida part of the database is available. They're about a quarter of the way through the heavy printed dictionary, but the Web site already is being used as a basis for a grammar class Abbott teaches at the university. The site includes texts on grammar and will one day have sample stories in Oneida. In the fight for cultural preservation, language is key. "Culture and language goes together," said Hinton, who learned the language from her grandparents as a child and started speaking English when she was 7. The endurance of the language keeps more than the spoken word alive. It transmits generations of stories, history and faith, Hinton said. The complexity of the Oneida language isn't easy to translate, especially online. One of the first challenges in putting the dictionary on the Web was how to transliterate the non-English characters used in Oneida words so that all users could see them without downloading a special font. Then there's the intricacy of the language itself, which unlike most European language has a system of roots, prefixes and suffixes that is adapted to create new word meanings. "A single Oneida verb can be as long as an English sentence," said Abbott, a professor of communication and First Nation studies who started studying the Oneida language as a graduate student. "Purely from the written language, it seems real complicated. But most adults need that writing component to learn the language." It could be a few more years before the online dictionary is complete, but even then, the capacity to add to and improve it is endless, Abbott said. About the Oneida language Oneida is in the Iroquoian family of languages and is more distantly related to Cherokee. It has an extensive history of oral literature, but has been written down in the past few generations. There are three Oneida reservations, in New York, Ontario and Wisconsin, but differences in the language are minor. The language is structurally complicated, although there are only a small number of sounds. Source: www.uwgb.edu/oneida From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Apr 15 12:52:44 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 05:52:44 -0700 Subject: Indigenous immigrants in Coachella Valley face different challenges (fwd) Message-ID: Indigenous immigrants in Coachella Valley face different challenges Download story podcast 11:58 PM PDT on Saturday, April 14, 2007 By DAVID OLSON The Press-Enterprise News for Southern Califonia http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_indigenous15.3ea7d3e.html Interactive: Photo slideshow and video of the Coachella Valley's Purépecha community Natividad González spent hours sewing brilliantly colored dresses that she never wears outside. Every day, thousands of women walk down the roads of González's native Purépecha region of Mexico in similar clothes. But when González last year moved from Mexico to a home near the Salton Sea, friends told her to keep the traditional dresses inside or risk becoming a target of the same anti-indigenous ridicule they had suffered. "People would laugh at them and say, 'Why do you dress like that?' " González said as she sat in her mobile-home living room with a traditional black, blue and white rebozo -- or shawl -- wrapped around her shoulders. González, 35, is one of hundreds of Purépecha (pronounced Poo-REH-peh-cha) people who have settled in the rural eastern Coachella Valley, most in the past decade. They arrive for the same reasons millions of other Mexican immigrants do: to escape the destitution that mars the Mexican countryside and to provide opportunities that their children could never hope to have in their homeland. Yet the Purépecha face different challenges. They endure insults and snickering from some nonindigenous Mexican immigrants who view them as primitive "dirty Indians." They strive to maintain a communal way of life that clashes with a more individualistic U.S. culture. They struggle to communicate with health care workers and teachers who may understand Spanish but until recently may not have even heard of the pre-Hispanic Purépecha language that many of them speak. Government and social-service agencies are trying to overcome linguistic and cultural barriers to better serve the Purépecha. A health clinic and school are planning to hire Purépecha interpreters. Riverside County Child Protective Services has been using one for three years. Some teachers who have Purépecha students infuse lessons with references to indigenous customs. A Catholic church in the farming community of Mecca hopes to add a service in Purépecha. [Photos By Amanda Lucidon / The Press-Enterprise Adolfo Bacilio, 50, a traditional healer, is one of hundreds of Purépecha immigrants who have settled in the rural eastern Coachella Valley.] Meanwhile, the Purépecha straddle three cultures, trying to preserve their indigenous traditions amid the mainstream Mexican culture that surrounds them in their immigrant neighborhoods, and a U.S. culture that is transforming their children. History of Discrimination The Purépecha homeland is a mountainous region of the central Mexican state of Michoacán. More than 200,000 Purépecha live in Michoacán and other parts of Mexico, according to Mexico's National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Communities. About 2,000 Purépecha are in Riverside County, local immigrants say. Many live in cramped trailers surrounded by desert or the fruit and vegetable fields in which hundreds of them work. Next to one heavily Purépecha mobile-home park sits a dump that contains toxic waste. In Mexico, indigenous people have faced a long history of discrimination. During most of the 20th century, government policy was to encourage the indigenous to subsume their culture into the larger mestizo -- or mixed-race -- culture of Mexico's majority, said Warren Anderson, an associate professor of anthropology at Southeast Missouri State University who has extensively studied the Purépecha. In the past 20 to 30 years, many Purépecha in Michoacán have asserted their cultural identity. They pushed for bilingual education and insisted on identifying themselves as "Purépecha" instead of "Tarasco," the term the Spanish gave them, Anderson said. Yet the bigotry and sense of superiority that many Mexicans have toward indigenous people remains, even though most Mexicans have a mix of indigenous and Spanish blood, local Purépecha immigrants said. They don't directly insult Purépecha people, said Purépecha immigrant Francisco Zamora. But if mestizo people overhear someone speaking Purépecha in a store or on the job in the fields, they sometimes mock the way the Purépecha talk or call them "Indians who just came down from the hills," he said. Zamora, 42, said in Spanish that the brothers of his wife, Elvia -- who is not Purépecha -- opposed his marriage to her because they believed that Zamora's indigenous background meant that he was dumb. Zamora said some Spanish-speaking Purépecha lie about their ethnic background to avoid being made fun of. Purépecha students at Desert Mirage High School in Thermal said some Purépecha classmates avoid speaking their native language in public. "They feel ashamed that they're Tarasco," said Purépecha immigrant María Rafael, 14. "They don't want anyone to know. I think it's ugly to reject who you are." Shared Roots Maria's cousin Verónica Rafael, 15, said that, when she was in elementary school, some students pushed her, pulled her hair and called her names. Other nonindigenous Mexicans accept their Purépecha classmates and treat them as equals, she said. Almost all of the Purépecha in the Coachella Valley are from Ocumicho, a town of more than 3,800 people about 270 miles west of Mexico City surrounded by pine and oak forests, and corn, bean and wheat fields. The first Inland residents from Ocumicho were two men who arrived decades ago, several Purépecha immigrants said, although they offer different stories as to precisely when, where and why they came. The two men later returned to Ocumicho and spread the word about the area. By the time Antonio Marcelo arrived in Mecca in 1980, about a dozen Purépecha immigrants had already settled in the Coachella Valley. Like many Purépecha, Marcelo crossed the border illegally. He later gained residency. Others remain undocumented. Marcelo, 44, had never left Ocumicho before his journey to the United States, and he spoke little Spanish when he arrived. He learned the language through Sunday basketball games with Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrants. At the time, the Purépecha community was still largely invisible to outsiders. When teacher Mike Rosenfeld first had Purépecha students in his Coachella Valley High School bilingual history class more than 15 years ago, he didn't realize they were indigenous. "It was probably five or six years before anyone figured out they didn't speak Spanish," he said. "They'd act like they understood." Rosenfeld said he and other teachers assumed the Purépecha kids did poorly on tests and barely spoke in class because they were not motivated to learn. Looking back, Rosenfeld said, "it must have been excruciating for them. The early kids overwhelmingly did not graduate. It's pretty pathetic when I look at it now. I was terrible with those kids." Today, some teachers go out of their way to make Purépecha students feel accepted by sprinkling a few Purépecha words in lessons or displaying photos of the Purépecha region on bulletin boards. At Desert Mirage, students in an after-school video class are creating cartoons with voices in all three languages, said Roy Garza, a digital-imaging instructor at the school. "This is saying: It's OK to have pride in your language and culture," Garza said. Alfonso Taboada, who teaches Mexican-American history at Desert Mirage, has added more small-group activities. He said they motivate Purépecha students to try harder. "U.S. education is very individualistic and centered on individual success," Taboada said. "Their values are very communal and they want the whole to succeed, not just the individual." Many Purépecha students juggle learning three languages: the Purépecha they hear at home, the Spanish they speak on the streets, and the English they learn in school. Their English is often more formal and grammatically correct than the slang-infused Spanish they learn from friends, teachers said. Although many Purépecha students speak fluent Spanish when they arrive in the Coachella Valley, others struggle to simultaneously learn Spanish and English. Salvador Zacarías, 16, said he spoke little Spanish or English when he arrived at elementary school six years ago. A Spanish-speaking Purépecha student who sat next to him helped translate material from the classes, which were taught in English and Spanish. Salvador's mother speaks only Purépecha. His father speaks Purépecha and Spanish. Adult Purépecha women are less likely to speak fluent Spanish than men, who in Mexico must often travel outside the Purépecha region to find work or sell their crops, Anderson said. Impact on Schools Officially, the Coachella Valley Unified School District -- which includes Desert Mirage -- has 88 students who speak Purépecha. But the real number is probably much higher, said Anastacio De La Cruz, who compiles language statistics for the district. Many Purépecha parents list Spanish as the child's home language even if it is really Purépecha, largely because of anti-indigenous bigotry, he said. Desert Mirage recently hired a trilingual woman to interpret at parent-teacher conferences and other school events and translate materials sent to Purépecha homes, said Principal Joe Ceja. At Oasis School, Spanish-speaking Purépecha parents have volunteered to interpret for several years, said Principal Elizabeth Clipper Ramirez. Clipper Ramirez and several other Coachella Valley Unified teachers and administrators plan to one day travel to Ocumicho to try to better understand their students' hometown. Administrators and a teacher trainer in the Reynolds School District outside Portland, Ore., have twice visited schools and other sites in several Purépecha towns where some of that district's 240-plus Purépecha students come from. The Reynolds district is considering a teacher exchange next year with schools in the Purépecha towns. "If we know our kids better, we can develop a learning environment to make them feel more accepted and supported," said Mark Crossman, who heads the district's English- language program and traveled to Michoacán in February. In California, several organizations have targeted meetings and programs at Mexican indigenous communities. A group in Ventura County trains indigenous Mixtec immigrants from Oaxaca to conduct health outreach with fellow Mixtec. A health official there said the program has led more indigenous patients to seek care. The Fresno-based Binational Front of Indigenous Organizations educates nonindigenous doctors and nurses to respect the natural medicines that many indigenous people use. The group wants to open an office in the Coachella Valley to serve the Purépecha, said Rufino Domínguez, the group's general coordinator. Coachella Valley clinics see a similar reliance on traditional medicine. Sergio Ruiz, manager of the Borrego Community Health Foundation clinic in Oasis, said some Purépecha shun his clinic and instead consult with folk healers or use home remedies. They also avoid the clinic because they are nervous about communicating in Spanish, he said. At the Clinicas de Salud del Pueblo clinic in Mecca, some Purépecha patients have missed appointments because of language misunderstandings, said nursing supervisor Eva Romero. Nearly 10 percent of the 400 clients the clinic serves in a typical week are Purépecha, she said. Hilda Mora said in Purépecha through a Spanish interpreter that when she goes to the clinic without a Spanish-speaking family member, she asks patients in the waiting room for help until she finds a Spanish-speaking Purépecha person. Verónica Marcelo recalled that, before her mother learned to speak fluent Spanish, she pretended to comprehend what the Clinicas staff was telling her. "They're embarrassed to say they don't understand," she said of monolingual Purépecha speakers. Clinicas plans to hire a Purépecha interpreter. The county's temporary assistance and Medi-Cal program began using one last month. Yet social-service agencies say the barriers to serving the Purépecha are more than linguistic. California Rural Legal Assistance has tried to reach out to Purépecha immigrants but has faced widespread distrust, said Arturo Rodriguez, a lawyer in the group's Coachella office. "It's a very tight-knit community," Rodriguez said. "We're kind of seen as part of the establishment." About two years ago, outreach workers attempted to conduct a door-to-door survey in Desert Mobile Home Park, where many Purépecha live. They received little cooperation, either because residents did not want to talk to them or spoke little or no Spanish, Rodriguez said. The group hopes to eventually hire a Purépecha outreach worker for its Coachella office, said Jeff Ponting, who heads the San Francisco-based organization's indigenous farmworker project. "You're talking about a community that survived by keeping apart from the government and the majority community," Ponting said. "If you're not from the indigenous community, it's very difficult to break through." Reach David Olson at 951-368-9462 or dolson at PE.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Apr 15 13:06:19 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 06:06:19 -0700 Subject: Churches, tribe looking to land radio licenses (fwd) Message-ID: Churches, tribe looking to land radio licenses Sunday, April 15, 2007 By M.R. KROPKO Associated Press Writer http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=348473&Category=13&subCategoryID= CLEVELAND Leah Prussia likes to imagine a radio station connecting the 837,000-acre White Earth Indian Reservation in Minnesota. “For us the big thing about it is community building, a way to link villages, woods, lakes and miles, and use it to discuss our local issues, traditions, culture and preserve the Ojibwe language,” said Prussia, deputy director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project. They could soon get their chance. Nonprofit community groups, schools and churches this year will get their first opportunity since 2000 to apply for licenses for full-power, noncommercial/educational FM radio stations. The Federal Communications Commission stopped taking those applications so it could catch up on its backlog and revise its system for reviewing them. The agency says it expects to begin taking requests again in the fall. Minnesota’s Ojibwe tribe has been seeking grants to build and operate a station. The Cleveland-based United Church of Christ has been publicizing the radio opportunity in public meetings, e-mails and its newsletter. “Our strong hope is to get some of these licenses into the hands of people in rural states who are committed to reclaiming the unifying and healing role of religion, which is so needed in our nation today,” the 1.3 million-member UCC said in an e-mail in January to its churches and others interested in noncommercial radio. A MIX OF FORMATS Some stations specialize in a music style, such as classical or the jazz and blues of WWOZ in New Orleans, which was among Hurricane Katrina’s victims but has since recovered, largely through listeners’ support. Others broadcast school board meetings or give college students on-air experience with a mix of music, sports, poetry and public service programs. Noncommercial/educational stations are usually found at the low end of FM frequencies spectrum (87.9 to 91.9) and depend on public or institutional support. Because there’s a lack of noncommercial space on the radio dial in cities, opportunities more often exist in remote or rural areas. The applications review will be based on a newly established points system that gives priority to applicants who will provide local programming rather than syndicated content. After reviewing the applications the FCC will decide how many licenses to give out. The FCC says there are 2,817 such full-power stations in the United States, including more than 630 National Public Radio affiliates, compared with about 11,000 commercial stations, according to the FCC. Full power means transmission power above 100 watts and a broadcast range of more than 3.5 miles. Although the licenses are free, costs for a station could limit the number of applicants. Legal, engineering and equipment startup costs typically could total up to $250,000, said Matthew Lasar, media history professor at University of California at Santa Cruz and editor of a blog on FCC issues. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Apr 15 13:08:53 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 06:08:53 -0700 Subject: Tribe in B.C. acts to save culture without losing it (fwd) Message-ID: Published: Sunday, April 15, 2007 Tribe in B.C. acts to save culture without losing it By Krista J. Kapralos Herald Writer http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/07/04/15/100loc_a9tulalipside001.cfm The Sto:lo people in British Columbia believe there is a spirit life in each of them. It leads them each day in caring for the earth and one another. There is a word for that spirit: shxweli. But by the early 1990s, few Sto:lo Nation members had ever heard of it. Sto:lo elders helped to bring the word to light again. Nation leaders knew then that they must do something to protect their culture before more was lost. "We acquire spirit powers, and those powers we need to keep to ourselves," Sto:lo cultural worker Sonny McHalsie said. "If we tell more people about it, there's that sense of losing it." But in order to keep that piece of Sto:lo culture sacred, McHalsie knew that some of it must be written down and secured legally. In 2001, after years of interviewing their elders, the Sto:lo Nation published "A Sto:lo-Coast Salish Historical Atlas." There are maps based on the elder's descriptions of the region's geography that show traditional uses of certain places and the natural resources that once grew there. Trails used by indigenous groups to transport ooligan fish oil and other goods are marked. A glossary lists geographic names in Halkomelem, the Sto:lo language, which often describe activities once carried out there. The atlas represents only a small piece of the traditional knowledge gathered by the Sto:lo Nation. The maps avoid pinpointing exact places, so that any natural resources left there won't be exploited. While the Tulalip Tribes are working to defend their 152-year-old treaty, the Sto:lo Nation is negotiating with the governments of Canada and British Columbia to draft their first treaty. The atlas has become a major tool in defining traditional Sto:lo areas. "We're trying to incorporate this whole principle of shxweli into various chapters of the treaty," McHalsie said. "It's getting (Canadian government) to understand that there is a Sto:lo way - our way." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Apr 16 16:32:39 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 09:32:39 -0700 Subject: National Indigenous TV set for launch (fwd) Message-ID: National Indigenous TV set for launch 17-Apr-2007 By Jan Forrester http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=2601# Pat Turner - National Indigenous TVThe National Indigenous Television service will go to air in just two months, fulfilling a long-held dream. Inaugural broadcasts will be transmitted to a potential audience of 220,000 scattered over remote areas of the Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland and western New South Wales. These will be carried on the second satellite channel of Indigenous run and Alice Springs based commercial broadcaster Imparja. But will the NITV service live up to its working name and reach beyond remote Australia? For the management team recruited to run the new broadcaster it is a case of start small and grow step by step. The broadcaster's new Chief Executive is Pat Turner (pictured), an Arrernte woman from Alice Springs with an enviable 28-year track record in the federal public service. This includes roles as deputy secretary in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Centrelink deputy CEO and Chief Executive of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. She was on the verge of retirement in Alice Springs when the job came up. At her first press conference in Sydney as CEO she confessed "I was really intrigued once I understood what was involved in this initiative and I thought, 'Well there's a challenge.' Indigenous Australians have advocated for a distinct Indigenous television service for over 25 years." It is an astute appointment by the inaugural Board given the negotiations needed with the Federal government to ensure the new broadcaster's continuation. In late 2006 Communications Minister Helen Coonan allocated $48.5 million to be spread over four years for the establishment of a National Indigenous television service. It is unclear what will happen to funding after four years. However, Pat Turner is grateful that Minister Coonan has championed the service's establishment and cannot wait to showcase Indigenous programming, raising it from almost invisible current levels. "For Indigenous Australians, particularly our children, we do not see Indigenous faces on the screen. And the stories we do see are framed by news values of conflict and negativity." Another crucial appointment is that of Paul Remati as NITV’s Director of Television. Remati's most recent position in a 25-year career was as Head of Television at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. "Our mission for NITV is to celebrate and reflect the richness and diversity of Indigenous Australian cultures and deliver innovative, entertaining content to audiences throughout Australia and around the world," Remati said at his first public appearance in the role. The new broadcaster wants to do this through acquiring and commissioning content from the expanding numbers of Indigenous industry creatives. Children's programming is a high priority, as is promoting and retaining Indigenous languages, one of which dies each year. The issue of language revival is so critical that the Board includes a representative of the national body for community-based Indigenous language programs. Beyond the four-year funding issue key questions remain about Federal government policy on Indigenous TV: Remati is reported to have told the recent Australian International Documentary conference that "We've been told that we're not a broadcaster, but a content aggregator." National Indigenous TV set for mid-year launchDuring the service's implementation phase this was a regular refrain from Canberra, begging the question of whether the service will ever be funded to deliver a full service rather than merely produce programming for other television broadcasters or content distributors. SBS experience confirms that discrete Indigenous programming attracts few national advertisers. Getting more Indigenous programming on television screens, and attracting Indigenous and non-Indigenous viewers, requires an Indigenous version of a full service as happens in other countries. Across the Tasman, two-year old Maori TV broadcasts to four-fifths of New Zealand's population of four million via UHF and the entire country via the digital platform. It was attracting an average of around 400,000 viewers a month as of April 2006. Then there is the issue of network branding. The Federal government insisted that the Service's initial transmission should be via Imparja's second satellite channel. The Federal government underwrites Imparja and this move may be seen as offering a bang for taxpayers' dollars. However, it creates difficulties for the new broadcaster in initially differentiating its service from its well-established distributor. Having said all that I'll be celebrating when the new service goes to air, even though I won't be able to see it until it jumps on to platforms I can access in the big smoke. From sophiadianas at YAHOO.COM Tue Apr 17 23:29:32 2007 From: sophiadianas at YAHOO.COM (Sophia Stevenson) Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:29:32 -0700 Subject: National Language Message-ID: Hello all, I think some of you might appreciate this (regardless of whether or not that really is Cherokee)... http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/national_language.jpg Regards __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Apr 18 20:04:54 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 13:04:54 -0700 Subject: Preservation Act signed to save native languages (fwd) Message-ID: Preservation Act signed to save native languages CAROL A. CLARK Monitor Senior Reporter http://www.lamonitor.com/articles/2007/04/18/headline_news/news01.txt POJOAQUE - Native American languages are growing silent. Of the more than 300 pre-colonial indigenous languages spoken in the United States, only 175 remained a decade ago, according to the Indigenous Language Institute. "We are losing these languages at the rate of 12 every three years - once lost, they can never be recovered," Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., told a crowd gathered for a special ceremony at the Poeh Cultural Center on Tuesday, April 10. "By 2050, only 20 of these languages will be spoken with regular use unless efforts are taken to teach the languages to new generations." The United States government played a major role in the loss of native languages. In the past, students at government boarding schools were prohibited from using their languages. The Bureau of Indian Affairs at one point outlawed native ceremonies, a critical method of preserving languages and history. Wilson wrote and introduced a bill to address the crisis in February 2006, which passed the House in September and the Senate in December with support from the entire New Mexico delegation. The bill was renamed the Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act, in honor of the late Pueblo linguist and storyteller who died in September. President George W. Bush signed the bill into law in December. "The native languages were precious to Esther Martinez, and this bill is designed to help preserve them. It is a fitting tribute to her life's work," Wilson said. Wilson and Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., joined Ohkay Owingeh Gov. Earl Salazar, Lt. Gov. Linda Diaz, Eight Northern Indian Pueblo Council Chair James Mountain and others in presenting a "Redline" copy of the "Esther Martinez Native Languages Preservation Act of 2006" to the Tewa Storyteller's family. The "Redline" is a framed copy of the official White House version as signed into law by the president. Martinez was killed in a car accident on Sept. 16 while returning to Ohkay Owingeh - formerly known as San Juan Pueblo - from Washington, D.C., where she had received a National Heritage Fellowship for her work to preserve the Tewa language. Martinez was from the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo. She was instrumental in preserving the Tewa language. Her voice is part of the oral narrative preserved in the museum of the Poeh Cultural Center. Martinez developed dictionaries, translated key texts and taught the language to several generations of youth in the San Juan Pueblo schools from 1974-1989. She also worked with the Wycliffe Bible translators to translate the New Testament into Tewa. In 1988, Martinez began presenting her stories in English to non-Tewa audiences through Storytelling International. In 1997, she received the Teacher of the Year award from the National Council of American Indians and in 1998 the New Mexico Arts Commission gave her the Governor's Award for Excellence. At last week's ceremony, Tony Martinez performed a native song, which he composed for his grandmother. Another grandson, Matthew J. Martinez, said, "I know my Saya Esther would be very pleased and honored with the renewed focus on language preservation, and our family appreciates Congresswoman Wilson's efforts." Udall's congressional district includes Ohkay Owingeh. "The urgent need to protect and preserve Native American languages is clear," he said. "We must invest in their preservation by implementing immersion programs." Wilson concluded her talk in saying that now it's time to get the funding to carry out the bill, adding, "Tom (Udall) and I will work together to get it done." More information on the Preservation Act is available in the April 18, 2007, print edition of the Monitor. From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Thu Apr 19 02:57:42 2007 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 22:57:42 -0400 Subject: FW: Call for Abstracts: FEL XI - Working