From wayneleman at VFEMAIL.NET Thu Feb 1 19:26:35 2007 From: wayneleman at VFEMAIL.NET (Wayne Leman) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 11:26:35 -0800 Subject: Cheyenne Bible Message-ID: Phil recently noted the Billings Gazette article on the new Cheyenne Bible translation. There is also a more recent report from KULR TV in Billings at this url: http://www.kulr8.com/news/local/5396731.html Right before the text of the report, there is a link to view the video footage of the report. They even included me with a short segment about affirming Native American languages and cultures. Wayne ----- Wayne Leman Cheyenne website: http://www.geocities.com/cheyenne_language From wayneleman at VFEMAIL.NET Thu Feb 1 19:43:56 2007 From: wayneleman at VFEMAIL.NET (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Wayne_Leman?=) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 12:43:56 -0700 Subject: Alutiiq speakers record CD to preserve dying language Message-ID: My ancestors spoke Alutiiq. Unfortunately, we "lost" our language during Russian colonialization. There was great pressure to change to Russian. After many years of using Russian, my father, his siblings, and other relatives largely stopped using Russian when I was young, during the 1950s. Again, it was pressure from another colonial language, English, that brought about that language change. Fortunately, we have a few relatives in an isolated village between Kodiak and Anchorage who still speak some Alutiiq. Wayne Leman From dpwiese at AOL.COM Fri Feb 2 00:16:59 2007 From: dpwiese at AOL.COM (Dr. Dorene Wiese) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 19:16:59 -0500 Subject: Chicago Native Language Speakers Featured at Field Museum's New Exhibit Message-ID: NAES COLLEGE NATIVE LANGUAGE SPEAKERS FEATURED IN NEW FIELD MUSEUM EXHIBIT Native American languages continue to be used and taught in Chicago and many other urban communities throughout the United States. Throughout it's 30 year history NAES College in Chicago has fostered the teaching of American Indian languages. In 2006 four languages were taught. They were Ojibwe, Lakota, Ho-Chunk and Navajo. Some of these Native language speakers will be featured in the upcoming "Ancient Americas" exhibit that will open at the Field Museum in Chicago this March. For more information e-mail dpwiese at aol.com. Dr. Dorene Wiese President Native American Educational Services, Inc. 2838 W. Peterson Chicago, Illinois 60659 (773) 761-5000 (773) 761-3808 Fax "We must continue throughout our lives to do what we conceive to be good. If we have corn and meat, and know of a family that has none, we divide with them. If we have more blankets than are sufficient, and others have not enough, we must give to them that want." Black Hawk, Sauk (1767-1838) ________________________________________________________________________ Check out the new AOL. Most comprehensive set of free safety and security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from across the web, free AOL Mail and more. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jtucker at STARBAND.NET Fri Feb 2 16:49:11 2007 From: jtucker at STARBAND.NET (Jan Tucker) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007 11:49:11 -0500 Subject: Codetalkers on AZ Quarter In-Reply-To: <004d01c7448e$01fb7510$873f14ac@LFPMIA> Message-ID: Mia, Please share the links to your work and great news about your dissertation, way to go! Jan Tucker -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]On Behalf Of Mia Kalish Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 11:45 AM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Codetalkers on AZ Quarter Hi, All, 2 bits of news ( J) 1. Arizona is voting on a new state quarter. Q5 has codetalkers on it, and so far has garnered nearly 60% of the vote. 2. I finished my dissertation, and the movies that go with. I've posted them on the web; if anyone wants to read, contact me and I will send you the link. Mia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 7 17:25:37 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 10:25:37 -0700 Subject: Spelling game creator aims to revive Shuswap (fwd) Message-ID: Spelling game creator aims to revive Shuswap [Karen Longwell photo] The Shuswap Spelling Game is a new creation from Sugar Cane resident Winston Alphonse to help people learn the language. By Karen Longwell Tribune Staff Writer Feb 06 2007 http://www.wltribune.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=37&cat=59&id=826301&more= Wéytkp. If you don’t understand this word — “hello” to a group of people — you may want to consider the Shuswap Spelling Game, a new creation from Sugar Cane resident Winston Alphonse. He says Shuswap, the original language of the Williams Lake area, is about 90 per cent lost in this region. So he wanted to find a way to bring it back and get young people interested. “When I hear a conversation (in Shuswap) between young people, then my job will be done,” he says. Alphonse, 40, says his Shuswap is above average for his generation. Many speakers tend to be elders. He is concerned because there seems to be a lack of teachers in the area and there are only a few elders left to give learners the correct pronunciation of the words. He says his brothers and sisters can speak Shuswap because his parents spoke it. Also his aunt – Cecilia DeRose is a well-known Shuswap teacher in the area. Alphonse says the game has been several years in the making. He put in a lot of research looking through Shuswap-English dictionaries. He also tested it with relatives and friends. “It’s had lots of dry runs,” he says. The game is comprised of a board with crossword-like spaces. There is a bag of Shuswap letters complete with accents. The object of the game is to form words across the squares. You can play the game with little or no knowledge of Shuswap. Beginners can rely on the dictionary. Alphonse says it is ideal for four to six players. He had help and advice from family members, including DeRose, to make the game. His father helped him build the letter tile holders. And his mother made the cloth bags to hold the letters. Interest is building slowly in the game. He has sold about 15 sets so far. Mostly teachers are interested. People from as far away as Chase have purchased the game, he says. Alphonse has also heard from other First Nations speakers about producing a game in their language. But Alphonse says he wants to get the Shuswap game off the ground first. “I think it is going to catch on,” he says. If you are interested in the Shuswap Spelling game contact Winston Alphonse at ShuswapSpellingGame at yahoo.ca or call 296-0034. The game sells for $60 with a dictionary, or $45 without. © Copyright 2007 Williams Lake Tribune From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 7 17:27:32 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 10:27:32 -0700 Subject: Immersion unlocks language for Cree students (fwd) Message-ID: Immersion unlocks language for Cree students Bob Florence The StarPhoenix Monday, February 05, 2007 http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/third_page/story.html?id=453e26b0-4518-4556-8c62-d0bae581b0ce It's Wednesday morning, and Karen Rabbitskin's Grade 1 class is practising phonics, 11 students all talking at once. In a classroom without desks, they sit at tables arranged in a U-shape, five of them seated along one side, six on the other. Rabbitskin stands at the front. She holds an open book and points to a line of block letters. Together the students pronounce the different sounds, their voices rising as they go along in the way kids do. "Ah, ow, ay, ew . . ." they say, speaking in Cree. Cree immersion is a bright idea that was introduced in Saskatoon two years ago with a group of 13 kindergarten kids at Confederation Park School. Coupled with the Grade 1 class added last September, there are now 23 students enrolled in the program. The numbers will multiply again in the fall when a Grade 2 class joins the lineup. Rabbitskin dreams of a day when there is not just a class, but a whole school in the city dedicated to the teaching of everything Cree. She envisions students from K to 12 learning the language and drumming up the history and maintaining the Cree traditions. But that's for another day. Today, she has 11 Grade 1 students on the go. After the class finishes the group phonics lesson, Rabbitskin gets one of her students, a boy named Ceejay, to stand up and recite the sounds on his own. For all but two of the students, Cree is a new language. Growing up in the city, immersed in urban life, most of them speak only English. Ceejay, the story goes, was visiting his grandparents at their home on the reserve during Christmas, when, drawing on lessons he'd learned in class, he and his grandfather started talking together in Cree. They had never done that before. "Sometimes they just amaze me," Rabbitskin said later, when her class was in the schoolyard at recess. "I hear them using words I've barely introduced and this is high-level Cree, some words are 15, 18 letters long. "They know how important the language is. They understand why they need it. They're like sponges. 'Give me more.' " Rabbitskin has been a teacher for 20 years. Although her experience was working with higher grades -- she taught at the middle school level -- she was at the top of the most-wanted list when administrators went looking for someone to lead this new project. Harry Lafond, education director with the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, proposed the idea of a Cree immersion program. Jim Jutras, director of Saskatoon Public Schools, endorsed it. That was June 2004. In the fall of 2005 the door to Rabbitskin's classroom at Confederation Park School opened. "The No. 1 concern of parents was that by having their kids in this program they were going to miss out on (conventional) learning opportunities," said Cort Dogniez, co-ordinator of First Nations and Metis education with Saskatoon Public Schools. "English is all around us. They're not going to miss out there. These students aren't losing English, they're gaining another language." Donna Partridge says the gains go beyond language. "It's an identity," she said. Partridge enrolled her son, Emmanuel, in the immersion program. She has lived in the city for 10 years and has two older children, age 12 and 15, who are growing up fluent in English, but fractured in Cree. "That's my fault," she said. "I don't speak it enough at home." For Emmanuel, she wants a reconnection. "It's important for him," she said. "For us." Not only has Partridge bought into the immersion program, she's now helping deliver it. She works with Rabbitskin as a teacher's assistant. On this morning Partridge leads the kindergarten class, her group on the other side of the room from the first graders. In the middle of the room is a big tipi. Throughout the room are pictures and symbols of Cree culture. Some of the curriculum is adapted from a program in Onion Lake, much of it is what Rabbitskin has developed on her own. Rabbitskin said one of her upcoming lessons was going to be about legends. "I'll tell them the story about the big bear and the little bear and the stars," she said. "I'll tell them where the story originated. "We teach songs, rhymes, prayers. And humour. There's a lot of humour in Cree." Classes in Cree are offered at three high schools in Saskatoon. Dogniez says this program goes beyond that. More than learning the language, this is about preserving a culture. Said Rabbitskin: "Hearing the kids talking, seeing our language saved and revived, it makes me want to cry. "I feel so good." bflorence at sp.canwest.com © The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2007 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 7 17:33:17 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 10:33:17 -0700 Subject: Ph.D. program helps to preserve Hawaiian language (fwd) Message-ID: Ph.D. program helps to preserve Hawaiian language © Indian Country Today February 07, 2007. All Rights Reserved Posted: February 07, 2007 by: The Associated Press http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414452 [AP Photo/Ronen Zilberman<.i> -- Students from the Hawaiian Immersion School, Kula Kaiapuni 'O Waiau, performed a hula dance during the 18th annual Ho'omau benefit concert at the Waikiki Shell, Feb. 16, 2003, in Honolulu. The Hawaiian language and culture's ongoing revitalization is evident in the more than 1,000 children, ages 3 to 18, who are currently receiving their education in the Hawaiian language within the 10 schools located on Oahu and in the University of Hawaii-Hilo's doctor of philosophy degree in Hawaiian and indigenous language - the country's first doctorate of its kind, according to the school. ] HILO, Hawaii (AP) - The students in the University of Hawaii at Hilo's first Ph.D. program are working to revitalize the Hawaiian language and culture. Five students are enrolled in the new program, which was established this fall for a doctor of philosophy degree in Hawaiian and indigenous language and culture revitalization. It's the first doctorate in the United States in a Native language, according to the school. Hiapo Perreira, who is focusing on Hawaiian literature, has tried to spread his knowledge. Last May, he told high school seniors the tale of a boy transported to a far country by a supernatural coconut tree. The story was meant to teach the students that they should also help others, just as Perreira plans to do with the aid of his doctorate. Kauanoe Kamana, another doctoral candidate, is the principal of Nawahiokalaniopuu Hawaiian-language immersion school, Nawahi for short, which was founded in 1994. Kamana's doctoral dissertation will be a practical guide to the lessons she and others have learned in running Nawahi. ''We're not an ivory tower Ph.D. We're a community service Ph.D.,'' said UH-Hilo Hawaiian professor Pila Wilson. There are 15,000 people who can speak Hawaiian reasonably well, but only about 100 remaining elders who grew up speaking it, Wilson said. The goal is to make English the language of business and work, and Hawaiian the language of the home for Hawaiian families, Wilson said. ''The Hawaiian language is not going to live if you are below average when you speak,'' he said. Strengthening Hawaiian has the broad value of strengthening Hawaiian families and strengthening the economy, because Hawaiian culture is a major reason when tourists come here, he said. Only about 2 percent of Hawaii's children are in language-immersion programs. New Zealand has similar programs to promote the Maori language, but it's only used in the classrooms, not at home. Katarina Edmonds, who is Maori working for the New Zealand Ministry of Education, wants to improve that by earning a doctorate in the revitalization aspect of the UH-Hilo program. Another doctoral candidate is professor Jason Cabral, who is dedicating his studies to Hawaiian grammar to promote a high standard for the language. Professor Larry Kimura grew up speaking Hawaiian; he had a significant hand in creating the Hawaiian-language program at UH-Hilo and was responsible recently for complete bilingualism in the exhibits at the Imiloa astronomy education center. Now he's interested in Hawaiian poetry. But like fellow professors Cabral and Perreira, he has lacked a doctorate. Now all three can earn those degrees. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 7 17:55:37 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 10:55:37 -0700 Subject: conference happening... Message-ID: fyi, The conference below is taking place next week. If anybody is attending please feel free to share your thoughts and insights here on ILAT. pcc ~~~ “Communications Technologies and the Impacts on Indigenous Languages and Cultural Identity in the Americas” February 14-16, 2007 University of Florida Gainesville, Florida http://www.latam.ufl.edu/news/Newsconf%2007.html From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 7 18:01:25 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 11:01:25 -0700 Subject: Revitalizing Northern Languages through Best Practices in Documentation and Archiving (RNLDA) (fwd link) Message-ID: Revitalizing Northern Languages through Best Practices in Documentation and Archiving (RNLDA) Juneau, Alaska, 19-21 June 2007 http://www.uas.alaska.edu/humanities/RNLDA.html The aim of RNLDA is to bring together both indigenous language workers from across the North as well as leading international experts in digital language documentation and archiving in order to set the future direction of international cooperation in language documentation, archiving, and revitalization across the North. Abstracts of no more than one page should be submitted no later than 1 March 2007. From hardman at UFL.EDU Wed Feb 7 19:37:16 2007 From: hardman at UFL.EDU (MJ Hardman) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 14:37:16 -0500 Subject: conference happening... In-Reply-To: <20070207105537.olx4o0kg4wkoccko@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Oh indeed we are. And it will be available by webcast the day following the events. When I know more on that I'll let you know, but there is a place for it in the conference program. Program at: http://56conference.latam.ufl.edu/ MJ Dr. MJ Hardman website: http://grove.ufl.edu/~hardman/ 56th Conference of the University of Florida Center for Latin American Studies Communications Technologies and the Impacts on Indigenous Languages and Cultural Identity in the Americas Dates: February 14-16, 2007 Location: University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida Description: The mission of this conference is to examine from multidisciplinary perspectives how communications technologies have affected indigenous language and cultural identity in the Americas, with a focus on cultural continuity in a changing world. Since the middle of the 20th Century, indigenous communities throughout the Americas have gained considerable demographic, political and cultural presence in their respective national arenas. From the Zapatista movements in Mexico, the civil war, peace accords and Rigoberta Menchu’s Nobel Prize in Guatemala, to the toppling of presidents in Ecuador and Bolivia and Evo Morales’s presidency, organized indigenous communities have become cultural and political references to understanding national and continental possibilities and problems. Such increasing invigoration of indigenous communities has depended, to a large extent, on the conscious revitalization of their native languages, their traditional cultures, and the skillful and widespread use of communications technologies (from sound recordings and video taping to electronic mail and the Internet). This conference will focus on the impact and potential of global technologies of communication on Indigenous languages, cultures and identities in the Americas. We hope that this approach will bring together a variety of participants from diverse disciplines and cultures. For further information, please contact: Elizabeth Lowe, Associate Director Center for Latin American Studies University of Florida 319 Grinter Hall Gainesville, Florida 32605 elowe at ufl.edu 352-392-0375 FAX 352-392-7682 ------ End of Forwarded Message On 2/7/07 12:55 PM, "phil cash cash" wrote: > fyi, > > The conference below is taking place next week. If anybody is attending > please feel free to share your thoughts and insights here on ILAT. pcc > > ~~~ > > ?Communications Technologies and the Impacts on Indigenous Languages and > Cultural Identity in the Americas? > > February 14-16, 2007 > University of Florida > Gainesville, Florida > http://www.latam.ufl.edu/news/Newsconf%2007.html > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image[4].gif Type: application/octet-stream Size: 9578 bytes Desc: not available URL: From annier at SFU.CA Wed Feb 7 20:12:08 2007 From: annier at SFU.CA (annie ross) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 12:12:08 -0800 Subject: Ph.D. program helps to preserve Hawaiian language (fwd) Message-ID: An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From delancey at UOREGON.EDU Thu Feb 8 02:27:11 2007 From: delancey at UOREGON.EDU (Scott DeLancey) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 18:27:11 -0800 Subject: nili: FWD: Genographic Legacy Fund Offers Grants to Support Indigenous Communities (fwd) Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 18:24:34 -0800 (PST) From: Scott DeLancey To: nili at lists.uoregon.edu The following is a forwarded message from Linguistics mailing List at University of Hawaii. ------------------------------------------------------------------- https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/glf_charter.pdf Genographic Legacy Fund Offers Grants to Support Indigenous Communities Worldwide Deadline: June 15, 2007 The Genorgraphic 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. Reflecting the values and missions of the Genographic Project ( https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/ ) partners -- the National Geographic Society, IBM ( http://www.ibm.com/ ), and the Waitt Family Foundation ( http://www.waittfoundation.org/ ) -- support from the fund will be directed primarily toward education initiatives, cultural conservation, and linguistic preservation and revitalization efforts. Genographic Legacy Fund grants are open to individuals, groups, and organizations. Applicants must provide a record of current or prior work in support of indigenous education programs and/or cultural or linguistic conservation efforts. Applicants should be seeking to expand their service to indigenous communities and have a demonstrated commitment to improving general awareness of indigenous cultures, histories, and heritages. The majority of the people forming the group responsible for providing project governance must be members of the indigenous community in which the project will be implemented. Projects are divided into two general categories: 1) Micro -- smaller, discrete projects that typically require lower amounts of funding; funding for these projects will be capped at $25,000 each. 2) Macro -- larger, more complex projects undertaken in conjunction with other entities such as NGOs, local education institutions, government agencies, etc. Grant amounts are more flexible but will not typically exceed $100,000 each. Applications are accepted on a semi-annual basis. Submissions for semi-annual review will close on June 15 and December 15 of each year for the duration of the project. More information on the fund and the grant application process as well as an FAQ can be found on the Genographic Legacy Fund Web site. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 9 17:12:37 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2007 10:12:37 -0700 Subject: American Indians Urge Oklahoma State Lawmakers to Oppose 'English Only' Measure (fwd) Message-ID: American Indians Urge Oklahoma State Lawmakers to Oppose 'English Only' Measure Friday , February 09, 2007 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,251092,00.html OKLAHOMA CITY — American Indian leaders, citing a desire to preserve their native languages, urged state lawmakers Thursday to defeat "English only" legislation that would declare English Oklahoma's official language. In a letter to lawmakers, Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith said the measure, approved on Wednesday by the House General Government and Transportation Committee, "is really just an ugly symbol of intolerance." "The kindhearted people of Oklahoma do not need to watch politicians create an artificial divide in our state," said Smith, who voiced opposition to the bill before committee members voted 9-7 to send it to the House floor for a vote. "Our great state has been blessed with more than 35 Indian nations, each of which has a unique culture," Smith said. "Part of that culture comes from the richness of native languages, which have been spoken here for centuries before Oklahoma became a state." In a separate statement, George Tiger, a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and chairman of the United Indian Nations of Oklahoma, said tribal governments support school language preservation programs that could be harmed by the measure. "It is sad that in 2007, even as the state makes plans to celebrate its centennial year, that people of color are still being targeted for using their language," Tiger said. "It seems like we're taking steps backward." Meanwhile, the bill's author, Rep. George Faught, R-Muskogee, said he is working with other lawmakers, including members of the Legislature's Native American Caucus, to resolve concerns. "We're exploring that right now," Faught said. "I've obviously walked into a hornet's nest. I didn't realize this was going to be this heated. "What concerns me now is the lines have been drawn, maybe a little prematurely and unfairly. I hope this thing will simmer down a little bit," Faught said. Among other things, the measure would require official state business to be conducted in English and official documents, regulations, publications and meetings to be in English. Faught said the bill could eventually end bilingual driver's license tests and other state government documents. The bill also says it should not be used to discourage the use of or prevent the study or development of American Indian languages. "I saw it as a pretty simple thing," Faught said. "There may be some maneuvering we can do to maybe solve some of the problems." But lawmakers of Indian heritage said they will work to defeat the measure. It has not been scheduled for a hearing on the House floor. "I'm embarrassed to be a part of a Legislature that takes part in legislation like this," said Rep. Jerry McPeak, D-Warner, a member of the Creek tribe. "I am sure that this piece of legislation is nothing more than political fluff, designed to scare people." Rep. Scott BigHorse, D-Pawhuska, said the measure would have a negative impact on the state's economy. Big Horse is affiliated with the Osage Tribe. "It would decrease tourism and send a message to everyone outside the state that Oklahoma does not embrace diversity," BigHorse said. From nflrc at HAWAII.EDU Sat Feb 10 02:41:33 2007 From: nflrc at HAWAII.EDU (National Foreign Language Resource Center) Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2007 16:41:33 -1000 Subject: FINAL REMINDER: Program Evaluation summer institute workshop application deadline - February 15 Message-ID: Our apologies for any cross-postings . . . "Developing Useful Evaluation Practices in College Foreign Language Programs" University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI May 28 - June 6, 2007 http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/prodev/si07d/ ** ONLINE APPLICATION DEADLINE - FEBRUARY 15 ** For more details about the Summer Institute workshop (including content, activities, affordable lodging options, fees, & more) or for the online application form, visit http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/prodev/si07d/ NOTE: The summer institute website will not be available on Sunday, February 11 due to scheduled internet upgrades & maintenance at the University of Hawaii at Manoa on that day (U.S. - Hawaii time). ************************************************************************* N National Foreign Language Resource Center F University of Hawai'i L 1859 East-West Road, #106 R Honolulu HI 96822 C voice: (808) 956-9424, fax: (808) 956-5983 email: nflrc at hawaii.edu VISIT OUR WEBSITE! http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu ************************************************************************* From holabitubbe at GMAIL.COM Sun Feb 11 16:58:37 2007 From: holabitubbe at GMAIL.COM (George Ann Gregory) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2007 09:58:37 -0700 Subject: ILAT Digest - 2 Feb 2007 to 7 Feb 2007 (#2007-18) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Annie, I am interested in your poetry exchange. Please contact me at < holabitubbe at gmail.com> George Ann Gregory, Ph.D. On 2/8/07, ILAT automatic digest system wrote: > > ILAT Digest - 2 Feb 2007 to 7 Feb 2007 (#2007-18) > > Table of contents: > > - Spelling game creator aims to revive Shuswap (fwd)<#110a032c830b0c0e_S1> > - Immersion unlocks language for Cree students (fwd)<#110a032c830b0c0e_S2> > - Ph.D. program helps to preserve Hawaiian language (fwd)<#110a032c830b0c0e_S3>(2) > - conference happening... <#110a032c830b0c0e_S4> (2) > - Revitalizing Northern Languages through Best Practices in > Documentation and Archiving (RNLDA) (fwd link)<#110a032c830b0c0e_S5> > - nili: FWD: Genographic Legacy Fund Offers Grants to Support > Indigenous Communities (fwd) <#110a032c830b0c0e_S6> > > > 1. Spelling game creator aims to revive Shuswap (fwd) > - Spelling game creator aims to revive Shuswap (fwd)(02/07) > *From:* phil cash cash > 2. Immersion unlocks language for Cree students (fwd) > - Immersion unlocks language for Cree students (fwd)(02/07) > *From:* phil cash cash > 3. Ph.D. program helps to preserve Hawaiian language (fwd) > - Ph.D. program helps to preserve Hawaiian language (fwd)(02/07) > *From:* phil cash cash > - Re: Ph.D. program helps to preserve Hawaiian language (fwd)(02/07) > *From:* annie ross > 4. conference happening... > - conference happening...(02/07) > *From:* phil cash cash > - Re: conference happening...(02/07) > *From:* MJ Hardman > 5. Revitalizing Northern Languages through Best Practices in > Documentation and Archiving (RNLDA) (fwd link) > - Revitalizing Northern Languages through Best Practices in > Documentation and Archiving (RNLDA) (fwd link)(02/07) > *From:* phil cash cash > 6. nili: FWD: Genographic Legacy Fund Offers Grants to Support > Indigenous Communities (fwd) > - nili: FWD: Genographic Legacy Fund Offers Grants to Support > Indigenous Communities (fwd)(02/07) > *From:* Scott DeLancey > > ------------------------------ > [image: Powered by LISTSERV(R)] Browse > the ILAT online archives. > > > -- George Ann Gregory, Ph.D. Choctaw/Cherokee Fulbright Scholar "Playing it safe causes a lot of harm in the long run." L Ron Hubbard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 14 17:20:13 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:20:13 -0700 Subject: Class helps keep the Sm’algyax language alive and well (fwd) Message-ID: Class helps keep the Sm’algyax language alive and well By Chantal Cornwall The Northern View Feb 14 2007 http://www.thenorthernview.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=142&cat=23&id=831798&more= On Tuesday nights at Roosevelt School, you’ll find adult students eagerly learning Sm’algyax, the language of the Tsimshian. The course is taught by elders such as Sampson Collinson, Majorie Brown and teacher Isabelle Hill who all speak the language fluently. This program has been offered to the community for several years, and all are warmly welcomed to attend. The students are focused on this night’s lesson as Sampson explains beautifully a traditional Ts’msyen story in Sm’algyax , a story that he recounts with incredible ease as it seems to just roll off his tongue. He is amazing to listen to and the students listen in respectful silence and appreciation. Isabelle Hill quickly jots some of the words on the chalkboard that Sampson wants the students to learn and remember for next class. Suunt – summer, maay – berry, hoon – fish, are among many of the words. The students are then asked to repeat them several times, and when he is satisfied, Sampson goes onto the next one. Isabelle Hill also teaches the class with ease, under the watchful eye of Majorie Brown. Throughout the night, the students will also refer to their thick English and Sm’algyax dictionaries. Their reasons for taking the course vary, but for many of these students, dedicating a few hours on a Tuesday night to learn their language is very important. For some, like Glen Reece, who has attended Sm’algyax classes for the past five years, their grandparents or parents spoke the language, and they would like to participate in conversations. For others, learning Sm’algyax is an important step in the commitment to keeping their language as well as their culture alive. Elder Sampson Collison feels there is a danger of losing the language, as there are not many people left who speak it fluently. He also stated that they are trying very hard to bring their language back, and he stressed that knowing the language is an important part of knowing the history of the Ts’msyen. Attending the classes allows the students to learn how to write, to read, to pronounce and speak Sm’algyax. Sm’algyax has over 52 sounds and the letter A, for example, has about eight different sounds. Certain letters are not used like B, C, F, J, Q, R and V. Pronunciation is very important and requires a lot of skill and practice, otherwise words can be completely misinterpreted. Debbie Leighton-Stephens, District Principal with the First Nations Education Services in Prince Rupert and part of Wap’Sigatgyet (House of Building Strength), stated that students in grade five to grade 12 have been offered Sm’algyax for the last 10 years. Students in outlying villages have been offered Sm’algyax for about 25 years. Students at Roosevelt and Conrad kindergarten all-day programs have up to 45 minutes of Sm’algyax per day. First Nations Education Services works closely with School District 52 and provides resources that include learning guide and CD’s for the students. They develop successful curriculums as well as offer the popular role model program. School District 52 has a very diverse and multi-cultural student body, half of which are of First Nations ancestry. Leighton-Stephens feels that offering Sm’algyax to students offers many of them self-esteem, confidence and a feeling of knowing who they are. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 14 17:25:48 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:25:48 -0700 Subject: Mayan languages enjoy renaissance (fwd) Message-ID: Tue 13 Feb 2007 Mayan languages enjoy renaissance By Mica Rosenberg http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=236772007 POPABAJ, Guatemala (Reuters) - As Mel Gibson stirs interest in once-repressed Mayan languages with his bloody film 'Apocalypto', they are enjoying a real life renaissance in Guatemala's mountains and jungles. A bilingual education drive in the mostly Mayan country is reviving 21 languages pushed aside since the Spanish conquest, some of which were close to extinction. Students at a school in the mountain village of Popabaj two hours west of the capital simultaneously learn numbers and vocabulary in Spanish and the Kaqchikel Mayan language. "Learning both languages is important because Kaqchikel is beautiful and we don't want to forget it," said 14-year-old Yessenia Saquec. Her classmates presented an oral history project in Kaqchikel based on stories from their grandparents. The club-wielding, human-sacrificing stars of Gibson's movie speak entirely in Yucatec Mayan, still used today by hundreds of thousands of people in Mexico and Belize. It is only one of 30 Mayan languages descended from a single, 4,000-year-old ancestral tongue and spoken by about 5 million people in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras. Each of Guatemala's Mayan languages is being standardised with dictionaries and school grammar books. The Internet has made it easier to create and distribute them. "There has been a significant growth of young people speaking Mayan languages," said Maya lawyer Amilcar Pop. "This is a historic moment." Linguist Michael Richards said he found a significant increase in different areas of the country of young people 3 to 14 years old speaking Mayan languages. "There is an ethnic revitalisation going on," he said. "There is more ethnic pride in homes as well as in schools." REPRESSION After the Spanish first arrived in Guatemala in 1523, colonisers and the Catholic Church repressed the use of Mayan languages, painting the speakers as ignorant and resistant to modernity. Maya civilians bore the brunt of the violence in army massacres of entire villages during a 1960-96 civil war between leftist guerrillas and government forces that left nearly a quarter of a million people dead or missing. "Growing up we were afraid to speak our language in the street," said Mayan publisher Raxche Rodriguez. "It drew too much attention, so we only spoke it at home." Bilingual educators who began to teach students in the early 1980s were often singled out as guerrilla organisers and summarily executed for their work. Nobel Peace Prize winner and Maya human rights activist Rigoberta Menchu is running for president this year to try to become Latin America's second current indigenous head of state after President Evo Morales in Bolivia. Activists from her indigenous Winaq movement have pledged to campaign in their homelands in native languages to better reach voters. While Maya still suffer Guatemala's highest levels of poverty, hunger and illiteracy, activists say that promotion of their languages and culture has been easier since 1996 peace accords ended the civil war. Over 3,000 bilingual schools have been set up nationwide by the education ministry to give Mayan languages priority in the first three years of school. Teachers in the program receive a 10 percent bonus on their salaries. This article: http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=236772007 Last updated: 13-Feb-07 20:03 GMT From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 14 17:28:28 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:28:28 -0700 Subject: Youth want to boost language skills (fwd) Message-ID: Youth want to boost language skills Saturday, February 10, 2007 By Deborah Bulkeley Deseret Morning News http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,660194357,00.html When asked if they spoke their indigenous language, only about a third of the students attending an American Indian youth conference raised their hands. When asked if they wanted to learn to speak it, nearly everyone else raised their hands. Shirlee Silversmith, Indian education specialist in the State Office of Education, told youths at the Salt Palace Convention Center Friday they could make a difference by encouraging Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, to make funding for "indigenous heritage languages" a priority. "Many languages are becoming extinct," Silversmith said, urging students to support a proposal to add $275,000 each year in ongoing funding to the Office of Education budget to develop curriculum for each of Utah's five principal indigenous languages and dialects: Navajo (Dine), Ute (Nooahpahgut), Paiute (Numic), and Goshute and Shoshone (Shoshoni). The proposal didn't make it onto a final priority list legislators are looking at. "It was number 17 on the list. It didn't make the cut," said Toni Turk, federal programs director for the San Juan School District. "It's not too late to restore it." Stephenson, who chairs the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee, did not return phone calls seeking comment on whether or not the funding would likely be put back on the priority list before the Executive Appropriations Committee makes its final budget recommendations. The San Juan District offers Navajo language courses in its K-12 curriculum and has a media center that is producing curricula materials. If the earmarked funding is restored, it would fund such efforts statewide. "This is having an impact on students academically," Turk said, pointing to an analysis that showed for English proficient Navajo students, learning the Navajo language narrowed achievement gaps with non-Indian peers. In language arts, the achievement difference between white and Navajo students narrowed from 22 percent to 15 percent; in math it went from 35 percent to 23 percent; and in science from 45 percent to 10 percent. E-mail: dbulkeley at desnews.com From anguksuar at YAHOO.COM Thu Feb 15 17:31:19 2007 From: anguksuar at YAHOO.COM (Richard LaFortune) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 09:31:19 -0800 Subject: PV language conference In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Well, I am here on the west coast of MX this past week, and I was happy to open a local spanish language Puerto Vallarta newspaper and notice an announcement for a free seminar on native languages of Mexico. Unfortunately, I will miss the conference by one day, but I will try to stop by the University and see if they have any information. peace Anguksuar /Richard LaFortune ____________________________________________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta. http://new.mail.yahoo.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 16 17:42:39 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:42:39 -0700 Subject: ILAT Update Message-ID: ta'c halaXp (good day!), Welcome to all the recent ILAT subscribers! We are now at 225 subscribers worldwide. A big thanks to those who assist with news, announcements, etc.. Just a bit of house keeping...please keep your email accounts open and well managed (whether it be for storage or spam blockage) as I get a good number of daily listserv errors on people's email accounts. Also, please feel free to open a discussion on any aspect of language revitalization and technology. Recall that this is an unmoderated listserv. ;-) (It really is!) Phil Cash Cash (Cayuse/Nez Perce) Phd Candidate in the Joint Program in Anthro & Linguistics University of Arizona ILAT mg ~~~ Indigenous Languages and Technology discussion list is an open forum for community language specialists, linguists, scholars, and students to discuss issues relating to the uses of technology in language revitalization efforts. * Country Subscribers * ------- ----------- * Australia 6 * Bolivia 1 * Canada 4 * Great Britain 3 * Italy 1 * Mexico 1 * New Zealand 2 * USA 199 Total Subscribers: 225 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 16 17:47:25 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:47:25 -0700 Subject: Linguistics expert to speak on language extinction, conservation (fwd) Message-ID: 16-Feb-2007 http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/uoaf-let021507.php Linguistics expert to speak on language extinction, conservation Annual gathering to highlight International Polar Year Fairbanks, Alaska—Humans speak more than 6,000 languages. Nearly all of them could be extinct in the next two centuries. So what? University of Alaska Fairbanks professor emeritus Michael Krauss will attempt to answer that question during his presentation this week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting, which begins today in San Francisco. "I claim that it is catastrophic for the future of mankind," Krauss said. "It should be as scary as losing 90 percent of the biological species." The reasons are multiple, he said. From an ethical standpoint, all languages are of equal value, he said. But the value of a language goes far beyond academic discourse, Krauss said. Languages contain the intellectual wisdom of populations of people. They contain their observations of and adaptations to the world around them. Humanity became human in a complex system of languages that interacted with each other. "That is somehow interdependent such that we lose sections of it at the same peril that we lose sections of the biosphere," Krauss said. "Every time we lose (a language), we lose that much also of our adaptability and our diversity that gives us our strength and our ability to survive." Krauss is one of four researchers scheduled to speak during a session on the dynamics of extinction Friday, Feb. 16, 2007 from 8:30 – 11:30 a.m. at the AAAS meeting at the Hilton San Francisco. The cross-disciplinary session focuses broadly on the phenomenon of extinction, including factors that cause endangerment and extinction and interventions that can delay or end the extinction process. ### Krauss has been affiliated with UAF for more than four decades. He is founder of UAF's Alaska Native Language Center and recently received the Ken Hale prize for lifetime achievement from the Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 16 17:56:12 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:56:12 -0700 Subject: Technology and UAF are letting indigenous people from across the map share their languages and cultures (fwd) Message-ID: Technology and UAF are letting indigenous people from across the map share their languages and cultures By Robinson Duffy Staff Writer Published February 16, 2007 http://newsminer.com/2007/02/16/5262/ It’s 7,500 miles from Fairbanks to Brazil, but for some indigenous dancers in both countries Thursday afternoon, the miles melted away. Thanks to cameras, computers, digital projectors, microphones and a stunningly high-speed network connection, a Native Alaskan dance group at the University of Alaska Fairbanks was able to communicate, collaborate and perform live with dance groups in Florida, Mexico, Ecuador and Brazil. “This really opens up the door for us to speak, to look at, to develop relationships with people from all over the world,” said Scott Deal, an associate professor in the music department at UAF and one of the coordinators of the event. “Here in Alaska, distance is a formidable obstacle. This gives us the opportunity to communicate with people all over the world. It’s sort of like giving wings to our university.” Members of the Inu-Yupiaq Dancers at UAF performed in the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center’s Discovery Lab. The high-tech facility was wired with cameras and microphones and hummed with computers, but the dancers and drummers drowned all that out as they performed a Yup’ik purification song. Their performance was broadcast live over the network connection and streamed into the other facilities across the hemisphere. Three large screens in the lab showed live video broadcasts of the other dancers. Everyone participating in the event could see everyone else and could talk back and forth. Each group took turns performing a song from their respective cultures. In Brazil, young men danced in grass skirts while wearing elaborate headdresses with decorative beads strung over their bare shoulders. In Mexico, two men in colorful clothing played simple string instruments. In Ecuador, a number of young people danced to a lively song played by a motley band. The clothing and musical styles were all different, yet those participating said they felt a unique connection. “When I listen to other people’s music there’s that same beat, that same heartbeat that I hear,” Walkie Charles, a Yup’ik professor who performed with the Fairbanks singers, said. “We beat the same drums.” Getting to interact with people on the other side of the world was a treat, Joel Forbes, one of the Inu-Yupiaq dancers, said. It was amazing, he said, to get to share his art and his culture with people so far away. “I’ve never seen anybody from Ecuador before,” Forbes, 19, said. “It’s just a nice feeling to know that someone who has never seen anything like this (Alaska Native dancing) before is getting to see it and enjoy it.” The advances in technology that make experiences like this possible are a boon to the people living in the rural areas of Alaska, Forbes said. “In the village where I come from, Togiak, some people, they don’t know there’s a whole world out there and this is opening doors to places we may never get to see firsthand,” he said. After each of the groups performed, the dancers, with the help of interpreters, were able to ask each other questions about their respective cultures and the different indigenous instruments they were playing. They even shared a few jokes. Then all of the groups, using a special digital metronome to keep them in sync, sang a song together, “Children of a Common Mother.” Each group had adapted the song to fit their culture’s style of music and translated it into their own language. In a cacophony of cultures, voices, languages and instruments, the song rang out from across the world. Contact staff writer Robinson Duffy at 459-7523 or rduffy at newsminer.com. From delancey at UOREGON.EDU Sat Feb 17 21:03:46 2007 From: delancey at UOREGON.EDU (Scott DeLancey) Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2007 13:03:46 -0800 Subject: U.S. Language Revitalization Grants (fwd) Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2007 13:33:56 -0700 From: Jon Reyhner To: INDIGENOUS-L at LISTS.NAU.EDU Sponsor: Administration for Native Americans/ACF/DHHS Program Number: 12676 Title: Native American Languages Preservation and Maintenance E-mail: tichappelle at acf.hhs.gov Program URL: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/grants/open/HHS-2007-ACF-ANA-NL-0016.html SYNOPSIS: The sponsor provides funding to assist applicants in designing projects which will promote the survival and continuing vitality of Native American languages. Deadline(s): 03/19/2007 Link to full program description: http://www.infoed.org/new_spin/spin_prog.asp?12676 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 19 20:59:26 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 13:59:26 -0700 Subject: Human knowledge eroded as endangered languages die (fwd) Message-ID: Human knowledge eroded as endangered languages die David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor Sunday, February 18, 2007 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/02/18/MNGABO729L1.DTL A tiny community of reindeer herders in Siberia