From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Sun Jul 1 04:10:09 2007 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 21:10:09 -0700 Subject: Losing languages.... Message-ID: http://www.nanaimobulletin.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=51&cat=48&id=1017101&more=0 Losing languages defies description By Mitch Wright Assistant Editor Jun 30 2007 Language is one of the most important ways a culture asserts itself. Whether it's Scottish, South African, English or Eritrean, language is often the first and perhaps most important entry point to understanding a particular culture. In many ways, we define ourselves through our use of language – imagine if the Inuit had only the word snow, instead of 150-ish variations. Or look at our own uniquely Canadian take on English. As a country, we've taken ownership of certain words and phrases used nowhere else in the world, or at least, not with the same meaning. Tell a Brit your toaster's had the biscuit and he'll likely look at you like you're looney. By the same token, a Canuck trying to understand a Cockney Londoner's linguistics will be wearing a similarly puzzled expression. Even within Canada, our use of the same language differs greatly. The English of Nova Scotia or Newfoundland and Labrador is most definitely not the same English of Vancouver Island. The French of Quebec is hardly recognizable compared to the French of France. The way each culture develops its language – even if it's technically the same language – is a reflection of who we are and from whence we've come. That's why it's so important we do everything we can to protect those languages. Dictionaries are one way that occurs for major languages, but what of others that are at risk of disappearing? How to preserve the African or South American bush dialects? Or closer to home, the oral tradition First Nations languages? Some of these languages are on the brink of extinction, with only a few elders holding the last links to the past. It's certain we've already lost some. Hul'qumi'num was once spoken by thousands of First Nations people, including the Snuneymuxw and Nanoose bands, as well as nearby Chemainus, Halalt, Penelakut, Lyackson and Cowichan First Nations. Today it's estimated that perhaps two-dozen people learned to speak the dialect as their first language. The story of Hul'qumi'num's decline is the same for languages and cultures around the world – another culture tried to assimilate it. For First Nations, one of the biggest blows was residential schools. Children were pulled from their homes and families and one of the many unspeakable indignities forced upon them (including horrendous abuse that did immediate emotional and physical damage) was being forbidden to speak their native tongue. The long-term effect has been the steady decline of the language. Without everyday use, the words withered. At least we're starting to see some recognition that preserving languages is significant. The province recently announced it's dedicating $1.2 million to help 30 aboriginal communities protect and preserve their native tongues. That will help, but more is needed – more money, more effort, more commitment. First Nations elders and leaders have recognized the risks. Cowichan Tribes and the Snuneymuxw First Nation are creating dictionaries and other resources (see www.snuneymuxw.ca/hulqdictionary.htm) to keep the words from being silenced. Those few people who speak the language are using it, sharing it, allowing their people to hear it in an attempt to re-establish its links. Given the importance of language and communication in understanding culture, it's a mystery why society and governments don't treat the loss of a language similar to that of a species. Worldwide, protected and at-risk species get special consideration and funding. Loss of a species – be it plant or animal – is deemed a devastating blow to our world (although it continues unabated, at a rate of one per hour, by some estimates). Why not the same concern for languages? There aren't words to describe the cultural impact of losing even a single language. -- ____________________________________________________________ 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 Acquisition & 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: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jul 1 18:00:07 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2007 11:00:07 -0700 Subject: Protests by Native Groups in Canada Close Road and Rail Links (fwd) Message-ID: Protests by Native Groups in Canada Close Road and Rail Links By IAN AUSTEN Published: June 30, 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/30/world/americas/30canada.html?