Together for Endangered Languages: Kuala Lumpur, Oct 2007 Message-ID: FYI. (Fwd from lgpolicy-list) ________________________________ The Eleventh Conference of the Foundation for Endangered Languages: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Working Together for Endangered Languages: Research Challenges and Social Impacts University of Malaya Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Dates: 26-28 October 2007 Call for Abstracts: FEL XI • What can researchers do to ensure collaboration with members of the language community? What should the researcher do to find a way into the community through proper and accepted channels? What benefits can a language community expect from such collaboration? • What are the boundaries that the researcher should not cross in order to protect the rights and privacy of the subjects and to safeguard collaborative ties between community and researcher? What are the limits of researchers’ duties to the language community, and vice versa? • What is ‘best practice’ for researchers in order to be accepted and trusted as in-group members of the community? Does this require the linguist to reduce his/her role as an expert, in order to build trust and collaboration with the community? Can cultural immersion act as a collaborative means in data collection, creating the notion that the researcher is part of the community’s in-group? Are there any advantages in maintaining distance between researcher and community? • What options do researchers have if they encounter non-collaborative behaviour from their target subjects? • Can support for maintenance of an endangered language actually be socially counter-productive, when the shift away from an endangered language is seen as progress in economic and social mobility? In such conditions, can the community be made aware of the importance of language maintenance? How can the researcher convince the community of the negative impact of language loss on their culture and history and, conversely, of the benefits of recovery, preservation, promotion? • How can language documentation work, and its fruits, be integrated into community activities and community development? In what other ways can linguistic research benefit language maintenance and revitalization? • How can the researcher guard against personally causing damage to existing social and political structures? In particular, how can the researcher avoid disturbing established social relations and organization by seemingly conferring favours on specific members of the community? • How can the researcher ensure that s/he is not unwittingly the agent of globalisation within the community and thereby the cause of further socio-economic and cultural disruption? Abstracts should make reference to actual language situations , and ideally should draw on personal experience. The aim of the conference is to pool experience, to discuss and to learn from it, not to theorize in the abstract about inter-cultural relations. Abstract and Paper Submission Protocols In order to present a paper at the Conference, writers must submit in advance an abstract of not more than 500 words before 15 May 2007. After this deadline, abstracts will not be accepted. Abstracts submitted, which should be in English, must include the following details: • Title of the paper • Name of the author(s), organisation to which he/she belongs to • Postal address of the first author • Telephone number (and fax number if any) • Email address(es) • Abstract text (not more than 500 words) The abstracts should be sent via e-mail to waninda2001 at um.edu.my and fel at chibcha.demon.co.uk with the subject of the e-mail stating: “FEL Abstract: : ” Abstracts will acknowledged on receipt. The name of the first author will be used in all correspondence. Writers will be informed once their abstracts have been accepted and they will be required to submit their full papers for publication in the proceedings before 1 September 2007 together with their registration fee. Failure to do so will result in the disqualification of the writers to present their papers. Once accepted, full papers can be submitted in English or Malay. Each standard presentation at the Conference will last twenty minutes, with a further ten minutes for discussion and questions and answers. Plenary lectures will last forty-five minutes each; these are awarded by invitation only. Important Dates • Abstract arrival deadlines – 15 May 2007 • Committee's decision: 15 June 2007 • In case of acceptance, the full paper should be sent by 1 September 2007. (Further details on the format of text will be specified to the authors) • Conference dates: 26-28 October 2007 The site for the 2007 conference of the Foundation of Endangered Languages, hosted jointly this year with SKET, University of Malaya, will be Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. University of Malaya is the oldest university in Malaysia, and SKET, i.e. the Section for Co-Curricular Activities, Elective Courses by Other Faculties and TITAS, is responsible for the teaching of 80 co-curricular courses, and the compulsory course “Ethnic Relations.” (For more information, visit http://www.um.edu.my). The Foundation for Endangered Languages is a non-profit organization, registered as Charity 1070616 in England and Wales, founded in 1996. It exists to support, enable and assist the documentation, protection and promotion of endangered languages. It awards small grants (of the order of US$ 1,000) for all kinds of projects that fall within this remit, and also publishes a newsletter, OGMIOS. It hosts an annual conference, with Proceedings that are available as published volumes. (For more information, visit http://www.ogmios.org). Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the largest city of Malaysia. It is an enclave within the state of Selangor, on the central west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Amongst some of the famous landmarks that the city houses are the Petronas Twin Towers, Menara Kuala Lumpur, Tugu Negara, the National Palace and most recently, the ‘Eye of Malaysia’ Ferris wheel. Kuala Lumpur enjoys a year-round equatorial climate which is warm and sunny. Rainfall is especially plentiful, during the southwest monsoon from April to September. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Apr 20 17:15:00 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 10:15:00 -0700 Subject: Hawaiians reintroduce language with immersion program (fwd) Message-ID: <FRI.20.APR.2007.101500.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> April 20, 2007 10:00 am Hawaiians reintroduce language with immersion program By EDDIE GLENN Tahlequah Daily Press http://www.tahlequahdailypress.com/features/local_story_110100006.html?keyword=secondarystory Hawaii may be a long way from the Cherokee Nation, but both native Hawaiians and Cherokees face some of the same difficulties in preserving their native languages. Three native Hawaiians – Alohalani Housman, Hoku Kamake’e’aina, and Kalemaile Robia – presented a program Thursday at the 35th Annual Symposium on the American Indian on the revitalization of the Hawaiian language. Housman and Robia both teach the language to children, while Kamake’e’aina teaches at the University of Hawaii Hilo’s College of Hawaiian Language. According to Housman, the decline of the language began when Christian missionaries first came to Hawaii in the early 1800s. “They came at a very advantageous time,” she said. “King Kamehameha passed away in 1819, and the missionaries came in 1820. It was a very advantageous time to come in and present new ideas.” The first education programs initiated by the missionaries were aimed at adults, to teach them to read the Bible. In 1831, there were 50,000 adult students attending 1,000 schools in Hawaii. In the 1830s, native children began attending missionary schools – either “common schools,” where most Hawaiian children were taught, or “select schools,” which were set up for the children of native chiefs. The era between 1840 and 1860, Housman said, was a high point in Hawaiian literacy, with more than 100 newspapers in the Hawaiian language being printed. “It was an exciting time – Hawaiians love to read, and they love to write,” she said. “In the late 1800s, Hawaii had a 91.2 percent literacy rate.” After the Hawaiian Kingdom was overthrown in 1893 by U.S. Marines – on behalf of U.S. businessmen, according to Housman – the language was banned in schools, so that by the 1980s, only about 800 people could still speak Hawaiian. Housman was part of the effort in the early 1980s to reintroduce the language into the schools. “At first, we were just trying to get our foot in the door,” she said. “We told the department of education that we would be doing the same things as our English counterparts, only we’d use Hawaiian instead of English.” But she and the other teachers soon realized that, to teach the Hawaiian language, they would also have to implement aspects of the Hawaiian culture, including “Mauli” – the “life force” of native Hawaiians. Mauli includes spiritual, or intuitive, aspects; behavioral components; and knowledge of traditional ways. “There was a time when the Mauli was burning out, and there was a lot of frustration,” Housman said. “But the Mauli is starting to burn bright again.” Hawaiian is taught with a syllabic approach, emphasizing the syllables of the words instead of the individual letters of the alphabet. “It’s a lot like Cherokee,” said Housman. “We use the same approach in Hawaii. It’s not a true syllabary because there aren’t symbols for each syllable, but we do have clusters of consonants and vowels.” Housman said the Hawaiian language is taught in the immersion programs, just like other skills pertinent to the culture. First, the kids develop a connection to a concept, and then an understanding of it. Practice is the third level of learning, followed by the creation of something using the newly learned skill, whether it be a craft or a sentence. Children in the immersion programs are taught so that, to put it in a traditional Hawaiian context, they know the big currents and the little currents. “That means to be well-versed,” said Housman. “That’s what we want in our children: mastery and the ability to share it with others.” Houseman said there are currently 21 language immersion schools in Hawaii, and 11 public schools that teach Hawaiian. Robia teaches at one of the immersion schools which, she said, begins introducing children to the native culture almost immediately after birth. “We have students as young as three months,” she said. “We can actually take care of kids from coming out of the womb to when they’re ready to go to college.” Some of her students, Robia said, have parents who took part in the early immersion programs, and even parents who aren’t native speakers take classes to augment their children’s’ education. “We only have the ids for eight hours a day,” she said. “So it’s really good if they can hear it at home as well.” The revitalization of the native Hawaiian language has extended all the way from birth to a terminal degree in Hawaiian studies. According to Kamake’e’aina, the University of Hawaii Hilo’s College of Hawaiian Language was recently approved for a Ph.D. program. “It’s come a long way,” said Housman. “But we still have a long way to go.” Contact Eddie Glenn at eglenn at tahlequahdailypress.com. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Apr 20 17:17:26 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 10:17:26 -0700 Subject: Actor: Preserve Cherokee language (fwd) Message-ID: <FRI.20.APR.2007.101726.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Actor: Preserve Cherokee language By Cathy Spaulding Phoenix Staff Writer http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/local/local_story_110010541.html Bristow resident Mary Frye remembers Wes Studi as the quiet one in Mr. Hathcoat’s history class at the Chilocco Indian School in the 1960s. “He was very quiet,” Frye said. “I’m sure he did well in class. But he would just answer the teachers’ questions.” At Northeastern State University’s Symposium on the American Indian on Thursday, Studi no longer sat quietly. Instead, the actor, known for his roles in such movies as “Dances With Wolves” and “The New World,” spoke out on the need to preserve Cherokee and other native languages and the need to communicate history. “We know how so many things can change if knowledge of history is not passed on,” he said. “As much as we know we must pass on to our youth — the good and the bad. We have made mistakes, let’s hope we learn from our mistakes.” Studi, an NSU graduate, was keynote speaker at the symposium, which runs through Saturday at NSU. The theme of this year’s symposium is “Oklahoma 1907-2007: And Still the Waters Run.” Promoters said the theme reflects how tribes seek to co-exist with modern American culture. Preserving and updating Cherokee language is key to helping the tribe continue, Studi indicated. “We live in the 21st century; people who can speak more than one language seem to have a better understanding,” he said, adding that Cherokee language must modernize. “What do you call a computer? What do you call a mouse? What do you call a modem,” he said. “What about a jet airplane, jet propulsion. We cannot allow dogma to enter into the development of our language.” Studi said language “allows us to communicate what is important to us.” Even here, both good and bad must be preserved, he said. “Europeans know Cherokee as a beautiful language, music to their ears,” he said. He contrasted that by using harsh sounding Cherokee words his grandmother used to use when she was angry. “Because Cherokee is an entire language, it has suffered arrested development,” he said, blaming part of that arrested development on his culture. “First, because we once said you’re not going anywhere with the (Cherokee) language,” he said. Studi was born in Nofire Hollow, which is in the Rocky Mountain area of Adair and Cherokee Counties. He attended Chilocco Indian School in north central Oklahoma before going on to NSU. Chilocco closed in 1980. Frye, a member of the Creek Nation, said she is working to preserve her tribal language as well. The symposium features several sessions, forums and displays showing how different indigenous people in the United States are working to preserve their language. A Native Language Revitalization Seminar will begin at 8:30 a.m. today at the NSU University Center. Other sessions focus on how allotment affected Indians since Oklahoma statehood. Copyright © 1999-2006 cnhi, inc. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Apr 21 20:14:45 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2007 13:14:45 -0700 Subject: Indigenous Education, Culture, and Language (fwd) Message-ID: <SAT.21.APR.2007.131445.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Indigenous Education, Culture, and Language The Genographic Legacy Fund aims to empower indigenous and traditional peoples on a local level while helping to raise awareness on a global level of the challenges and pressures facing these communities. Support from the fund will be directed primarily toward education initiatives, cultural conservation, and linguistic preservation and revitalization efforts. Applicants must provide a record of current or prior work in support of indigenous education programs and/or cultural or linguistic conservation efforts. The majority of the group responsible for project governance must be members of the indigenous community in which the project will be implemented. Projects are divided into two categories: 1) smaller, discrete projects that typically require amounts up to $25,000 and 2) more complex projects undertaken in conjunction with other entities, such as NGOs, local education institutions, or government agencies, that require up to $100,000. DEADLINES: June 15 and December 15, 2007 https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/legacy_fund.html https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/glf_charter.pdf From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Sun Apr 22 03:27:40 2007 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2007 20:27:40 -0700 Subject: Native educators struggle to fund language programs Message-ID: <SAT.21.APR.2007.202740.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> *Native educators struggle to fund language programs - Sunday, April 15, 2007* *By JODI RAVE of the Missoulian* http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2007/04/21/jodirave/rave70.txt BOZEMAN - Verda King gets excited when she talks about teaching youths in a nearby public school how to speak the Cheyenne language from her office at the Dull Knife Community College. "This class has done a marvelous job," said King of her 12 students. "We've translated nursery rhymes, like Humpty Dumpty. And it's been fun. We've learned Cheyenne songs and I'm learning my own language." She's teaching 12 students in an elementary school in Colstrip by satellite from a tribal college classroom on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in southeastern Montana. King spoke during a panel presentation at the 26th annual conference of the Montana Indian Education Association where teachers across the state discussed tribal language preservation efforts. Language teachers like King are fervent in their need to preserve the language, and believe they can make a difference. But they face many obstacles - no K-12 curricula and a lack of state support - that effectively prevent them from teaching students their Native languages like Cree, Gros Ventre, Kootenai and Nakota. Typically, the number of new language speakers remains stagnant. -- ____________________________________________________________ Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D. Associate Director, Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL) Department of English (Primary) American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI) Second Language Acquistion &Teaching Ph.D. Program (SLAT) Department of Language,Reading and Culture Department of Linguistics The Southwest Center (Research) Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836 "Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought, an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities." Wade Davis...(on a Starbucks cup...) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20070421/24d0a7cf/attachment.html> From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Apr 22 16:39:52 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2007 09:39:52 -0700 Subject: Why mother tongues are dying (fwd) Message-ID: <SUN.22.APR.2007.093952.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Why mother tongues are dying Nairobi-Kenya http://www.eastandard.net/mags/society/articles.php?articleid=1143967620 In a bus headed for Nairobi, an FM station keeps travellers company as chatty presenters talk politics and read the news in Kikamba. Passengers exchange knowing glances and chip in a word or two, but not all understand what is being said. Angelina Mueni, 18, is one such person. She is not familiar with her mother tongue. "I can understand what is being said but I cannot speak the language," she says. Since childhood, she has only spoken English and Swahili. "My parents and siblings all speak Swahili and English and since am the lastborn, I had to take after them. After all, how can I start speaking Kikamba when no one else in the house speaks it?" she asks. Although she says she is learning the language, she has a long way to go before she can speak it with confidence. "I think it is too late for me to start learning now," she says. Her parents are not worried about her inability to communicate in their mother tongue, she says. "If they were, they would have taken drastic actions like taking me to the rural areas to stay with my grandparents or better yet, be around people who speak Kikamba throughout," she says adding that she has only been to the grandparents’ place twice. Kenyans may not know it, but visitors from other countries marvel at the rich diversity of local languages in the country. It is a heritage that is in perpetual danger as young people shun the language of their mothers. Language use leaves a mark When Prof Ngugi wa Thiong’o launched Murogi wa Kagoogo, a novel written in Kikuyu, many scholars laughed it off as a joke. How does a scholar of Ngugi’s repute expect us to read his work in Kikuyu, they asked. Ngugi had demonstrated by word and deed that he was willing to go great lengths to keep African languages alive. For him, using foreign languages in literature was a mark of neo-colonisation. When a child is born in a given community, she acquires a language and learns how to use it, with whom and when. Language experts say today’s children tend to lose their cultural identity, language and culture, the language being a prime transmitter of human culture from one generation to the next. Anthropologists say all language uses, through all stages of cultural evolution, leave an mark on society. This means that if a generation misinterprets its language, its culture is automatically in danger of misinterpretation. The danger of some languages disappearing is so real that the United Nations Scietific and Cultural Organisation regularly conducts studies worldwide. The Unesco Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing says a language is endangered if it is no longer learned by children or at least, by a large part of the children of that community. Six Kenyan languages are extinct, five are seriously endangered, at least three are endangered and a number of others are potentially endangered, says Unesco. Languages of the El Molo and Omotik, which are still recognised as Kenyan languages, are on the brink of extinction. Nancy Mackenzie says how children are brought up determines whether they speak their mother tongue. "Most of a child’s life is spent with a nanny who does not come from the same background as the child’s parents," she says. "The nanny will speak to the child in either Kiswahili or English and in the end, the child ends up speaking the same language as the nanny." Parents to blame According to her, the buck stops with parents. "If they hire a nanny who is not from their background, they will have to accept the fact that their child will grow up not knowing his mother tongue especially if they spend little time with their child," says Mackenzie, a mother of two who lives in Nairobi. But Rose Wanjiku, a Kikuyu married to James Omondi, a Luo, feels mother tongue is not that important. "All that matters is efficient communication," she says. "My children do not speak either of our languages and I do not consider it a problem. Although they cannot utter a single word in either language, they understand what is being said," she says of her four children. Sometimes, she says, she speaks her mother tongue to her children and they respond in Kiswahili or English. "We never confuse each other by the language we use. Whether Kikuyu, Dholuo or Kiswahili, we understand each other perfectly," she says adding that it is all that counts. Not so for Robert Ocholla, a father of two. He sends his children to Kisii whenever schools close "specifically to ensure they practise their mother tongue and to interact with my parents". "It is my duty to make sure that the children stay in touch with their culture and mother tongue plays a big part in the their upbringing," says Ochola, who lives in Nairobi. His children, he says, can speak Gusii fluently without mixing it with Kiswahili or English and without stammering. If people are distinguished by the distinct language they speak, the question remains: Does it matter if Kenya’s indigenous languages died? Maurice Ragutu, a language teacher at the University of Nairobi, says it does matter. "Vernacular or mother tongue helps people to trace their ancestral roots, culture, heritage and traditions, which all help promote unity in a community," he says. According him, indigenous languages are dying not only in Kenya but also in other countries. "The society we live in is dynamic," he says, saying the dynamism explained why some languages are under threat of extinction. "Many parents are to blame for their children’s inability to speak their mother tongue," says the lecturer. "It is the duty of the parent to expose children to their language," he says, adding that children can only learn their mother tongue by being exposed to it. He gives the example of an experiment involving an Egyptian Pharaoh who thought that Egyptian was the only language in the world. "He took a Pheonician newborn and gave it to a shepherd to keep it in seclusion," he explains. The shepherd was ordered not to utter a single word within the child’s earshot. "The main objective of conducting this experiment was to find out if mother tongue was inborn or learnt through exposure." In the experiment, at the age of eight months, the child uttered his first word in Phoenician. "He said ‘Bekos,’ which is Phoenician for bread," he says. Psycholinguists also say language is mastered at birth and mastered in youth. "From the ages of three months to three years, a child’s first language comes automatically," says Ragutu. >From the age of ten onwards, as Mueni’s case demonstrates, it is difficult to learn one’s mother tongue. "It is possible to learn it as a second language but not as quickly and not as deeply like one would have mastered when young," he says. "Fluency could also become a problem when they decide to learn," he says. "It will be like a Kenyan learning French or German as a second language," he explains. Political power, wealth and language Language experts are concerned that children are not mastering their mother tongues as before. "Even if they are born in the rural areas, you cannot compare their fluency with that of their parents," he says, noting that in the long run, some languages could easily disappear. "Linguistically speaking, on the matter of mixed parentage, a child is most likely to learn the language of the dominant partner, who in this case is the mother because it is said that a small child is the property of the mother," he says, adding that a growing child tends to spend more time with the mother at the time a child learns how to speak. He says taking the child to rural areas can help nurture their mother tongue but that also depends on whom they interact with. "Rural areas are not like they used to be before," he says. Although many languages are under threat, many governments have policies to preserve them. "Political power, wealth and the size of the population that speaks them as well as how they value them will determine whether a language survives," he says giving an example of matatu (public transport) drivers. "You will find that when they are speaking to each other, they use their mother tongues, whether Kikuyu, Dholuo or Kikamba," he says. According to him, the matatu drivers take pride in speaking their own languages. "All languages are equal as long as they can communicate," he says. Globalisation, says Ragutu, not only threatens languages but whole communities. "In Venezuela, the Trumai tribe is already extinct while Latin is considered to be a dead language." A language is considered dead, he says, is if no native speaker speaks it. "Latin is one of them because even though it is used by many nations, none is an original speaker," he says. Ancient Greek, he says, has also disappeared, so has Prot-Indo-European, which was spoken in Europe and some parts of Asia. In Kenya, endangered languages include Suba, El Molo, which has only 300 speakers, Pongok from Western, which were absorbed by the Luhya and the Tiriki. Others which are on the brink of extinction include Boni, Kore, Segeju and Dahalo from the Coast; Kinare, Sogoo, Lorkoti and Yaaku in the Central; Ongamo and Omotik in the south and Bong’om, Terik and Suba in the west. In the Bible, the original language, which is called the "language of Adam", was also lost at the Tower of Babel. According to Ragutu, the Bible shows Adam as the originator of human language, having named all that was on earth in his own words as God commanded him. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Apr 23 14:48:17 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 07:48:17 -0700 Subject: Keeping students connected (fwd) Message-ID: <MON.23.APR.2007.074817.