holds intimate knowledge of the lives, the foraging and the rutting season of their priceless animals, and it's the kind of information that is vital to anyone concerned by the loss of human cultures -- and to biologists worried about the loss of species diversity anywhere in the world. Of the 426 members of Siberia's isolated Chulym people, only 35 still speak Tuvan, their ancient language, fluently, and they're all older than 50. Everyone else speaks only Russian, according to K. David Harrison, an adventuresome linguist at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. Harrison has lived with the Chulym and hopes to preserve their vanishing language. The Chulym can fully describe a "2-year-old male castrated rideable reindeer" with only the single word chary, and to Harrison, that not only shows how ancient languages differ from their modern counterparts, but is symbolic of a worldwide loss in important cultural diversity. Harrison was among those who addressed the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco. Of the estimated 7,600 languages known in the world today, half are endangered and could be lost forever within a few decades, he said. "Many will go extinct," he said, "and there's a compelling social reason to preserve them, for their disappearance is an erosion of human knowledge." The Chulym, for example, have a valuable special knowledge of medicinal plants, of meteorology, hunting and gathering, Harrison said, and that knowledge, which they can describe in their own cryptic language, will be lost to biologists if it isn't reclaimed, he said. "The extinction of ideas we now face has no parallel in human history," Harrison says in the book "When Languages Die," recently published by Oxford University Press, "and most of the world's languages remain undescribed by scientists. So we do not even know what it is we stand to lose." Like the language of the Chulym, many native tongues exist only in the spoken form and have never been transcribed. Yet rendering them in written words is vital for their preservation and -- hopefully -- reintroduction in schools by willing communities, he said. During the same discussion Saturday, Daryl Baldwin of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, offered a more personal view of the issue. Baldwin is a member of the Myaamia American Indian tribe that has lived in Oklahoma since its ancestors were forced between 1840 and 1896 to move from what were widespread tribal lands in Indiana and Ohio to Kansas and ultimately to the Oklahoma Territory. Just 3,000 Myaamia live there now, and only 50 tribal members can still use the language at various levels, he said. His tribe, Baldwin said, is "economically viable today because of gaming," but he is deeply concerned by the loss of the tribe's language, culture and specialized knowledge. So at Miami University -- named for the Oklahoma tribe -- he is director of the Myaamia Project, an effort to study and reclaim the language, transcribe it for preservation, and learn from the tribe's elders all that is known about their traditional methods of cultivating and using plants and other natural resources. "Aya ceeki," he said at the AAAS meeting, "myaaamiaataweenki" -- meaning, "Hello to all, this is the way the Miaami speak." In an interview, he explained that as his tribal language is transcribed, a double vowel lengthens a syllable's pronunciation and also its meaning. Thus, he said, "meenaani means 'I drink,' while meenani means 'you drink.' " And although his tribe has so few native speakers, the language was transcribed in the late 1600s by French Jesuits, so at least that remains, Baldwin said in his address, stressing the vital connection between his people's spoken language and its identity. "For some of us," he said, "our language reconnects us to a human experience shared with previous generations. As a small tribal community that has been negatively affected by 150 years of oppression and cultural genocide, the language helps us heal from that traumatic past by re-establishing continuity and mending a crucial disruption in our lives." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 19 21:00:21 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:00:21 -0700 Subject: Shoshone tribe also looks to preserve language (fwd) Message-ID: Shoshone tribe also looks to preserve language By DAVID MIRHADI Star-Tribune staff writer Sunday, February 18, 2007 http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2007/02/18/news/wyoming/1f585c055a41b6888725728500268294.txt FORT WASHAKIE -- Wilfred Ferris is proud of his heritage as a member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe. He was born in Lander and is old enough, he says, to remember a time when the language of his elders was spoken far more frequently than it is by those of his generation. "There was a time when you always heard our own language spoken in the community," he said. There was also a time, older members of the Eastern Shoshone said, when their language, culture and heritage were all but banned from the classrooms they learned in, to the point that the language their parents were born with nearly vanished. "It saddened me," said Pansy St. Clair, a member of the Eastern Shoshone who was educated in those classrooms. "I didn't ask questions because I was always afraid to ask." She spoke the language at home, St. Clair said, but never at her mission school on the Wind River Indian Reservation. "It kind of mixes you up," she said. Like the Northern Arapaho are attempting to do with the help of a five-year federal grant, members of the Eastern Shoshone are looking for ways to expand the language to children as young as three years old, in hopes that the little ones will grow up with the language and culture their elders might have forgotten. The Eastern Shoshone Certification Committee is just beginning to recruit Eastern Shoshone language instructors who would teach children in preschool programs their native language and culture, and expand it later to elementary-aged children and their parents. They're also looking to access money from a federal law passed in December that preserves languages once frequently spoken by Indians to pay for some of the instruction. Though the idea is still in its infancy, Ferris said reinvigorating the Eastern Shoshone language is critical. "If you have kids who have kids who don't know the language, it's lost," he said. Ferris and the committee are exploring all avenues at this point, he said, including asking Wyoming's congressional delegation and the Eastern Shoshone Business Council for assistance. One of the avenues for the program could be the Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act of 2006, which, according to the text of the law, provides three-year grants for the preservation of American Indian languages and cultures. Ferris said he'd like students in the program to take classes for five years, from as early as preschool up to the fifth grade. The committee is looking to issue a survey of Eastern Shoshone tribal members to recruit instructors, as well as gauge how well the language is spoken on the reservation to see if such an undertaking is feasible. Much like the program at Arapahoe School, the goal is to track how students' test scores improve once they've been in the immersion school for five years. "If they learn the language, they'll be better students overall," Ferris said. Native language instruction is given on a limited basis at Fort Washakie and Wyoming Indian schools, as well as Arapahoe and St. Stephens. The proposed immersion school would enroll students five days a week, four hours a day. The program would be free, Ferris said. That meets the requirements of the Esther Martinez Act, which requires that any such program operate at least one program in the community it serves, while teaching instructors in their native language. The program, Ferris said, is vital to keeping the culture and heritage of the Eastern Shoshone alive. "It's being threatened now, and it's close to extinction," said Ferris, who is learning the language himself, returning to the reservation after being gone for several years. "What I notice is, this is a language and a culture that takes a whole lifetime to learn." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 19 21:04:15 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:04:15 -0700 Subject: Giving Hawaiian meaning saves language (fwd) Message-ID: Giving Hawaiian meaning saves language With many tongues dying, UH linguists point to success here By Jim Borg jborg at starbulletin.com http://starbulletin.com/2007/02/19/news/story05.html SAN FRANCISCO » As thousands of indigenous languages approach extinction, two linguists from the University of Hawaii at Hilo shared success stories yesterday in keeping the Hawaiian language alive and relevant. The keys, they said, are to expose children to the language at home and in schools and to create terms for new technology that are concept-driven rather than simple phonetic mimicry of the English. "In language revitalization, everybody wants to be distinct, so there are less phonetic things," said UH-Hilo professor William Wilson. "We have that big issue for scientific terms -- are we going to make Hawaiian terms for everything or just have a Hawaiian pronunciation? But for things like the Internet, we have our own Hawaiian root terms." The Hawaiian term for the World Wide Web, Punaewele puni honua, means literally "network around the world." Similarly, the word for photosynthesis, ka'ama'ai, means "acting through light to produce food." Wilson and his wife and UH-Hilo colleague, Kauanoe Kamana, said much of the credit for re-establishing the language among young families goes to the Punana Leo Hawaiian-language immersion programs for schoolchildren. "We believe that the only way for our language to come back as a living language today is to use it all the time every day, everywhere, with everyone," said Kamana. "The answer is with children. It needs to be generational." Wilson and Kamana made their remarks as part of a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Also weighing in on the topic, "Language Revitalization for Societal Well-Being," were experts in the Miami Indian language once prevalent in Illinois, Indiana and western Ohio; and in Karuk, one of the 100 indigenous languages of California. The panel was moderated by Blair Rudes, a University of North Carolina linguist who as a consultant wrote the Algonquin dialogue for the movie "The New World," starring Colin Farrell as Capt. John Smith and Q'Orianka Kilcher as Pocahontas. This he accomplished from a list of 600 known words of a language that had not been spoken since 1783. Hawaiian and other indigenous languages have the advantage of a more extensive written record, but many simply fell from use as English became the new lingua franca. Of the world's 7,000 languages, most are endangered, Rudes and others estimate. "Over half of the languages have so few speakers that they are in danger of extinction," Rudes said. Daryl Baldwin, a linguist at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, said the far-flung descendants of the Miami nation have found some success with a master-apprentice program that assigns one student to a trained mentor. "For many of us, our language provides us with the lens for our accumulated and ongoing human experiences," Baldwin said. The responsibility for coining new phrases falls to a committee of experts for both the Miami language and for Hawaiian, although both processes are largely informal. "We have a committee, but we also have people that propose words to them and they approve it or develop it," said Wilson. "Because we now have people who have expertise in different areas, like telecommunications, they try to make the word and bring it to the committee. And sometimes (the word) spreads before the committee approves it. Sometimes we have competing words because of that." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 19 21:05:40 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:05:40 -0700 Subject: Native voices going extinct (fwd) Message-ID: Native voices going extinct A few tongues survive in Canada February 18, 2007 Peter Calamai Science Writer http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/183040 SAN FRANCISCO–Every time a language dies, experts warned here yesterday, the world loses irreplaceable scientific knowledge as well as cultural richness. The potential toll is immense, with an estimated half of humanity's current 7,000 languages struggling to survive, often spoken by just an elderly few. A 1996 UN report classed aboriginal languages in Canada as among the most endangered in the world and Statistics Canada concluded that only three out of 50 – Cree, Ojibway and Inuktitut – had large enough populations to be considered secure from extinction in the long run. "The accumulated knowledge is fragile because most of the world's languages have no writing," said linguist David Harrison, director of research with the Living Tongues Institute. Harrison said that Western biologists are only now beginning to unravel the diversity of plants and species that local inhabitants have long understood and catalogued in their rich vocabulary. For example, recent research discovered that a butterfly in Costa Rica wasn't one species but 10. Yet the local Tzeltal people had already called the caterpillars by different names, because they attacked different crops. "The knowledge that science thinks it is discovering about plants, animals and weather cycles has often been around for a long time," said Harrison, a professor at Pennsylvania's Swarthmore College. "It is out there, it is fragile and it is rapidly eroding," he said. Yet recent success in reviving several aboriginal tongues is rousing hope that the tide of language extinction is not inevitable, delegates at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science heard. Some examples: # The language of Miami-Illinois Indians, long classed as extinct, is now spoken daily by at least 50 people after a major "reclamation" effort. # Languages on the brink of extinction are being recorded for future revival – such as that of the Chulym, a tribe of hunters and fishers in Siberia. # A master-apprentice program is rejuvenating some of the 50 threatened aboriginal languages in California. # More than 2,000 schoolchildren are now fluent speakers of Hawaiian, a language banned from schools in Hawaii for almost a century. "The reason that a lot of indigenous languages went extinct was that they could not be used in school," said William Wilson, a professor of Hawaiian Language and Studies at Hilo, Hawaii. Despite a policy of official bilingualism, the native Hawaiian language was in its death throes, but that changed dramatically after the state legislature in 1987 scrapped a 90-year-ban on using Hawaiian in the schools. Now, students are taught in their native language from pre-school to college. Yet Hawaiian-speaking students also study Japanese in the first six grades, Latin in Grades 7 and 8, and English throughout. "We feel children can learn many languages if they have a solid base in English and Hawaiian," the language professor said. Wilson said in an interview that the architects of language recovery in Hawaii worked closely with aboriginal groups in Canada, including the Squamish in Vancouver and the Six Nations at Brantford. The Hawaiian group also produced a multilingual book in co-operation with the Inuit. The preservation of aboriginal languages in Canada was dealt a major blow last year when the Harper government scrapped a 10-year, $173 million language revitalization program. Yet Miami tribe member Daryl Baldwin told a news conference that even a supposedly extinct aboriginal language can be brought back to life. That's what happened with the Miami language previously spoken over a wide region of the lower Great Lakes. At Miami University in Ohio, Baldwin and colleagues pored over written records to help interested tribe members again speak the language. And the language is kept up to date, he said. In Miami, the word for a computer translates as "the thing that thinks fast." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 19 21:09:58 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:09:58 -0700 Subject: Endangered languages encode plant and animal knowledge (fwd) Message-ID: Endangered languages encode plant and animal knowledge * 17:32 19 February 2007 * NewScientist.com news service * Gaia Vince, San Francisco http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn11215-endangered-languages-encode-plant-and-animal-knowledge-.html Saving indigenous languages from extinction is the only way to preserve traditional knowledge about plants and animals that have yet to be discovered by Western scientists, says a linguist and cultural expert. More than half of the word's 7000 languages are endangered, because they consist of an unsustainably small – and declining – speaker base. Each language death represents a significant erosion of human knowledge about local plant and animal life that was acquired over many centuries, says David Harrison at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, US. Information about local ecosystems is so intricately woven into these languages that it cannot be replaced simply through translation, he explains. The indigenous taxonomy alone can provide a huge range of information about species, which young speakers in these tribes acquire instantly through learning the name. For example, the Siberian Todzhu tribe has many different and complex names for reindeer, according to the animals' life stages. What is called a "chary" by the Todzu, would be translated in English as "a two-year-old male, un-castrated, rideable reindeer". Trout or salmon? Other indigenous taxonomy includes important detail about the genetic relationships between species of agricultural value, animal behaviour and other ethnobotanic or zoologic knowledge. Scientists wishing to learn more about species in remote places should liaise with the people who have lived alongside them for centuries, Harrison says. The information contained in the words used to describe and group them might take many years to determine in the lab, he adds. For example, two types of trout-like fish, called steelhead trout and cutthroat trout in English, are labelled as being types of salmon in the language of the Halkomelem Musqueam tribe of British Columbia in Canada. Genetic analysis has shown that they are in fact of the salmon genus, and not trout at all. Cryptic species Only around 20% of the world's plant and animal life has been officially classified, according to Edward O Wilson, at Harvard University in Massachusetts, US. But much of the remaining 80% is known, he believes - just not to scientists in the West. Some of these "unknown" species include so-called cryptic species, in which one species turns out to be many more. An example of this is the neotropical skipper butterfly, Astraptes fulgerator, which despite looking identical, turned out to be 10 distinct species after DNA analysis (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 101, p 14812). The language of the local Costa Rican tribe where the butterfly is found, has a different name for the larvae of each of the 10 species, Harrison points out. David Harrison spoke at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Francisco, California, on Saturday. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 19 21:12:03 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:12:03 -0700 Subject: Swarthmore College Linguist Calls Attention to Dying Languages (fwd) Message-ID: Mon Feb 19 07:21:42 2007 Pacific Time http://newswire.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20070219.060013&time=07%2021%20PST&year=2007&public=0 Swarthmore College Linguist Calls Attention to Dying Languages SWARTHMORE, Pa., Feb. 19 (AScribe Newswire) -- Speakers of thousands of the world's languages are now abandoning their ancestral tongues at an unprecedented rate. What is lost when a language dies? And what are the implications? "Languages are the repository of thousands of years of a people's science and art - from observations of ecological patterns to creation myths," says Swarthmore College linguist K. David Harrison, who spoke this weekend at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting held this month in San Francisco. "The disappearance of a language is not only a loss for the community of speakers itself, but for our common human knowledge of mathematics, biology, geography, philosophy, agriculture, and linguistics." In "When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge" (Oxford University Press 2007), Harrison argues that complex systems of knowledge are embedded in indigenous languages. He also examines why people stop using them and urges that they be documented before they are gone. In his book, Harrison examines the human knowledge that is slowly being lost as the languages that express it - in Siberia, North America, the Himalayas and elsewhere - fade from sight. He uses anecdotes and portraits of some of these languages' last remaining speakers to demonstrate that this knowledge not only represents the cultural heritage found in oral histories and poetry, but useful knowledge about plants, animals, the seasons, and other aspects of the natural world. Harrison is a specialist in Tuvan and other Siberian languages and has conducted field research (http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/Linguistics/aslep/) on endangered languages of South Siberia and Western Mongolia since 1996. During field expeditions, he lives and travels with nomadic people, accompanying them on their seasonal migrations as they herd camels, horses, yaks, and sheep. He has also worked with one of the last speakers of the Karaj language in Lithuania and documented language and ethnography in Eastern India and the Philippine highland rice terraces. Located near Philadelphia, Swarthmore is a highly selective liberal arts college whose mission combines academic rigor with social responsibility. Swarthmore, with an enrollment of 1,450, is consistently ranked among the top liberal arts colleges in the country. On the Web at www.swarthmore.edu/news/. From fmarmole at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 19 23:55:34 2007 From: fmarmole at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Francisco Marmolejo) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:55:34 -0700 Subject: Scholarship oppotunities for university students from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico Message-ID: Dear colleagues: Please forward to students interested in applying for a scholarship to attend an international conference in Quebec, Canada. DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF APPLICATIONS: Friday February 23, 2007 Regards, Francisco Francisco Marmolejo Executive Director Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration (CONAHEC) University of Arizona PO Box 210300 220 W. Sixth Street. Tucson, AZ 85721-0300 USA Tel. (520) 621-9080 / 621-7761 Fax (520) 626-2675 Email: fmarmole at email.arizona.edu http://conahec.org Don't forget to make plans to attend our upcoming CONAHEC Conference (April 25-27, 2007 in Quebec, Canada). More information at http://conahec.org ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + ESSAY COMPETITION AND CONFERENCE: STUDENT ORGANIZATION OF NORTH AMERICA The Student Organization of North America (SONA) is organizing its annual Conference 2007 and it will take place in Quebec City in April 2007 (see: http://www.conahec.org/conahec/sona (click on Quebec Conference picture) If you have not registered yet, here's the perfect chance for you to do so. By entering an essay competition and sharing your thinking, you could win a scholarship and participate with us in Canada! SONA offered scholarships to students for last year's Conference, which allowed them to save some money and be able to attend the Conference. Well, this year with the support of the Canadian Government (Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada), and other entities, SONA will provide 60 scholarships to students throughout the North American region! YOU could be the winner of one of these scholarships that will help you cover your registration fee and lodging expenses. So basically, you will only have to worry about getting to Quebec (meaning that you will have to take care of your travel expenses). For more information on the scholarship competition and the actual essay submission, please click on the following link: http://www.conahec.org/conahec/sona/EN_student_organization/conferences/Queb ec2007/FinancialAid.htm ** Direct link to essay submission: http://websurveyor.net/wsb.dll/14671/SONA2007ConferenceScholarshipCompetitio n.htm Submission deadline: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23rd, 2007. Good luck! Marianna Velazquez Tel. (520) 626-01-20 Email: nasf at u.arizona.edu http://www.conahec.org/conahec/sona/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Feb 20 18:09:44 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 11:09:44 -0700 Subject: Study shows use of Chamorro language declining (fwd) Message-ID: Study shows use of Chamorro language declining by Clynt Ridgell, KUAM News Tuesday, February 20, 2007 http://www.kuam.com/news/20968.aspx The study on the use of the Chamorro language was released this morning at the Governor's Complex at Adelup. Conducted by the Department of Chamorro Affairs, the results show older Chamorros are better at speaking and understanding Guam's native language while our younger generation is better at reading and writing in Chamoru. This was attributed to the fact that many younger Chamorro's are only exposed to the language in the classroom where they are taught formal Chamorro, and not the language for use in conversational situations. The study also revealed that certain villages were more proficient in the language than others, said Dr. Annette Santos. "So we see areas like Ordot and Inarajan having greater proficiency than areas like Hagatna and Maite, which were consistently lower in their proficiency," she explained. Although the study showed that the language is continuing in a diminishing returns fashion, there is some hope as a majority of the people surveyed expressed a fondness of the Chamorro language and a longing to learn it. Copyright © 2000-2007 by Pacific Telestations, Inc. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 21 21:58:33 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:58:33 -0700 Subject: No subject Message-ID: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 WORDS A BRIDGE TO PAST, HEREAFTER Descendants Of The Joseph Band Are Laboring To Preserve The Nez Perce Language Agnes Davis, 82, is the daughter of the last recognized chief of the Joseph Band of the Nez Perce tribe. She and a few others from her tribe are spending countless hours working to preserve a dialect of Nez Perce. (Colin Mulvany The Spokesman-Review ) VIDEO JOURNAL A look at the history of the Nez Perce people and their language.[1] RELATED STORY War scattered the Nez Perce[2] Kevin Graman [3] Staff writer February 18, 2007 NESPELEM, Wash. – When Chief Joseph said he would "fight no more forever" at the Battle of Bear Paw, he gave up his rifle, but not his way of life or his claim to his ancestral land. Today, nearly 130 years after the last great battle of the Nez Perce War, descendants of Joseph's band continue his struggle to preserve the old ways even as they live in perpetual exile on the Colville Indian Reservation, 200 miles from the land they call home. In Nespelem, in a cluttered reservation office, a group of Nez Perce gather three days a week to preserve the language that they believe ties them to Mother Earth and will one day grant them entry into the hereafter. "When you die, (the Creator) is going to speak to you in Nez Perce," said Agnes Davis, 82, the daughter of the last recognized chief of the Joseph Band. "He knows your history and all of your sins, and you have to have an Indian name." Davis and her relative, Frank Andrews, 83, are among a handful of native Nez Perce speakers, all in their 80s or 90s, who are descendants of the Joseph Band, said their nephew, Albert Andrews Redstar. There are other native speakers of Nez Perce, particularly on the Nez Perce Reservation in central Idaho and on the Umatilla Reservation in eastern Oregon. But Davis and Andrews think and speak a dialect of the language as it evolved in Oregon's Wallowa Valley, a place for which the elders of the Joseph Band still yearn."We carry that grief still today," Redstar said. "Our ties are to the land and the people interred in the land." Davis' father, Willie "Red Star" Andrews, was raised by Joseph and his two wives in Nespelem after his own mother died at Fort Spokane, where the Joseph Band wintered in 1885. As a little girl, Davis sat by the side of the woman she called "grandma," one of Joseph's wives who was then old and blind. "I would sit by her bed and she would cry for Wallowa," Davis recalled. "I was 8 or 9 and I didn't understand. (Nespelem) was my home. "Now I understand their loss," Davis said. "I went down there and stood at the end of the lake (Wallowa Lake), and I thought about my grandma and then I knew this is what she was crying for." Today, it is estimated that more than 400 descendants of the Joseph Band live on the Colville Reservation. Many of them, including Davis and Redstar, keep the traditional ways alive in the Walahsat Longhouse, a mile north of Nespelem, on land donated by Redstar's mother. In April, the Nez Perce celebrate the First Roots feast at the longhouse as part of the Walahsat religion, sometimes called the Washat, Longhouse or Seven Drum religion. The longhouse is divided into two large rooms. One has tables and chairs and is used for informal occasions. The other room is used for ceremonies, including funerals. A large rectangular dirt floor, called the ha`wtnin' we`yes, or sacred floor, is cut into the center of the ceremonial room to maintain the Wallowa people's ties to Mother Earth. "Our language reaches into the earth and becomes part of it and ties you to the ground," said Redstar, who often leads longhouse adherents in song and prayer in Nez Perce. "The words tie you back to Mother Earth. It is the language into which we were born." Redstar spoke Nez Perce as his first language until he began attending school at age 6. Now he is trying to "piece the language back together," with the help of his aunt and uncle. Andrews, who is Christian, began working in language preservation more than 15 years ago. Davis didn't join him at the cultures and language program until later because, she said, Nez Perce has always been a spoken, not a written, language. "My people never did write and they never used a computer, so I was reluctant to come here," Davis said. She still declines to be recorded or videotaped speaking Nez Perce. But during a visit to Spalding, Idaho, she was asked the Nez Perce words for things she didn't know, and she became concerned she was losing her language. Today, she and Andrews spend hours putting Nez Perce names to things. They consult a 4-inch-thick "Nez Perce Dictionary," the monumental work of the Japanese linguist Haruo Aoki, professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley. Aoki's dictionary, using the International Phonetic Alphabet to symbolize sounds not used in English, was published in 1994. It is based largely on research beginning in the 1960s. Because Aoki relied largely on research done on the Nez Perce Reservation, Davis and Andrews have found dialectical differences between the dictionary and the language as they speak it. They believe Christianity on the Nez Perce Reservation has influenced some of the terminology as recorded in the Aoki dictionary. With the author's permission, Davis and Andrews pore over the dictionary, as well as other documents, and note differences between it and the dictionary in their heads. Davis cited the example of the Lapwai Nez Perce term "Holy Father," "ha`wtnin'pist," her word for father as in a family. The language as spoken by the Joseph Band would never refer to the Creator, or Han'yawa`t, as "father." In Nez Perce, the meanings of words are altered by the use of a suffix or prefix. For example, "ha`ma" is man, while "haha`ma" is more than one man. By adding suffix upon suffix, one word in Nez Perce can reflect a phrase or an entire sentence in English. "Our language describes what a thing is used for rather than what it is," Redstar explained. The word for "chair" is "wexsiliq'ec'etes," literally a place for sitting. As a result of their work, Davis and Andrews hope to produce a dictionary of their own. Aoki remains in contact with the elders and despite advancing years, he occasionally visits the Colville Reservation, where he is held in high regard. Nez Perce is a Sahaptin language similar to the dialects spoken by Yakima, Cayuse, Walla Walla, Palouse and Umatilla tribes. The Cultures and Language Program of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation is working to preserve two other native languages, Okanogan and Moses Columbia, which are Salish. Redstar and his son, Jim, volunteer at the language program, where Davis' grandson, Milton "Jewie" Davis Jr., 35, a language instructor aide, teaches Nez Perce to local students. "Our backs are against the wall," Redstar said, because there are so few native speakers among the Wallowa people, and so few are willing to make the sacrifice to learn. "It's the heart of our people," he said. "You can understand a shade of us through English, but to really get to know us, you must understand our language." Links: ------ [1] http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/video/archive.asp?postID=227 [2] http://www.spokesmanreview.com/local/story.asp?ID=175026 [3] http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news/bylines.asp?bylinename=Kevin%20Graman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 64641 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET Wed Feb 21 22:30:10 2007 From: pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET (pasxapu@dakotacom.net) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 15:30:10 -0700 Subject: No subject Message-ID: Sorry for the hasty post. Here is the URL: http://www.spokesmanreview.com/local/story.asp?ID=175046&page=all Phil >------- Original Message ------- >>From : phil cash cash[mailto:cashcash at email.arizona.edu] >Sent : 2/21/2007 2:58:33 PM >To : ILAT at listserv.arizona.edu >Cc : >Subject : RE: [ILAT] > >Wednesday, February 21, 2007 WORDS A BRIDGE TO PAST, HEREAFTER Descendants Of The Joseph Band Are Laboring To Preserve The Nez Perce Language Agnes Davis, 82, is the daughter of the last recognized chief of the Joseph Band of the Nez Perce tribe. She and a few others from her tribe are spending countless hours working to preserve a dialect of Nez Perce. (Colin Mulvany The Spokesman-Review ) VIDEO JOURNAL A look at the history of the Nez Perce people and their language.[1] RELATED STORY War scattered the Nez Perce[2] Kevin Graman [3] Staff writer February 18, 2007 NESPELEM, Wash. – When Chief Joseph said he would "fight no more forever" at the Battle of Bear Paw, he gave up his rifle, but not his way of life or his claim to his ancestral land. Today, nearly 130 years after the last great battle of the Nez Perce War, descendants of Joseph's band continue his struggle to preserve the old ways even as they live in perpetual exile on the Colville Indian Reservation, 200 miles from the land they call home. In Nespelem, in a cluttered reservation office, a group of Nez Perce gather three days a week to preserve the language that they believe ties them to Mother Earth and will one day grant them entry into the hereafter. "When you die, (the Creator) is going to speak to you in Nez Perce," said Agnes Davis, 82, the daughter of the last recognized chief of the Joseph Band. "He knows your history and all of your sins, and you have to have an Indian name." Davis and her relative, Frank Andrews, 83, are among a handful of native Nez Perce speakers, all in their 80s or 90s, who are descendants of the Joseph Band, said their nephew, Albert Andrews Redstar. There are other native speakers of Nez Perce, particularly on the Nez Perce Reservation in central Idaho and on the Umatilla Reservation in eastern Oregon. But Davis and Andrews think and speak a dialect of the language as it evolved in Oregon's Wallowa Valley, a place for which the elders of the Joseph Band still yearn."We carry that grief still today," Redstar said. "Our ties are to the land and the people interred in the land." Davis' father, Willie "Red Star" Andrews, was raised by Joseph and his two wives in Nespelem after his own mother died at Fort Spokane, where the Joseph Band wintered in 1885. As a little girl, Davis sat by the side of the woman she called "grandma," one of Joseph's wives who was then old and blind. "I would sit by her bed and she would cry for Wallowa," Davis recalled. "I was 8 or 9 and I didn't understand. (Nespelem) was my home. "Now I understand their loss," Davis said. "I went down there and stood at the end of the lake (Wallowa Lake), and I thought about my grandma and then I knew this is what she was crying for." Today, it is estimated that more than 400 descendants of the Joseph Band live on the Colville Reservation. Many of them, including Davis and Redstar, keep the traditional ways alive in the Walahsat Longhouse, a mile north of Nespelem, on land donated by Redstar's mother. In April, the Nez Perce celebrate the First Roots feast at the longhouse as part of the Walahsat religion, sometimes called the Washat, Longhouse or Seven Drum religion. The longhouse is divided into two large rooms. One has tables and chairs and is used for informal occasions. The other room is used for ceremonies, including funerals. A large rectangular dirt floor, called the ha`wtnin' we`yes, or sacred floor, is cut into the center of the ceremonial room to maintain the Wallowa people's ties to Mother Earth. "Our language reaches into the earth and becomes part of it and ties you to the ground," said Redstar, who often leads longhouse adherents in song and prayer in Nez Perce. "The words tie you back to Mother Earth. It is the language into which we were born." Redstar spoke Nez Perce as his first language until he began attending school at age 6. Now he is trying to "piece the language back together," with the help of his aunt and uncle. Andrews, who is Christian, began working in language preservation more than 15 years ago. Davis didn't join him at the cultures and language program until later because, she said, Nez Perce has always been a spoken, not a written, language. "My people never did write and they never used a computer, so I was reluctant to come here," Davis said. She still declines to be recorded or videotaped speaking Nez Perce. But during a visit to Spalding, Idaho, she was asked the Nez Perce words for things she didn't know, and she became concerned she was losing her language. Today, she and Andrews spend hours putting Nez Perce names to things. They consult a 4-inch-thick "Nez Perce Dictionary," the monumental work of the Japanese linguist Haruo Aoki, professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley. Aoki's dictionary, using the International Phonetic Alphabet to symbolize sounds not used in English, was published in 1994. It is based largely on research beginning in the 1960s. Because Aoki relied largely on research done on the Nez Perce Reservation, Davis and Andrews have found dialectical differences between the dictionary and the language as they speak it. They believe Christianity on the Nez Perce Reservation has influenced some of the terminology as recorded in the Aoki dictionary. With the author's permission, Davis and Andrews pore over the dictionary, as well as other documents, and note differences between it and the dictionary in their heads. Davis cited the example of the Lapwai Nez Perce term "Holy Father," "ha`wtnin'pist," her word for father as in a family. The language as spoken by the Joseph Band would never refer to the Creator, or Han'yawa`t, as "father." In Nez Perce, the meanings of words are altered by the use of a suffix or prefix. For example, "ha`ma" is man, while "haha`ma" is more than one man. By adding suffix upon suffix, one word in Nez Perce can reflect a phrase or an entire sentence in English. "Our language describes what a thing is used for rather than what it is," Redstar explained. The word for "chair" is "wexsiliq'ec'etes," literally a place for sitting. As a result of their work, Davis and Andrews hope to produce a dictionary of their own. Aoki remains in contact with the elders and despite advancing years, he occasionally visits the Colville Reservation, where he is held in high regard. Nez Perce is a Sahaptin language similar to the dialects spoken by Yakima, Cayuse, Walla Walla, Palouse and Umatilla tribes. The Cultures and Language Program of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation is working to preserve two other native languages, Okanogan and Moses Columbia, which are Salish. Redstar and his son, Jim, volunteer at the language program, where Davis' grandson, Milton "Jewie" Davis Jr., 35, a language instructor aide, teaches Nez Perce to local students. "Our backs are against the wall," Redstar said, because there are so few native speakers among the Wallowa people, and so few are willing to make the sacrifice to learn. "It's the heart of our people," he said. "You can understand a shade of us through English, but to really get to know us, you must understand our language." Links: ------ [1] http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/video/archive.asp?postID=227 [2] http://www.spokesmanreview.com/local/story.asp?ID=175026 [3] http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news/bylines.asp?bylinename=Kevin%20Graman From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Feb 25 00:03:20 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2007 17:03:20 -0700 Subject: KBIC native language effort continues (fwd) Message-ID: KBIC native language effort continues Published: Friday, February 23, 2007 By DAN SCHNEIDER, DMG Writer http://www.mininggazette.com/stories/articles.asp?articleID=5919 BARAGA — More than a means to communicate, members of the Ojibwa tribe say their native language is an essential aspect of their culture. “Certainly, the language is communication but also it tells who you are,” Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC) member Earl Otchingwanigan said. “Not only does it communicate, but within the language itself there is history and culture built into it. And even all of the spiritual aspects of the native people is carried through the language.” Otchingwaniga is a professor emeritus of the Ojibwe language at Minnesota State University-Bemidji. (Here, the spelling “Ojibwe” is used to refer to the language, while “Ojibwa” refers to the wider tribe and culture). Otchingwanigan is also a native Ojibwe speaker. English was his second language. “I was raised with the language,” he said. With few living native speakers left, the KBIC, like many tribes nationwide, is launching an initiative to preserve Anishinaabeg. The term means “the first people’s language.” “What we’re doing this year is assessing the status of the language here on the L’Anse Indian reservation,” project director Jesse Luttenton said. That assessment is being conducted with a $109,708 grant from the United States Department of Health and Human Services through the Administration for Native Americans (ANA). It is an important initiative, according to Carrie Ashbrook, who was recently hired to coordinate the project. “What’s happening is the language is being lost,” Ashbrook said. “It’s a sacred part of being Anishnabe (“first people” or “native people”) that is being lost.” On Jan. 22, the KBIC sent out 1,200 written surveys to its members asking them to assess their own fluency and interest in the language. The survey asks questions like “Where do you use the Ojibwe language?”, “Do you feel comfortable using the Ojibwe language?”, and “If you had the opportunity to participate in language instruction, what fluency level would you hope to attain?” “The survey is to determine the status of the language as it is today so we can see what we need to do,” Luttenton said. A community gathering to discuss the preliminary results of the survey is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday at the Ojibwa Casino Chippewa Rooms. As of Feb. 22, 250 completed surveys had been returned, according to Ashbrook. Survey results so far indicate enthusiasm among KBIC members, she said. “So far the support has been great because people are wanting the program,” she said. Ashbrook said 345 completed surveys are needed, and a series of oral interviews must take place, before the tribe can apply for the second-phase grant from the ANA. The next grant in the ANA’s three-phase grant series would be a one-year grant to fund the tribe’s development of a language instruction program and curriculum individual to the tribe. “Ojibwe is spoken all across the Great Lakes, but there are many different dialects,” Luttenton said. “We want to preserve and revitalize the language as it is specific to the Keweenaw Bay.” ANA’s step-three grant would fund the implementation of the program. Luttenton hopes to be ready to apply for that grant by September. Methods of revitalizing the language, Luttenton said, could include “language nests,” a program for preschool students in which Ojibwe is the only language spoken; classes conducted at L’anse and Baraga public schools and immersion programs. Otchingwanigan is one of three advisors for the tribe’s program. He said the project of revitalizing and preserving the language is a large one, but it can be done. “Absolutely, I think other cultures around the world that have endangered languages have brought their languages back from the brink of extinction, such as the Maori in the South Seas,” Otchingwanigan said. “The Jewish people in Israel have brought their language back, so it can be done.” Dan Schneider can be reached at dschneider at mininggazette.com From hardman at UFL.EDU Sun Feb 25 00:39:26 2007 From: hardman at UFL.EDU (MJ Hardman) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2007 19:39:26 -0500 Subject: Conference on Indigenous Peoples and Technology In-Reply-To: <20070224170320.egk0cg4gsgg0c0o4@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: The 56th Annual Latin American Conference at the University of Florida on Indigenous Languages and Cultures and Technology was a great success. There were people from Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, among many others. The videos of some of the presentations are available at: http://56conference.latam.ufl.edu/video.asp I spoke in Spanish in consideration of our international visitors. The second video, Gillian Lord, Sue Legg, Howard Beck, Marcela Piñeros "Aymara on the Internet" in entirely in English and may be of special interest to those on this list; some of the details of our technology are presented by the group working on the project. All of the others here are also very interesting in presenting work being done in quite varying circumstances. The last video, Richard Grounds "shadjwanE dathlandA (Rabbit and Wolf): Feeding Technology and Passing Forward Indigenous Languages" raises some serious questions from the point of view of one indigenous group. MJ Dr. MJ Hardman website: http://grove.ufl.edu/~hardman/ From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Wed Feb 28 21:13:09 2007 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:13:09 -0700 Subject: Fwd: Dr. Robert Young, lexicographer and grammarian of Navajo language, has passed away In-Reply-To: <033901c75b79$9173bc00$6401a8c0@ROSEANN> Message-ID: Sorry for any cross posts... Language Log posted the following: *In memoriam Robert Young* [image: Dr. Robert W. Young] We are deeply saddened to report that Dr. Robert W. Young, who devoted his life to the Navajo language and people, passed away peacefully on Tuesday February 20th at the age of 95. Among his many accomplishments was the compilation, together with William Morgan, Sr., of The Navajo Language: a Grammar and Colloquial Dictionaryand the Analytical Lexicon of Navajo, which together are widely considered to have made Navajo the best documented of any native American language. He was a great linguist, a fluent speaker of Navajo, and a kind and generous man. *The University of New Mexico site states the following: * * *Robert W. Young (1912-2007) We are deeply saddened to say that Dr. Robert W. Young passed away on February 20, 2007. At this time there is no service planned. Dr. Young's daughter requests that if people want to send a remembrance it should be in the form of a donation to the Robert W. Young Scholarship Fund. Sincerely, Roseann Gonzalez Dr. Roseann D. Gonzalez Professor of English Director, National Center for Interpretation Testing, Research & Policy University of Arizona Phone: (520) 621-3615-Office Fax: (520) 624-8130-Office Phone: (520) 293-6353-Home Fax: (520) 888-6757-Home -- ____________________________________________________________ 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 4684 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 1596 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 46392 bytes Desc: not available URL: From wayneleman at VFEMAIL.NET Thu Feb 1 19:26:35 2007 From: wayneleman at VFEMAIL.NET (Wayne Leman) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 11:26:35 -0800 Subject: Cheyenne Bible Message-ID: Phil recently noted the Billings Gazette article on the new Cheyenne Bible translation. There is also a more recent report from KULR TV in Billings at this url: http://www.kulr8.com/news/local/5396731.html Right before the text of the report, there is a link to view the video footage of the report. They even included me with a short segment about affirming Native American languages and cultures. Wayne ----- Wayne Leman Cheyenne website: http://www.geocities.com/cheyenne_language From wayneleman at VFEMAIL.NET Thu Feb 1 19:43:56 2007 From: wayneleman at VFEMAIL.NET (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Wayne_Leman?=) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 12:43:56 -0700 Subject: Alutiiq speakers record CD to preserve dying language Message-ID: My ancestors spoke Alutiiq. Unfortunately, we "lost" our language during Russian colonialization. There was great pressure to change to Russian. After many years of using Russian, my father, his siblings, and other relatives largely stopped using Russian when I was young, during the 1950s. Again, it was pressure from another colonial language, English, that brought about that language change. Fortunately, we have a few relatives in an isolated village between Kodiak and Anchorage who still speak some Alutiiq. Wayne Leman From dpwiese at AOL.COM Fri Feb 2 00:16:59 2007 From: dpwiese at AOL.COM (Dr. Dorene Wiese) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 19:16:59 -0500 Subject: Chicago Native Language Speakers Featured at Field Museum's New Exhibit Message-ID: NAES COLLEGE NATIVE LANGUAGE SPEAKERS FEATURED IN NEW FIELD MUSEUM EXHIBIT Native American languages continue to be used and taught in Chicago and many other urban communities throughout the United States. Throughout it's 30 year history NAES College in Chicago has fostered the teaching of American Indian languages. In 2006 four languages were taught. They were Ojibwe, Lakota, Ho-Chunk and Navajo. Some of these Native language speakers will be featured in the upcoming "Ancient Americas" exhibit that will open at the Field Museum in Chicago this March. For more information e-mail dpwiese at aol.com. Dr. Dorene Wiese President Native American Educational Services, Inc. 2838 W. Peterson Chicago, Illinois 60659 (773) 761-5000 (773) 761-3808 Fax "We must continue throughout our lives to do what we conceive to be good. If we have corn and meat, and know of a family that has none, we divide with them. If we have more blankets than are sufficient, and others have not enough, we must give to them that want." Black Hawk, Sauk (1767-1838) ________________________________________________________________________ Check out the new AOL. Most comprehensive set of free safety and security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from across the web, free AOL Mail and more. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jtucker at STARBAND.NET Fri Feb 2 16:49:11 2007 From: jtucker at STARBAND.NET (Jan Tucker) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007 11:49:11 -0500 Subject: Codetalkers on AZ Quarter In-Reply-To: <004d01c7448e$01fb7510$873f14ac@LFPMIA> Message-ID: Mia, Please share the links to your work and great news about your dissertation, way to go! Jan Tucker -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]On Behalf Of Mia Kalish Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 11:45 AM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Codetalkers on AZ Quarter Hi, All, 2 bits of news ( J) 1. Arizona is voting on a new state quarter. Q5 has codetalkers on it, and so far has garnered nearly 60% of the vote. 2. I finished my dissertation, and the movies that go with. I've posted them on the web; if anyone wants to read, contact me and I will send you the link. Mia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 7 17:25:37 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 10:25:37 -0700 Subject: Spelling game creator aims to revive Shuswap (fwd) Message-ID: Spelling game creator aims to revive Shuswap [Karen Longwell photo] The Shuswap Spelling Game is a new creation from Sugar Cane resident Winston Alphonse to help people learn the language. By Karen Longwell Tribune Staff Writer Feb 06 2007 http://www.wltribune.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=37&cat=59&id=826301&more= W?ytkp. If you don?t understand this word ? ?hello? to a group of people ? you may want to consider the Shuswap Spelling Game, a new creation from Sugar Cane resident Winston Alphonse. He says Shuswap, the original language of the Williams Lake area, is about 90 per cent lost in this region. So he wanted to find a way to bring it back and get young people interested. ?When I hear a conversation (in Shuswap) between young people, then my job will be done,? he says. Alphonse, 40, says his Shuswap is above average for his generation. Many speakers tend to be elders. He is concerned because there seems to be a lack of teachers in the area and there are only a few elders left to give learners the correct pronunciation of the words. He says his brothers and sisters can speak Shuswap because his parents spoke it. Also his aunt ? Cecilia DeRose is a well-known Shuswap teacher in the area. Alphonse says the game has been several years in the making. He put in a lot of research looking through Shuswap-English dictionaries. He also tested it with relatives and friends. ?It?s had lots of dry runs,? he says. The game is comprised of a board with crossword-like spaces. There is a bag of Shuswap letters complete with accents. The object of the game is to form words across the squares. You can play the game with little or no knowledge of Shuswap. Beginners can rely on the dictionary. Alphonse says it is ideal for four to six players. He had help and advice from family members, including DeRose, to make the game. His father helped him build the letter tile holders. And his mother made the cloth bags to hold the letters. Interest is building slowly in the game. He has sold about 15 sets so far. Mostly teachers are interested. People from as far away as Chase have purchased the game, he says. Alphonse has also heard from other First Nations speakers about producing a game in their language. But Alphonse says he wants to get the Shuswap game off the ground first. ?I think it is going to catch on,? he says. If you are interested in the Shuswap Spelling game contact Winston Alphonse at ShuswapSpellingGame at yahoo.ca or call 296-0034. The game sells for $60 with a dictionary, or $45 without. ? Copyright 2007 Williams Lake Tribune From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 7 17:27:32 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 10:27:32 -0700 Subject: Immersion unlocks language for Cree students (fwd) Message-ID: Immersion unlocks language for Cree students Bob Florence The StarPhoenix Monday, February 05, 2007 http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/third_page/story.html?id=453e26b0-4518-4556-8c62-d0bae581b0ce It's Wednesday morning, and Karen Rabbitskin's Grade 1 class is practising phonics, 11 students all talking at once. In a classroom without desks, they sit at tables arranged in a U-shape, five of them seated along one side, six on the other. Rabbitskin stands at the front. She holds an open book and points to a line of block letters. Together the students pronounce the different sounds, their voices rising as they go along in the way kids do. "Ah, ow, ay, ew . . ." they say, speaking in Cree. Cree immersion is a bright idea that was introduced in Saskatoon two years ago with a group of 13 kindergarten kids at Confederation Park School. Coupled with the Grade 1 class added last September, there are now 23 students enrolled in the program. The numbers will multiply again in the fall when a Grade 2 class joins the lineup. Rabbitskin dreams of a day when there is not just a class, but a whole school in the city dedicated to the teaching of everything Cree. She envisions students from K to 12 learning the language and drumming up the history and maintaining the Cree traditions. But that's for another day. Today, she has 11 Grade 1 students on the go. After the class finishes the group phonics lesson, Rabbitskin gets one of her students, a boy named Ceejay, to stand up and recite the sounds on his own. For all but two of the students, Cree is a new language. Growing up in the city, immersed in urban life, most of them speak only English. Ceejay, the story goes, was visiting his grandparents at their home on the reserve during Christmas, when, drawing on lessons he'd learned in class, he and his grandfather started talking together in Cree. They had never done that before. "Sometimes they just amaze me," Rabbitskin said later, when her class was in the schoolyard at recess. "I hear them using words I've barely introduced and this is high-level Cree, some words are 15, 18 letters long. "They know how important the language is. They understand why they need it. They're like sponges. 'Give me more.' " Rabbitskin has been a teacher for 20 years. Although her experience was working with higher grades -- she taught at the middle school level -- she was at the top of the most-wanted list when administrators went looking for someone to lead this new project. Harry Lafond, education director with the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, proposed the idea of a Cree immersion program. Jim Jutras, director of Saskatoon Public Schools, endorsed it. That was June 2004. In the fall of 2005 the door to Rabbitskin's classroom at Confederation Park School opened. "The No. 1 concern of parents was that by having their kids in this program they were going to miss out on (conventional) learning opportunities," said Cort Dogniez, co-ordinator of First Nations and Metis education with Saskatoon Public Schools. "English is all around us. They're not going to miss out there. These students aren't losing English, they're gaining another language." Donna Partridge says the gains go beyond language. "It's an identity," she said. Partridge enrolled her son, Emmanuel, in the immersion program. She has lived in the city for 10 years and has two older children, age 12 and 15, who are growing up fluent in English, but fractured in Cree. "That's my fault," she said. "I don't speak it enough at home." For Emmanuel, she wants a reconnection. "It's important for him," she said. "For us." Not only has Partridge bought into the immersion program, she's now helping deliver it. She works with Rabbitskin as a teacher's assistant. On this morning Partridge leads the kindergarten class, her group on the other side of the room from the first graders. In the middle of the room is a big tipi. Throughout the room are pictures and symbols of Cree culture. Some of the curriculum is adapted from a program in Onion Lake, much of it is what Rabbitskin has developed on her own. Rabbitskin said one of her upcoming lessons was going to be about legends. "I'll tell them the story about the big bear and the little bear and the stars," she said. "I'll tell them where the story originated. "We teach songs, rhymes, prayers. And humour. There's a lot of humour in Cree." Classes in Cree are offered at three high schools in Saskatoon. Dogniez says this program goes beyond that. More than learning the language, this is about preserving a culture. Said Rabbitskin: "Hearing the kids talking, seeing our language saved and revived, it makes me want to cry. "I feel so good." bflorence at sp.canwest.com ? The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2007 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 7 17:33:17 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 10:33:17 -0700 Subject: Ph.D. program helps to preserve Hawaiian language (fwd) Message-ID: Ph.D. program helps to preserve Hawaiian language ? Indian Country Today February 07, 2007. All Rights Reserved Posted: February 07, 2007 by: The Associated Press http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414452 [AP Photo/Ronen Zilberman<.i> -- Students from the Hawaiian Immersion School, Kula Kaiapuni 'O Waiau, performed a hula dance during the 18th annual Ho'omau benefit concert at the Waikiki Shell, Feb. 16, 2003, in Honolulu. The Hawaiian language and culture's ongoing revitalization is evident in the more than 1,000 children, ages 3 to 18, who are currently receiving their education in the Hawaiian language within the 10 schools located on Oahu and in the University of Hawaii-Hilo's doctor of philosophy degree in Hawaiian and indigenous language - the country's first doctorate of its kind, according to the school. ] HILO, Hawaii (AP) - The students in the University of Hawaii at Hilo's first Ph.D. program are working to revitalize the Hawaiian language and culture. Five students are enrolled in the new program, which was established this fall for a doctor of philosophy degree in Hawaiian and indigenous language and culture revitalization. It's the first doctorate in the United States in a Native language, according to the school. Hiapo Perreira, who is focusing on Hawaiian literature, has tried to spread his knowledge. Last May, he told high school seniors the tale of a boy transported to a far country by a supernatural coconut tree. The story was meant to teach the students that they should also help others, just as Perreira plans to do with the aid of his doctorate. Kauanoe Kamana, another doctoral candidate, is the principal of Nawahiokalaniopuu Hawaiian-language immersion school, Nawahi for short, which was founded in 1994. Kamana's doctoral dissertation will be a practical guide to the lessons she and others have learned in running Nawahi. ''We're not an ivory tower Ph.D. We're a community service Ph.D.,'' said UH-Hilo Hawaiian professor Pila Wilson. There are 15,000 people who can speak Hawaiian reasonably well, but only about 100 remaining elders who grew up speaking it, Wilson said. The goal is to make English the language of business and work, and Hawaiian the language of the home for Hawaiian families, Wilson said. ''The Hawaiian language is not going to live if you are below average when you speak,'' he said. Strengthening Hawaiian has the broad value of strengthening Hawaiian families and strengthening the economy, because Hawaiian culture is a major reason when tourists come here, he said. Only about 2 percent of Hawaii's children are in language-immersion programs. New Zealand has similar programs to promote the Maori language, but it's only used in the classrooms, not at home. Katarina Edmonds, who is Maori working for the New Zealand Ministry of Education, wants to improve that by earning a doctorate in the revitalization aspect of the UH-Hilo program. Another doctoral candidate is professor Jason Cabral, who is dedicating his studies to Hawaiian grammar to promote a high standard for the language. Professor Larry Kimura grew up speaking Hawaiian; he had a significant hand in creating the Hawaiian-language program at UH-Hilo and was responsible recently for complete bilingualism in the exhibits at the Imiloa astronomy education center. Now he's interested in Hawaiian poetry. But like fellow professors Cabral and Perreira, he has lacked a doctorate. Now all three can earn those degrees. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 7 17:55:37 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 10:55:37 -0700 Subject: conference happening... Message-ID: fyi, The conference below is taking place next week. If anybody is attending please feel free to share your thoughts and insights here on ILAT. pcc ~~~ ?Communications Technologies and the Impacts on Indigenous Languages and Cultural Identity in the Americas? February 14-16, 2007 University of Florida Gainesville, Florida http://www.latam.ufl.edu/news/Newsconf%2007.html From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 7 18:01:25 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 11:01:25 -0700 Subject: Revitalizing Northern Languages through Best Practices in Documentation and Archiving (RNLDA) (fwd link) Message-ID: Revitalizing Northern Languages through Best Practices in Documentation and Archiving (RNLDA) Juneau, Alaska, 19-21 June 2007 http://www.uas.alaska.edu/humanities/RNLDA.html The aim of RNLDA is to bring together both indigenous language workers from across the North as well as leading international experts in digital language documentation and archiving in order to set the future direction of international cooperation in language documentation, archiving, and revitalization across the North. Abstracts of no more than one page should be submitted no later than 1 March 2007. From hardman at UFL.EDU Wed Feb 7 19:37:16 2007 From: hardman at UFL.EDU (MJ Hardman) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 14:37:16 -0500 Subject: conference happening... In-Reply-To: <20070207105537.olx4o0kg4wkoccko@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Oh indeed we are. And it will be available by webcast the day following the events. When I know more on that I'll let you know, but there is a place for it in the conference program. Program at: http://56conference.latam.ufl.edu/ MJ Dr. MJ Hardman website: http://grove.ufl.edu/~hardman/ 56th Conference of the University of Florida Center for Latin American Studies Communications Technologies and the Impacts on Indigenous Languages and Cultural Identity in the Americas Dates: February 14-16, 2007 Location: University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida Description: The mission of this conference is to examine from multidisciplinary perspectives how communications technologies have affected indigenous language and cultural identity in the Americas, with a focus on cultural continuity in a changing world. Since the middle of the 20th Century, indigenous communities throughout the Americas have gained considerable demographic, political and cultural presence in their respective national arenas. From the Zapatista movements in Mexico, the civil war, peace accords and Rigoberta Menchu?s Nobel Prize in Guatemala, to the toppling of presidents in Ecuador and Bolivia and Evo Morales?s presidency, organized indigenous communities have become cultural and political references to understanding national and continental possibilities and problems. Such increasing invigoration of indigenous communities has depended, to a large extent, on the conscious revitalization of their native languages, their traditional cultures, and the skillful and widespread use of communications technologies (from sound recordings and video taping to electronic mail and the Internet). This conference will focus on the impact and potential of global technologies of communication on Indigenous languages, cultures and identities in the Americas. We hope that this approach will bring together a variety of participants from diverse disciplines and cultures. For further information, please contact: Elizabeth Lowe, Associate Director Center for Latin American Studies University of Florida 319 Grinter Hall Gainesville, Florida 32605 elowe at ufl.edu 352-392-0375 FAX 352-392-7682 ------ End of Forwarded Message On 2/7/07 12:55 PM, "phil cash cash" wrote: > fyi, > > The conference below is taking place next week. If anybody is attending > please feel free to share your thoughts and insights here on ILAT. pcc > > ~~~ > > ?Communications Technologies and the Impacts on Indigenous Languages and > Cultural Identity in the Americas? > > February 14-16, 2007 > University of Florida > Gainesville, Florida > http://www.latam.ufl.edu/news/Newsconf%2007.html > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image[4].gif Type: application/octet-stream Size: 9578 bytes Desc: not available URL: From annier at SFU.CA Wed Feb 7 20:12:08 2007 From: annier at SFU.CA (annie ross) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 12:12:08 -0800 Subject: Ph.D. program helps to preserve Hawaiian language (fwd) Message-ID: An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From delancey at UOREGON.EDU Thu Feb 8 02:27:11 2007 From: delancey at UOREGON.EDU (Scott DeLancey) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 18:27:11 -0800 Subject: nili: FWD: Genographic Legacy Fund Offers Grants to Support Indigenous Communities (fwd) Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 18:24:34 -0800 (PST) From: Scott DeLancey To: nili at lists.uoregon.edu The following is a forwarded message from Linguistics mailing List at University of Hawaii. ------------------------------------------------------------------- https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/glf_charter.pdf Genographic Legacy Fund Offers Grants to Support Indigenous Communities Worldwide Deadline: June 15, 2007 The Genorgraphic 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. Reflecting the values and missions of the Genographic Project ( https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/ ) partners -- the National Geographic Society, IBM ( http://www.ibm.com/ ), and the Waitt Family Foundation ( http://www.waittfoundation.org/ ) -- support from the fund will be directed primarily toward education initiatives, cultural conservation, and linguistic preservation and revitalization efforts. Genographic Legacy Fund grants are open to individuals, groups, and organizations. Applicants must provide a record of current or prior work in support of indigenous education programs and/or cultural or linguistic conservation efforts. Applicants should be seeking to expand their service to indigenous communities and have a demonstrated commitment to improving general awareness of indigenous cultures, histories, and heritages. The majority of the people forming the group responsible for providing project governance must be members of the indigenous community in which the project will be implemented. Projects are divided into two general categories: 1) Micro -- smaller, discrete projects that typically require lower amounts of funding; funding for these projects will be capped at $25,000 each. 2) Macro -- larger, more complex projects undertaken in conjunction with other entities such as NGOs, local education institutions, government agencies, etc. Grant amounts are more flexible but will not typically exceed $100,000 each. Applications are accepted on a semi-annual basis. Submissions for semi-annual review will close on June 15 and December 15 of each year for the duration of the project. More information on the fund and the grant application process as well as an FAQ can be found on the Genographic Legacy Fund Web site. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 9 17:12:37 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2007 10:12:37 -0700 Subject: American Indians Urge Oklahoma State Lawmakers to Oppose 'English Only' Measure (fwd) Message-ID: American Indians Urge Oklahoma State Lawmakers to Oppose 'English Only' Measure Friday , February 09, 2007 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,251092,00.html OKLAHOMA CITY ? American Indian leaders, citing a desire to preserve their native languages, urged state lawmakers Thursday to defeat "English only" legislation that would declare English Oklahoma's official language. In a letter to lawmakers, Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith said the measure, approved on Wednesday by the House General Government and Transportation Committee, "is really just an ugly symbol of intolerance." "The kindhearted people of Oklahoma do not need to watch politicians create an artificial divide in our state," said Smith, who voiced opposition to the bill before committee members voted 9-7 to send it to the House floor for a vote. "Our great state has been blessed with more than 35 Indian nations, each of which has a unique culture," Smith said. "Part of that culture comes from the richness of native languages, which have been spoken here for centuries before Oklahoma became a state." In a separate statement, George Tiger, a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and chairman of the United Indian Nations of Oklahoma, said tribal governments support school language preservation programs that could be harmed by the measure. "It is sad that in 2007, even as the state makes plans to celebrate its centennial year, that people of color are still being targeted for using their language," Tiger said. "It seems like we're taking steps backward." Meanwhile, the bill's author, Rep. George Faught, R-Muskogee, said he is working with other lawmakers, including members of the Legislature's Native American Caucus, to resolve concerns. "We're exploring that right now," Faught said. "I've obviously walked into a hornet's nest. I didn't realize this was going to be this heated. "What concerns me now is the lines have been drawn, maybe a little prematurely and unfairly. I hope this thing will simmer down a little bit," Faught said. Among other things, the measure would require official state business to be conducted in English and official documents, regulations, publications and meetings to be in English. Faught said the bill could eventually end bilingual driver's license tests and other state government documents. The bill also says it should not be used to discourage the use of or prevent the study or development of American Indian languages. "I saw it as a pretty simple thing," Faught said. "There may be some maneuvering we can do to maybe solve some of the problems." But lawmakers of Indian heritage said they will work to defeat the measure. It has not been scheduled for a hearing on the House floor. "I'm embarrassed to be a part of a Legislature that takes part in legislation like this," said Rep. Jerry McPeak, D-Warner, a member of the Creek tribe. "I am sure that this piece of legislation is nothing more than political fluff, designed to scare people." Rep. Scott BigHorse, D-Pawhuska, said the measure would have a negative impact on the state's economy. Big Horse is affiliated with the Osage Tribe. "It would decrease tourism and send a message to everyone outside the state that Oklahoma does not embrace diversity," BigHorse said. From nflrc at HAWAII.EDU Sat Feb 10 02:41:33 2007 From: nflrc at HAWAII.EDU (National Foreign Language Resource Center) Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2007 16:41:33 -1000 Subject: FINAL REMINDER: Program Evaluation summer institute workshop application deadline - February 15 Message-ID: Our apologies for any cross-postings . . . "Developing Useful Evaluation Practices in College Foreign Language Programs" University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI May 28 - June 6, 2007 http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/prodev/si07d/ ** ONLINE APPLICATION DEADLINE - FEBRUARY 15 ** For more details about the Summer Institute workshop (including content, activities, affordable lodging options, fees, & more) or for the online application form, visit http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/prodev/si07d/ NOTE: The summer institute website will not be available on Sunday, February 11 due to scheduled internet upgrades & maintenance at the University of Hawaii at Manoa on that day (U.S. - Hawaii time). ************************************************************************* N National Foreign Language Resource Center F University of Hawai'i L 1859 East-West Road, #106 R Honolulu HI 96822 C voice: (808) 956-9424, fax: (808) 956-5983 email: nflrc at hawaii.edu VISIT OUR WEBSITE! http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu ************************************************************************* From holabitubbe at GMAIL.COM Sun Feb 11 16:58:37 2007 From: holabitubbe at GMAIL.COM (George Ann Gregory) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2007 09:58:37 -0700 Subject: ILAT Digest - 2 Feb 2007 to 7 Feb 2007 (#2007-18) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Annie, I am interested in your poetry exchange. Please contact me at < holabitubbe at gmail.com> George Ann Gregory, Ph.D. On 2/8/07, ILAT automatic digest system wrote: > > ILAT Digest - 2 Feb 2007 to 7 Feb 2007 (#2007-18) > > Table of contents: > > - Spelling game creator aims to revive Shuswap (fwd)<#110a032c830b0c0e_S1> > - Immersion unlocks language for Cree students (fwd)<#110a032c830b0c0e_S2> > - Ph.D. program helps to preserve Hawaiian language (fwd)<#110a032c830b0c0e_S3>(2) > - conference happening... <#110a032c830b0c0e_S4> (2) > - Revitalizing Northern Languages through Best Practices in > Documentation and Archiving (RNLDA) (fwd link)<#110a032c830b0c0e_S5> > - nili: FWD: Genographic Legacy Fund Offers Grants to Support > Indigenous Communities (fwd) <#110a032c830b0c0e_S6> > > > 1. Spelling game creator aims to revive Shuswap (fwd) > - Spelling game creator aims to revive Shuswap (fwd)(02/07) > *From:* phil cash cash > 2. Immersion unlocks language for Cree students (fwd) > - Immersion unlocks language for Cree students (fwd)(02/07) > *From:* phil cash cash > 3. Ph.D. program helps to preserve Hawaiian language (fwd) > - Ph.D. program helps to preserve Hawaiian language (fwd)(02/07) > *From:* phil cash cash > - Re: Ph.D. program helps to preserve Hawaiian language (fwd)(02/07) > *From:* annie ross > 4. conference happening... > - conference happening...(02/07) > *From:* phil cash cash > - Re: conference happening...(02/07) > *From:* MJ Hardman > 5. Revitalizing Northern Languages through Best Practices in > Documentation and Archiving (RNLDA) (fwd link) > - Revitalizing Northern Languages through Best Practices in > Documentation and Archiving (RNLDA) (fwd link)(02/07) > *From:* phil cash cash > 6. nili: FWD: Genographic Legacy Fund Offers Grants to Support > Indigenous Communities (fwd) > - nili: FWD: Genographic Legacy Fund Offers Grants to Support > Indigenous Communities (fwd)(02/07) > *From:* Scott DeLancey > > ------------------------------ > [image: Powered by LISTSERV(R)] Browse > the ILAT online archives. > > > -- George Ann Gregory, Ph.D. Choctaw/Cherokee Fulbright Scholar "Playing it safe causes a lot of harm in the long run." L Ron Hubbard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 14 17:20:13 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:20:13 -0700 Subject: Class helps keep the Sm’algyax language alive and well (fwd) Message-ID: Class helps keep the Sm?algyax language alive and well By Chantal Cornwall The Northern View Feb 14 2007 http://www.thenorthernview.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=142&cat=23&id=831798&more= On Tuesday nights at Roosevelt School, you?ll find adult students eagerly learning Sm?algyax, the language of the Tsimshian. The course is taught by elders such as Sampson Collinson, Majorie Brown and teacher Isabelle Hill who all speak the language fluently. This program has been offered to the community for several years, and all are warmly welcomed to attend. The students are focused on this night?s lesson as Sampson explains beautifully a traditional Ts?msyen story in Sm?algyax , a story that he recounts with incredible ease as it seems to just roll off his tongue. He is amazing to listen to and the students listen in respectful silence and appreciation. Isabelle Hill quickly jots some of the words on the chalkboard that Sampson wants the students to learn and remember for next class. Suunt ? summer, maay ? berry, hoon ? fish, are among many of the words. The students are then asked to repeat them several times, and when he is satisfied, Sampson goes onto the next one. Isabelle Hill also teaches the class with ease, under the watchful eye of Majorie Brown. Throughout the night, the students will also refer to their thick English and Sm?algyax dictionaries. Their reasons for taking the course vary, but for many of these students, dedicating a few hours on a Tuesday night to learn their language is very important. For some, like Glen Reece, who has attended Sm?algyax classes for the past five years, their grandparents or parents spoke the language, and they would like to participate in conversations. For others, learning Sm?algyax is an important step in the commitment to keeping their language as well as their culture alive. Elder Sampson Collison feels there is a danger of losing the language, as there are not many people left who speak it fluently. He also stated that they are trying very hard to bring their language back, and he stressed that knowing the language is an important part of knowing the history of the Ts?msyen. Attending the classes allows the students to learn how to write, to read, to pronounce and speak Sm?algyax. Sm?algyax has over 52 sounds and the letter A, for example, has about eight different sounds. Certain letters are not used like B, C, F, J, Q, R and V. Pronunciation is very important and requires a lot of skill and practice, otherwise words can be completely misinterpreted. Debbie Leighton-Stephens, District Principal with the First Nations Education Services in Prince Rupert and part of Wap?Sigatgyet (House of Building Strength), stated that students in grade five to grade 12 have been offered Sm?algyax for the last 10 years. Students in outlying villages have been offered Sm?algyax for about 25 years. Students at Roosevelt and Conrad kindergarten all-day programs have up to 45 minutes of Sm?algyax per day. First Nations Education Services works closely with School District 52 and provides resources that include learning guide and CD?s for the students. They develop successful curriculums as well as offer the popular role model program. School District 52 has a very diverse and multi-cultural student body, half of which are of First Nations ancestry. Leighton-Stephens feels that offering Sm?algyax to students offers many of them self-esteem, confidence and a feeling of knowing who they are. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 14 17:25:48 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:25:48 -0700 Subject: Mayan languages enjoy renaissance (fwd) Message-ID: Tue 13 Feb 2007 Mayan languages enjoy renaissance By Mica Rosenberg http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=236772007 POPABAJ, Guatemala (Reuters) - As Mel Gibson stirs interest in once-repressed Mayan languages with his bloody film 'Apocalypto', they are enjoying a real life renaissance in Guatemala's mountains and jungles. A bilingual education drive in the mostly Mayan country is reviving 21 languages pushed aside since the Spanish conquest, some of which were close to extinction. Students at a school in the mountain village of Popabaj two hours west of the capital simultaneously learn numbers and vocabulary in Spanish and the Kaqchikel Mayan language. "Learning both languages is important because Kaqchikel is beautiful and we don't want to forget it," said 14-year-old Yessenia Saquec. Her classmates presented an oral history project in Kaqchikel based on stories from their grandparents. The club-wielding, human-sacrificing stars of Gibson's movie speak entirely in Yucatec Mayan, still used today by hundreds of thousands of people in Mexico and Belize. It is only one of 30 Mayan languages descended from a single, 4,000-year-old ancestral tongue and spoken by about 5 million people in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras. Each of Guatemala's Mayan languages is being standardised with dictionaries and school grammar books. The Internet has made it easier to create and distribute them. "There has been a significant growth of young people speaking Mayan languages," said Maya lawyer Amilcar Pop. "This is a historic moment." Linguist Michael Richards said he found a significant increase in different areas of the country of young people 3 to 14 years old speaking Mayan languages. "There is an ethnic revitalisation going on," he said. "There is more ethnic pride in homes as well as in schools." REPRESSION After the Spanish first arrived in Guatemala in 1523, colonisers and the Catholic Church repressed the use of Mayan languages, painting the speakers as ignorant and resistant to modernity. Maya civilians bore the brunt of the violence in army massacres of entire villages during a 1960-96 civil war between leftist guerrillas and government forces that left nearly a quarter of a million people dead or missing. "Growing up we were afraid to speak our language in the street," said Mayan publisher Raxche Rodriguez. "It drew too much attention, so we only spoke it at home." Bilingual educators who began to teach students in the early 1980s were often singled out as guerrilla organisers and summarily executed for their work. Nobel Peace Prize winner and Maya human rights activist Rigoberta Menchu is running for president this year to try to become Latin America's second current indigenous head of state after President Evo Morales in Bolivia. Activists from her indigenous Winaq movement have pledged to campaign in their homelands in native languages to better reach voters. While Maya still suffer Guatemala's highest levels of poverty, hunger and illiteracy, activists say that promotion of their languages and culture has been easier since 1996 peace accords ended the civil war. Over 3,000 bilingual schools have been set up nationwide by the education ministry to give Mayan languages priority in the first three years of school. Teachers in the program receive a 10 percent bonus on their salaries. This article: http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=236772007 Last updated: 13-Feb-07 20:03 GMT From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 14 17:28:28 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:28:28 -0700 Subject: Youth want to boost language skills (fwd) Message-ID: Youth want to boost language skills Saturday, February 10, 2007 By Deborah Bulkeley Deseret Morning News http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,660194357,00.html When asked if they spoke their indigenous language, only about a third of the students attending an American Indian youth conference raised their hands. When asked if they wanted to learn to speak it, nearly everyone else raised their hands. Shirlee Silversmith, Indian education specialist in the State Office of Education, told youths at the Salt Palace Convention Center Friday they could make a difference by encouraging Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, to make funding for "indigenous heritage languages" a priority. "Many languages are becoming extinct," Silversmith said, urging students to support a proposal to add $275,000 each year in ongoing funding to the Office of Education budget to develop curriculum for each of Utah's five principal indigenous languages and dialects: Navajo (Dine), Ute (Nooahpahgut), Paiute (Numic), and Goshute and Shoshone (Shoshoni). The proposal didn't make it onto a final priority list legislators are looking at. "It was number 17 on the list. It didn't make the cut," said Toni Turk, federal programs director for the San Juan School District. "It's not too late to restore it." Stephenson, who chairs the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee, did not return phone calls seeking comment on whether or not the funding would likely be put back on the priority list before the Executive Appropriations Committee makes its final budget recommendations. The San Juan District offers Navajo language courses in its K-12 curriculum and has a media center that is producing curricula materials. If the earmarked funding is restored, it would fund such efforts statewide. "This is having an impact on students academically," Turk said, pointing to an analysis that showed for English proficient Navajo students, learning the Navajo language narrowed achievement gaps with non-Indian peers. In language arts, the achievement difference between white and Navajo students narrowed from 22 percent to 15 percent; in math it went from 35 percent to 23 percent; and in science from 45 percent to 10 percent. E-mail: dbulkeley at desnews.com From anguksuar at YAHOO.COM Thu Feb 15 17:31:19 2007 From: anguksuar at YAHOO.COM (Richard LaFortune) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 09:31:19 -0800 Subject: PV language conference In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Well, I am here on the west coast of MX this past week, and I was happy to open a local spanish language Puerto Vallarta newspaper and notice an announcement for a free seminar on native languages of Mexico. Unfortunately, I will miss the conference by one day, but I will try to stop by the University and see if they have any information. peace Anguksuar /Richard LaFortune ____________________________________________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta. http://new.mail.yahoo.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 16 17:42:39 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:42:39 -0700 Subject: ILAT Update Message-ID: ta'c halaXp (good day!), Welcome to all the recent ILAT subscribers! We are now at 225 subscribers worldwide. A big thanks to those who assist with news, announcements, etc.. Just a bit of house keeping...please keep your email accounts open and well managed (whether it be for storage or spam blockage) as I get a good number of daily listserv errors on people's email accounts. Also, please feel free to open a discussion on any aspect of language revitalization and technology. Recall that this is an unmoderated listserv. ;-) (It really is!) Phil Cash Cash (Cayuse/Nez Perce) Phd Candidate in the Joint Program in Anthro & Linguistics University of Arizona ILAT mg ~~~ Indigenous Languages and Technology discussion list is an open forum for community language specialists, linguists, scholars, and students to discuss issues relating to the uses of technology in language revitalization efforts. * Country Subscribers * ------- ----------- * Australia 6 * Bolivia 1 * Canada 4 * Great Britain 3 * Italy 1 * Mexico 1 * New Zealand 2 * USA 199 Total Subscribers: 225 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 16 17:47:25 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:47:25 -0700 Subject: Linguistics expert to speak on language extinction, conservation (fwd) Message-ID: 16-Feb-2007 http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/uoaf-let021507.php Linguistics expert to speak on language extinction, conservation Annual gathering to highlight International Polar Year Fairbanks, Alaska?Humans speak more than 6,000 languages. Nearly all of them could be extinct in the next two centuries. So what? University of Alaska Fairbanks professor emeritus Michael Krauss will attempt to answer that question during his presentation this week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting, which begins today in San Francisco. "I claim that it is catastrophic for the future of mankind," Krauss said. "It should be as scary as losing 90 percent of the biological species." The reasons are multiple, he said. From an ethical standpoint, all languages are of equal value, he said. But the value of a language goes far beyond academic discourse, Krauss said. Languages contain the intellectual wisdom of populations of people. They contain their observations of and adaptations to the world around them. Humanity became human in a complex system of languages that interacted with each other. "That is somehow interdependent such that we lose sections of it at the same peril that we lose sections of the biosphere," Krauss said. "Every time we lose (a language), we lose that much also of our adaptability and our diversity that gives us our strength and our ability to survive." Krauss is one of four researchers scheduled to speak during a session on the dynamics of extinction Friday, Feb. 16, 2007 from 8:30 ? 11:30 a.m. at the AAAS meeting at the Hilton San Francisco. The cross-disciplinary session focuses broadly on the phenomenon of extinction, including factors that cause endangerment and extinction and interventions that can delay or end the extinction process. ### Krauss has been affiliated with UAF for more than four decades. He is founder of UAF's Alaska Native Language Center and recently received the Ken Hale prize for lifetime achievement from the Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Feb 16 17:56:12 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:56:12 -0700 Subject: Technology and UAF are letting indigenous people from across the map share their languages and cultures (fwd) Message-ID: Technology and UAF are letting indigenous people from across the map share their languages and cultures By Robinson Duffy Staff Writer Published February 16, 2007 http://newsminer.com/2007/02/16/5262/ It?s 7,500 miles from Fairbanks to Brazil, but for some indigenous dancers in both countries Thursday afternoon, the miles melted away. Thanks to cameras, computers, digital projectors, microphones and a stunningly high-speed network connection, a Native Alaskan dance group at the University of Alaska Fairbanks was able to communicate, collaborate and perform live with dance groups in Florida, Mexico, Ecuador and Brazil. ?This really opens up the door for us to speak, to look at, to develop relationships with people from all over the world,? said Scott Deal, an associate professor in the music department at UAF and one of the coordinators of the event. ?Here in Alaska, distance is a formidable obstacle. This gives us the opportunity to communicate with people all over the world. It?s sort of like giving wings to our university.? Members of the Inu-Yupiaq Dancers at UAF performed in the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center?s Discovery Lab. The high-tech facility was wired with cameras and microphones and hummed with computers, but the dancers and drummers drowned all that out as they performed a Yup?ik purification song. Their performance was broadcast live over the network connection and streamed into the other facilities across the hemisphere. Three large screens in the lab showed live video broadcasts of the other dancers. Everyone participating in the event could see everyone else and could talk back and forth. Each group took turns performing a song from their respective cultures. In Brazil, young men danced in grass skirts while wearing elaborate headdresses with decorative beads strung over their bare shoulders. In Mexico, two men in colorful clothing played simple string instruments. In Ecuador, a number of young people danced to a lively song played by a motley band. The clothing and musical styles were all different, yet those participating said they felt a unique connection. ?When I listen to other people?s music there?s that same beat, that same heartbeat that I hear,? Walkie Charles, a Yup?ik professor who performed with the Fairbanks singers, said. ?We beat the same drums.? Getting to interact with people on the other side of the world was a treat, Joel Forbes, one of the Inu-Yupiaq dancers, said. It was amazing, he said, to get to share his art and his culture with people so far away. ?I?ve never seen anybody from Ecuador before,? Forbes, 19, said. ?It?s just a nice feeling to know that someone who has never seen anything like this (Alaska Native dancing) before is getting to see it and enjoy it.? The advances in technology that make experiences like this possible are a boon to the people living in the rural areas of Alaska, Forbes said. ?In the village where I come from, Togiak, some people, they don?t know there?s a whole world out there and this is opening doors to places we may never get to see firsthand,? he said. After each of the groups performed, the dancers, with the help of interpreters, were able to ask each other questions about their respective cultures and the different indigenous instruments they were playing. They even shared a few jokes. Then all of the groups, using a special digital metronome to keep them in sync, sang a song together, ?Children of a Common Mother.? Each group had adapted the song to fit their culture?s style of music and translated it into their own language. In a cacophony of cultures, voices, languages and instruments, the song rang out from across the world. Contact staff writer Robinson Duffy at 459-7523 or rduffy at newsminer.com. From delancey at UOREGON.EDU Sat Feb 17 21:03:46 2007 From: delancey at UOREGON.EDU (Scott DeLancey) Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2007 13:03:46 -0800 Subject: U.S. Language Revitalization Grants (fwd) Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2007 13:33:56 -0700 From: Jon Reyhner To: INDIGENOUS-L at LISTS.NAU.EDU Sponsor: Administration for Native Americans/ACF/DHHS Program Number: 12676 Title: Native American Languages Preservation and Maintenance E-mail: tichappelle at acf.hhs.gov Program URL: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/grants/open/HHS-2007-ACF-ANA-NL-0016.html SYNOPSIS: The sponsor provides funding to assist applicants in designing projects which will promote the survival and continuing vitality of Native American languages. Deadline(s): 03/19/2007 Link to full program description: http://www.infoed.org/new_spin/spin_prog.asp?12676 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 19 20:59:26 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 13:59:26 -0700 Subject: Human knowledge eroded as endangered languages die (fwd) Message-ID: Human knowledge eroded as endangered languages die David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor Sunday, February 18, 2007 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/02/18/MNGABO729L1.DTL