_r=1&oref=slogin OTTAWA, June 29 — Canadian travelers faced road closings and rail shutdowns on Friday as they set out for the Canada Day holiday weekend during nationwide protests by native groups against the Conservative government over several recent disputes about land claims and financing. While most native groups heeded a call from the national leadership to stage only nondisruptive protests, members of a Mohawk tribe in Ontario shut down passenger and freight train service along Canada’s busiest rail corridor and caused a section of Canada’s busiest highway to be closed for about 11 hours. Via Rail Canada, the passenger rail system, canceled service between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa for the rest of the day, leaving thousands stranded. Canadian National said that about 25 freight trains were also affected. Most demonstrations on Friday, however, mirrored a peaceful march of about 1,000 people past the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa that was led by Phil Fontaine, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, the main native group. Speaking on an Ottawa River island that is claimed by an Algonquin tribe, Mr. Fontaine said the protest day “is certainly not about political power — it’s about hope and giving our children a reason to live.” He told marchers that his 13-year-old niece had recently committed suicide, a disproportionately high cause of death for many young people on native reserves. Topping the list of grievances is a decision taken by the Conservatives shortly after they took power last year. It canceled an agreement between the federal government, the provinces and the territories that would have provided $5 billion Canadian ($4.7 billion) for education, employment training and health care improvements for native people. The government also eliminated financing for native language training programs and reversed Canada’s longstanding support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Late last month, the government announced a new system for settling native land claims that met with a favorable reaction from Mr. Fontaine. But that did not change his overall view of the Conservatives and Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “We will not be bought off, never, ever, by any government,” Mr. Fontaine said Friday. The Mohawk tribe that blocked roads and rail lines on Friday had shut down the Canadian National tracks in April. Shawn Brant, a spokesman for the men’s council at the Mohawk Tyendinaga reserve, who is the subject of an arrest warrant from that episode, suggested that it might block Highway 401 again. As a safety measure, the Ontario Provincial Police shut 18 miles of Highway 401, the main link between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa, as members of the reserve were about to move onto it shortly after midnight. In Montreal, a vast traffic jam developed after Mohawks blocked a major bridge over the St. Lawrence for about 90 minutes. The Ontario police said a road in Muskoka, a popular resort north of Toronto, was also barricaded by protesters, as was another road in a rural area southwest of Ottawa. The Mohawk protesters agreed to allow the reopening of Highway 401 late in the morning, but they planned to maintain their blockade of a smaller highway and the main line of the Canadian National Railway until midnight Friday. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jul 1 18:12:23 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2007 11:12:23 -0700 Subject: Hope for Weipa schools to use new Indigenous dictionary (fwd) Message-ID: Thursday, 28 June 2007, 09:10:44 AEST http://abc.net.au/message/news/stories/ms_news_1964216.htm Hope for Weipa schools to use new Indigenous dictionary For the first time the language of a western Cape York Aboriginal tribe, in far north Queensland, has been published in a reference book. Elder Thanakupi Gloria Fletcher made the dictionary that includes the traditional stories, songs and art of the Thaynakwith people. She is the only fluent speaker of the language left. Dr Fletcher says she hopes schools in Weipa use the dictionary to pass on traditional knowledge to the younger generation. "I hope that it will happen, that somebody will carry it and carry it through into the future. I hope that anybody that reads the book will happily feel that they would like to read the language," she said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 3 16:58:34 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 09:58:34 -0700 Subject: Preserving past secures natives' future (fwd) Message-ID: Preserving past secures natives' future Katie May / Standard Freeholder Local News - Tuesday, July 03, 2007 @ 08:00 http://www.standard-freeholder.