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Keeping students connected Program's aim: Help Native Americans stay in school By Jonnie Taté Finn jtatefinn at argusleader.com http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070423/NEWS/704230333/1001 Tozi Top Bear has dreams of becoming the first of her five sisters to graduate from high school, join the military and go to college. "I see how my other sisters are right now, and they're struggling," said Top Bear, a spunky eighth-grade Lakota girl who attends Whittier Middle School. "I don't want to be like that. I want to figure out what I'm going to do with my life and do things for myself." If Top Bear reaches her goal of graduating, she will be one of the few Native American students in the Sioux Falls School District to do so. According to the district's Office of Indian Education, Native American students have the highest dropout rate among any other ethnic minority tracked by the district: 13.2 percent, compared with an overall student dropout rate of 4.9 percent. Those numbers are unacceptable to Jolene Groen, executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Sioux Empire. That's why the organization teamed up with the Sioux Empire United Way and Native American community leaders last summer to brainstorm ways to keep those students in school. "Ultimately, we came up with the idea of providing a mentor to Native American students," Groen said. "But we wanted a mentoring relationship to encompass the child's whole life, not just the educational portion of it." Thus, the Native American Scholars program was born in February and with it came Karla Abbott, program manager, who left a 20-year career in nursing for the position. In addition to promoting the program within the district, Abbott, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, will match mentors to Native American students and function as a sort of cultural liaison between schools, students, mentors and Big Brothers Big Sisters. "People ask why Natives get this program," Abbott said. "Sometimes it's hard to defend because of how diverse this city is. But the need is there - just look at the dropout rate." Pilot program The program is the first of its kind in the state and for Big Brothers Big Sisters. Lincoln High School and Whittier Middle School will serve as pilot schools for the program. Abbott so far has matched four students with mentors. More students are on a waiting list. With a budget of $81,000 this year, the program can match 30 students. Groen said finding mentors has been an issue. "Realistically, we can't find every kid a Native American mentor, though that would be ideal," Groen said. "Instead, we'll train non-Native mentors in Native American culture, so that they might be more sensitive to the student's cultural needs." Debbie Sneve is Top Bear's mentor. The two were matched earlier this month. Sneve's ancestors were Choctaw. Top Bear's mother, Georgianna, said she's just happy her daughter has someone to help her with homework, play games with and admire. "That's why I'm so glad Deb's here," said Top Bear, who works late shifts at John Morrell & Co. "I just don't have the time to do those things." Mobility, history issues Lack of parental involvement or a mentor are just two factors that might contribute to the Native American dropout rate. Bill Smith, director of the district's Instructional Support Services, said mobility can be an issue, and some students, such as Top Bear, lack a history of high school graduation in their families. In 2002, Smith tracked 112 Native American freshmen through graduation in 2005. He found that of that group, 13 students graduated in the district, 55 transferred to another district, eight continued their educations in the district past 2005 in summer school or special education and 36 either dropped out or were unaccounted for, meaning record requests weren't made for the student. Only in the past two school years has the district specifically tracked figures such as dropout rates based on ethnicity. Smith said several factors contribute to the dropout rate of all ethnic groups including poor attendance, poor grades, behavior and job issues. Staying in school Beyond working with Native American Scholars, the Sioux Falls School District also has incorporated ways to keep Native Americans in school. Gail Swenson, who oversees the school district's Indian education office, said adding the Native American Connections course a few years ago to elective choices at all the middle and high schools and re-instituting a Lakota language class next year at Washington and Lincoln high schools are steps in the right direction. The connections course is the district's way to try and "infuse Native culture and values into the regular course schedule," Swenson said. Swenson said filling in those cultural gaps seems to be helping more Native Americans to stay in school. The district graduated 30 Native American students last year - 18 more students than in 2000. Elias Americanhorse is in the connections class at Lincoln. He's had it as one of his electives since seventh grade. "I like it because it tells us about our culture and history. It focuses on our history, and that's an important part of every history," the sophomore said. "I think every kid should have to take it. I mean, there's stuff in there I probably would never have learned in a regular history class." For Shauna His Law, taking the connections class at Lincoln High School and joining the Native American Scholars program are her way of defeating the dropout stereotype. "(The programs) give Indians a chance to do something in school instead of just dropping out or getting into trouble," His Law said. Her goal is to graduate, earn a college degree and become a pediatrician. "I want to do something better in life, rather than have people judge me for being Native," His Law said. "People think just because you're Native you're going to fail or just give up. I'm not going to." Reach reporter Jonnie Taté Finn at 331-2320. Published: April 23. 2007 1:55AM From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Apr 23 15:06:24 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 08:06:24 -0700 Subject: Russian mountains cradle hoard of ancient languages (fwd) Message-ID: <MON.23.APR.2007.080624.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Russian mountains cradle hoard of ancient languages Monday, April 23, 2007 Stephen Boykewich KUBACHI - AFP http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=70553 Life isn't bad in this North Caucasus mountain town. The air is pure, the view is magnificent, and the centuries-old tradition of silver handiwork guarantees jobs for all. There is one downside for the 2,000 residents of Kubachi, however. Their neighbors a short donkey ride down the road can't understand a word they say. "What we speak here, the Kubachinsky language, people in Darginsk don't understand at all," said Magomed Akhmedov, 35, director of the village's silverworks factory. "That's literally five or six kilometres away (three to four miles)." The extraordinary linguistic diversity preserved amid these snow-capped peaks is what led a 10th-century geographer to name the Caucasus "the mountain of tongues." The rocky, mostly rural region of Dagestan has one of the highest concentrations of languages in the world, between 30 and 70 in an area smaller than Scotland. Its 2.3 million residents are divided into 34 ethnic groups and nearly all speak Russian, as the territory fell to Russia's imperial advance in 1859. Besides Russia are local languages that would strike fear into the heart of any student who has ever wrestled with case endings. Lak, the native tongue of about five percent of the Dagestani population, has 56 cases -- compared to six in Russian and a mere four in German -- language specialist Yunusov Abdul-Raman said. But even Lak is beaten by Tabasaran, which is spoken by 95,000 in southern Dagestan and has 62 cases. "It was in the Guinness Book of World Records! These are extremely difficult languages," Abdul-Raman said. Like many Dagestani tongues, Kubachinsky in not a written language and is not taught in schools, but was preserved through the Soviet era by the same combination of geography and tight social bonds that has preserved Kubachi's tradition of silverworking for centuries. "We only marry among ourselves. There are exceptions, but you can count them on the fingers of one hand," said Akhmedov, who has directed the village's silverworks factory since 2001. "Everyone here is related in one way or another." Unlike in neighboring Chechnya, which was devastated when Joseph Stalin deported its entire population in 1944, Dagestan's mountain towns were largely spared from Soviet social engineering. Aside from the total number of languages here -- which depends on where lines are drawn between dialect and language -- the diversity of their origins also amazes scholars. Aside from the native Caucasian languages, linguists have identified Turkic, Mongol, Greek and other language families here. The Tats, an ethnic group of about 18,000 people living near the southern coastal city of Derbent, still speak a dialect of Persian that is over 1,000 years old. But what seven decades of Soviet rule could not erode, the creep of Western culture is beginning to. Children in Kubachi learn their native language only at home, since it has no written form and is not taught in schools. The related language of Darginsky is, but has to jostle for position with Russian and, increasingly, English. "To tell you the truth, we teach English better than our own language," said Darzhi Kurvan, the director of a village school. "As much as we talk about patriotism, beyond our region it's more convenient and more profitable to know English." And though children usually speak Kubachinsky in the home, "we've noticed that in the schoolyard, most of the children speak Russian. They even bawl each other out in Russian," Kurvan said, his wizened face breaking into a smile. "There's a battle for these languages going on now," said journalist and opposition activist Magomed Shamilyev, a member of Dagestan's majority Avar ethnic group in the regional capital Makhachkala. Radio and television programmes are broadcast here in 14 languages, but as more of the region's 60-percent rural population moves to cities in search of work, the smaller languages are at risk of vanishing, Shamilyev said. And while there is a regional law reinforcing the status of Russian as an official language, "there is no law on national languages, no law to protect and develop the languages that are disappearing," he said. Factory director Akhmedov is living proof of how times are changing. Asked how a simple welcome would sound in Kubachinsky, he hesitated, then let a few words of Russian slip in while he spoke. "He spends too much time in the city," laughed one of the factory's workers. After an embarrassed smile, Magomedov repeated the phrase fluently. "There is a risk these languages will disappear," he said, "but we preserve them in our hearts." © 2005 Dogan Daily News Inc. www.turkishdailynews.com.tr From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu Apr 26 20:10:00 2007 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 13:10:00 -0700 Subject: Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Conference Message-ID: <THU.26.APR.2007.131000.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Full Title: 14th Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium Short Title: SILS 14 Date: 01-Jun-2007 - 03-Jun-2007 Location: Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, USA Contact Person: Margaret Noori Meeting Email: mnoori at umich.edu Web Site: http://linguistlist.org/sils/index.html Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; Language Documentation Call Deadline: 15-May-2007 Meeting Description: This year at the 14th annual SILS (Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium) language instructors, technology experts and linguists will gather again to share the work, and the dreams, of language communities all over the world. The theme is 'Working Together We Can Bring Back the Language: How Technology Can Make it Happen.' SILS 14 is hosted by the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Nation, Eastern Michigan University, and the LINGUIST List at the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. Particularly invited are presentations describing projects related to using technology in language documentation and preservation, self- documentation of endangered languages, innovative educational ideas, and proficiency outcomes. Presentations can take the following formats: 20 minute papers (plus question period), 15 minute demonstrations of technologies used to preserve and stabilize languages, poster presentations summarizing projects, and 1 hour workshops on successful methods of language preservation that can be adapted by a wide number of language groups. Selection notification: 7th May Suggested topics for talks, demos, and workshops include: web-based methods of preservation, instruction, and collaboration, options for distance learning, linguistic and cultural preservation, methods of successful instruction, revising languages without speakers, repatriation of language texts and recordings, and multi-generational community-based language initiatives. Further information is available at: http://linguistlist.org/sils/index.html Telephone: (734) 487-0144 Fax: (734) 482-0132 From thien at UNIMELB.EDU.AU Fri Apr 27 01:58:31 2007 From: thien at UNIMELB.EDU.AU (Nicholas Thieberger) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:58:31 +1000 Subject: Submission Requests In-Reply-To: <20070421131445.g3og04w8kkggswg8@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: <FRI.27.APR.2007.115831.1000.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Dear Friends, I am writing to ask if you would be able to write an article or review of a software or hardware tool for the online Journal of Language Documentation & Conservation (http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc). Issues will appear in June and December. Reviews can describe tools or methods that you have found useful (or perhaps not useful!) and need not be more than a few pages long. An outline of the suggested form of the review is attached below. Please pass this message on to anyone who may be interested and contact me if you need more information. Best regards, Nick Thieberger The review should take the form of a short essay on the software, how you used it, how easy it was to learn, how well it did what it said it could do, then summarise using the following headings: Pros: Cons: Primary function: Platforms: Open Source? (Available from?): Proprietary? (Available from? Cost?): Reviewed version: Application size: Documentation: -- Technology Editor, Journal of Language Documentation & Conservation http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics University of Melbourne 3010 Australia http://www.linguistics.unimelb.edu.au/thieberger/ Phone: +61 3 8344 5185 Fax: +61 3 8344 8990 From MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Fri Apr 27 02:03:41 2007 From: MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish) Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 20:03:41 -0600 Subject: Submission Requests In-Reply-To: <a06240507c25708f33d5c@[128.250.86.175]> Message-ID: <THU.26.APR.2007.200341.0600.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Could you send submission dates, please? I am happy to write. I would like to do one on Macromedia Flash, and one on Fonts. Mia Kalish -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thieberger Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 7:59 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Submission Requests Dear Friends, I am writing to ask if you would be able to write an article or review of a software or hardware tool for the online Journal of Language Documentation & Conservation (http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc). Issues will appear in June and December. Reviews can describe tools or methods that you have found useful (or perhaps not useful!) and need not be more than a few pages long. An outline of the suggested form of the review is attached below. Please pass this message on to anyone who may be interested and contact me if you need more information. Best regards, Nick Thieberger The review should take the form of a short essay on the software, how you used it, how easy it was to learn, how well it did what it said it could do, then summarise using the following headings: Pros: Cons: Primary function: Platforms: Open Source? (Available from?): Proprietary? (Available from? Cost?): Reviewed version: Application size: Documentation: -- Technology Editor, Journal of Language Documentation & Conservation http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics University of Melbourne 3010 Australia http://www.linguistics.unimelb.edu.au/thieberger/ Phone: +61 3 8344 5185 Fax: +61 3 8344 8990 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Apr 27 15:32:18 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 08:32:18 -0700 Subject: Indigenous Languages Conference 2007 (fwd link) Message-ID: <FRI.27.APR.2007.083218.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> National Indigenous Languages Conference 2007 A GATHERING FOR MEMBERS OF LANGUAGE COMMUNITIES, LANGUAGE WORKERS, EDUCATORS AND LINGUISTS _WARRA WILTANIAPPENDI - STRENGTHENING LANGUAGES_ AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE TUESDAY 25 – THURSDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 2007 Registrations now open! Visit www.adelaide.edu.au/ilc2007/registration/[1] to register on-line. Register now! Early-bird registrations close Tuesday 01 May 2007! Links: ------ [1] ../services/go.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.adelaide.edu.au%2Filc2007%2Fregistration -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20070427/d3b266f8/attachment.html> From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Sat Apr 28 03:55:35 2007 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 23:55:35 -0400 Subject: FW: Optimus keyboard in the news Message-ID: <FRI.27.APR.2007.235535.0400.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> FYI... -----Original Message----- Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 11:32 PM To: a12n-collaboration at bisharat.net; unicode at unicode.org Subject: Optimus keyboard in the news The "Optimus Maximus" keyboard that has been in the works since mid-2005(?) is apparently going to be a reality later this year (orders being accepted beginning May 20; first deliveries in Nov.) for a price - over US$1500. See: http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/ http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/27/optimus-maximus-gets-price-and-date/ http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/patterson/757/uber-keyboard-costs-more-than-your -pc For those not following the story, the Art Lebedev Studio in Moscow has been working on this project for a keyboard with LED keys that change to indicate the active keyboard layout. Eventually the price will come down - personally I would hope enough so that this could become standard. The potential for minority languages that use extended Latin or non-Latin writing systems, and for computing generally where more than one language is used, could be great. On the other hand, not sure how easily such a keyboard could be worked into laptops/notebooks where one would think the nature of the keys would add to weight and bulk. And of course something like this on increasingly popular mobile devices - where the keys are already almost too small to type with - would seem improbable. However one can hope that the technical and production-cost issues can be resolved to make this technology more widely available. Don Osborn Bisharat.net PanAfrican Localisation project From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Apr 28 16:35:12 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 09:35:12 -0700 Subject: Cree language to go online with new Internet dictionary (fwd) Message-ID: <SAT.28.APR.2007.093512.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Cree language to go online with new Internet dictionary Kerry Benjoe The Leader-Post Saturday, April 28, 2007 http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/news/story.html?id=662453ca-78ca-41ca-9458-e115a5ec258f The Cree language is going high tech as part of the Cree Language Resource Project that was announced on Friday at the First Nations University of Canada (FNUniv). The project is a joint initiative between the FNUniv, the Miyo Wahkohtowin Community Education Authority (MWCEA) and Intellinet Technologies Inc. The partners are working towards developing an online Cree-English dictionary. "It's not for profit," said Loretta Pete-Lambert, director of education at the MWCEA. "Its intention is to preserve Cree, enhance Cree for individuals interested in learning about Cree." The MWCEA, a K-to-12 school located on the Ermineskin Cree Nation in Alberta, is responsible for spearheading the initiative. Pete-Lambert said the concept of an online dictionary that was both educational and interactive grew out of the need to find resources to teach the Cree language. She anticipates the dictionary will be available by the end of May or the beginning of June. The dictionary is currently being worked on to ensure that everything is working as it should. In November, Pete-Lambert signed a similar agreement with the University of Alberta to make its Cree dictionary available online. She feels it's important to convert as many of the existing First Nations dictionaries to an online version as a way of creating a more complete resource tool. The project is moving forward very quickly because of the support Pete-Lambert has received from those involved in the project, like her school's information technologies person, Ahmed Jawad. "He sees this as a very good resource for our school system. He's committed to it. He has passion behind it," Pete-Lambert said of Jawad, who has also had to learn the Cree-syllabics system so that he's able to understand the intricacies involved with the First Nations language. Jawad is also the president of Intellinet Technologies Inc. and is responsible for developing the online version. Richard Lightning, an elder from the Ermineskin First Nation, said he was overwhelmed by the whole project and is amazed by what technology is able to do. "Hopefully the First Nations people in this province support every effort to be able to revive and restore the language and the culture, because the two go hand in hand," said Lightning. Arok Wolvengrey, an associate professor in the Indian Languages Department at the FNUniv, has provided all the information from his dictionary, nehiyawewin: itwewina/Cree words, for the online version. He jumped at the opportunity to have his dictionary go online because he knew it was not something he would have been able to do on his own. "I certainly did not have the expertise to take it to that next level," said Wolvengrey. "So this is perfect. It allows us to expand, to continually add information to the database ... But we're going way beyond that, doing audio files and video clips." Wolvengrey's passion for the Cree language began when he was introduced to it as a child. He has dedicated much of career to learning and preserving it. Wolvengrey sees the potential the Internet can play in Cree retention intiatives and says incorporating the syllabic-writing system as well as a pronunciation key will go a long way in helping people learn and retain the language. The dictionary converts words from their English form into their Cree translation using Cree syllabics or the Roman alphabet. It can create flash cards and story boards, and includes games and testing components for children as well as a database of lesson plans for teachers. The online dictionary is available at www.creedictionary.com. It contains more than 30,000 Cree words. © The Leader-Post (Regina) 2007 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Apr 28 16:49:23 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 09:49:23 -0700 Subject: Linguists doubt exception to universal grammar (fwd) Message-ID: <SAT.28.APR.2007.094923.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Linguists doubt exception to universal grammar http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=34102 Controversies in the field of linguistics seldom make headlines, which is why the current imbroglio over an alleged counterexample to Universal Grammar (UG), made famous in the 1960s by Noam Chomsky, MIT professor of linguistics, is so unusual. On one side is Daniel L. Everett, a linguist at Illinois State University, who has spent several decades studying Pirahã, a language spoken by roughly 350 indigenous hunter-gatherers in the Amazon rainforest. On the other are a number of linguists, including MIT linguistics professor David Pesetsky, who have thrown doubt upon many of Everett’s claims, both cultural and linguistic, about the Pirahã. In a telephone interview, Pesetsky said, "What we tried to do in our response was to highlight the ways in which we are trying to unravel the system that unites all the languages in the world," including Pirahã. The attributes that Everett claims are unique to that language are in fact extant in other well-documented languages, such as Bengali and even German. Linguistics began to focus attention on UG several decades ago in an attempt to move their study from the particularization of philology--the detailed description of individual languages and language families, with which the field was preoccupied for centuries--to an understanding of the remarkable wealth of features that all languages share, and thence to an understanding of the human mind. The current contretemps began with Everett’s 2005 paper in Cultural Anthropology, "Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã: Another Look at the Design Features of Human Language," which described a number of "gaps" in Pirahã morphosyntax (the relationships between words and how their elements convey meaning). As a culture, says Everett, Pirahã speakers lack any sense of the past beyond what living individuals have personally experienced, and they have no creation myths or fiction, no sense of numbers or counting, and no art. Constraints of culture, Everett believes, in turn impoverish the language, which has no tenses, no names for colors and other allegedly unique paucities. The language constraints, he claims, indicate "some of the components of so-called core grammar are subject to cultural constraints, something that is predicted not to occur" by Chomsky’s universal-grammar model. Everett’s article and his colorful field career have been taken up by the popular press, with stories in the Independent, Der Spiegel and, most recently, the New Yorker, among other publications. His critics--Pesetsky, Andrew Nevins of Harvard and Cilene Rodrigues of the Universidade Estadual de Campinas in Brazil--fired back in March of this year with a paper entitled "Pirahã Exceptionality: A Reassessment," taking issue with virtually every claim to Pirahã’s uniqueness that Everett advanced. Everett hastily answered (also in March), with "Cultural Constraints on Grammar in Pirahã: A Reply to Nevins, Pesetsky, and Rodrigues (2007)." (Those two papers may be viewed at the LingBuzz linguistics archive site, ling.auf.net/lingbuzz, where they head the "Top Recent Downloads" list.) Pesetsky marvels at the interest this debate has sparked, not only within the field but in the world at large. As of April 12, he noted in an e-mail, "Our paper has been downloaded 1,300 times and (Everett’s) reply has been downloaded 910 times--astonishing figures for the site and for a field like linguistics." While linguists at MIT pay a lot of attention to theoretical questions, such as the universal properties of sound systems, speech perception and speech production, field linguistics is far from moribund here. Linguistics grad student Seth Cable is heading off soon to Alaska on an National Science Foundation dissertation grant, to study the syntax and semantics of questions in Tlingit, a language spoken by an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest. And one of the great figures in field linguistics, the late Kenneth Hale, was an esteemed member of the MIT faculty until his retirement in 1999; in his long career, he worked on languages as diverse as Hopi, Tohono O’odham (of the Sonoran desert region) and Warlpiri. His fluency in the latter, an indigenous language of Australia, was such that he was able to keep his sons, Ezra and Caleb, fluent in the language even after they had moved back to the United States. "He was a linguist’s linguist," as Pesetsky put it From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Apr 28 16:53:33 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 09:53:33 -0700 Subject: Runasimita rimanquichu? — Do you speak Quechua? (fwd) Message-ID: <SAT.28.APR.2007.095333.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Saturday, April 28, 2007 PERU Runasimita rimanquichu? — Do you speak Quechua? Various Quechua dialects make teaching the language difficult Hildegard Willer. Apr 25, 2007 http://www.latinamericapress.org/article.asp?lanCode=1&artCode=5122 Quechua continues to lose ground to Spanish. In August 2006 it appeared as though the Quechua was about to flourish again in Lima. Here, on Peru’s central coast, many linguists believe the Quechua language was born at least 2,000 years ago. Congresswomen Hilaria Supa and María Sumire, both from the highland Cuzco department, where Quechua is the dominant tongue, took their oath of office in their native Quechua, and vowed to speak in the indigenous language on the floor of Congress. But lawmaker and linguist Martha Hildebrandt did not accept their oath and tried to force them to speak in Spanish, causing an uproar. Most sided with the two Quechua-speaking congresswomen. Will Quechua, which for centuries, especially in the capital, has been considered an inferior and shameful language to speak, be given more public use? According to recent studies, Quechua, or “runasimi,” was born in central Peru and was later adopted by the Inca Empire. Quechua is spoken throughout the Andes, from Ecuador to Chile and Argentina. But it is not a uniform language. Instead it is composed of various regional dialects and the Quechua most widely spoken is that of southern Peru, particularly the Ayacucho and Cuzco regions. Invisible language Some 3 million Peruvians, about 16 percent of the population, speaks Quechua, according to the 1993 census (the 2005 census did not survey languages). But this linguistic minority remains unnoticed as many Quechua speakers live in very remote villages, are indigenous and most are women. Even though Quechua is an official language in Peru, it is easy to live a lifetime in the country without even hearing it spoken, and that goes not only for the capital, Lima, but in the southern Quechua-speaking highlands. There are very few places with bilingual street signs. There are neither any Quechua-language newspapers or television stations. Natividad Mamani and her daughter Sonia Luque live in the southern Andean city of Juliaca, near Lake Titicaca. Their story is common: the younger the person and the more urban their surroundings, the less likely they are to speak the language. “I was born in the countryside and I only learned Spanish at 8 years of age,” said Mamani, 44. “Now I live in Juliaca, and I speak the two languages. I speak Quechua with my husband and Quechua and Spanish with my children.” Luque is a 21-year-old teacher. She said: “I understand Quechua perfectly, but I don’t speak it well.” “Sometimes I speak it with my close friends, but in my current job as a private school teacher in Juliaca, I don’t need it,” she said. “The kids prefer to study English.” Luque’s case shows that the better grasp native Quechua speakers have on Spanish, the less they speak Quechua. The 60 students enrolled in Quechua courses at the San Antonio Abad University in Cuzco are an exception. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Apr 28 16:56:32 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 09:56:32 -0700 Subject: Series on preserving indigenous cultures premieres NGC tomorrow (fwd) Message-ID: <SAT.28.APR.2007.095632.