A tiny community of reindeer herders in Siberia holds intimate knowledge of the lives, the foraging and the rutting season of their priceless animals, and it's the kind of information that is vital to anyone concerned by the loss of human cultures -- and to biologists worried about the loss of species diversity anywhere in the world. Of the 426 members of Siberia's isolated Chulym people, only 35 still speak Tuvan, their ancient language, fluently, and they're all older than 50. Everyone else speaks only Russian, according to K. David Harrison, an adventuresome linguist at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. Harrison has lived with the Chulym and hopes to preserve their vanishing language. The Chulym can fully describe a "2-year-old male castrated rideable reindeer" with only the single word chary, and to Harrison, that not only shows how ancient languages differ from their modern counterparts, but is symbolic of a worldwide loss in important cultural diversity. Harrison was among those who addressed the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco. Of the estimated 7,600 languages known in the world today, half are endangered and could be lost forever within a few decades, he said. "Many will go extinct," he said, "and there's a compelling social reason to preserve them, for their disappearance is an erosion of human knowledge." The Chulym, for example, have a valuable special knowledge of medicinal plants, of meteorology, hunting and gathering, Harrison said, and that knowledge, which they can describe in their own cryptic language, will be lost to biologists if it isn't reclaimed, he said. "The extinction of ideas we now face has no parallel in human history," Harrison says in the book "When Languages Die," recently published by Oxford University Press, "and most of the world's languages remain undescribed by scientists. So we do not even know what it is we stand to lose." Like the language of the Chulym, many native tongues exist only in the spoken form and have never been transcribed. Yet rendering them in written words is vital for their preservation and -- hopefully -- reintroduction in schools by willing communities, he said. During the same discussion Saturday, Daryl Baldwin of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, offered a more personal view of the issue. Baldwin is a member of the Myaamia American Indian tribe that has lived in Oklahoma since its ancestors were forced between 1840 and 1896 to move from what were widespread tribal lands in Indiana and Ohio to Kansas and ultimately to the Oklahoma Territory. Just 3,000 Myaamia live there now, and only 50 tribal members can still use the language at various levels, he said. His tribe, Baldwin said, is "economically viable today because of gaming," but he is deeply concerned by the loss of the tribe's language, culture and specialized knowledge. So at Miami University -- named for the Oklahoma tribe -- he is director of the Myaamia Project, an effort to study and reclaim the language, transcribe it for preservation, and learn from the tribe's elders all that is known about their traditional methods of cultivating and using plants and other natural resources. "Aya ceeki," he said at the AAAS meeting, "myaaamiaataweenki" -- meaning, "Hello to all, this is the way the Miaami speak." In an interview, he explained that as his tribal language is transcribed, a double vowel lengthens a syllable's pronunciation and also its meaning. Thus, he said, "meenaani means 'I drink,' while meenani means 'you drink.' " And although his tribe has so few native speakers, the language was transcribed in the late 1600s by French Jesuits, so at least that remains, Baldwin said in his address, stressing the vital connection between his people's spoken language and its identity. "For some of us," he said, "our language reconnects us to a human experience shared with previous generations. As a small tribal community that has been negatively affected by 150 years of oppression and cultural genocide, the language helps us heal from that traumatic past by re-establishing continuity and mending a crucial disruption in our lives." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 19 21:00:21 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:00:21 -0700 Subject: Shoshone tribe also looks to preserve language (fwd) Message-ID: Shoshone tribe also looks to preserve language By DAVID MIRHADI Star-Tribune staff writer Sunday, February 18, 2007 http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2007/02/18/news/wyoming/1f585c055a41b6888725728500268294.txt FORT WASHAKIE -- Wilfred Ferris is proud of his heritage as a member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe. He was born in Lander and is old enough, he says, to remember a time when the language of his elders was spoken far more frequently than it is by those of his generation. "There was a time when you always heard our own language spoken in the community," he said. There was also a time, older members of the Eastern Shoshone said, when their language, culture and heritage were all but banned from the classrooms they learned in, to the point that the language their parents were born with nearly vanished. "It saddened me," said Pansy St. Clair, a member of the Eastern Shoshone who was educated in those classrooms. "I didn't ask questions because I was always afraid to ask." She spoke the language at home, St. Clair said, but never at her mission school on the Wind River Indian Reservation. "It kind of mixes you up," she said. Like the Northern Arapaho are attempting to do with the help of a five-year federal grant, members of the Eastern Shoshone are looking for ways to expand the language to children as young as three years old, in hopes that the little ones will grow up with the language and culture their elders might have forgotten. The Eastern Shoshone Certification Committee is just beginning to recruit Eastern Shoshone language instructors who would teach children in preschool programs their native language and culture, and expand it later to elementary-aged children and their parents. They're also looking to access money from a federal law passed in December that preserves languages once frequently spoken by Indians to pay for some of the instruction. Though the idea is still in its infancy, Ferris said reinvigorating the Eastern Shoshone language is critical. "If you have kids who have kids who don't know the language, it's lost," he said. Ferris and the committee are exploring all avenues at this point, he said, including asking Wyoming's congressional delegation and the Eastern Shoshone Business Council for assistance. One of the avenues for the program could be the Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act of 2006, which, according to the text of the law, provides three-year grants for the preservation of American Indian languages and cultures. Ferris said he'd like students in the program to take classes for five years, from as early as preschool up to the fifth grade. The committee is looking to issue a survey of Eastern Shoshone tribal members to recruit instructors, as well as gauge how well the language is spoken on the reservation to see if such an undertaking is feasible. Much like the program at Arapahoe School, the goal is to track how students' test scores improve once they've been in the immersion school for five years. "If they learn the language, they'll be better students overall," Ferris said. Native language instruction is given on a limited basis at Fort Washakie and Wyoming Indian schools, as well as Arapahoe and St. Stephens. The proposed immersion school would enroll students five days a week, four hours a day. The program would be free, Ferris said. That meets the requirements of the Esther Martinez Act, which requires that any such program operate at least one program in the community it serves, while teaching instructors in their native language. The program, Ferris said, is vital to keeping the culture and heritage of the Eastern Shoshone alive. "It's being threatened now, and it's close to extinction," said Ferris, who is learning the language himself, returning to the reservation after being gone for several years. "What I notice is, this is a language and a culture that takes a whole lifetime to learn." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 19 21:04:15 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:04:15 -0700 Subject: Giving Hawaiian meaning saves language (fwd) Message-ID: Giving Hawaiian meaning saves language With many tongues dying, UH linguists point to success here By Jim Borg jborg at starbulletin.com http://starbulletin.com/2007/02/19/news/story05.html SAN FRANCISCO ? As thousands of indigenous languages approach extinction, two linguists from the University of Hawaii at Hilo shared success stories yesterday in keeping the Hawaiian language alive and relevant. The keys, they said, are to expose children to the language at home and in schools and to create terms for new technology that are concept-driven rather than simple phonetic mimicry of the English. "In language revitalization, everybody wants to be distinct, so there are less phonetic things," said UH-Hilo professor William Wilson. "We have that big issue for scientific terms -- are we going to make Hawaiian terms for everything or just have a Hawaiian pronunciation? But for things like the Internet, we have our own Hawaiian root terms." The Hawaiian term for the World Wide Web, Punaewele puni honua, means literally "network around the world." Similarly, the word for photosynthesis, ka'ama'ai, means "acting through light to produce food." Wilson and his wife and UH-Hilo colleague, Kauanoe Kamana, said much of the credit for re-establishing the language among young families goes to the Punana Leo Hawaiian-language immersion programs for schoolchildren. "We believe that the only way for our language to come back as a living language today is to use it all the time every day, everywhere, with everyone," said Kamana. "The answer is with children. It needs to be generational." Wilson and Kamana made their remarks as part of a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Also weighing in on the topic, "Language Revitalization for Societal Well-Being," were experts in the Miami Indian language once prevalent in Illinois, Indiana and western Ohio; and in Karuk, one of the 100 indigenous languages of California. The panel was moderated by Blair Rudes, a University of North Carolina linguist who as a consultant wrote the Algonquin dialogue for the movie "The New World," starring Colin Farrell as Capt. John Smith and Q'Orianka Kilcher as Pocahontas. This he accomplished from a list of 600 known words of a language that had not been spoken since 1783. Hawaiian and other indigenous languages have the advantage of a more extensive written record, but many simply fell from use as English became the new lingua franca. Of the world's 7,000 languages, most are endangered, Rudes and others estimate. "Over half of the languages have so few speakers that they are in danger of extinction," Rudes said. Daryl Baldwin, a linguist at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, said the far-flung descendants of the Miami nation have found some success with a master-apprentice program that assigns one student to a trained mentor. "For many of us, our language provides us with the lens for our accumulated and ongoing human experiences," Baldwin said. The responsibility for coining new phrases falls to a committee of experts for both the Miami language and for Hawaiian, although both processes are largely informal. "We have a committee, but we also have people that propose words to them and they approve it or develop it," said Wilson. "Because we now have people who have expertise in different areas, like telecommunications, they try to make the word and bring it to the committee. And sometimes (the word) spreads before the committee approves it. Sometimes we have competing words because of that." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 19 21:05:40 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:05:40 -0700 Subject: Native voices going extinct (fwd) Message-ID: Native voices going extinct A few tongues survive in Canada February 18, 2007 Peter Calamai Science Writer http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/183040 SAN FRANCISCO?Every time a language dies, experts warned here yesterday, the world loses irreplaceable scientific knowledge as well as cultural richness. The potential toll is immense, with an estimated half of humanity's current 7,000 languages struggling to survive, often spoken by just an elderly few. A 1996 UN report classed aboriginal languages in Canada as among the most endangered in the world and Statistics Canada concluded that only three out of 50 ? Cree, Ojibway and Inuktitut ? had large enough populations to be considered secure from extinction in the long run. "The accumulated knowledge is fragile because most of the world's languages have no writing," said linguist David Harrison, director of research with the Living Tongues Institute. Harrison said that Western biologists are only now beginning to unravel the diversity of plants and species that local inhabitants have long understood and catalogued in their rich vocabulary. For example, recent research discovered that a butterfly in Costa Rica wasn't one species but 10. Yet the local Tzeltal people had already called the caterpillars by different names, because they attacked different crops. "The knowledge that science thinks it is discovering about plants, animals and weather cycles has often been around for a long time," said Harrison, a professor at Pennsylvania's Swarthmore College. "It is out there, it is fragile and it is rapidly eroding," he said. Yet recent success in reviving several aboriginal tongues is rousing hope that the tide of language extinction is not inevitable, delegates at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science heard. Some examples: # The language of Miami-Illinois Indians, long classed as extinct, is now spoken daily by at least 50 people after a major "reclamation" effort. # Languages on the brink of extinction are being recorded for future revival ? such as that of the Chulym, a tribe of hunters and fishers in Siberia. # A master-apprentice program is rejuvenating some of the 50 threatened aboriginal languages in California. # More than 2,000 schoolchildren are now fluent speakers of Hawaiian, a language banned from schools in Hawaii for almost a century. "The reason that a lot of indigenous languages went extinct was that they could not be used in school," said William Wilson, a professor of Hawaiian Language and Studies at Hilo, Hawaii. Despite a policy of official bilingualism, the native Hawaiian language was in its death throes, but that changed dramatically after the state legislature in 1987 scrapped a 90-year-ban on using Hawaiian in the schools. Now, students are taught in their native language from pre-school to college. Yet Hawaiian-speaking students also study Japanese in the first six grades, Latin in Grades 7 and 8, and English throughout. "We feel children can learn many languages if they have a solid base in English and Hawaiian," the language professor said. Wilson said in an interview that the architects of language recovery in Hawaii worked closely with aboriginal groups in Canada, including the Squamish in Vancouver and the Six Nations at Brantford. The Hawaiian group also produced a multilingual book in co-operation with the Inuit. The preservation of aboriginal languages in Canada was dealt a major blow last year when the Harper government scrapped a 10-year, $173 million language revitalization program. Yet Miami tribe member Daryl Baldwin told a news conference that even a supposedly extinct aboriginal language can be brought back to life. That's what happened with the Miami language previously spoken over a wide region of the lower Great Lakes. At Miami University in Ohio, Baldwin and colleagues pored over written records to help interested tribe members again speak the language. And the language is kept up to date, he said. In Miami, the word for a computer translates as "the thing that thinks fast." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 19 21:09:58 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:09:58 -0700 Subject: Endangered languages encode plant and animal knowledge (fwd) Message-ID: Endangered languages encode plant and animal knowledge * 17:32 19 February 2007 * NewScientist.com news service * Gaia Vince, San Francisco http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn11215-endangered-languages-encode-plant-and-animal-knowledge-.html Saving indigenous languages from extinction is the only way to preserve traditional knowledge about plants and animals that have yet to be discovered by Western scientists, says a linguist and cultural expert. More than half of the word's 7000 languages are endangered, because they consist of an unsustainably small ? and declining ? speaker base. Each language death represents a significant erosion of human knowledge about local plant and animal life that was acquired over many centuries, says David Harrison at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, US. Information about local ecosystems is so intricately woven into these languages that it cannot be replaced simply through translation, he explains. The indigenous taxonomy alone can provide a huge range of information about species, which young speakers in these tribes acquire instantly through learning the name. For example, the Siberian Todzhu tribe has many different and complex names for reindeer, according to the animals' life stages. What is called a "chary" by the Todzu, would be translated in English as "a two-year-old male, un-castrated, rideable reindeer". Trout or salmon? Other indigenous taxonomy includes important detail about the genetic relationships between species of agricultural value, animal behaviour and other ethnobotanic or zoologic knowledge. Scientists wishing to learn more about species in remote places should liaise with the people who have lived alongside them for centuries, Harrison says. The information contained in the words used to describe and group them might take many years to determine in the lab, he adds. For example, two types of trout-like fish, called steelhead trout and cutthroat trout in English, are labelled as being types of salmon in the language of the Halkomelem Musqueam tribe of British Columbia in Canada. Genetic analysis has shown that they are in fact of the salmon genus, and not trout at all. Cryptic species Only around 20% of the world's plant and animal life has been officially classified, according to Edward O Wilson, at Harvard University in Massachusetts, US. But much of the remaining 80% is known, he believes - just not to scientists in the West. Some of these "unknown" species include so-called cryptic species, in which one species turns out to be many more. An example of this is the neotropical skipper butterfly, Astraptes fulgerator, which despite looking identical, turned out to be 10 distinct species after DNA analysis (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 101, p 14812). The language of the local Costa Rican tribe where the butterfly is found, has a different name for the larvae of each of the 10 species, Harrison points out. David Harrison spoke at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Francisco, California, on Saturday. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 19 21:12:03 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:12:03 -0700 Subject: Swarthmore College Linguist Calls Attention to Dying Languages (fwd) Message-ID: Mon Feb 19 07:21:42 2007 Pacific Time http://newswire.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20070219.060013&time=07%2021%20PST&year=2007&public=0 Swarthmore College Linguist Calls Attention to Dying Languages SWARTHMORE, Pa., Feb. 19 (AScribe Newswire) -- Speakers of thousands of the world's languages are now abandoning their ancestral tongues at an unprecedented rate. What is lost when a language dies? And what are the implications? "Languages are the repository of thousands of years of a people's science and art - from observations of ecological patterns to creation myths," says Swarthmore College linguist K. David Harrison, who spoke this weekend at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting held this month in San Francisco. "The disappearance of a language is not only a loss for the community of speakers itself, but for our common human knowledge of mathematics, biology, geography, philosophy, agriculture, and linguistics." In "When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge" (Oxford University Press 2007), Harrison argues that complex systems of knowledge are embedded in indigenous languages. He also examines why people stop using them and urges that they be documented before they are gone. In his book, Harrison examines the human knowledge that is slowly being lost as the languages that express it - in Siberia, North America, the Himalayas and elsewhere - fade from sight. He uses anecdotes and portraits of some of these languages' last remaining speakers to demonstrate that this knowledge not only represents the cultural heritage found in oral histories and poetry, but useful knowledge about plants, animals, the seasons, and other aspects of the natural world. Harrison is a specialist in Tuvan and other Siberian languages and has conducted field research (http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/Linguistics/aslep/) on endangered languages of South Siberia and Western Mongolia since 1996. During field expeditions, he lives and travels with nomadic people, accompanying them on their seasonal migrations as they herd camels, horses, yaks, and sheep. He has also worked with one of the last speakers of the Karaj language in Lithuania and documented language and ethnography in Eastern India and the Philippine highland rice terraces. Located near Philadelphia, Swarthmore is a highly selective liberal arts college whose mission combines academic rigor with social responsibility. Swarthmore, with an enrollment of 1,450, is consistently ranked among the top liberal arts colleges in the country. On the Web at www.swarthmore.edu/news/. From fmarmole at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Feb 19 23:55:34 2007 From: fmarmole at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Francisco Marmolejo) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:55:34 -0700 Subject: Scholarship oppotunities for university students from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico Message-ID: Dear colleagues: Please forward to students interested in applying for a scholarship to attend an international conference in Quebec, Canada. DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF APPLICATIONS: Friday February 23, 2007 Regards, Francisco Francisco Marmolejo Executive Director Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration (CONAHEC) University of Arizona PO Box 210300 220 W. Sixth Street. Tucson, AZ 85721-0300 USA Tel. (520) 621-9080 / 621-7761 Fax (520) 626-2675 Email: fmarmole at email.arizona.edu http://conahec.org Don't forget to make plans to attend our upcoming CONAHEC Conference (April 25-27, 2007 in Quebec, Canada). More information at http://conahec.org ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + ESSAY COMPETITION AND CONFERENCE: STUDENT ORGANIZATION OF NORTH AMERICA The Student Organization of North America (SONA) is organizing its annual Conference 2007 and it will take place in Quebec City in April 2007 (see: http://www.conahec.org/conahec/sona (click on Quebec Conference picture) If you have not registered yet, here's the perfect chance for you to do so. By entering an essay competition and sharing your thinking, you could win a scholarship and participate with us in Canada! SONA offered scholarships to students for last year's Conference, which allowed them to save some money and be able to attend the Conference. Well, this year with the support of the Canadian Government (Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada), and other entities, SONA will provide 60 scholarships to students throughout the North American region! YOU could be the winner of one of these scholarships that will help you cover your registration fee and lodging expenses. So basically, you will only have to worry about getting to Quebec (meaning that you will have to take care of your travel expenses). For more information on the scholarship competition and the actual essay submission, please click on the following link: http://www.conahec.org/conahec/sona/EN_student_organization/conferences/Queb ec2007/FinancialAid.htm ** Direct link to essay submission: http://websurveyor.net/wsb.dll/14671/SONA2007ConferenceScholarshipCompetitio n.htm Submission deadline: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23rd, 2007. Good luck! Marianna Velazquez Tel. (520) 626-01-20 Email: nasf at u.arizona.edu http://www.conahec.org/conahec/sona/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Feb 20 18:09:44 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 11:09:44 -0700 Subject: Study shows use of Chamorro language declining (fwd) Message-ID: Study shows use of Chamorro language declining by Clynt Ridgell, KUAM News Tuesday, February 20, 2007 http://www.kuam.com/news/20968.aspx The study on the use of the Chamorro language was released this morning at the Governor's Complex at Adelup. Conducted by the Department of Chamorro Affairs, the results show older Chamorros are better at speaking and understanding Guam's native language while our younger generation is better at reading and writing in Chamoru. This was attributed to the fact that many younger Chamorro's are only exposed to the language in the classroom where they are taught formal Chamorro, and not the language for use in conversational situations. The study also revealed that certain villages were more proficient in the language than others, said Dr. Annette Santos. "So we see areas like Ordot and Inarajan having greater proficiency than areas like Hagatna and Maite, which were consistently lower in their proficiency," she explained. Although the study showed that the language is continuing in a diminishing returns fashion, there is some hope as a majority of the people surveyed expressed a fondness of the Chamorro language and a longing to learn it. Copyright ? 