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Series on preserving indigenous cultures premieres NGC tomorrow http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=22241 New Delhi, Apr 26: Did you know that during the span of our entire lifetime, many of the nearly 6000 languages that were spoken in the world at the time of our birth will no longer be spoken, written or taught? Or, that with the end of a single generation, a whole range of legacy will be lost? These and many other similar facts are sought to be brought out in 'Light at the Edge of The World', a new television series on the National Geographic Channel aimed at raising awareness of indigenous cultures. The series, premiering on the channel at 2000 hrs tomorrow, was launched in the Capital earlier this week by celebrated anthropologist and writer Wade Davis who has also produced the programme. The series is based on Wade Davis' exploration of four indigenous cultures, each uniquely dedicated to preservation of their customs in the face of modernisation - Inuit, Nepali Buddhist, Pan Andean and Polynesian. Davis explores how these cultures have withstood pressures of the modern world and addresses some of the biggest issues threatening their lifestyle today. ''Change or technical advancements do not call for a destruction of indigenous cultures. Rather, it is certain people, in the dynamics of power that force cultures to fade away. Ultimately, we have to decide whether we want to live in a monochromatic world or a world full of cultural diversity. This is what I seek to highlight through the television series,''Davis said at the launch of the programme. On the occasion, Davis delivered a talk on 'Cultures and their use of plants, language and myth' which was followed by an exclusive screening of the film 'The Wayfinders' from the series. 'Light at the Edge of the World' is based on a book by Wade Davis, following him from the foothills of the Himalayas to the desolate Tundra of the Northern Arctic as he explores how four indigenous cultures are adapting to preserve their unique heritage. --- UNI From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Apr 28 17:00:46 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 10:00:46 -0700 Subject: China boom 'threatens minorities' (fwd) Message-ID: <SAT.28.APR.2007.100046.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> China boom 'threatens minorities' By Jill McGivering BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6592157.stm Some of China's biggest minority groups are failing to benefit from China's rapid economic development, a new report has found. The report also said greater contact with the rest of China is threatening indigenous cultures and languages. The findings have been published by the Minority Rights Group International and Human Rights in China. They assessed the situation of three main ethnic minority groups, the Uighurs, Mongols and Tibetans. Not only are they becoming increasingly alienated, they are largely missing out on China's economic boom, the report said. Where their regions are seeing development, the impact is often damaging. 'Inappropriate' In many cases, the large-scale building of roads and railways is not boosting local economies, but just facilitating the extraction of raw materials - resources to feed growth in other parts of China. In regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet, it says, the increased access is leading to a greater military presence - and a general diluting of local culture. "You can adapt to the world and retain your language and culture, and speak a national language as well. You don't need just to speak one language," Clive Baldwin, of the Minority Rights Group International, said. "But in China, the model that's being imposed at the moment is very much one of one state, one language, one culture and anyone against this is being seen as deviant, "splitist", and we'd say that is entirely inappropriate." China's leaders are struggling at the moment to address the imbalances in the country's development. They are well aware of the vast gap between the booming coastal provinces and the much less developed west of the country - and are eager to stifle discontent. The authors of this report suggest that where minorities are concerned, the policies could be having the opposite effect - stoking feelings of resentment amongst communities who see their own culture and way of life coming under growing threat. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6592157.stm Published: 2007/04/25 15:24:03 GMT © BBC MMVII From jieikobu at HOTMAIL.COM Sun Apr 1 02:34:29 2007 From: jieikobu at HOTMAIL.COM (Derksen Jacob) Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2007 02:34:29 +0000 Subject: Codetalkers on AZ Quarter In-Reply-To: <004d01c7448e$01fb7510$873f14ac@LFPMIA> Message-ID: <SUN.1.APR.2007.023429.0000.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20070401/7b8af2a3/attachment.htm> From lameen at GMAIL.COM Mon Apr 2 13:12:17 2007 From: lameen at GMAIL.COM (Lameen Souag) Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2007 14:12:17 +0100 Subject: Online Resources for Endangered Languages Message-ID: <MON.2.APR.2007.141217.0100.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> The Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project has just updated OREL: Online Resources for Endangered Languages. This bilingual library of annotated and categorised links now includes a total of more than 300 resources in English and Arabic, covering language endangerment and revitalisation, technology and techniques, ethical issues, and funding sources. To access OREL in English, go to http://www.hrelp.org/languages/resources/orel/ ; to access it in Arabic, go to http://www.hrelp.org/languages/resources/orel-ar/. Lameen Souag SOAS From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Apr 2 19:59:03 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2007 12:59:03 -0700 Subject: Funds are sought for tribes' digital communication (fwd) Message-ID: <MON.2.APR.2007.125903.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Funds are sought for tribes' digital communication Jessica Coomes The Arizona Republic Apr. 1, 2007 12:00 AM http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0401indian-telecom0401.html Swaths of Indian land in Arizona are cut off from cellphone service and the Internet, which creates problems in responding to emergencies and communicating in an information economy, a state lawmaker said. State Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Flagstaff, wants Congress to grant tribes money to establish communication infrastructure and allow tribes to regulate their own telecommunications. Kirkpatrick is sponsoring House Concurrent Memorial 2007, a letter that would be sent from the Arizona Legislature to Congress, asking that the federal government do more to bridge the tribes' digital divide. The Senate Government Committee approved the measure Monday, 5-0. The full House passed the measure 40-17 last month. "A lot of people don't realize it's a problem," Kirkpatrick said. "We have huge gaps. . . . We do not have a continuous band of telecommunications in northern Arizona." Kirkpatrick said tribes should be allowed to regulate their own telecommunications, in part, because of the red tape communications companies and tribes face in getting approval for services from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. "It takes years to get approval," she said. Immediately after she was sworn into office in 2005, Kirkpatrick said she met with Gov. Janet Napolitano and tribal leaders to talk about remote communities in northern Arizona that were stranded after heavy floods. Kirkpatrick said she has been working on the issue since then. Lobbyist and Navajo Nation member Ron Lee said the digital divide needs to be bridged. "Knowledge is a huge part of the economy, and we need to have the tribal communities connected to better participate in the economy and, today, the global economy," Lee told senators this week. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Apr 3 17:06:28 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2007 10:06:28 -0700 Subject: Ottawa invests in Aboriginal language projects (fwd) Message-ID: <TUE.3.APR.2007.100628.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Ottawa invests in Aboriginal language projects April 2, 2007 - by Joseph Quesnel http://www.firstperspective.ca/fp_combo_template.php?path=20070402lang The Ministry of Canadian Heritage will be making a significant investment in community-based Aboriginal language retention. Beverley J. Oda, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women, announced recently a commitment of $232,470 in funding for the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) Alberta Regional Office to support community-based First Nations language projects in Alberta. "Canada's New Government is pleased to support an organization that works on a national level to preserve and promote First Nation, Inuit and M?tis languages," said Minister Oda. "The strength of these languages is important for Canada's First Nations communities, and they are an important part of Canada's shared heritage." "Our Government is proud to support the efforts of the AFN Alberta Regional Office to preserve ten First Nations languages," said Mr. Calkins. "For Aboriginal groups in the regions, these languages, cultures and traditions are an important part of their identity, and they are a part of the rich heritage of all Canadians." The AFN Alberta Regional Office works in cooperation with the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations, Treaty 7 Management Corporation, and Treaty 8 First Nations of Alberta to manage and distribute funds to their respective communities across the province of Alberta. The ten languages supported through this funding include Cree, Dene, Beaver, Chipewyan, Saulteaux, Nakota, Blackfoot, Kainai, Peikani, and Tsuu T'ina. Selected projects include language workshops, language classes, teacher training, language documentation, immersion camps, Elders reading programs, and the development of language learning materials. The federal government, in a press release, said they provided this funding through the Aboriginal Languages Initiative, which forms part of the Department of Canadian Heritage's Aboriginal Peoples' Program. The Aboriginal Languages Initiative provides $5 million per year to support the preservation, revitalization and promotion of Aboriginal languages by facilitating the use of these languages in community and family settings. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Apr 4 05:45:54 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2007 22:45:54 -0700 Subject: Brazil to offer free Internet access to Amazon tribes (fwd) Message-ID: <TUE.3.APR.2007.224554.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Brazil to offer free Internet access to Amazon tribes http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/03/30/amazon.internet.ap/index.html RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Brazil's government said it will provide free Internet access to native Indian tribes in the Amazon in an effort to help protect the world's biggest rain forest. The environment and communications ministers signed an agreement Thursday with the Forest People's Network to provide an Internet signal by satellite to 150 communities, including many reachable only by riverboat, allowing them to report illegal logging and ranching, request help and coordinate efforts to preserve the forest. The goal is to "encourage those peoples to join the public powers in the environmental management of the country," Francisco Costa of the Environment Ministry said in a statement. "The government intends to strengthen the Forest People's Network, a digital web for monitoring, protection and education." The ministry said city and state governments must first install telecenters with computers in selected areas, including indigenous lands. The federal government then will provide the satellite connection. The areas in 13 states, including the Pantanal wetlands and the poor northeast, were chosen by the Environment Ministry, the National Indian Foundation, or Funai, and the government environmental protection agency Ibama, the ministry said. Francisco Ashaninka, a native Indian from the Ashaninka tribe who works for the western Acre state government, said the arrival of the Internet was a success for the Forest People's Network, created in 2003. He said there are currently a few telecenters on the outskirts of cities, but that the new ones will be built deep in the forest and will allow Indians easy access to public officials so that they can alert them of illegal miners, loggers and ranchers. "It will be a real chance for the indigenous communities to acquire, share and provide information to public officials," Ashaninka said. He added the Internet would "strengthen indigenous culture by linking them and providing environmental education." Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Find this article at: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/03/30/amazon.internet.ap/index.html From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Apr 4 22:31:52 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 15:31:52 -0700 Subject: Grants aim to preserve and promote Cherokee culture (fwd) Message-ID: <WED.4.APR.2007.153152.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> week of 4/4/07 Grants aim to preserve and promote Cherokee culture SMN http://www.smokymountainnews.com/issues/04_07/04_04_07/fr_grant_cherokee.html Cherokee Preservation Foundation has awarded 29 grants totaling $3.6 million during its spring cycle. Grants awarded by the Cherokee Preservation Foundation are funded by casino proceeds of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Grants are awarded to efforts that advance the cultural attractions? heritage programming efforts and to facilitate Cherokee language revitalization efforts. Major new support of heritage tourism includes: ? A $500,000 grant to continue an award winning marketing campaign that spotlights the Cherokee Historical Association?s Unto These Hills outdoor drama production and Oconaluftee Indian Village, Qualla Arts & Crafts Mutual, and the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. ? A $129,000 grant to offer theatre training to local performers that will help prepare them for involvement in the new, more culturally-oriented production of Unto These Hills, the popular retelling of the Cherokee people?s story. The grant will also provide ticketing for local schools to attend the drama and living history village. ? A $75,000 grant will enable training a cadre of cultural ambassadors to enhance the major Cherokee cultural attractions and the making of traditional Cherokee clothing for the ambassadors. ? A nearly $120,000 grant will support continuation and expansion of the Festival of Native Peoples, which features performers and artisans from tribes across the United States, Canada and Mexico. The 2007 festival will take place in July. ? A $127,000 grant will support an effort led by the new Cherokee Chamber of Commerce to stimulate tourism by creating a clearly identifiable ?Cultural District? within Cherokee with the help of signage and banners. ? A $15,000 grant will support an initiative by the Museum of the Cherokee Indian to translate Cherokee literary works into the Cherokee language. The first of these is Thirteen Moons, by Charles Frazier. Major support from Cherokee Preservation Foundation for Cherokee language revitalization efforts includes: ? A $206,000 grant to develop curriculum and learning materials for language immersion programs, in which students hear and learn their native language during the entire experience, and more conventional community-based language learning programs. ? A nearly $85,000 grant to enable the development of a second-level language course that will allow higher level Cherokee speakers to advance their skills more quickly, and to support a Cherokee Language Immersion Camp in the Snowbird Community. The Kituwah Preservation and Education Program and Western Carolina University are in the process of developing a comprehensive Cherokee language revitalization initiative, and the program is being guided by their recognition that language learning must come from the community in order to have an impact. ? A $55,000 grant that will enable the Kituwah Preservation and Education Program to develop an operating plan for the Kituwah Academy, a planned facility that will house language immersion programs for children from infancy through fifth grade. ? A nearly $235,000 grant to Western Carolina University to create materials for all levels of Cherokee language learners and to develop a Cherokee language degree program and the necessary textbooks for this program. From scoronel at PRINCETON.EDU Fri Apr 6 01:48:04 2007 From: scoronel at PRINCETON.EDU (Serafin M Coronel-Molina (scoronel@Princeton.EDU)) Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2007 21:48:04 -0400 Subject: Andean languages are making a comeback Message-ID: <THU.5.APR.2007.214804.0400.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> >From the April 03, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0403/p01s03-woam.html Sweeping South America: indigenous pride Andean languages are making a comeback as long discriminated-against cultures push for acceptance. By Sara Miller Llana | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor LIMA, PERU Hilaria Supa stands out in Lima in her brightly hued ancestral clothes and long braids. But she is even more of an iconoclast in the Peruvian legislature, where the congresswoman insists on speaking in her native Quechua. In doing so, Ms. Supa says, she hopes to create a new era of inclusion for the indigenous who have long been discriminated against in Peru. "When we speak in Quechua they say it's rude because they don't understand us," she says. "But my hope is that the language will someday be appreciated; it will be difficult, but not impossible." Across the Andes, similar efforts ? some controversial ? are bringing new recognition to indigenous culture. In Bolivia, the government hopes to nearly double the number of native language programs in classrooms by next year. In Peru, foreigners and locals alike are enrolling in extracurricular courses. Internationally, the renaissance is getting a boost as well: this past summer Google launched a new page in Quechua and Microsoft unveiled Quechua translations of Windows. It coincides with the indigenous rights movement that has swept across Latin America ? contributing to the presidential win of Evo Morales in Bolivia, the competitive run of Ollanta Humala in Peru, and the recently announced presidential bid of Rigoberta Menchu in Guatemala. Each has given a nod to indigenous culture and language in classrooms and the halls of government. "At a grassroots level, indigenous groups are trying to revitalize their identity, their language, culture, and their ideas," says Seraf?n Coronel-Molina, a linguist at Princeton University in New Jersey, and native Quechua speaker. There are an estimated 10 to 13 million Quechua speakers in South America, most of them in Peru and Bolivia. Bolivia has an estimated 1.5 million Aymara speakers. Andean languages also flourish in Ecuador as well as parts of Colombia and Argentina. But for years, native languages were seen as a sign of inferiority. Miriam Cayetano, who teaches Quechua at San Andres University in La Paz, Bolivia, says parents used to forbid their children to speak their mother tongue. "Before parents thought their children would be undervalued [and discriminated against]," she says. Now enrollment in classes teaching indigenous tongues is rising in universities and private institutions. Concepci?n Quisbert, a student of Aymara at San Andres University, joins some 250 students enrolled in either Aymara or Quechua. On a recent day, students pulled out their Aymara dictionaries, while their professor holds up erasers and pencils. The students are learning to say words like 'phuyu,' which means 'pen'. The room is packed. "I understand Aymara because I spoke it with my parents, but never learned how to write it," says Ms. Quisbert. "I want to know my culture, and my country." Most in Bolivia cite the rise of President Morales, an Aymara Indian and the nation's first indigenous president, for a boost in native languages. But in Peru enthusiasm is also on the rise. On a recent evening in Cusco, the ancient capital of the Inca empire, a group of students enrolled in intermediary Quechua at the Center of Regional Andean Studies Bartolome de las Casas practice communicating. They are anthropologists, teachers in rural areas, and university students studying for careers such as medicine. Sonia Louiza grew up speaking Quechua but gave it up when she began elementary school. "I was embarrassed, and thought speaking it was something horrible," she says. She enrolled in an intermediate class to recapture what she lost. "It helps me to know who I am." Linguists, ethnologists, and anthropologists have long been interested in Andean languages, but technology has brought it to the mainstream. Not only have Google and Microsoft jumped into the game, so have smaller players, particularly in Quechua. "There are a growing number of websites. There are electronic dictionaries. There are stories, literature, games, everything," says Mr. Coronel-Molina. "It's to promote a new kind of literacy in the 21 st century." But while many embrace native languages, others resist their roots. Amparo Garcia, the director for Spanish and Quechua programs at Acupari Language School in Cusco , says that most of her Quechua students are foreigners. "There is a certain resistance to Quechua among some Peruvians," she says. "Even if they know Quechua, sometimes when they are addressed in it they answer in Spanish, or English." That is why Supa has made it one of her battle cries. Seventeen percent of Peru's residents speak Quechua as a first language. In her home Huallaccocha, outside Cusco, residents address one another in Quechua on the streets and in local stores. Some don't speak Spanish at all. But it is a different story along the coast, where most of the political and economic power lies. In July, Supa made headlines when she swore her oath of office not on the Bible but in the name of Incan deities. She is also working on a law to introduce indigenous language education to public schools. "If we don't have an identity, then the rest won't value us," Supa says. "The town is so proud of her," says Carlos Huaman, Supa's cousin and a farmer in Huallaccocha, where homes are made with mud and straw, and the streets turn into mud slicks in the rainy season. "She can help the indigenous." Not everyone has celebrated giving more space to indigenous culture. Last year in Bolivia, plans to replace Roman Catholic education in public schools with a course that would place more emphasis on indigenous faith, as well as to require that all schools teach native languages, was scrapped after citizens balked ? despite the fact that well over half of the population speaks a native language, according to the national census. But the Bolivian Education Ministry is pushing to nearly double its native language programs to some 5,000 schools. Currently 2,830 have such programs, up from 540 in 1990. "Learning our culture helps us de-colonize mentally," says Adrian Montalvo, who helps plan the native languages program in the Education Ministry. The goal is to have all functionaries at the national level adept at at least one native language, too. Where many in the younger generations focus on foreign languages for social mobility and work opportunities, Ms. Cayetano, says many students are enrolling in native languages today for the very same reasons. "They are starting to revalue their languages," says Cayetano, whose department offers classes to functionaries in the municipal government of La Paz. "They are going to need it in the future." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Apr 6 16:26:59 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2007 09:26:59 -0700 Subject: UCSB Professors Preserve Native American Language (fwd) Message-ID: <FRI.6.APR.2007.092659.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> UCSB Professors Preserve Native American Language By Kristina Kurasz, April 5, 2007 http://www.independent.com/online_onlys/2007/04/ucsb_professors_preserve_nativ.html The spoken language of the Wappo Native American tribe almost ceased to exist when Laura Somersal, the last remaining fluent speaker, died sixteen years ago. The efforts of UCSB linguistics professors Sandra Thompson and Charles Li have prevented the language from becoming completely extinct. The pair recently published the most extensive data and grammatical research ever conducted on the Wappo language in A Reference Grammar of the Wappo. In the ten years it took to gather information, Li and Thompson traveled to Northern California every six to eight weeks to record Somersal speak and put the language in context. Although research began in 1975, the technology required to properly organize the word structure was not available until recently. This valuable preservation is in keeping with the current movement to document and archive indigenous languages on the verge of extinction. Kristina Kurasz is an Independent intern. From fhm at UNIMELB.EDU.AU Mon Apr 9 11:41:21 2007 From: fhm at UNIMELB.EDU.AU (Felicity Meakins) Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2007 21:41:21 +1000 Subject: UCSB Professors Preserve Native American Language In-Reply-To: <20070406092659.vrki4g4gg84gks08@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: <MON.9.APR.2007.214121.1000.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> A job/project announcement for Australia: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Eva Sallis > To: Eva Sallis > Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 2:24 PM > Subject: From AAR: Aboriginal Language Project > > > [Australians Against Racism Inc. If you wish to be > removed from this list please email > info at australiansagainstracism.org > with 'unsubscribe' in the header] > > > > > Dear All > > > > > A belated Happy 2007 to all; and, with many, we hope > for change in Australian politics and mainstream > attitudes this year. This mailing list has been > quiet (we still have a few glitches following the > computer crash, and we apologise for this) but we > have been extremely busy. > > > At AAR, we have been working through the past few > months with establishing an Aboriginal language and > culture course, Adnyamathanha Ngawarla Yarramalka. > This will be our major project through 2007 and > beyond, alongside seeing the Rainbow Bird project > through to completion. (News on that below) > > > It is inevitable that our work on racism and > refugees has led us to begin to devise projects for > the greater inclusion of Aboriginal people and > culture in Australia's sense of self, as the > prejudice experienced by Aboriginal people is the > core racism in Australia, the central blindness, and > the source and symptom of much harm - to Aboriginal > people primarily, but also to us all. > > > In New Zealand, children learn Maori and English. > Maori and English are the official languages. > Imagine what it would mean to all Australians, > Aboriginal and non Aboriginal, if Australia > recognised Aboriginal languages as essential to us > all. Imagine what changes could come about, if, > instead of having a Prime Minister call for the end > of teaching Aboriginal children their own language > in schools, all Australians were encouraged to learn > an Australian language at school. > > > We would like to be part of a push for such > acknowledgment of Australian languages in Australia; > and, to start our encouragement to all Australians > to learn an Australian language, we will be running > a course in one of these languages and learning > ourselves at the same time. > > > Adnyamathanha Ngawarla Yarramalka is a project > devised both for (and by) the Adnyamathanha > community, and for the diverse Australian community. > Have a look at the beautiful website, donated by > David Mutton - www.adnyamathanha.com - for more > information > > > How did it come about? > > > Well ... in short, I have been running a language > program in Arabic for kids for the last eight months > - have a look at www.ozarabic.com, if you are > intrigued. Gillian Bovoro suggested that AAR might > be able to do the same for her language, drawing on > my experience. This seemed a wonderful idea. Since > then, Gillian and I have worked on developing the > Adnyamathanha Ngawarla Yarramalka project. Guy > Tunstill from DECS has provided us with an entire > course prepared for teaching Adnyamathanha from year > 1-12, as well as many other resources. Yasmin Aleem > has worked with David Mutton, who joined the team > and designed the website; Gillian took the idea to > the community and got extensive feedback on it; and > we drove up to Port August and Quorn in early March > for meetings with elders to get their advice, > suggestions, and support. The enthusiasm for the > project in the community, here and in Port Augusta > is very encouraging. Tauondi College have agreed to > host it, providing all facilities we could possibly > want. > > > The costs of this project are not high - we need > enough money to pay the teacher and to pay elders > who give guest sessions when they are in Adelaide. > We also need enough to provide some food at each > session. The project will be part funded by the > students who enrol. Consultation with families has > helped us set the fees low enough to make it > possible for many of the poorer families and young > people to attend. The project will be also part > funded by Tauondi, who have offered a $2 per student > donation. AAR will handle the administration of the > course, and will come up with whatever funds are > needed to make the course sustainable week by week > and in the long term. I will be attending every > week, as will Gillian. > > > If you would like to support this project, we would > very much welcome donations. These would be used to > pay teachers and elders who are guests of the > program. When attendance is high, we may have > enough, but at times when it drops, or if we need to > bring in a guest speaker, we will be supplementing > the fund. > > > We have everything in place to start the course > except for a core teacher. If you know anyone, or > are connected with relevant networks and > organisations, please forward this ad to them. > > > > > Adnyamathanha Teacher Wanted > > for Aboriginal Language and Culture Program > > Coordinated by Australians Against Racism Inc, > hosted by Tauondi College, Port Adelaide. > > The successful applicant must have the ability to > teach Adnyamathanha language to a diverse class, > teaching first basic skills and then building on > them. DECS? course for teaching Adnyamathanha will > be provided to the teacher > > Experience in teaching is desirable. Classes will > be mixed children (from 5 years) and adults. Classes > could at times be quite large (Up to 30 people), and > will be made up of people from inside and outside > the Adnyamathanha community. > > Applicants must speak Adnyamathanha fluently. > Formal qualifications are desirable but not > essential. > > Rates of pay will be $80 per session, usually one > session per week, in term time only. Sessions are > around 90 minutes. > > This language program is a community based > initiative and will be part funded by the families > enrolled. > > For more information, see www.adnyamathanha.com or > phone 8447 8586. > > Please post cover letter and CV by March 30th. In > the letter please outline your skills and > experience. > > Attn: Eva Sallis and Gillian Bovoro > > Adnyamathanha Ngawarla Yarramalka > > AAR Inc > > PO Box 107 > > Enfield Plaza SA 5085 > > > > > > > > > > > > > Finally, On Rainbow Bird > Rainbow Bird will go to printers in the next four > weeks, we hope. Deborah Baldassi has been working > with Czenya on finalising design. It is an > extraordinary book, and I hope you are all crazy > with anticipation. You won't be disappointed. (We > are hoping for a launch after mid year) > > > > > > > warmest wishes > > > > > > > Eva and all at AAR > > > ????????????????????????????????? > Dr Eva Sallis > Visiting Research Fellow > Department of English > University of Adelaide SA 5005 > www.evasallis.com > > > President, Australians Against Racism Inc > www.australiansagainstracism.org > From scoronel at PRINCETON.EDU Wed Apr 11 19:55:27 2007 From: scoronel at PRINCETON.EDU (Serafin M Coronel-Molina (scoronel@Princeton.EDU)) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 15:55:27 -0400 Subject: New Literacies in Indigenous Languages Message-ID: <WED.11.APR.2007.155527.0400.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> ACLA 2007: Puebla, Mexico Seminar: New Literacies in Indigenous Languages: The Role of Mass Media in Mexico, Central and South America Coloquio: Nuevas literacidades en lenguas ind?genas: el rol de los medios de comunicaci?n social en M?xico, Centroam?rica y Sudam?rica http://dev.cdh.ucla.edu/acla2007/?p=109 Seminar Organizer: Hana Muzika Kahn & Seraf?n M. Coronel-Molina Affiliation: The College of New Jersey, Princeton University Email: kahn at tcnj.edu Email: scoronel at princeton.edu Description: Television, radio, cinema and computers, in addition to print media, have greatly expanded access to culture and information produced in indigenous languages in Mexico, Central and South America. In the 21st century, literatures in both traditional and emerging genres are being presented through the media as performances, in written and oral forms, and more recently in Internet multi-media formats. How do these developments support the revitalization of indigenous languages and cultures in these territories? Are they accessible to all members of the community? How are literary genres evolving in terms of these new modes of transmission? What are the implications of moving from traditional literacy to new multi-media literacies in the context of the educational and socio-economic situations of indigenous communities? This seminar will be an opportunity to examine indigenous literature in the mass media, and to exchange information about indigenous language films and recordings, radio and television programs and performances, computer programs, websites, newspapers and magazines, and other mass media adaptations and recordings of literary materials in indigenous languages. Papers may be in Spanish or English. La televisi?n, la radio, el cine y las computadoras, adem?s de los medios de comunicaci?n impresos, han incrementado formidablemente el acceso a la cultura y a la informaci?n producida en lenguas ind?genas en M?xico, Centroam?rica y Sudam?rica. En el siglo XXI, las literaturas tanto en g?neros tradicionales como en g?neros emergentes son presentados a trav?s de los medios de comunicaci?n social como performances en forma escrita y oral, y m?s recientemente en formatos multimedia en Internet. ?De qu? manera apoyan estos adelantos a la revitalizaci?n de las lenguas y culturas ind?genas en los mencionados territorios? ?Son ellas accesibles a todos los miembros de la comunidad? ?De qu? modo se est?n desarrollando los g?neros literarios en relaci?n a estas nuevas formas de transmisi?n? ?Cu?les son las consecuencias del cambio de la literacidad tradicional a las nuevas literacidades de multimedia dentro de los contextos educativos y socio-econ?micos de las comunidades ind?genas? E l presente seminario constituir? una oportunidad para examinar la literatura ind?gena en los medios de comunicaci?n social, y para intercambiar informaci?n en torno a pel?culas y grabaciones, programas y actuaciones de radio y televisi?n, programas de computadora, portales, peri?dicos y revistas, y otros tipos de adaptaciones y grabaciones de los medios de comunicaci?n respecto a los materiales literarios en lenguas ind?genas. Las ponencias pueden ser en espa?ol o ingl?s. Papers for this Topic Stream C Friday, April 20th, 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Chair: Seraf?n Coronel-Molina Title: L?mites de la traducci?n, lugares de la tradici?n: la obra po?tica de Maruch S?ntiz G?mez. Author: Perla Masi Affiliation: Princeton University Email: pmasi at princeton.edu Title: Preserving Mayan Oral Tradition on the Internet Author: Hana Muzika Kahn Affiliation: The College of New Jersey Email: kahn at tcnj.edu Title: La televisi?n y la ense?anza del maya yucateco Author: Bella Flor Canche Teh Affiliation: Universidad de Oriente, Valladolid, Yucat?n Email: nictemucuy at yahoo.com.mx Title: Informatics and the Future of Indigenous Languages Author: Michael Gasser Affiliation: School of Informatics, Indiana University Email: gasser at indiana.edu Saturday, April 21st, 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Chair: Hana Muzika Kahn Title: Hojas de Coca y Hojas de Papel en la Educaci?n de los Ni?os Muinane. Amazonia Colombiana Author: Giovanna Micarelli Affiliation: UIUC Email: itauba at yahoo.com Title: The Inga Language Project at Indiana University: Leaping into Online Literacy Author: John McDowell Affiliation: Indiana University Email: mcdowell at indiana.edu Title: Nuevas literacidades en lenguas originarias en Bolivia/New literacies in indigenous languages in Bolivia Author: Utta von Gleich Affiliation: Center for Linguistics, Hamburg University Email: utta at vongleich.de Title: Las NTICS y el quechua: entre la inclusi?n y la exclusi?n Author: Jorge Alderetes & Leila Ines Albarracin Affiliation: Universidad Nacional De Tucuman, Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero Email: adilq at arnet.com.ar Title: ?Puede la Web ayudar a preservar y revitalizar el quechua y el aimara? Author: Seraf?n Coronel-Molina Affiliation: Princeton University Email: scoronel at princeton.edu From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Apr 12 16:49:41 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 09:49:41 -0700 Subject: Stoney schools work to preserve language (fwd) Message-ID: <THU.12.APR.2007.094941.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Stoney schools work to preserve language [Maxine Achurch - photo Stoney-Nakoda language teacher Kim Fox helps Darris Bearspaw and Lane Hunter with their Grade 4 Nakoda lesson] By Rob Alexanader - Reporter Apr 11 2007 http://www.rockymountainoutlook.ca/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=128&cat=23&id=961684&more= Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the 15th and 16th centuries, Canada was home to at least 60 aboriginal languages, but in the roughly 400 years following colonization, the majority of Canada?s aboriginal languages are now either at risk or on the verge of disappearing. Currently, Canada?s aboriginal languages are among the most endangered languages in the world, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. In the past century alone, 10 once-thriving languages have vanished with another dozen, such as Haida with 240 speakers, and Kutenai at 120, at risk. In fact, only three of Canada?s 50 still-surviving aboriginal languages ? Inukitut, Cree and Ojibway ? are expected to survive into the future as each has more than 20,000 speakers. On the Stoney-Nakoda First Nation reserve, the challenge is keeping the language alive when the number of people in the Stoney-Nakoda First Nation, while growing, is still relatively small at roughly 4,000. Add to that the predominance of English in this region and in the media; music, movies, television and magazines, and it is a mix that Kim Fox, one of three language teachers at Morley, believes could lead to the demise of the Nakoda language in the next 50 to 70 years. The 2002 Indian and Northern Affairs report From Generation to Generation: Survival and Maintenance of Canada?s Aboriginal Languages Within Families, Communities and Cities indicates that one of the major threats to any aboriginal language is the off-reserve environment. ?Our language survived residential schools, but I feel that will change in 50 years,? Fox said recently. Fox added that at Morley, roughly a third of the 600 students are fluent, one-third are able to understand it, but can?t speak it and one-third cannot understand or speak Nakoda at all. She added that most elementary students speak in English to one another, rather than Stoney. ?They all play in English. When I was a kid I played in Stoney,? she said. A member of the Siouian Family of languages that are part of the Greater Sioux Nation, Nakoda has been spoken in the Rocky Mountains since at least the late 1600s when the Mountain Stoneys arrived in this region, following a roughly 50-year, 4,800 kilometre journey that began in the Great Lakes Region. French and British explorers and fur traders began to introduce their trade goods, culture and languages in the Rocky Mountain region in the mid- to late-1700s. Following that period, especially after the signing of Treaty 7 in 1877 and the introduction of residential schools, the Nakoda language ? like numerous aboriginal languages and cultures ? came under considerable pressure from mainstream society. But today, Nakoda is a living language still being taught to children in their homes and, of course, championed in the schools by people such as Fox, Helmer Twoyoungman, her counterpart at the Eden Valley school and Dr. Gordon Breen, Morley school principal. The Big Horn School, on the Big Horn reserve located near Nordegg, also teaches Stoney as part of the regular curriculum. Originally an oral language, Stoney-Nakoda became a written language in the 1970s. The three schools offer classes in Stoney, beginning with the youngest students through to senior high, which offers Stoney 15, 25 and 35, each worth three credits. The younger grades work with simple concepts such as animals, numbers and common prayers, for example. High school students take an hour a day, which Fox said helps with their retention. But teaching the language is only part of the equation ? like anything, it has to be relevant. As a result, the Morley school includes a strong cultural component in its curriculum, of which Nakoda is an integral element, that Breen said attempts to ?honour and facilitate cultural aspirations. ?Our intention is ? our programming is to reinforce the aboriginal identity (Nakoda) ? identify and create a solid foundation of personal and academic growth. We see the native culture as an asset to the student?s education or schooling,? he said. Without helping students develop their identity as aboriginal people, the school will have failed, Breen said, as aboriginal schools across Canada failed their charges by not embracing the unique identity of each group. ?For years, Aboriginal schools were part of the reason for the failures: it worked against or negated the students? identity. If they get through the school, many graduate without refinement of their identity as individuals,? he said. ?You don?t run against who your community is. A portion is dictated, but another portion is what the community wants.? At the same time, the school has to reach the goals Alberta Learning has for all schools across the province to allow graduates get jobs and go on to university or college. The Nakoda cultural component has its own classroom where students learn about their own culture, their history, even nature, all in their own their language, making the school a richer, more meaningful experience for students and educators alike. Twoyoungman likens the work that happens in this classroom to balancing a drumstick ? essentially the idea of promoting harmony through understanding. ?Say you have understood your culture, and are more accepting of others,? he said, adding balancing a drumstick allows Nakoda people to function in the white world. ?It?s the only way you can live in harmony.? Preserving their language is also a celebration of their culture and an affirmation that they are survivors and that they are not, as once believed, mere charges of the government, but instead, in control of their future and their identity. ?That?s the other thing we have to focus on; the positive. Why it?s important. Why it is important to preserve our language,? Fox said. Fox said to help facilitate the preservation of Nakoda, she hopes one day a language centre will be built on the reserve, a building solely dedicated to preserving and teaching their language. ? Copyright 2007 Rocky Mountain Outlook From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Apr 12 16:52:56 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 09:52:56 -0700 Subject: Truku dictionary meant to help preserve culture (fwd) Message-ID: <THU.12.APR.2007.095256.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Published on Taipei Times http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2007/04/12/2003356291 Truku dictionary meant to help preserve culture LEXICON: Eight years ago, six pastors in Hualien County got together to write the nation's first dictionary for the tribal tongue after realizing what was about to be lost By Loa Iok-sin STAFF REPORTER Thursday, Apr 12, 2007, Page 4 Pastors of the Truku tribe in an Aboriginal township in Hualien have sought to preserve the tribe's culture and language by publishing the nation's first Truku dictionary yesterday. In 1999, six pastors in Sioulin Township (秀林) of Hualien County formed a team to write the nation's first Truku dictionary after realizing that the tribe's language could soon be lost if they didn't put efforts into its preservation, Jiru Haruq, a pastor at a local church and an author of the dictionary, said. Although Sioulin only has about 15,000 inhabitants, it is one of the two major Truku regions in the country, with over 85 percent of the population in the area, according to the township's Web site. In the past, the Truku tribe was considered a subtribe of Atayal because of their close connections, Sioulin Township Mayor Syu Shu-yin (許淑銀) said. Although the writing of the dictionary only began in 1999, the research started in 1953. "In 1953, Pisaw Yudaw, a pastor at a local church, began to translate the Bible into Truku," said Iyuq Ciyang, another author of the dictionary. "After five years working on the translation, Pisaw built a lexicon of 3,000 Truku root words, which became the base for the dictionary," he added. Words in Truku are created by adding prefix, postfix and midfix to root words. A root word can develop into as many as 40 words, Jiru explained. Midfix is added into the middle of a root word by separating the root word. Taking an example from the dictionary, hakawis a root word meaning "bridge" in Truku, hmhakaw becomes "bridge-building", mhakaw is a bridge builder, shakaw is the reason to build a bridge and hkagan is the location where the bridge is built. "Verb tenses and different parts of speech are also constructed by adding prefixes, postfixes or midfixes to a rood word," Iyuq said. "Culture and language are inseparable," Jiru said. "The wisdom of our ancestors and our history are alive in the Truku language." Jiru gave an example of how the Truku language is closely connected to the tribe's collective memory. "Preserving the language is preserving our culture, our customs, and our traditions," Jiru said. Copyright ? 1999-2007 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Apr 13 15:55:48 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 08:55:48 -0700 Subject: Métis institute gets money to revive endangered language (fwd) Message-ID: <FRI.13.APR.2007.085548.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> M?tis institute gets money to revive endangered language Last Updated: Thursday, April 12, 2007 | 2:52 PM CT CBC News http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2007/04/12/michif.html M?tis educators in Saskatchewan hope an infusion of federal cash announced Thursday will help revive an endangered aboriginal language ? Michif. On Thursday, Ottawa gave $125,000 to the Gabriel Dumont Institute, a non-profit organization that provides training for M?tis students in the province. The funds are meant to help promote the spread of the Michif language from generation to generation. Michif, a mixture of French and Cree with some borrowings from Dene and English, was once widely spoken among the M?tis people of Western Canada. These days, like many aboriginal languages, it is in danger of extinction. It is for the most part spoken only in north-west Saskatchewan and a few communities in Alberta and Manitoba. It's believed fewer than 1,000 people speak it. The new funding will be used to try to ensure more children pick up the language, said Geordy McCaffrey, the executive director of the Gabriel Dumont Institute. "Basically we're going to create a number of children's resources, children's books, and we also hold a gathering each year where we bring Michif speakers from across Saskatchewan," McCaffrey said. "They develop an overall plan to make sure Michif is revitalized and stays relevant." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Apr 13 17:26:57 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 10:26:57 -0700 Subject: Technology keeps indigenous languages alive (fwd media link) Message-ID: <FRI.13.APR.2007.102657.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Technology keeps indigenous languages alive Melissa Marconi-Wentzel SITKA, ALASKA (2007-03-26) Modern technology and contemporary teaching techniques are keeping traditional languages alive in Southeast Alaska. That was one of the messages conveyed by a panel of people working on the frontlines of indigenous language education in Alaska, during the landmark ?Sharing our Knowledge? Clan Conference held in Sitka last week. ? Copyright 2007, Raven Radio Foundation Inc. ~~~ online radio broadcast at KRBD 105.3FM Community Radio For Southern Southeast Alaska http://krbd.org/modules/local_news/index.php?op=sideBlock&syndicated=true&ID=138 From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sat Apr 14 18:54:52 2007 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2007 11:54:52 -0700 Subject: Language-Immersion Success Story Message-ID: <SAT.14.APR.2007.115452.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Language-Immersion Success Story There is always an obstacle to overcome before the main characters win the prize. This story is no different. full story @: http://www.edutopia.org/community/spiralnotebook/?p=250 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20070414/17268672/attachment.htm> From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Apr 15 12:30:20 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 05:30:20 -0700 Subject: Major Effort Is Under Way to Revive and Preserve Hawaii’s Native Tongue (fwd) Message-ID: <SUN.15.APR.2007.053020.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> April 15, 2007 Major Effort Is Under Way to Revive and Preserve Hawaii?s Native Tongue By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/us/15Hawaii.html KE?EAU, Hawaii, April 14 (AP) ? Portraits in the school?s library are not of United States presidents but Hawaiian royalty, from King Kamehameha to Princess Ka?iulani. Near the classroom door rubber slippers are tidily lined up by the students, who go barefoot. The calendar shows it is the month of ?Malaki.? Hawaiian language and culture fill the hallways and playgrounds of Ke Kula ?O Nawahiokalani?opu?u Iki and define the mission of the school with the sizable name ? Nawahi for short. English is allowed only during the one-hour English class. A major effort is under way to revive and preserve Hawaii?s native tongue ? courses in various subjects are taught entirely in Hawaiian. The language was nearly wiped out after being banned from schools across the islands for nearly a century. In 1983, when a small group of educators began a Hawaiian language revival program, fewer than 50 children spoke the language. Today, the rhythmic, fluid sounds of Hawaiian are used proficiently by more than 2,000 children. ?It?s important because I?m the only one in my family who speaks Hawaiian,? said Leiali?i Lee, a 10th grade student at Nawahi, one of 23 immersion programs in the state. ?I can make a difference and I can revive my language.? While fluency is still rare ? just 1 percent of the state?s 180,000 public school students attend immersion programs ? Hawaiian words are commonplace around the islands, from vowel-filled town names such as Ka?a?awa and ?Aiea to popular fish like mahimahi. There is a weekly radio news report in Hawaiian. Tourists often are greeted in the language even before stepping off the plane. Hawaiian is finding its way into more books and Web sites. And it is taught as a second language at many island schools, public and private. The immersion schools carry this teaching further, of course. Nawahi, which has nearly 200 students from preschool through 12th grade, was founded in 1994 as a laboratory school affiliated with the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Students are taught Hawaiian traditions and culture, such as growing sweet potatoes, building canoes and understanding the land. The school has succeeded despite financial and political challenges, and skepticism about educating in Hawaiian, the only indigenous language in the United States that is an official state language. In the tiny school library, books are in Hawaiian, including many originally in English. With very few children?s books available in Hawaiian, parents paste translations on top of the English text. Critics say students could be held back by learning a language that is not ?viable? in today?s world. But school officials say Nawahi students have exceeded peers in standardized English tests. ?What people don?t realize is that we speak English,? Akala Neves, a junior, said. ?Right after we leave this campus, it?s English. When we go home, we speak English. So we have so much English.? State Senator Clayton Hee, a longtime supporter of Hawaiian language programs, was encouraged to speak only English while growing up, like many other Hawaiians. He learned Hawaiian in college and now uses it proudly and often. ?It gave me a sense of identity. It gave me a sense of pride,? he said. Kapa?anaokalaokeola Oliveira, an assistant professor of Hawaiian at the University of Hawaii, also expressed encouragement about the once-forbidden language. ?Today, I think there?s a revitalization,? Ms. Oliveira said. ?People are encouraging their children to speak Hawaiian.? Still, Hawaiian is far from being saved. In 1896, three years after the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, a law was enacted, stating, ?The English language shall be the medium and basis of instruction in all public and private schools.? ?That was a real death knell,? said Albert J. Schutz, author of ?The Voices of Eden: A History of Hawaiian Language Studies.? ?That meant the younger people weren?t using it anymore, and it was only the older people that spoke the language.? As the Hawaiian elders died, so did the language. A rare exception was the island of Ni?ihau, where because it was privately owned and isolated from the state?s rules, Hawaiian thrived through the years. Ni?ihau currently has about 160 residents, all of whom speak Hawaiian. With extinction looming elsewhere, a resuscitation movement began in the 1970s. In 1978, Hawaiian was re-established as an official language of the state. In 1990, the federal government adopted a policy of recognizing the right to preserve, use and support indigenous languages. Today, as hula and Hawaiian music spread beyond the islands, even non-Hawaiians are picking up the language. About a fifth of the students at Nawahi have no Hawaiian blood, like the blonde, freckle-faced freshman Kemele Lyon. ?The reason I love to speak Hawaiian,? she said, ?is because I think it?s the most beautiful language I have ever heard, and every sentence is like poetry.? From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Apr 15 12:35:44 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 05:35:44 -0700 Subject: Talking online dictionary helps keep Oneida language alive (fwd) Message-ID: <SUN.15.APR.2007.053544.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Posted April 15, 2007 Talking online dictionary helps keep Oneida language alive Database designed to help with pronunciation By Malavika Jagannathan mjaganna at greenbaypressgazette.com http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070415/GPG0101/704150704/1207/GPGnews Learning the Oneida word "ahlukh" ? roughly translating to "to know a language" ? is a daunting task, especially if you don't know what it should sound like. It's a battle for which language teachers have one more weapon, thanks to a Web site created by University of Wisconsin-Green Bay professor Clifford Abbott with tribal elder Maria Hinton. They're transforming a printed dictionary into a searchable online database that includes sound samples to help those learning the Oneida language. "We decided what we really needed was sound," Abbott said. "It's easy to look up a word, but to know what it should sound like is another story." A language historically steeped in oral tradition, Oneida has been in the written form for only the past few generations. Like other Native American languages, the danger of extinction has catalyzed preservation efforts. Today, students at Oneida Nation schools learn to speak and write it. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, there are 553 speakers of Oneida ? 429 of them in Wisconsin. Still, only about a dozen fluent native speakers remain, including Hinton, who at 96 is one of the oldest. In the year and a half they've worked together, she and Abbott have put about 4,000 words online ? including about 900 sound samples of pronunciation. For now, only the English-to-Oneida part of the database is available. They're about a quarter of the way through the heavy printed dictionary, but the Web site already is being used as a basis for a grammar class Abbott teaches at the university. The site includes texts on grammar and will one day have sample stories in Oneida. In the fight for cultural preservation, language is key. "Culture and language goes together," said Hinton, who learned the language from her grandparents as a child and started speaking English when she was 7. The endurance of the language keeps more than the spoken word alive. It transmits generations of stories, history and faith, Hinton said. The complexity of the Oneida language isn't easy to translate, especially online. One of the first challenges in putting the dictionary on the Web was how to transliterate the non-English characters used in Oneida words so that all users could see them without downloading a special font. Then there's the intricacy of the language itself, which unlike most European language has a system of roots, prefixes and suffixes that is adapted to create new word meanings. "A single Oneida verb can be as long as an English sentence," said Abbott, a professor of communication and First Nation studies who started studying the Oneida language as a graduate student. "Purely from the written language, it seems real complicated. But most adults need that writing component to learn the language." It could be a few more years before the online dictionary is complete, but even then, the capacity to add to and improve it is endless, Abbott said. About the Oneida language Oneida is in the Iroquoian family of languages and is more distantly related to Cherokee. It has an extensive history of oral literature, but has been written down in the past few generations. There are three Oneida reservations, in New York, Ontario and Wisconsin, but differences in the language are minor. The language is structurally complicated, although there are only a small number of sounds. Source: www.uwgb.edu/oneida From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Apr 15 12:52:44 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 05:52:44 -0700 Subject: Indigenous immigrants in Coachella Valley face different challenges (fwd) Message-ID: <SUN.15.APR.2007.055244.