2000-2007 by Pacific Telestations, Inc. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Feb 21 21:58:33 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:58:33 -0700 Subject: No subject Message-ID: Wednesday, February?21, 2007 WORDS A BRIDGE TO PAST, HEREAFTER Descendants Of The Joseph Band Are Laboring To Preserve The Nez Perce Language Agnes Davis, 82, is the daughter of the last recognized chief of the Joseph Band of the Nez Perce tribe. She and a few others from her tribe are spending countless hours working to preserve a dialect of Nez Perce. (Colin Mulvany The Spokesman-Review ) VIDEO JOURNAL A look at the history of the Nez Perce people and their language.[1] RELATED STORY War scattered the Nez Perce[2] Kevin Graman [3] Staff writer February 18, 2007 NESPELEM, Wash. ? When Chief Joseph said he would "fight no more forever" at the Battle of Bear Paw, he gave up his rifle, but not his way of life or his claim to his ancestral land. Today, nearly 130 years after the last great battle of the Nez Perce War, descendants of Joseph's band continue his struggle to preserve the old ways even as they live in perpetual exile on the Colville Indian Reservation, 200 miles from the land they call home. In Nespelem, in a cluttered reservation office, a group of Nez Perce gather three days a week to preserve the language that they believe ties them to Mother Earth and will one day grant them entry into the hereafter. "When you die, (the Creator) is going to speak to you in Nez Perce," said Agnes Davis, 82, the daughter of the last recognized chief of the Joseph Band. "He knows your history and all of your sins, and you have to have an Indian name." Davis and her relative, Frank Andrews, 83, are among a handful of native Nez Perce speakers, all in their 80s or 90s, who are descendants of the Joseph Band, said their nephew, Albert Andrews Redstar. There are other native speakers of Nez Perce, particularly on the Nez Perce Reservation in central Idaho and on the Umatilla Reservation in eastern Oregon. But Davis and Andrews think and speak a dialect of the language as it evolved in Oregon's Wallowa Valley, a place for which the elders of the Joseph Band still yearn."We carry that grief still today," Redstar said. "Our ties are to the land and the people interred in the land." Davis' father, Willie "Red Star" Andrews, was raised by Joseph and his two wives in Nespelem after his own mother died at Fort Spokane, where the Joseph Band wintered in 1885. As a little girl, Davis sat by the side of the woman she called "grandma," one of Joseph's wives who was then old and blind. "I would sit by her bed and she would cry for Wallowa," Davis recalled. "I was 8 or 9 and I didn't understand. (Nespelem) was my home. "Now I understand their loss," Davis said. "I went down there and stood at the end of the lake (Wallowa Lake), and I thought about my grandma and then I knew this is what she was crying for." Today, it is estimated that more than 400 descendants of the Joseph Band live on the Colville Reservation. Many of them, including Davis and Redstar, keep the traditional ways alive in the Walahsat Longhouse, a mile north of Nespelem, on land donated by Redstar's mother. In April, the Nez Perce celebrate the First Roots feast at the longhouse as part of the Walahsat religion, sometimes called the Washat, Longhouse or Seven Drum religion. The longhouse is divided into two large rooms. One has tables and chairs and is used for informal occasions. The other room is used for ceremonies, including funerals. A large rectangular dirt floor, called the ha`wtnin' we`yes, or sacred floor, is cut into the center of the ceremonial room to maintain the Wallowa people's ties to Mother Earth. "Our language reaches into the earth and becomes part of it and ties you to the ground," said Redstar, who often leads longhouse adherents in song and prayer in Nez Perce. "The words tie you back to Mother Earth. It is the language into which we were born." Redstar spoke Nez Perce as his first language until he began attending school at age 6. Now he is trying to "piece the language back together," with the help of his aunt and uncle. Andrews, who is Christian, began working in language preservation more than 15 years ago. Davis didn't join him at the cultures and language program until later because, she said, Nez Perce has always been a spoken, not a written, language. "My people never did write and they never used a computer, so I was reluctant to come here," Davis said. She still declines to be recorded or videotaped speaking Nez Perce. But during a visit to Spalding, Idaho, she was asked the Nez Perce words for things she didn't know, and she became concerned she was losing her language. Today, she and Andrews spend hours putting Nez Perce names to things. They consult a 4-inch-thick "Nez Perce Dictionary," the monumental work of the Japanese linguist Haruo Aoki, professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley. Aoki's dictionary, using the International Phonetic Alphabet to symbolize sounds not used in English, was published in 1994. It is based largely on research beginning in the 1960s. Because Aoki relied largely on research done on the Nez Perce Reservation, Davis and Andrews have found dialectical differences between the dictionary and the language as they speak it. They believe Christianity on the Nez Perce Reservation has influenced some of the terminology as recorded in the Aoki dictionary. With the author's permission, Davis and Andrews pore over the dictionary, as well as other documents, and note differences between it and the dictionary in their heads. Davis cited the example of the Lapwai Nez Perce term "Holy Father," "ha`wtnin'pist," her word for father as in a family. The language as spoken by the Joseph Band would never refer to the Creator, or Han'yawa`t, as "father." In Nez Perce, the meanings of words are altered by the use of a suffix or prefix. For example, "ha`ma" is man, while "haha`ma" is more than one man. By adding suffix upon suffix, one word in Nez Perce can reflect a phrase or an entire sentence in English. "Our language describes what a thing is used for rather than what it is," Redstar explained. The word for "chair" is "wexsiliq'ec'etes," literally a place for sitting. As a result of their work, Davis and Andrews hope to produce a dictionary of their own. Aoki remains in contact with the elders and despite advancing years, he occasionally visits the Colville Reservation, where he is held in high regard. Nez Perce is a Sahaptin language similar to the dialects spoken by Yakima, Cayuse, Walla Walla, Palouse and Umatilla tribes. The Cultures and Language Program of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation is working to preserve two other native languages, Okanogan and Moses Columbia, which are Salish. Redstar and his son, Jim, volunteer at the language program, where Davis' grandson, Milton "Jewie" Davis Jr., 35, a language instructor aide, teaches Nez Perce to local students. "Our backs are against the wall," Redstar said, because there are so few native speakers among the Wallowa people, and so few are willing to make the sacrifice to learn. "It's the heart of our people," he said. "You can understand a shade of us through English, but to really get to know us, you must understand our language." Links: ------ [1] http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/video/archive.asp?postID=227 [2] http://www.spokesmanreview.com/local/story.asp?ID=175026 [3] http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news/bylines.asp?bylinename=Kevin%20Graman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 64641 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET Wed Feb 21 22:30:10 2007 From: pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET (pasxapu@dakotacom.net) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 15:30:10 -0700 Subject: No subject Message-ID: Sorry for the hasty post. Here is the URL: http://www.spokesmanreview.com/local/story.asp?ID=175046&page=all Phil >------- Original Message ------- >>From : phil cash cash[mailto:cashcash at email.arizona.edu] >Sent : 2/21/2007 2:58:33 PM >To : ILAT at listserv.arizona.edu >Cc : >Subject : RE: [ILAT] > >Wednesday, February 21, 2007 WORDS A BRIDGE TO PAST, HEREAFTER Descendants Of The Joseph Band Are Laboring To Preserve The Nez Perce Language Agnes Davis, 82, is the daughter of the last recognized chief of the Joseph Band of the Nez Perce tribe. She and a few others from her tribe are spending countless hours working to preserve a dialect of Nez Perce. (Colin Mulvany The Spokesman-Review ) VIDEO JOURNAL A look at the history of the Nez Perce people and their language.[1] RELATED STORY War scattered the Nez Perce[2] Kevin Graman [3] Staff writer February 18, 2007 NESPELEM, Wash. ? When Chief Joseph said he would "fight no more forever" at the Battle of Bear Paw, he gave up his rifle, but not his way of life or his claim to his ancestral land. Today, nearly 130 years after the last great battle of the Nez Perce War, descendants of Joseph's band continue his struggle to preserve the old ways even as they live in perpetual exile on the Colville Indian Reservation, 200 miles from the land they call home. In Nespelem, in a cluttered reservation office, a group of Nez Perce gather three days a week to preserve the language that they believe ties them to Mother Earth and will one day grant them entry into the hereafter. "When you die, (the Creator) is going to speak to you in Nez Perce," said Agnes Davis, 82, the daughter of the last recognized chief of the Joseph Band. "He knows your history and all of your sins, and you have to have an Indian name." Davis and her relative, Frank Andrews, 83, are among a handful of native Nez Perce speakers, all in their 80s or 90s, who are descendants of the Joseph Band, said their nephew, Albert Andrews Redstar. There are other native speakers of Nez Perce, particularly on the Nez Perce Reservation in central Idaho and on the Umatilla Reservation in eastern Oregon. But Davis and Andrews think and speak a dialect of the language as it evolved in Oregon's Wallowa Valley, a place for which the elders of the Joseph Band still yearn."We carry that grief still today," Redstar said. "Our ties are to the land and the people interred in the land." Davis' father, Willie "Red Star" Andrews, was raised by Joseph and his two wives in Nespelem after his own mother died at Fort Spokane, where the Joseph Band wintered in 1885. As a little girl, Davis sat by the side of the woman she called "grandma," one of Joseph's wives who was then old and blind. "I would sit by her bed and she would cry for Wallowa," Davis recalled. "I was 8 or 9 and I didn't understand. (Nespelem) was my home. "Now I understand their loss," Davis said. "I went down there and stood at the end of the lake (Wallowa Lake), and I thought about my grandma and then I knew this is what she was crying for." Today, it is estimated that more than 400 descendants of the Joseph Band live on the Colville Reservation. Many of them, including Davis and Redstar, keep the traditional ways alive in the Walahsat Longhouse, a mile north of Nespelem, on land donated by Redstar's mother. In April, the Nez Perce celebrate the First Roots feast at the longhouse as part of the Walahsat religion, sometimes called the Washat, Longhouse or Seven Drum religion. The longhouse is divided into two large rooms. One has tables and chairs and is used for informal occasions. The other room is used for ceremonies, including funerals. A large rectangular dirt floor, called the ha`wtnin' we`yes, or sacred floor, is cut into the center of the ceremonial room to maintain the Wallowa people's ties to Mother Earth. "Our language reaches into the earth and becomes part of it and ties you to the ground," said Redstar, who often leads longhouse adherents in song and prayer in Nez Perce. "The words tie you back to Mother Earth. It is the language into which we were born." Redstar spoke Nez Perce as his first language until he began attending school at age 6. Now he is trying to "piece the language back together," with the help of his aunt and uncle. Andrews, who is Christian, began working in language preservation more than 15 years ago. Davis didn't join him at the cultures and language program until later because, she said, Nez Perce has always been a spoken, not a written, language. "My people never did write and they never used a computer, so I was reluctant to come here," Davis said. She still declines to be recorded or videotaped speaking Nez Perce. But during a visit to Spalding, Idaho, she was asked the Nez Perce words for things she didn't know, and she became concerned she was losing her language. Today, she and Andrews spend hours putting Nez Perce names to things. They consult a 4-inch-thick "Nez Perce Dictionary," the monumental work of the Japanese linguist Haruo Aoki, professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley. Aoki's dictionary, using the International Phonetic Alphabet to symbolize sounds not used in English, was published in 1994. It is based largely on research beginning in the 1960s. Because Aoki relied largely on research done on the Nez Perce Reservation, Davis and Andrews have found dialectical differences between the dictionary and the language as they speak it. They believe Christianity on the Nez Perce Reservation has influenced some of the terminology as recorded in the Aoki dictionary. With the author's permission, Davis and Andrews pore over the dictionary, as well as other documents, and note differences between it and the dictionary in their heads. Davis cited the example of the Lapwai Nez Perce term "Holy Father," "ha`wtnin'pist," her word for father as in a family. The language as spoken by the Joseph Band would never refer to the Creator, or Han'yawa`t, as "father." In Nez Perce, the meanings of words are altered by the use of a suffix or prefix. For example, "ha`ma" is man, while "haha`ma" is more than one man. By adding suffix upon suffix, one word in Nez Perce can reflect a phrase or an entire sentence in English. "Our language describes what a thing is used for rather than what it is," Redstar explained. The word for "chair" is "wexsiliq'ec'etes," literally a place for sitting. As a result of their work, Davis and Andrews hope to produce a dictionary of their own. Aoki remains in contact with the elders and despite advancing years, he occasionally visits the Colville Reservation, where he is held in high regard. Nez Perce is a Sahaptin language similar to the dialects spoken by Yakima, Cayuse, Walla Walla, Palouse and Umatilla tribes. The Cultures and Language Program of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation is working to preserve two other native languages, Okanogan and Moses Columbia, which are Salish. Redstar and his son, Jim, volunteer at the language program, where Davis' grandson, Milton "Jewie" Davis Jr., 35, a language instructor aide, teaches Nez Perce to local students. "Our backs are against the wall," Redstar said, because there are so few native speakers among the Wallowa people, and so few are willing to make the sacrifice to learn. "It's the heart of our people," he said. "You can understand a shade of us through English, but to really get to know us, you must understand our language." Links: ------ [1] http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/video/archive.asp?postID=227 [2] http://www.spokesmanreview.com/local/story.asp?ID=175026 [3] http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news/bylines.asp?bylinename=Kevin%20Graman From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Feb 25 00:03:20 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2007 17:03:20 -0700 Subject: KBIC native language effort continues (fwd) Message-ID: KBIC native language effort continues Published: Friday, February 23, 2007 By DAN SCHNEIDER, DMG Writer http://www.mininggazette.com/stories/articles.asp?articleID=5919 BARAGA ? More than a means to communicate, members of the Ojibwa tribe say their native language is an essential aspect of their culture. ?Certainly, the language is communication but also it tells who you are,? Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC) member Earl Otchingwanigan said. ?Not only does it communicate, but within the language itself there is history and culture built into it. And even all of the spiritual aspects of the native people is carried through the language.? Otchingwaniga is a professor emeritus of the Ojibwe language at Minnesota State University-Bemidji. (Here, the spelling ?Ojibwe? is used to refer to the language, while ?Ojibwa? refers to the wider tribe and culture). Otchingwanigan is also a native Ojibwe speaker. English was his second language. ?I was raised with the language,? he said. With few living native speakers left, the KBIC, like many tribes nationwide, is launching an initiative to preserve Anishinaabeg. The term means ?the first people?s language.? ?What we?re doing this year is assessing the status of the language here on the L?Anse Indian reservation,? project director Jesse Luttenton said. That assessment is being conducted with a $109,708 grant from the United States Department of Health and Human Services through the Administration for Native Americans (ANA). It is an important initiative, according to Carrie Ashbrook, who was recently hired to coordinate the project. ?What?s happening is the language is being lost,? Ashbrook said. ?It?s a sacred part of being Anishnabe (?first people? or ?native people?) that is being lost.? On Jan. 22, the KBIC sent out 1,200 written surveys to its members asking them to assess their own fluency and interest in the language. The survey asks questions like ?Where do you use the Ojibwe language??, ?Do you feel comfortable using the Ojibwe language??, and ?If you had the opportunity to participate in language instruction, what fluency level would you hope to attain?? ?The survey is to determine the status of the language as it is today so we can see what we need to do,? Luttenton said. A community gathering to discuss the preliminary results of the survey is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday at the Ojibwa Casino Chippewa Rooms. As of Feb. 22, 250 completed surveys had been returned, according to Ashbrook. Survey results so far indicate enthusiasm among KBIC members, she said. ?So far the support has been great because people are wanting the program,? she said. Ashbrook said 345 completed surveys are needed, and a series of oral interviews must take place, before the tribe can apply for the second-phase grant from the ANA. The next grant in the ANA?s three-phase grant series would be a one-year grant to fund the tribe?s development of a language instruction program and curriculum individual to the tribe. ?Ojibwe is spoken all across the Great Lakes, but there are many different dialects,? Luttenton said. ?We want to preserve and revitalize the language as it is specific to the Keweenaw Bay.? ANA?s step-three grant would fund the implementation of the program. Luttenton hopes to be ready to apply for that grant by September. Methods of revitalizing the language, Luttenton said, could include ?language nests,? a program for preschool students in which Ojibwe is the only language spoken; classes conducted at L?anse and Baraga public schools and immersion programs. Otchingwanigan is one of three advisors for the tribe?s program. He said the project of revitalizing and preserving the language is a large one, but it can be done. ?Absolutely, I think other cultures around the world that have endangered languages have brought their languages back from the brink of extinction, such as the Maori in the South Seas,? Otchingwanigan said. ?The Jewish people in Israel have brought their language back, so it can be done.? Dan Schneider can be reached at dschneider at mininggazette.com From hardman at UFL.EDU Sun Feb 25 00:39:26 2007 From: hardman at UFL.EDU (MJ Hardman) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2007 19:39:26 -0500 Subject: Conference on Indigenous Peoples and Technology In-Reply-To: <20070224170320.egk0cg4gsgg0c0o4@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: The 56th Annual Latin American Conference at the University of Florida on Indigenous Languages and Cultures and Technology was a great success. There were people from Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, among many others. The videos of some of the presentations are available at: http://56conference.latam.ufl.edu/video.asp I spoke in Spanish in consideration of our international visitors. The second video, Gillian Lord, Sue Legg, Howard Beck, Marcela Pi?eros "Aymara on the Internet" in entirely in English and may be of special interest to those on this list; some of the details of our technology are presented by the group working on the project. All of the others here are also very interesting in presenting work being done in quite varying circumstances. The last video, Richard Grounds "shadjwanE dathlandA (Rabbit and Wolf): Feeding Technology and Passing Forward Indigenous Languages" raises some serious questions from the point of view of one indigenous group. MJ Dr. MJ Hardman website: http://grove.ufl.edu/~hardman/ From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Wed Feb 28 21:13:09 2007 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:13:09 -0700 Subject: Fwd: Dr. Robert Young, lexicographer and grammarian of Navajo language, has passed away In-Reply-To: <033901c75b79$9173bc00$6401a8c0@ROSEANN> Message-ID: Sorry for any cross posts... Language Log posted the following: *In memoriam Robert Young* [image: Dr. Robert W. Young] We are deeply saddened to report that Dr. Robert W. Young, who devoted his life to the Navajo language and people, passed away peacefully on Tuesday February 20th at the age of 95. Among his many accomplishments was the compilation, together with William Morgan, Sr., of The Navajo Language: a Grammar and Colloquial Dictionaryand the Analytical Lexicon of Navajo, which together are widely considered to have made Navajo the best documented of any native American language. He was a great linguist, a fluent speaker of Navajo, and a kind and generous man. *The University of New Mexico site states the following: * * *Robert W. Young (1912-2007) We are deeply saddened to say that Dr. Robert W. Young passed away on February 20, 2007. At this time there is no service planned. Dr. Young's daughter requests that if people want to send a remembrance it should be in the form of a donation to the Robert W. Young Scholarship Fund. Sincerely, Roseann Gonzalez Dr. Roseann D. Gonzalez Professor of English Director, National Center for Interpretation Testing, Research & Policy University of Arizona Phone: (520) 621-3615-Office Fax: (520) 624-8130-Office Phone: (520) 293-6353-Home Fax: (520) 888-6757-Home -- ____________________________________________________________ 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... 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