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Indigenous immigrants in Coachella Valley face different challenges Download story podcast 11:58 PM PDT on Saturday, April 14, 2007 By DAVID OLSON The Press-Enterprise News for Southern Califonia http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_indigenous15.3ea7d3e.html Interactive: Photo slideshow and video of the Coachella Valley's Pur?pecha community Natividad Gonz?lez spent hours sewing brilliantly colored dresses that she never wears outside. Every day, thousands of women walk down the roads of Gonz?lez's native Pur?pecha region of Mexico in similar clothes. But when Gonz?lez last year moved from Mexico to a home near the Salton Sea, friends told her to keep the traditional dresses inside or risk becoming a target of the same anti-indigenous ridicule they had suffered. "People would laugh at them and say, 'Why do you dress like that?' " Gonz?lez said as she sat in her mobile-home living room with a traditional black, blue and white rebozo -- or shawl -- wrapped around her shoulders. Gonz?lez, 35, is one of hundreds of Pur?pecha (pronounced Poo-REH-peh-cha) people who have settled in the rural eastern Coachella Valley, most in the past decade. They arrive for the same reasons millions of other Mexican immigrants do: to escape the destitution that mars the Mexican countryside and to provide opportunities that their children could never hope to have in their homeland. Yet the Pur?pecha face different challenges. They endure insults and snickering from some nonindigenous Mexican immigrants who view them as primitive "dirty Indians." They strive to maintain a communal way of life that clashes with a more individualistic U.S. culture. They struggle to communicate with health care workers and teachers who may understand Spanish but until recently may not have even heard of the pre-Hispanic Pur?pecha language that many of them speak. Government and social-service agencies are trying to overcome linguistic and cultural barriers to better serve the Pur?pecha. A health clinic and school are planning to hire Pur?pecha interpreters. Riverside County Child Protective Services has been using one for three years. Some teachers who have Pur?pecha students infuse lessons with references to indigenous customs. A Catholic church in the farming community of Mecca hopes to add a service in Pur?pecha. [Photos By Amanda Lucidon / The Press-Enterprise Adolfo Bacilio, 50, a traditional healer, is one of hundreds of Pur?pecha immigrants who have settled in the rural eastern Coachella Valley.] Meanwhile, the Pur?pecha straddle three cultures, trying to preserve their indigenous traditions amid the mainstream Mexican culture that surrounds them in their immigrant neighborhoods, and a U.S. culture that is transforming their children. History of Discrimination The Pur?pecha homeland is a mountainous region of the central Mexican state of Michoac?n. More than 200,000 Pur?pecha live in Michoac?n and other parts of Mexico, according to Mexico's National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Communities. About 2,000 Pur?pecha are in Riverside County, local immigrants say. Many live in cramped trailers surrounded by desert or the fruit and vegetable fields in which hundreds of them work. Next to one heavily Pur?pecha mobile-home park sits a dump that contains toxic waste. In Mexico, indigenous people have faced a long history of discrimination. During most of the 20th century, government policy was to encourage the indigenous to subsume their culture into the larger mestizo -- or mixed-race -- culture of Mexico's majority, said Warren Anderson, an associate professor of anthropology at Southeast Missouri State University who has extensively studied the Pur?pecha. In the past 20 to 30 years, many Pur?pecha in Michoac?n have asserted their cultural identity. They pushed for bilingual education and insisted on identifying themselves as "Pur?pecha" instead of "Tarasco," the term the Spanish gave them, Anderson said. Yet the bigotry and sense of superiority that many Mexicans have toward indigenous people remains, even though most Mexicans have a mix of indigenous and Spanish blood, local Pur?pecha immigrants said. They don't directly insult Pur?pecha people, said Pur?pecha immigrant Francisco Zamora. But if mestizo people overhear someone speaking Pur?pecha in a store or on the job in the fields, they sometimes mock the way the Pur?pecha talk or call them "Indians who just came down from the hills," he said. Zamora, 42, said in Spanish that the brothers of his wife, Elvia -- who is not Pur?pecha -- opposed his marriage to her because they believed that Zamora's indigenous background meant that he was dumb. Zamora said some Spanish-speaking Pur?pecha lie about their ethnic background to avoid being made fun of. Pur?pecha students at Desert Mirage High School in Thermal said some Pur?pecha classmates avoid speaking their native language in public. "They feel ashamed that they're Tarasco," said Pur?pecha immigrant Mar?a Rafael, 14. "They don't want anyone to know. I think it's ugly to reject who you are." Shared Roots Maria's cousin Ver?nica Rafael, 15, said that, when she was in elementary school, some students pushed her, pulled her hair and called her names. Other nonindigenous Mexicans accept their Pur?pecha classmates and treat them as equals, she said. Almost all of the Pur?pecha in the Coachella Valley are from Ocumicho, a town of more than 3,800 people about 270 miles west of Mexico City surrounded by pine and oak forests, and corn, bean and wheat fields. The first Inland residents from Ocumicho were two men who arrived decades ago, several Pur?pecha immigrants said, although they offer different stories as to precisely when, where and why they came. The two men later returned to Ocumicho and spread the word about the area. By the time Antonio Marcelo arrived in Mecca in 1980, about a dozen Pur?pecha immigrants had already settled in the Coachella Valley. Like many Pur?pecha, Marcelo crossed the border illegally. He later gained residency. Others remain undocumented. Marcelo, 44, had never left Ocumicho before his journey to the United States, and he spoke little Spanish when he arrived. He learned the language through Sunday basketball games with Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrants. At the time, the Pur?pecha community was still largely invisible to outsiders. When teacher Mike Rosenfeld first had Pur?pecha students in his Coachella Valley High School bilingual history class more than 15 years ago, he didn't realize they were indigenous. "It was probably five or six years before anyone figured out they didn't speak Spanish," he said. "They'd act like they understood." Rosenfeld said he and other teachers assumed the Pur?pecha kids did poorly on tests and barely spoke in class because they were not motivated to learn. Looking back, Rosenfeld said, "it must have been excruciating for them. The early kids overwhelmingly did not graduate. It's pretty pathetic when I look at it now. I was terrible with those kids." Today, some teachers go out of their way to make Pur?pecha students feel accepted by sprinkling a few Pur?pecha words in lessons or displaying photos of the Pur?pecha region on bulletin boards. At Desert Mirage, students in an after-school video class are creating cartoons with voices in all three languages, said Roy Garza, a digital-imaging instructor at the school. "This is saying: It's OK to have pride in your language and culture," Garza said. Alfonso Taboada, who teaches Mexican-American history at Desert Mirage, has added more small-group activities. He said they motivate Pur?pecha students to try harder. "U.S. education is very individualistic and centered on individual success," Taboada said. "Their values are very communal and they want the whole to succeed, not just the individual." Many Pur?pecha students juggle learning three languages: the Pur?pecha they hear at home, the Spanish they speak on the streets, and the English they learn in school. Their English is often more formal and grammatically correct than the slang-infused Spanish they learn from friends, teachers said. Although many Pur?pecha students speak fluent Spanish when they arrive in the Coachella Valley, others struggle to simultaneously learn Spanish and English. Salvador Zacar?as, 16, said he spoke little Spanish or English when he arrived at elementary school six years ago. A Spanish-speaking Pur?pecha student who sat next to him helped translate material from the classes, which were taught in English and Spanish. Salvador's mother speaks only Pur?pecha. His father speaks Pur?pecha and Spanish. Adult Pur?pecha women are less likely to speak fluent Spanish than men, who in Mexico must often travel outside the Pur?pecha region to find work or sell their crops, Anderson said. Impact on Schools Officially, the Coachella Valley Unified School District -- which includes Desert Mirage -- has 88 students who speak Pur?pecha. But the real number is probably much higher, said Anastacio De La Cruz, who compiles language statistics for the district. Many Pur?pecha parents list Spanish as the child's home language even if it is really Pur?pecha, largely because of anti-indigenous bigotry, he said. Desert Mirage recently hired a trilingual woman to interpret at parent-teacher conferences and other school events and translate materials sent to Pur?pecha homes, said Principal Joe Ceja. At Oasis School, Spanish-speaking Pur?pecha parents have volunteered to interpret for several years, said Principal Elizabeth Clipper Ramirez. Clipper Ramirez and several other Coachella Valley Unified teachers and administrators plan to one day travel to Ocumicho to try to better understand their students' hometown. Administrators and a teacher trainer in the Reynolds School District outside Portland, Ore., have twice visited schools and other sites in several Pur?pecha towns where some of that district's 240-plus Pur?pecha students come from. The Reynolds district is considering a teacher exchange next year with schools in the Pur?pecha towns. "If we know our kids better, we can develop a learning environment to make them feel more accepted and supported," said Mark Crossman, who heads the district's English- language program and traveled to Michoac?n in February. In California, several organizations have targeted meetings and programs at Mexican indigenous communities. A group in Ventura County trains indigenous Mixtec immigrants from Oaxaca to conduct health outreach with fellow Mixtec. A health official there said the program has led more indigenous patients to seek care. The Fresno-based Binational Front of Indigenous Organizations educates nonindigenous doctors and nurses to respect the natural medicines that many indigenous people use. The group wants to open an office in the Coachella Valley to serve the Pur?pecha, said Rufino Dom?nguez, the group's general coordinator. Coachella Valley clinics see a similar reliance on traditional medicine. Sergio Ruiz, manager of the Borrego Community Health Foundation clinic in Oasis, said some Pur?pecha shun his clinic and instead consult with folk healers or use home remedies. They also avoid the clinic because they are nervous about communicating in Spanish, he said. At the Clinicas de Salud del Pueblo clinic in Mecca, some Pur?pecha patients have missed appointments because of language misunderstandings, said nursing supervisor Eva Romero. Nearly 10 percent of the 400 clients the clinic serves in a typical week are Pur?pecha, she said. Hilda Mora said in Pur?pecha through a Spanish interpreter that when she goes to the clinic without a Spanish-speaking family member, she asks patients in the waiting room for help until she finds a Spanish-speaking Pur?pecha person. Ver?nica Marcelo recalled that, before her mother learned to speak fluent Spanish, she pretended to comprehend what the Clinicas staff was telling her. "They're embarrassed to say they don't understand," she said of monolingual Pur?pecha speakers. Clinicas plans to hire a Pur?pecha interpreter. The county's temporary assistance and Medi-Cal program began using one last month. Yet social-service agencies say the barriers to serving the Pur?pecha are more than linguistic. California Rural Legal Assistance has tried to reach out to Pur?pecha immigrants but has faced widespread distrust, said Arturo Rodriguez, a lawyer in the group's Coachella office. "It's a very tight-knit community," Rodriguez said. "We're kind of seen as part of the establishment." About two years ago, outreach workers attempted to conduct a door-to-door survey in Desert Mobile Home Park, where many Pur?pecha live. They received little cooperation, either because residents did not want to talk to them or spoke little or no Spanish, Rodriguez said. The group hopes to eventually hire a Pur?pecha outreach worker for its Coachella office, said Jeff Ponting, who heads the San Francisco-based organization's indigenous farmworker project. "You're talking about a community that survived by keeping apart from the government and the majority community," Ponting said. "If you're not from the indigenous community, it's very difficult to break through." Reach David Olson at 951-368-9462 or dolson at PE.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Apr 15 13:06:19 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 06:06:19 -0700 Subject: Churches, tribe looking to land radio licenses (fwd) Message-ID: <SUN.15.APR.2007.060619.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Churches, tribe looking to land radio licenses Sunday, April 15, 2007 By M.R. KROPKO Associated Press Writer http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=348473&Category=13&subCategoryID= CLEVELAND Leah Prussia likes to imagine a radio station connecting the 837,000-acre White Earth Indian Reservation in Minnesota. ?For us the big thing about it is community building, a way to link villages, woods, lakes and miles, and use it to discuss our local issues, traditions, culture and preserve the Ojibwe language,? said Prussia, deputy director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project. They could soon get their chance. Nonprofit community groups, schools and churches this year will get their first opportunity since 2000 to apply for licenses for full-power, noncommercial/educational FM radio stations. The Federal Communications Commission stopped taking those applications so it could catch up on its backlog and revise its system for reviewing them. The agency says it expects to begin taking requests again in the fall. Minnesota?s Ojibwe tribe has been seeking grants to build and operate a station. The Cleveland-based United Church of Christ has been publicizing the radio opportunity in public meetings, e-mails and its newsletter. ?Our strong hope is to get some of these licenses into the hands of people in rural states who are committed to reclaiming the unifying and healing role of religion, which is so needed in our nation today,? the 1.3 million-member UCC said in an e-mail in January to its churches and others interested in noncommercial radio. A MIX OF FORMATS Some stations specialize in a music style, such as classical or the jazz and blues of WWOZ in New Orleans, which was among Hurricane Katrina?s victims but has since recovered, largely through listeners? support. Others broadcast school board meetings or give college students on-air experience with a mix of music, sports, poetry and public service programs. Noncommercial/educational stations are usually found at the low end of FM frequencies spectrum (87.9 to 91.9) and depend on public or institutional support. Because there?s a lack of noncommercial space on the radio dial in cities, opportunities more often exist in remote or rural areas. The applications review will be based on a newly established points system that gives priority to applicants who will provide local programming rather than syndicated content. After reviewing the applications the FCC will decide how many licenses to give out. The FCC says there are 2,817 such full-power stations in the United States, including more than 630 National Public Radio affiliates, compared with about 11,000 commercial stations, according to the FCC. Full power means transmission power above 100 watts and a broadcast range of more than 3.5 miles. Although the licenses are free, costs for a station could limit the number of applicants. Legal, engineering and equipment startup costs typically could total up to $250,000, said Matthew Lasar, media history professor at University of California at Santa Cruz and editor of a blog on FCC issues. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Apr 15 13:08:53 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 06:08:53 -0700 Subject: Tribe in B.C. acts to save culture without losing it (fwd) Message-ID: <SUN.15.APR.2007.060853.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Published: Sunday, April 15, 2007 Tribe in B.C. acts to save culture without losing it By Krista J. Kapralos Herald Writer http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/07/04/15/100loc_a9tulalipside001.cfm The Sto:lo people in British Columbia believe there is a spirit life in each of them. It leads them each day in caring for the earth and one another. There is a word for that spirit: shxweli. But by the early 1990s, few Sto:lo Nation members had ever heard of it. Sto:lo elders helped to bring the word to light again. Nation leaders knew then that they must do something to protect their culture before more was lost. "We acquire spirit powers, and those powers we need to keep to ourselves," Sto:lo cultural worker Sonny McHalsie said. "If we tell more people about it, there's that sense of losing it." But in order to keep that piece of Sto:lo culture sacred, McHalsie knew that some of it must be written down and secured legally. In 2001, after years of interviewing their elders, the Sto:lo Nation published "A Sto:lo-Coast Salish Historical Atlas." There are maps based on the elder's descriptions of the region's geography that show traditional uses of certain places and the natural resources that once grew there. Trails used by indigenous groups to transport ooligan fish oil and other goods are marked. A glossary lists geographic names in Halkomelem, the Sto:lo language, which often describe activities once carried out there. The atlas represents only a small piece of the traditional knowledge gathered by the Sto:lo Nation. The maps avoid pinpointing exact places, so that any natural resources left there won't be exploited. While the Tulalip Tribes are working to defend their 152-year-old treaty, the Sto:lo Nation is negotiating with the governments of Canada and British Columbia to draft their first treaty. The atlas has become a major tool in defining traditional Sto:lo areas. "We're trying to incorporate this whole principle of shxweli into various chapters of the treaty," McHalsie said. "It's getting (Canadian government) to understand that there is a Sto:lo way - our way." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Apr 16 16:32:39 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 09:32:39 -0700 Subject: National Indigenous TV set for launch (fwd) Message-ID: <MON.16.APR.2007.093239.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> National Indigenous TV set for launch 17-Apr-2007 By Jan Forrester http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=2601# Pat Turner - National Indigenous TVThe National Indigenous Television service will go to air in just two months, fulfilling a long-held dream. Inaugural broadcasts will be transmitted to a potential audience of 220,000 scattered over remote areas of the Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland and western New South Wales. These will be carried on the second satellite channel of Indigenous run and Alice Springs based commercial broadcaster Imparja. But will the NITV service live up to its working name and reach beyond remote Australia? For the management team recruited to run the new broadcaster it is a case of start small and grow step by step. The broadcaster's new Chief Executive is Pat Turner (pictured), an Arrernte woman from Alice Springs with an enviable 28-year track record in the federal public service. This includes roles as deputy secretary in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Centrelink deputy CEO and Chief Executive of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. She was on the verge of retirement in Alice Springs when the job came up. At her first press conference in Sydney as CEO she confessed "I was really intrigued once I understood what was involved in this initiative and I thought, 'Well there's a challenge.' Indigenous Australians have advocated for a distinct Indigenous television service for over 25 years." It is an astute appointment by the inaugural Board given the negotiations needed with the Federal government to ensure the new broadcaster's continuation. In late 2006 Communications Minister Helen Coonan allocated $48.5 million to be spread over four years for the establishment of a National Indigenous television service. It is unclear what will happen to funding after four years. However, Pat Turner is grateful that Minister Coonan has championed the service's establishment and cannot wait to showcase Indigenous programming, raising it from almost invisible current levels. "For Indigenous Australians, particularly our children, we do not see Indigenous faces on the screen. And the stories we do see are framed by news values of conflict and negativity." Another crucial appointment is that of Paul Remati as NITV?s Director of Television. Remati's most recent position in a 25-year career was as Head of Television at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. "Our mission for NITV is to celebrate and reflect the richness and diversity of Indigenous Australian cultures and deliver innovative, entertaining content to audiences throughout Australia and around the world," Remati said at his first public appearance in the role. The new broadcaster wants to do this through acquiring and commissioning content from the expanding numbers of Indigenous industry creatives. Children's programming is a high priority, as is promoting and retaining Indigenous languages, one of which dies each year. The issue of language revival is so critical that the Board includes a representative of the national body for community-based Indigenous language programs. Beyond the four-year funding issue key questions remain about Federal government policy on Indigenous TV: Remati is reported to have told the recent Australian International Documentary conference that "We've been told that we're not a broadcaster, but a content aggregator." National Indigenous TV set for mid-year launchDuring the service's implementation phase this was a regular refrain from Canberra, begging the question of whether the service will ever be funded to deliver a full service rather than merely produce programming for other television broadcasters or content distributors. SBS experience confirms that discrete Indigenous programming attracts few national advertisers. Getting more Indigenous programming on television screens, and attracting Indigenous and non-Indigenous viewers, requires an Indigenous version of a full service as happens in other countries. Across the Tasman, two-year old Maori TV broadcasts to four-fifths of New Zealand's population of four million via UHF and the entire country via the digital platform. It was attracting an average of around 400,000 viewers a month as of April 2006. Then there is the issue of network branding. The Federal government insisted that the Service's initial transmission should be via Imparja's second satellite channel. The Federal government underwrites Imparja and this move may be seen as offering a bang for taxpayers' dollars. However, it creates difficulties for the new broadcaster in initially differentiating its service from its well-established distributor. Having said all that I'll be celebrating when the new service goes to air, even though I won't be able to see it until it jumps on to platforms I can access in the big smoke. From sophiadianas at YAHOO.COM Tue Apr 17 23:29:32 2007 From: sophiadianas at YAHOO.COM (Sophia Stevenson) Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:29:32 -0700 Subject: National Language Message-ID: <TUE.17.APR.2007.162932.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Hello all, I think some of you might appreciate this (regardless of whether or not that really is Cherokee)... http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/national_language.jpg Regards __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20070417/4aaad6c8/attachment.htm> From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Apr 18 20:04:54 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 13:04:54 -0700 Subject: Preservation Act signed to save native languages (fwd) Message-ID: <WED.18.APR.2007.130454.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Preservation Act signed to save native languages CAROL A. CLARK Monitor Senior Reporter http://www.lamonitor.com/articles/2007/04/18/headline_news/news01.txt POJOAQUE - Native American languages are growing silent. Of the more than 300 pre-colonial indigenous languages spoken in the United States, only 175 remained a decade ago, according to the Indigenous Language Institute. "We are losing these languages at the rate of 12 every three years - once lost, they can never be recovered," Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., told a crowd gathered for a special ceremony at the Poeh Cultural Center on Tuesday, April 10. "By 2050, only 20 of these languages will be spoken with regular use unless efforts are taken to teach the languages to new generations." The United States government played a major role in the loss of native languages. In the past, students at government boarding schools were prohibited from using their languages. The Bureau of Indian Affairs at one point outlawed native ceremonies, a critical method of preserving languages and history. Wilson wrote and introduced a bill to address the crisis in February 2006, which passed the House in September and the Senate in December with support from the entire New Mexico delegation. The bill was renamed the Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act, in honor of the late Pueblo linguist and storyteller who died in September. President George W. Bush signed the bill into law in December. "The native languages were precious to Esther Martinez, and this bill is designed to help preserve them. It is a fitting tribute to her life's work," Wilson said. Wilson and Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., joined Ohkay Owingeh Gov. Earl Salazar, Lt. Gov. Linda Diaz, Eight Northern Indian Pueblo Council Chair James Mountain and others in presenting a "Redline" copy of the "Esther Martinez Native Languages Preservation Act of 2006" to the Tewa Storyteller's family. The "Redline" is a framed copy of the official White House version as signed into law by the president. Martinez was killed in a car accident on Sept. 16 while returning to Ohkay Owingeh - formerly known as San Juan Pueblo - from Washington, D.C., where she had received a National Heritage Fellowship for her work to preserve the Tewa language. Martinez was from the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo. She was instrumental in preserving the Tewa language. Her voice is part of the oral narrative preserved in the museum of the Poeh Cultural Center. Martinez developed dictionaries, translated key texts and taught the language to several generations of youth in the San Juan Pueblo schools from 1974-1989. She also worked with the Wycliffe Bible translators to translate the New Testament into Tewa. In 1988, Martinez began presenting her stories in English to non-Tewa audiences through Storytelling International. In 1997, she received the Teacher of the Year award from the National Council of American Indians and in 1998 the New Mexico Arts Commission gave her the Governor's Award for Excellence. At last week's ceremony, Tony Martinez performed a native song, which he composed for his grandmother. Another grandson, Matthew J. Martinez, said, "I know my Saya Esther would be very pleased and honored with the renewed focus on language preservation, and our family appreciates Congresswoman Wilson's efforts." Udall's congressional district includes Ohkay Owingeh. "The urgent need to protect and preserve Native American languages is clear," he said. "We must invest in their preservation by implementing immersion programs." Wilson concluded her talk in saying that now it's time to get the funding to carry out the bill, adding, "Tom (Udall) and I will work together to get it done." More information on the Preservation Act is available in the April 18, 2007, print edition of the Monitor. From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Thu Apr 19 02:57:42 2007 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 22:57:42 -0400 Subject: FW: Call for Abstracts: FEL XI - Working Together for Endangered Languages: Kuala Lumpur, Oct 2007 Message-ID: <WED.18.APR.2007.225742.0400.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> FYI. (Fwd from lgpolicy-list) ________________________________ The Eleventh Conference of the Foundation for Endangered Languages: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Working Together for Endangered Languages: Research Challenges and Social Impacts University of Malaya Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Dates: 26-28 October 2007 Call for Abstracts: FEL XI ? What can researchers do to ensure collaboration with members of the language community? What should the researcher do to find a way into the community through proper and accepted channels? What benefits can a language community expect from such collaboration? ? What are the boundaries that the researcher should not cross in order to protect the rights and privacy of the subjects and to safeguard collaborative ties between community and researcher? What are the limits of researchers? duties to the language community, and vice versa? ? What is ?best practice? for researchers in order to be accepted and trusted as in-group members of the community? Does this require the linguist to reduce his/her role as an expert, in order to build trust and collaboration with the community? Can cultural immersion act as a collaborative means in data collection, creating the notion that the researcher is part of the community?s in-group? Are there any advantages in maintaining distance between researcher and community? ? What options do researchers have if they encounter non-collaborative behaviour from their target subjects? ? Can support for maintenance of an endangered language actually be socially counter-productive, when the shift away from an endangered language is seen as progress in economic and social mobility? In such conditions, can the community be made aware of the importance of language maintenance? How can the researcher convince the community of the negative impact of language loss on their culture and history and, conversely, of the benefits of recovery, preservation, promotion? ? How can language documentation work, and its fruits, be integrated into community activities and community development? In what other ways can linguistic research benefit language maintenance and revitalization? ? How can the researcher guard against personally causing damage to existing social and political structures? In particular, how can the researcher avoid disturbing established social relations and organization by seemingly conferring favours on specific members of the community? ? How can the researcher ensure that s/he is not unwittingly the agent of globalisation within the community and thereby the cause of further socio-economic and cultural disruption? Abstracts should make reference to actual language situations , and ideally should draw on personal experience. The aim of the conference is to pool experience, to discuss and to learn from it, not to theorize in the abstract about inter-cultural relations. Abstract and Paper Submission Protocols In order to present a paper at the Conference, writers must submit in advance an abstract of not more than 500 words before 15 May 2007. After this deadline, abstracts will not be accepted. Abstracts submitted, which should be in English, must include the following details: ? Title of the paper ? Name of the author(s), organisation to which he/she belongs to ? Postal address of the first author ? Telephone number (and fax number if any) ? Email address(es) ? Abstract text (not more than 500 words) The abstracts should be sent via e-mail to waninda2001 at um.edu.my and fel at chibcha.demon.co.uk with the subject of the e-mail stating: ?FEL Abstract: <last name of author(s)>: <title of paper>? Abstracts will acknowledged on receipt. The name of the first author will be used in all correspondence. Writers will be informed once their abstracts have been accepted and they will be required to submit their full papers for publication in the proceedings before 1 September 2007 together with their registration fee. Failure to do so will result in the disqualification of the writers to present their papers. Once accepted, full papers can be submitted in English or Malay. Each standard presentation at the Conference will last twenty minutes, with a further ten minutes for discussion and questions and answers. Plenary lectures will last forty-five minutes each; these are awarded by invitation only. Important Dates ? Abstract arrival deadlines ? 15 May 2007 ? Committee's decision: 15 June 2007 ? In case of acceptance, the full paper should be sent by 1 September 2007. (Further details on the format of text will be specified to the authors) ? Conference dates: 26-28 October 2007 The site for the 2007 conference of the Foundation of Endangered Languages, hosted jointly this year with SKET, University of Malaya, will be Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. University of Malaya is the oldest university in Malaysia, and SKET, i.e. the Section for Co-Curricular Activities, Elective Courses by Other Faculties and TITAS, is responsible for the teaching of 80 co-curricular courses, and the compulsory course ?Ethnic Relations.? (For more information, visit http://www.um.edu.my). The Foundation for Endangered Languages is a non-profit organization, registered as Charity 1070616 in England and Wales, founded in 1996. It exists to support, enable and assist the documentation, protection and promotion of endangered languages. It awards small grants (of the order of US$ 1,000) for all kinds of projects that fall within this remit, and also publishes a newsletter, OGMIOS. It hosts an annual conference, with Proceedings that are available as published volumes. (For more information, visit http://www.ogmios.org). Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the largest city of Malaysia. It is an enclave within the state of Selangor, on the central west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Amongst some of the famous landmarks that the city houses are the Petronas Twin Towers, Menara Kuala Lumpur, Tugu Negara, the National Palace and most recently, the ?Eye of Malaysia? Ferris wheel. Kuala Lumpur enjoys a year-round equatorial climate which is warm and sunny. Rainfall is especially plentiful, during the southwest monsoon from April to September. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Apr 20 17:15:00 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 10:15:00 -0700 Subject: Hawaiians reintroduce language with immersion program (fwd) Message-ID: <FRI.20.APR.2007.101500.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> April 20, 2007 10:00 am Hawaiians reintroduce language with immersion program By EDDIE GLENN Tahlequah Daily Press http://www.tahlequahdailypress.com/features/local_story_110100006.html?keyword=secondarystory Hawaii may be a long way from the Cherokee Nation, but both native Hawaiians and Cherokees face some of the same difficulties in preserving their native languages. Three native Hawaiians ? Alohalani Housman, Hoku Kamake?e?aina, and Kalemaile Robia ? presented a program Thursday at the 35th Annual Symposium on the American Indian on the revitalization of the Hawaiian language. Housman and Robia both teach the language to children, while Kamake?e?aina teaches at the University of Hawaii Hilo?s College of Hawaiian Language. According to Housman, the decline of the language began when Christian missionaries first came to Hawaii in the early 1800s. ?They came at a very advantageous time,? she said. ?King Kamehameha passed away in 1819, and the missionaries came in 1820. It was a very advantageous time to come in and present new ideas.? The first education programs initiated by the missionaries were aimed at adults, to teach them to read the Bible. In 1831, there were 50,000 adult students attending 1,000 schools in Hawaii. In the 1830s, native children began attending missionary schools ? either ?common schools,? where most Hawaiian children were taught, or ?select schools,? which were set up for the children of native chiefs. The era between 1840 and 1860, Housman said, was a high point in Hawaiian literacy, with more than 100 newspapers in the Hawaiian language being printed. ?It was an exciting time ? Hawaiians love to read, and they love to write,? she said. ?In the late 1800s, Hawaii had a 91.2 percent literacy rate.? After the Hawaiian Kingdom was overthrown in 1893 by U.S. Marines ? on behalf of U.S. businessmen, according to Housman ? the language was banned in schools, so that by the 1980s, only about 800 people could still speak Hawaiian. Housman was part of the effort in the early 1980s to reintroduce the language into the schools. ?At first, we were just trying to get our foot in the door,? she said. ?We told the department of education that we would be doing the same things as our English counterparts, only we?d use Hawaiian instead of English.? But she and the other teachers soon realized that, to teach the Hawaiian language, they would also have to implement aspects of the Hawaiian culture, including ?Mauli? ? the ?life force? of native Hawaiians. Mauli includes spiritual, or intuitive, aspects; behavioral components; and knowledge of traditional ways. ?There was a time when the Mauli was burning out, and there was a lot of frustration,? Housman said. ?But the Mauli is starting to burn bright again.? Hawaiian is taught with a syllabic approach, emphasizing the syllables of the words instead of the individual letters of the alphabet. ?It?s a lot like Cherokee,? said Housman. ?We use the same approach in Hawaii. It?s not a true syllabary because there aren?t symbols for each syllable, but we do have clusters of consonants and vowels.? Housman said the Hawaiian language is taught in the immersion programs, just like other skills pertinent to the culture. First, the kids develop a connection to a concept, and then an understanding of it. Practice is the third level of learning, followed by the creation of something using the newly learned skill, whether it be a craft or a sentence. Children in the immersion programs are taught so that, to put it in a traditional Hawaiian context, they know the big currents and the little currents. ?That means to be well-versed,? said Housman. ?That?s what we want in our children: mastery and the ability to share it with others.? Houseman said there are currently 21 language immersion schools in Hawaii, and 11 public schools that teach Hawaiian. Robia teaches at one of the immersion schools which, she said, begins introducing children to the native culture almost immediately after birth. ?We have students as young as three months,? she said. ?We can actually take care of kids from coming out of the womb to when they?re ready to go to college.? Some of her students, Robia said, have parents who took part in the early immersion programs, and even parents who aren?t native speakers take classes to augment their children?s? education. ?We only have the ids for eight hours a day,? she said. ?So it?s really good if they can hear it at home as well.? The revitalization of the native Hawaiian language has extended all the way from birth to a terminal degree in Hawaiian studies. According to Kamake?e?aina, the University of Hawaii Hilo?s College of Hawaiian Language was recently approved for a Ph.D. program. ?It?s come a long way,? said Housman. ?But we still have a long way to go.? Contact Eddie Glenn at eglenn at tahlequahdailypress.com. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Apr 20 17:17:26 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 10:17:26 -0700 Subject: Actor: Preserve Cherokee language (fwd) Message-ID: <FRI.20.APR.2007.101726.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Actor: Preserve Cherokee language By Cathy Spaulding Phoenix Staff Writer http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/local/local_story_110010541.html Bristow resident Mary Frye remembers Wes Studi as the quiet one in Mr. Hathcoat?s history class at the Chilocco Indian School in the 1960s. ?He was very quiet,? Frye said. ?I?m sure he did well in class. But he would just answer the teachers? questions.? At Northeastern State University?s Symposium on the American Indian on Thursday, Studi no longer sat quietly. Instead, the actor, known for his roles in such movies as ?Dances With Wolves? and ?The New World,? spoke out on the need to preserve Cherokee and other native languages and the need to communicate history. ?We know how so many things can change if knowledge of history is not passed on,? he said. ?As much as we know we must pass on to our youth ? the good and the bad. We have made mistakes, let?s hope we learn from our mistakes.? Studi, an NSU graduate, was keynote speaker at the symposium, which runs through Saturday at NSU. The theme of this year?s symposium is ?Oklahoma 1907-2007: And Still the Waters Run.? Promoters said the theme reflects how tribes seek to co-exist with modern American culture. Preserving and updating Cherokee language is key to helping the tribe continue, Studi indicated. ?We live in the 21st century; people who can speak more than one language seem to have a better understanding,? he said, adding that Cherokee language must modernize. ?What do you call a computer? What do you call a mouse? What do you call a modem,? he said. ?What about a jet airplane, jet propulsion. We cannot allow dogma to enter into the development of our language.? Studi said language ?allows us to communicate what is important to us.? Even here, both good and bad must be preserved, he said. ?Europeans know Cherokee as a beautiful language, music to their ears,? he said. He contrasted that by using harsh sounding Cherokee words his grandmother used to use when she was angry. ?Because Cherokee is an entire language, it has suffered arrested development,? he said, blaming part of that arrested development on his culture. ?First, because we once said you?re not going anywhere with the (Cherokee) language,? he said. Studi was born in Nofire Hollow, which is in the Rocky Mountain area of Adair and Cherokee Counties. He attended Chilocco Indian School in north central Oklahoma before going on to NSU. Chilocco closed in 1980. Frye, a member of the Creek Nation, said she is working to preserve her tribal language as well. The symposium features several sessions, forums and displays showing how different indigenous people in the United States are working to preserve their language. A Native Language Revitalization Seminar will begin at 8:30 a.m. today at the NSU University Center. Other sessions focus on how allotment affected Indians since Oklahoma statehood. Copyright ? 1999-2006 cnhi, inc. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Apr 21 20:14:45 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2007 13:14:45 -0700 Subject: Indigenous Education, Culture, and Language (fwd) Message-ID: <SAT.21.APR.2007.131445.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Indigenous Education, Culture, and Language The Genographic Legacy Fund aims to empower indigenous and traditional peoples on a local level while helping to raise awareness on a global level of the challenges and pressures facing these communities. Support from the fund will be directed primarily toward education initiatives, cultural conservation, and linguistic preservation and revitalization efforts. Applicants must provide a record of current or prior work in support of indigenous education programs and/or cultural or linguistic conservation efforts. The majority of the group responsible for project governance must be members of the indigenous community in which the project will be implemented. Projects are divided into two categories: 1) smaller, discrete projects that typically require amounts up to $25,000 and 2) more complex projects undertaken in conjunction with other entities, such as NGOs, local education institutions, or government agencies, that require up to $100,000. DEADLINES: June 15 and December 15, 2007 https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/legacy_fund.html https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/glf_charter.pdf From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Sun Apr 22 03:27:40 2007 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2007 20:27:40 -0700 Subject: Native educators struggle to fund language programs Message-ID: <SAT.21.APR.2007.202740.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> *Native educators struggle to fund language programs - Sunday, April 15, 2007* *By JODI RAVE of the Missoulian* http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2007/04/21/jodirave/rave70.txt BOZEMAN - Verda King gets excited when she talks about teaching youths in a nearby public school how to speak the Cheyenne language from her office at the Dull Knife Community College. "This class has done a marvelous job," said King of her 12 students. "We've translated nursery rhymes, like Humpty Dumpty. And it's been fun. We've learned Cheyenne songs and I'm learning my own language." She's teaching 12 students in an elementary school in Colstrip by satellite from a tribal college classroom on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in southeastern Montana. King spoke during a panel presentation at the 26th annual conference of the Montana Indian Education Association where teachers across the state discussed tribal language preservation efforts. Language teachers like King are fervent in their need to preserve the language, and believe they can make a difference. But they face many obstacles - no K-12 curricula and a lack of state support - that effectively prevent them from teaching students their Native languages like Cree, Gros Ventre, Kootenai and Nakota. Typically, the number of new language speakers remains stagnant. -- ____________________________________________________________ Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D. Associate Director, Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL) Department of English (Primary) American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI) Second Language Acquistion &Teaching Ph.D. Program (SLAT) Department of Language,Reading and Culture Department of Linguistics The Southwest Center (Research) Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836 "Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought, an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities." Wade Davis...(on a Starbucks cup...) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20070421/24d0a7cf/attachment.htm> From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Apr 22 16:39:52 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2007 09:39:52 -0700 Subject: Why mother tongues are dying (fwd) Message-ID: <SUN.22.APR.2007.093952.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Why mother tongues are dying Nairobi-Kenya http://www.eastandard.net/mags/society/articles.php?articleid=1143967620 In a bus headed for Nairobi, an FM station keeps travellers company as chatty presenters talk politics and read the news in Kikamba. Passengers exchange knowing glances and chip in a word or two, but not all understand what is being said. Angelina Mueni, 18, is one such person. She is not familiar with her mother tongue. "I can understand what is being said but I cannot speak the language," she says. Since childhood, she has only spoken English and Swahili. "My parents and siblings all speak Swahili and English and since am the lastborn, I had to take after them. After all, how can I start speaking Kikamba when no one else in the house speaks it?" she asks. Although she says she is learning the language, she has a long way to go before she can speak it with confidence. "I think it is too late for me to start learning now," she says. Her parents are not worried about her inability to communicate in their mother tongue, she says. "If they were, they would have taken drastic actions like taking me to the rural areas to stay with my grandparents or better yet, be around people who speak Kikamba throughout," she says adding that she has only been to the grandparents? place twice. Kenyans may not know it, but visitors from other countries marvel at the rich diversity of local languages in the country. It is a heritage that is in perpetual danger as young people shun the language of their mothers. Language use leaves a mark When Prof Ngugi wa Thiong?o launched Murogi wa Kagoogo, a novel written in Kikuyu, many scholars laughed it off as a joke. How does a scholar of Ngugi?s repute expect us to read his work in Kikuyu, they asked. Ngugi had demonstrated by word and deed that he was willing to go great lengths to keep African languages alive. For him, using foreign languages in literature was a mark of neo-colonisation. When a child is born in a given community, she acquires a language and learns how to use it, with whom and when. Language experts say today?s children tend to lose their cultural identity, language and culture, the language being a prime transmitter of human culture from one generation to the next. Anthropologists say all language uses, through all stages of cultural evolution, leave an mark on society. This means that if a generation misinterprets its language, its culture is automatically in danger of misinterpretation. The danger of some languages disappearing is so real that the United Nations Scietific and Cultural Organisation regularly conducts studies worldwide. The Unesco Atlas of the World?s Languages in Danger of Disappearing says a language is endangered if it is no longer learned by children or at least, by a large part of the children of that community. Six Kenyan languages are extinct, five are seriously endangered, at least three are endangered and a number of others are potentially endangered, says Unesco. Languages of the El Molo and Omotik, which are still recognised as Kenyan languages, are on the brink of extinction. Nancy Mackenzie says how children are brought up determines whether they speak their mother tongue. "Most of a child?s life is spent with a nanny who does not come from the same background as the child?s parents," she says. "The nanny will speak to the child in either Kiswahili or English and in the end, the child ends up speaking the same language as the nanny." Parents to blame According to her, the buck stops with parents. "If they hire a nanny who is not from their background, they will have to accept the fact that their child will grow up not knowing his mother tongue especially if they spend little time with their child," says Mackenzie, a mother of two who lives in Nairobi. But Rose Wanjiku, a Kikuyu married to James Omondi, a Luo, feels mother tongue is not that important. "All that matters is efficient communication," she says. "My children do not speak either of our languages and I do not consider it a problem. Although they cannot utter a single word in either language, they understand what is being said," she says of her four children. Sometimes, she says, she speaks her mother tongue to her children and they respond in Kiswahili or English. "We never confuse each other by the language we use. Whether Kikuyu, Dholuo or Kiswahili, we understand each other perfectly," she says adding that it is all that counts. Not so for Robert Ocholla, a father of two. He sends his children to Kisii whenever schools close "specifically to ensure they practise their mother tongue and to interact with my parents". "It is my duty to make sure that the children stay in touch with their culture and mother tongue plays a big part in the their upbringing," says Ochola, who lives in Nairobi. His children, he says, can speak Gusii fluently without mixing it with Kiswahili or English and without stammering. If people are distinguished by the distinct language they speak, the question remains: Does it matter if Kenya?s indigenous languages died? Maurice Ragutu, a language teacher at the University of Nairobi, says it does matter. "Vernacular or mother tongue helps people to trace their ancestral roots, culture, heritage and traditions, which all help promote unity in a community," he says. According him, indigenous languages are dying not only in Kenya but also in other countries. "The society we live in is dynamic," he says, saying the dynamism explained why some languages are under threat of extinction. "Many parents are to blame for their children?s inability to speak their mother tongue," says the lecturer. "It is the duty of the parent to expose children to their language," he says, adding that children can only learn their mother tongue by being exposed to it. He gives the example of an experiment involving an Egyptian Pharaoh who thought that Egyptian was the only language in the world. "He took a Pheonician newborn and gave it to a shepherd to keep it in seclusion," he explains. The shepherd was ordered not to utter a single word within the child?s earshot. "The main objective of conducting this experiment was to find out if mother tongue was inborn or learnt through exposure." In the experiment, at the age of eight months, the child uttered his first word in Phoenician. "He said ?Bekos,? which is Phoenician for bread," he says. Psycholinguists also say language is mastered at birth and mastered in youth. "From the ages of three months to three years, a child?s first language comes automatically," says Ragutu. >From the age of ten onwards, as Mueni?s case demonstrates, it is difficult to learn one?s mother tongue. "It is possible to learn it as a second language but not as quickly and not as deeply like one would have mastered when young," he says. "Fluency could also become a problem when they decide to learn," he says. "It will be like a Kenyan learning French or German as a second language," he explains. Political power, wealth and language Language experts are concerned that children are not mastering their mother tongues as before. "Even if they are born in the rural areas, you cannot compare their fluency with that of their parents," he says, noting that in the long run, some languages could easily disappear. "Linguistically speaking, on the matter of mixed parentage, a child is most likely to learn the language of the dominant partner, who in this case is the mother because it is said that a small child is the property of the mother," he says, adding that a growing child tends to spend more time with the mother at the time a child learns how to speak. He says taking the child to rural areas can help nurture their mother tongue but that also depends on whom they interact with. "Rural areas are not like they used to be before," he says. Although many languages are under threat, many governments have policies to preserve them. "Political power, wealth and the size of the population that speaks them as well as how they value them will determine whether a language survives," he says giving an example of matatu (public transport) drivers. "You will find that when they are speaking to each other, they use their mother tongues, whether Kikuyu, Dholuo or Kikamba," he says. According to him, the matatu drivers take pride in speaking their own languages. "All languages are equal as long as they can communicate," he says. Globalisation, says Ragutu, not only threatens languages but whole communities. "In Venezuela, the Trumai tribe is already extinct while Latin is considered to be a dead language." A language is considered dead, he says, is if no native speaker speaks it. "Latin is one of them because even though it is used by many nations, none is an original speaker," he says. Ancient Greek, he says, has also disappeared, so has Prot-Indo-European, which was spoken in Europe and some parts of Asia. In Kenya, endangered languages include Suba, El Molo, which has only 300 speakers, Pongok from Western, which were absorbed by the Luhya and the Tiriki. Others which are on the brink of extinction include Boni, Kore, Segeju and Dahalo from the Coast; Kinare, Sogoo, Lorkoti and Yaaku in the Central; Ongamo and Omotik in the south and Bong?om, Terik and Suba in the west. In the Bible, the original language, which is called the "language of Adam", was also lost at the Tower of Babel. According to Ragutu, the Bible shows Adam as the originator of human language, having named all that was on earth in his own words as God commanded him. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Apr 23 14:48:17 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 07:48:17 -0700 Subject: Keeping students connected (fwd) Message-ID: <MON.23.APR.2007.074817.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Keeping students connected Program's aim: Help Native Americans stay in school By Jonnie Tat? Finn jtatefinn at argusleader.com http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070423/NEWS/704230333/1001 Tozi Top Bear has dreams of becoming the first of her five sisters to graduate from high school, join the military and go to college. "I see how my other sisters are right now, and they're struggling," said Top Bear, a spunky eighth-grade Lakota girl who attends Whittier Middle School. "I don't want to be like that. I want to figure out what I'm going to do with my life and do things for myself." If Top Bear reaches her goal of graduating, she will be one of the few Native American students in the Sioux Falls School District to do so. According to the district's Office of Indian Education, Native American students have the highest dropout rate among any other ethnic minority tracked by the district: 13.2 percent, compared with an overall student dropout rate of 4.9 percent. Those numbers are unacceptable to Jolene Groen, executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Sioux Empire. That's why the organization teamed up with the Sioux Empire United Way and Native American community leaders last summer to brainstorm ways to keep those students in school. "Ultimately, we came up with the idea of providing a mentor to Native American students," Groen said. "But we wanted a mentoring relationship to encompass the child's whole life, not just the educational portion of it." Thus, the Native American Scholars program was born in February and with it came Karla Abbott, program manager, who left a 20-year career in nursing for the position. In addition to promoting the program within the district, Abbott, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, will match mentors to Native American students and function as a sort of cultural liaison between schools, students, mentors and Big Brothers Big Sisters. "People ask why Natives get this program," Abbott said. "Sometimes it's hard to defend because of how diverse this city is. But the need is there - just look at the dropout rate." Pilot program The program is the first of its kind in the state and for Big Brothers Big Sisters. Lincoln High School and Whittier Middle School will serve as pilot schools for the program. Abbott so far has matched four students with mentors. More students are on a waiting list. With a budget of $81,000 this year, the program can match 30 students. Groen said finding mentors has been an issue. "Realistically, we can't find every kid a Native American mentor, though that would be ideal," Groen said. "Instead, we'll train non-Native mentors in Native American culture, so that they might be more sensitive to the student's cultural needs." Debbie Sneve is Top Bear's mentor. The two were matched earlier this month. Sneve's ancestors were Choctaw. Top Bear's mother, Georgianna, said she's just happy her daughter has someone to help her with homework, play games with and admire. "That's why I'm so glad Deb's here," said Top Bear, who works late shifts at John Morrell & Co. "I just don't have the time to do those things." Mobility, history issues Lack of parental involvement or a mentor are just two factors that might contribute to the Native American dropout rate. Bill Smith, director of the district's Instructional Support Services, said mobility can be an issue, and some students, such as Top Bear, lack a history of high school graduation in their families. In 2002, Smith tracked 112 Native American freshmen through graduation in 2005. He found that of that group, 13 students graduated in the district, 55 transferred to another district, eight continued their educations in the district past 2005 in summer school or special education and 36 either dropped out or were unaccounted for, meaning record requests weren't made for the student. Only in the past two school years has the district specifically tracked figures such as dropout rates based on ethnicity. Smith said several factors contribute to the dropout rate of all ethnic groups including poor attendance, poor grades, behavior and job issues. Staying in school Beyond working with Native American Scholars, the Sioux Falls School District also has incorporated ways to keep Native Americans in school. Gail Swenson, who oversees the school district's Indian education office, said adding the Native American Connections course a few years ago to elective choices at all the middle and high schools and re-instituting a Lakota language class next year at Washington and Lincoln high schools are steps in the right direction. The connections course is the district's way to try and "infuse Native culture and values into the regular course schedule," Swenson said. Swenson said filling in those cultural gaps seems to be helping more Native Americans to stay in school. The district graduated 30 Native American students last year - 18 more students than in 2000. Elias Americanhorse is in the connections class at Lincoln. He's had it as one of his electives since seventh grade. "I like it because it tells us about our culture and history. It focuses on our history, and that's an important part of every history," the sophomore said. "I think every kid should have to take it. I mean, there's stuff in there I probably would never have learned in a regular history class." For Shauna His Law, taking the connections class at Lincoln High School and joining the Native American Scholars program are her way of defeating the dropout stereotype. "(The programs) give Indians a chance to do something in school instead of just dropping out or getting into trouble," His Law said. Her goal is to graduate, earn a college degree and become a pediatrician. "I want to do something better in life, rather than have people judge me for being Native," His Law said. "People think just because you're Native you're going to fail or just give up. I'm not going to." Reach reporter Jonnie Tat? Finn at 331-2320. Published: April 23. 2007 1:55AM From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Apr 23 15:06:24 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 08:06:24 -0700 Subject: Russian mountains cradle hoard of ancient languages (fwd) Message-ID: <MON.23.APR.2007.080624.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Russian mountains cradle hoard of ancient languages Monday, April 23, 2007 Stephen Boykewich KUBACHI - AFP http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=70553 Life isn't bad in this North Caucasus mountain town. The air is pure, the view is magnificent, and the centuries-old tradition of silver handiwork guarantees jobs for all. There is one downside for the 2,000 residents of Kubachi, however. Their neighbors a short donkey ride down the road can't understand a word they say. "What we speak here, the Kubachinsky language, people in Darginsk don't understand at all," said Magomed Akhmedov, 35, director of the village's silverworks factory. "That's literally five or six kilometres away (three to four miles)." The extraordinary linguistic diversity preserved amid these snow-capped peaks is what led a 10th-century geographer to name the Caucasus "the mountain of tongues." The rocky, mostly rural region of Dagestan has one of the highest concentrations of languages in the world, between 30 and 70 in an area smaller than Scotland. Its 2.3 million residents are divided into 34 ethnic groups and nearly all speak Russian, as the territory fell to Russia's imperial advance in 1859. Besides Russia are local languages that would strike fear into the heart of any student who has ever wrestled with case endings. Lak, the native tongue of about five percent of the Dagestani population, has 56 cases -- compared to six in Russian and a mere four in German -- language specialist Yunusov Abdul-Raman said. But even Lak is beaten by Tabasaran, which is spoken by 95,000 in southern Dagestan and has 62 cases. "It was in the Guinness Book of World Records! These are extremely difficult languages," Abdul-Raman said. Like many Dagestani tongues, Kubachinsky in not a written language and is not taught in schools, but was preserved through the Soviet era by the same combination of geography and tight social bonds that has preserved Kubachi's tradition of silverworking for centuries. "We only marry among ourselves. There are exceptions, but you can count them on the fingers of one hand," said Akhmedov, who has directed the village's silverworks factory since 2001. "Everyone here is related in one way or another." Unlike in neighboring Chechnya, which was devastated when Joseph Stalin deported its entire population in 1944, Dagestan's mountain towns were largely spared from Soviet social engineering. Aside from the total number of languages here -- which depends on where lines are drawn between dialect and language -- the diversity of their origins also amazes scholars. Aside from the native Caucasian languages, linguists have identified Turkic, Mongol, Greek and other language families here. The Tats, an ethnic group of about 18,000 people living near the southern coastal city of Derbent, still speak a dialect of Persian that is over 1,000 years old. But what seven decades of Soviet rule could not erode, the creep of Western culture is beginning to. Children in Kubachi learn their native language only at home, since it has no written form and is not taught in schools. The related language of Darginsky is, but has to jostle for position with Russian and, increasingly, English. "To tell you the truth, we teach English better than our own language," said Darzhi Kurvan, the director of a village school. "As much as we talk about patriotism, beyond our region it's more convenient and more profitable to know English." And though children usually speak Kubachinsky in the home, "we've noticed that in the schoolyard, most of the children speak Russian. They even bawl each other out in Russian," Kurvan said, his wizened face breaking into a smile. "There's a battle for these languages going on now," said journalist and opposition activist Magomed Shamilyev, a member of Dagestan's majority Avar ethnic group in the regional capital Makhachkala. Radio and television programmes are broadcast here in 14 languages, but as more of the region's 60-percent rural population moves to cities in search of work, the smaller languages are at risk of vanishing, Shamilyev said. And while there is a regional law reinforcing the status of Russian as an official language, "there is no law on national languages, no law to protect and develop the languages that are disappearing," he said. Factory director Akhmedov is living proof of how times are changing. Asked how a simple welcome would sound in Kubachinsky, he hesitated, then let a few words of Russian slip in while he spoke. "He spends too much time in the city," laughed one of the factory's workers. After an embarrassed smile, Magomedov repeated the phrase fluently. "There is a risk these languages will disappear," he said, "but we preserve them in our hearts." ? 2005 Dogan Daily News Inc. www.turkishdailynews.com.tr From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu Apr 26 20:10:00 2007 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 13:10:00 -0700 Subject: Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Conference Message-ID: <THU.26.APR.2007.131000.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Full Title: 14th Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium Short Title: SILS 14 Date: 01-Jun-2007 - 03-Jun-2007 Location: Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, USA Contact Person: Margaret Noori Meeting Email: mnoori at umich.edu Web Site: http://linguistlist.org/sils/index.html Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; Language Documentation Call Deadline: 15-May-2007 Meeting Description: This year at the 14th annual SILS (Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium) language instructors, technology experts and linguists will gather again to share the work, and the dreams, of language communities all over the world. The theme is 'Working Together We Can Bring Back the Language: How Technology Can Make it Happen.' SILS 14 is hosted by the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Nation, Eastern Michigan University, and the LINGUIST List at the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. Particularly invited are presentations describing projects related to using technology in language documentation and preservation, self- documentation of endangered languages, innovative educational ideas, and proficiency outcomes. Presentations can take the following formats: 20 minute papers (plus question period), 15 minute demonstrations of technologies used to preserve and stabilize languages, poster presentations summarizing projects, and 1 hour workshops on successful methods of language preservation that can be adapted by a wide number of language groups. Selection notification: 7th May Suggested topics for talks, demos, and workshops include: web-based methods of preservation, instruction, and collaboration, options for distance learning, linguistic and cultural preservation, methods of successful instruction, revising languages without speakers, repatriation of language texts and recordings, and multi-generational community-based language initiatives. Further information is available at: http://linguistlist.org/sils/index.html Telephone: (734) 487-0144 Fax: (734) 482-0132 From thien at UNIMELB.EDU.AU Fri Apr 27 01:58:31 2007 From: thien at UNIMELB.EDU.AU (Nicholas Thieberger) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:58:31 +1000 Subject: Submission Requests In-Reply-To: <20070421131445.g3og04w8kkggswg8@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: <FRI.27.APR.2007.115831.1000.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Dear Friends, I am writing to ask if you would be able to write an article or review of a software or hardware tool for the online Journal of Language Documentation & Conservation (http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc). Issues will appear in June and December. Reviews can describe tools or methods that you have found useful (or perhaps not useful!) and need not be more than a few pages long. An outline of the suggested form of the review is attached below. Please pass this message on to anyone who may be interested and contact me if you need more information. Best regards, Nick Thieberger The review should take the form of a short essay on the software, how you used it, how easy it was to learn, how well it did what it said it could do, then summarise using the following headings: Pros: Cons: Primary function: Platforms: Open Source? (Available from?): Proprietary? (Available from? Cost?): Reviewed version: Application size: Documentation: -- Technology Editor, Journal of Language Documentation & Conservation http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics University of Melbourne 3010 Australia http://www.linguistics.unimelb.edu.au/thieberger/ Phone: +61 3 8344 5185 Fax: +61 3 8344 8990 From MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Fri Apr 27 02:03:41 2007 From: MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish) Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 20:03:41 -0600 Subject: Submission Requests In-Reply-To: <a06240507c25708f33d5c@[128.250.86.175]> Message-ID: <THU.26.APR.2007.200341.0600.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Could you send submission dates, please? I am happy to write. I would like to do one on Macromedia Flash, and one on Fonts. Mia Kalish -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thieberger Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 7:59 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Submission Requests Dear Friends, I am writing to ask if you would be able to write an article or review of a software or hardware tool for the online Journal of Language Documentation & Conservation (http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc). Issues will appear in June and December. Reviews can describe tools or methods that you have found useful (or perhaps not useful!) and need not be more than a few pages long. An outline of the suggested form of the review is attached below. Please pass this message on to anyone who may be interested and contact me if you need more information. Best regards, Nick Thieberger The review should take the form of a short essay on the software, how you used it, how easy it was to learn, how well it did what it said it could do, then summarise using the following headings: Pros: Cons: Primary function: Platforms: Open Source? (Available from?): Proprietary? (Available from? Cost?): Reviewed version: Application size: Documentation: -- Technology Editor, Journal of Language Documentation & Conservation http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics University of Melbourne 3010 Australia http://www.linguistics.unimelb.edu.au/thieberger/ Phone: +61 3 8344 5185 Fax: +61 3 8344 8990 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Apr 27 15:32:18 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 08:32:18 -0700 Subject: Indigenous Languages Conference 2007 (fwd link) Message-ID: <FRI.27.APR.2007.083218.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> National Indigenous Languages Conference 2007 A GATHERING FOR MEMBERS OF LANGUAGE COMMUNITIES, LANGUAGE WORKERS, EDUCATORS AND LINGUISTS _WARRA WILTANIAPPENDI - STRENGTHENING LANGUAGES_ AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE TUESDAY 25 ? THURSDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 2007 Registrations now open! Visit www.adelaide.edu.au/ilc2007/registration/[1] to register on-line. Register now! Early-bird registrations close Tuesday 01 May 2007! Links: ------ [1] ../services/go.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.adelaide.edu.au%2Filc2007%2Fregistration -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20070427/d3b266f8/attachment.htm> From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Sat Apr 28 03:55:35 2007 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 23:55:35 -0400 Subject: FW: Optimus keyboard in the news Message-ID: <FRI.27.APR.2007.235535.0400.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> FYI... -----Original Message----- Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 11:32 PM To: a12n-collaboration at bisharat.net; unicode at unicode.org Subject: Optimus keyboard in the news The "Optimus Maximus" keyboard that has been in the works since mid-2005(?) is apparently going to be a reality later this year (orders being accepted beginning May 20; first deliveries in Nov.) for a price - over US$1500. See: http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/ http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/27/optimus-maximus-gets-price-and-date/ http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/patterson/757/uber-keyboard-costs-more-than-your -pc For those not following the story, the Art Lebedev Studio in Moscow has been working on this project for a keyboard with LED keys that change to indicate the active keyboard layout. Eventually the price will come down - personally I would hope enough so that this could become standard. The potential for minority languages that use extended Latin or non-Latin writing systems, and for computing generally where more than one language is used, could be great. On the other hand, not sure how easily such a keyboard could be worked into laptops/notebooks where one would think the nature of the keys would add to weight and bulk. And of course something like this on increasingly popular mobile devices - where the keys are already almost too small to type with - would seem improbable. However one can hope that the technical and production-cost issues can be resolved to make this technology more widely available. Don Osborn Bisharat.net PanAfrican Localisation project From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Apr 28 16:35:12 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 09:35:12 -0700 Subject: Cree language to go online with new Internet dictionary (fwd) Message-ID: <SAT.28.APR.2007.093512.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Cree language to go online with new Internet dictionary Kerry Benjoe The Leader-Post Saturday, April 28, 2007 http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/news/story.html?id=662453ca-78ca-41ca-9458-e115a5ec258f The Cree language is going high tech as part of the Cree Language Resource Project that was announced on Friday at the First Nations University of Canada (FNUniv). The project is a joint initiative between the FNUniv, the Miyo Wahkohtowin Community Education Authority (MWCEA) and Intellinet Technologies Inc. The partners are working towards developing an online Cree-English dictionary. "It's not for profit," said Loretta Pete-Lambert, director of education at the MWCEA. "Its intention is to preserve Cree, enhance Cree for individuals interested in learning about Cree." The MWCEA, a K-to-12 school located on the Ermineskin Cree Nation in Alberta, is responsible for spearheading the initiative. Pete-Lambert said the concept of an online dictionary that was both educational and interactive grew out of the need to find resources to teach the Cree language. She anticipates the dictionary will be available by the end of May or the beginning of June. The dictionary is currently being worked on to ensure that everything is working as it should. In November, Pete-Lambert signed a similar agreement with the University of Alberta to make its Cree dictionary available online. She feels it's important to convert as many of the existing First Nations dictionaries to an online version as a way of creating a more complete resource tool. The project is moving forward very quickly because of the support Pete-Lambert has received from those involved in the project, like her school's information technologies person, Ahmed Jawad. "He sees this as a very good resource for our school system. He's committed to it. He has passion behind it," Pete-Lambert said of Jawad, who has also had to learn the Cree-syllabics system so that he's able to understand the intricacies involved with the First Nations language. Jawad is also the president of Intellinet Technologies Inc. and is responsible for developing the online version. Richard Lightning, an elder from the Ermineskin First Nation, said he was overwhelmed by the whole project and is amazed by what technology is able to do. "Hopefully the First Nations people in this province support every effort to be able to revive and restore the language and the culture, because the two go hand in hand," said Lightning. Arok Wolvengrey, an associate professor in the Indian Languages Department at the FNUniv, has provided all the information from his dictionary, nehiyawewin: itwewina/Cree words, for the online version. He jumped at the opportunity to have his dictionary go online because he knew it was not something he would have been able to do on his own. "I certainly did not have the expertise to take it to that next level," said Wolvengrey. "So this is perfect. It allows us to expand, to continually add information to the database ... But we're going way beyond that, doing audio files and video clips." Wolvengrey's passion for the Cree language began when he was introduced to it as a child. He has dedicated much of career to learning and preserving it. Wolvengrey sees the potential the Internet can play in Cree retention intiatives and says incorporating the syllabic-writing system as well as a pronunciation key will go a long way in helping people learn and retain the language. The dictionary converts words from their English form into their Cree translation using Cree syllabics or the Roman alphabet. It can create flash cards and story boards, and includes games and testing components for children as well as a database of lesson plans for teachers. The online dictionary is available at www.creedictionary.com. It contains more than 30,000 Cree words. ? The Leader-Post (Regina) 2007 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Apr 28 16:49:23 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 09:49:23 -0700 Subject: Linguists doubt exception to universal grammar (fwd) Message-ID: <SAT.28.APR.2007.094923.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Linguists doubt exception to universal grammar http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=34102 Controversies in the field of linguistics seldom make headlines, which is why the current imbroglio over an alleged counterexample to Universal Grammar (UG), made famous in the 1960s by Noam Chomsky, MIT professor of linguistics, is so unusual. On one side is Daniel L. Everett, a linguist at Illinois State University, who has spent several decades studying Pirah?, a language spoken by roughly 350 indigenous hunter-gatherers in the Amazon rainforest. On the other are a number of linguists, including MIT linguistics professor David Pesetsky, who have thrown doubt upon many of Everett?s claims, both cultural and linguistic, about the Pirah?. In a telephone interview, Pesetsky said, "What we tried to do in our response was to highlight the ways in which we are trying to unravel the system that unites all the languages in the world," including Pirah?. The attributes that Everett claims are unique to that language are in fact extant in other well-documented languages, such as Bengali and even German. Linguistics began to focus attention on UG several decades ago in an attempt to move their study from the particularization of philology--the detailed description of individual languages and language families, with which the field was preoccupied for centuries--to an understanding of the remarkable wealth of features that all languages share, and thence to an understanding of the human mind. The current contretemps began with Everett?s 2005 paper in Cultural Anthropology, "Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirah?: Another Look at the Design Features of Human Language," which described a number of "gaps" in Pirah? morphosyntax (the relationships between words and how their elements convey meaning). As a culture, says Everett, Pirah? speakers lack any sense of the past beyond what living individuals have personally experienced, and they have no creation myths or fiction, no sense of numbers or counting, and no art. Constraints of culture, Everett believes, in turn impoverish the language, which has no tenses, no names for colors and other allegedly unique paucities. The language constraints, he claims, indicate "some of the components of so-called core grammar are subject to cultural constraints, something that is predicted not to occur" by Chomsky?s universal-grammar model. Everett?s article and his colorful field career have been taken up by the popular press, with stories in the Independent, Der Spiegel and, most recently, the New Yorker, among other publications. His critics--Pesetsky, Andrew Nevins of Harvard and Cilene Rodrigues of the Universidade Estadual de Campinas in Brazil--fired back in March of this year with a paper entitled "Pirah? Exceptionality: A Reassessment," taking issue with virtually every claim to Pirah??s uniqueness that Everett advanced. Everett hastily answered (also in March), with "Cultural Constraints on Grammar in Pirah?: A Reply to Nevins, Pesetsky, and Rodrigues (2007)." (Those two papers may be viewed at the LingBuzz linguistics archive site, ling.auf.net/lingbuzz, where they head the "Top Recent Downloads" list.) Pesetsky marvels at the interest this debate has sparked, not only within the field but in the world at large. As of April 12, he noted in an e-mail, "Our paper has been downloaded 1,300 times and (Everett?s) reply has been downloaded 910 times--astonishing figures for the site and for a field like linguistics." While linguists at MIT pay a lot of attention to theoretical questions, such as the universal properties of sound systems, speech perception and speech production, field linguistics is far from moribund here. Linguistics grad student Seth Cable is heading off soon to Alaska on an National Science Foundation dissertation grant, to study the syntax and semantics of questions in Tlingit, a language spoken by an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest. And one of the great figures in field linguistics, the late Kenneth Hale, was an esteemed member of the MIT faculty until his retirement in 1999; in his long career, he worked on languages as diverse as Hopi, Tohono O?odham (of the Sonoran desert region) and Warlpiri. His fluency in the latter, an indigenous language of Australia, was such that he was able to keep his sons, Ezra and Caleb, fluent in the language even after they had moved back to the United States. "He was a linguist?s linguist," as Pesetsky put it From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Apr 28 16:53:33 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 09:53:33 -0700 Subject: Runasimita rimanquichu? — Do you speak Quechua? (fwd) Message-ID: <SAT.28.APR.2007.095333.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Saturday, April 28, 2007 PERU Runasimita rimanquichu? ? Do you speak Quechua? Various Quechua dialects make teaching the language difficult Hildegard Willer. Apr 25, 2007 http://www.latinamericapress.org/article.asp?lanCode=1&artCode=5122 Quechua continues to lose ground to Spanish. In August 2006 it appeared as though the Quechua was about to flourish again in Lima. Here, on Peru?s central coast, many linguists believe the Quechua language was born at least 2,000 years ago. Congresswomen Hilaria Supa and Mar?a Sumire, both from the highland Cuzco department, where Quechua is the dominant tongue, took their oath of office in their native Quechua, and vowed to speak in the indigenous language on the floor of Congress. But lawmaker and linguist Martha Hildebrandt did not accept their oath and tried to force them to speak in Spanish, causing an uproar. Most sided with the two Quechua-speaking congresswomen. Will Quechua, which for centuries, especially in the capital, has been considered an inferior and shameful language to speak, be given more public use? According to recent studies, Quechua, or ?runasimi,? was born in central Peru and was later adopted by the Inca Empire. Quechua is spoken throughout the Andes, from Ecuador to Chile and Argentina. But it is not a uniform language. Instead it is composed of various regional dialects and the Quechua most widely spoken is that of southern Peru, particularly the Ayacucho and Cuzco regions. Invisible language Some 3 million Peruvians, about 16 percent of the population, speaks Quechua, according to the 1993 census (the 2005 census did not survey languages). But this linguistic minority remains unnoticed as many Quechua speakers live in very remote villages, are indigenous and most are women. Even though Quechua is an official language in Peru, it is easy to live a lifetime in the country without even hearing it spoken, and that goes not only for the capital, Lima, but in the southern Quechua-speaking highlands. There are very few places with bilingual street signs. There are neither any Quechua-language newspapers or television stations. Natividad Mamani and her daughter Sonia Luque live in the southern Andean city of Juliaca, near Lake Titicaca. Their story is common: the younger the person and the more urban their surroundings, the less likely they are to speak the language. ?I was born in the countryside and I only learned Spanish at 8 years of age,? said Mamani, 44. ?Now I live in Juliaca, and I speak the two languages. I speak Quechua with my husband and Quechua and Spanish with my children.? Luque is a 21-year-old teacher. She said: ?I understand Quechua perfectly, but I don?t speak it well.? ?Sometimes I speak it with my close friends, but in my current job as a private school teacher in Juliaca, I don?t need it,? she said. ?The kids prefer to study English.? Luque?s case shows that the better grasp native Quechua speakers have on Spanish, the less they speak Quechua. The 60 students enrolled in Quechua courses at the San Antonio Abad University in Cuzco are an exception. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Apr 28 16:56:32 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 09:56:32 -0700 Subject: Series on preserving indigenous cultures premieres NGC tomorrow (fwd) Message-ID: <SAT.28.APR.2007.095632.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> Series on preserving indigenous cultures premieres NGC tomorrow http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=22241 New Delhi, Apr 26: Did you know that during the span of our entire lifetime, many of the nearly 6000 languages that were spoken in the world at the time of our birth will no longer be spoken, written or taught? Or, that with the end of a single generation, a whole range of legacy will be lost? These and many other similar facts are sought to be brought out in 'Light at the Edge of The World', a new television series on the National Geographic Channel aimed at raising awareness of indigenous cultures. The series, premiering on the channel at 2000 hrs tomorrow, was launched in the Capital earlier this week by celebrated anthropologist and writer Wade Davis who has also produced the programme. The series is based on Wade Davis' exploration of four indigenous cultures, each uniquely dedicated to preservation of their customs in the face of modernisation - Inuit, Nepali Buddhist, Pan Andean and Polynesian. Davis explores how these cultures have withstood pressures of the modern world and addresses some of the biggest issues threatening their lifestyle today. ''Change or technical advancements do not call for a destruction of indigenous cultures. Rather, it is certain people, in the dynamics of power that force cultures to fade away. Ultimately, we have to decide whether we want to live in a monochromatic world or a world full of cultural diversity. This is what I seek to highlight through the television series,''Davis said at the launch of the programme. On the occasion, Davis delivered a talk on 'Cultures and their use of plants, language and myth' which was followed by an exclusive screening of the film 'The Wayfinders' from the series. 'Light at the Edge of the World' is based on a book by Wade Davis, following him from the foothills of the Himalayas to the desolate Tundra of the Northern Arctic as he explores how four indigenous cultures are adapting to preserve their unique heritage. --- UNI From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Apr 28 17:00:46 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 10:00:46 -0700 Subject: China boom 'threatens minorities' (fwd) Message-ID: <SAT.28.APR.2007.100046.0700.ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> China boom 'threatens minorities' By Jill McGivering BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6592157.stm Some of China's biggest minority groups are failing to benefit from China's rapid economic development, a new report has found. The report also said greater contact with the rest of China is threatening indigenous cultures and languages. The findings have been published by the Minority Rights Group International and Human Rights in China. They assessed the situation of three main ethnic minority groups, the Uighurs, Mongols and Tibetans. Not only are they becoming increasingly alienated, they are largely missing out on China's economic boom, the report said. Where their regions are seeing development, the impact is often damaging. 'Inappropriate' In many cases, the large-scale building of roads and railways is not boosting local economies, but just facilitating the extraction of raw materials - resources to feed growth in other parts of China. In regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet, it says, the increased access is leading to a greater military presence - and a general diluting of local culture. "You can adapt to the world and retain your language and culture, and speak a national language as well. You don't need just to speak one language," Clive Baldwin, of the Minority Rights Group International, said. "But in China, the model that's being imposed at the moment is very much one of one state, one language, one culture and anyone against this is being seen as deviant, "splitist", and we'd say that is entirely inappropriate." China's leaders are struggling at the moment to address the imbalances in the country's development. They are well aware of the vast gap between the booming coastal provinces and the much less developed west of the country - and are eager to stifle discontent. The authors of this report suggest that where minorities are concerned, the policies could be having the opposite effect - stoking feelings of resentment amongst communities who see their own culture and way of life coming under growing threat. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6592157.stm Published: 2007/04/25 15:24:03 GMT ? BBC MMVII