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=595682&catname=Local%20News&classif= Theresa Kenkiohkoktha Fox loves to sing. And she sings to keep her culture alive. As one of the founding members of the Akwesasne Women's Singing Society, Fox said singing is her way of supporting the unity of First Nations people across Canada. "It's part of our culture to sing," she said. The women's musical group formed roughly 10 years ago. It now has approximately 13 members, six of which performed traditional songs during the National Day of Action festivities last week. Fox said the songs, mainly written about peace, are ways for all community members to learn the Mohawk language and experience aboriginal culture. Elizabeth Kahontihson Nanticoke, a fellow member, agreed. "When we hear the children singing the songs we know the language is going to survive," she said. "They don't just sing the words - they know the meaning behind the words." Language is the key to preserving Mohawk culture for future generations, said Akwesasne's grand chief. Tim Thompson spoke about the damaging effects of a November 2006 $160 million government-funding cut for aboriginal language programs on the First Nations community as part of the Day of Action ceremonies. "If there's no language, there's no culture," he said. Steevi King, 18, of St. Regis, Que., said students in the Akwesasne area need more opportunities for cultural education in school. "A lot of it comes from our elders and our parents," said the recent Massena High School graduate. "We have to go off the reserve to go to high school and that's where, I think, the tradition and language get lost." Thompson pointed to a ban on aboriginal languages enforced in residential schools generations ago as a major reason why maintaining language classes is important for today's youth. He said today's children are learning the Mohawk language Kanienkeha in school and re-teaching their parents. "They are our future and they are learning the language to preserve it for the future," said Thompson. "That's a big success for the community." The Assembly of First Nations organized the National Day of Action last Friday to provide First Nations people with a unified opportunity for peaceful protest and to raise awareness of aboriginal rights across the country. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 3 17:02:27 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 10:02:27 -0700 Subject: 24-hour TV station devoted to aborigines in Taiwan (fwd) Message-ID: 24-hour TV station devoted to aborigines in Taiwan By Cindy Sui Tuesday, July 3, 2007 http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/03/news/taiwan.php TAIPEI: It is Saturday at Taiwan Indigenous TV, and the station is abuzz with giggles and flirtations. One of TITV's most popular shows, an aboriginal matchmaking program called "I Love You, What Should I Do?", is taping, and the young contestants are getting ready to go onstage. Their initial shyness fades as a vivacious hostess in a black evening gown coaxes them to start a sexy dance. Before long, the three women and three men are checking each other out. It is all part of the mission of Taiwan's first aboriginal television station. The two-year-old Channel 16, which marked its second anniversary Sunday, aims to help the island's 470,000 aborigines regain a sense of pride in their long-devastated cultures. The station also hopes to raise consciousness in Taiwan's larger society about aborigines, who make up less than 2 percent of the population but have inhabited the island for thousands of years, longer than the majority Han Chinese. It comes at a time when Taiwan's government is eager to promote local heritage and underscore its separateness from mainland China, which considers the island a breakaway province. TITV is one of a small number of stations devoted to telling the stories and preserving the cultures of indigenous peoples, along with Canada's Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and New Zealand's Maori Television, among others. "In the past, Taiwan's aborigines didn't feel comfortable expressing our culture in mainstream society because there was a lot of discrimination," said TITV's director, Masao Aki, who is an aborigine. "Once people knew you were aboriginal, they thought you were backwards, liked to drink or, if you're a woman, they thought you're a prostitute. "Only by having our own TV station are we able to have discussions about issues that concern us and have aborigines' point of view heard in Taiwan's media, laws, education, et cetera," he said in an interview. "And only when we have a joint way of expressing ourselves as a group can we realize who we are." Aborigine advocates had discussed a channel since the 1980s, and a Han Chinese legislator from a small political party, hoping to win aboriginal votes, publicly proposed it in the late 1990s. TITV went on the air July 1, 2005. Previously, the only programs about Taiwan's 13 officially recognized indigenous tribes - people of Austronesian heritage similar to those in Australia, the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia - were two once-a-week shows on public television. Mainstream stations' reports were rare or tended to promote stereotypes. With about 100 workers and 350 million Taiwan new dollars, or about $10.6 million, in annual government funding, TITV offers 24-hour programming, including news, interviews and aboriginal language lessons, as well as a music and a cooking show, and soon, the first aboriginal situation comedy. The station regularly invites experts, including doctors and academics, to address issues like alienation among aboriginal youth, alcohol abuse and the encroachment on aborigines' land by development projects. Aborigines have shorter life spans and higher unemployment and suicide rates than the rest of Taiwan's population. The cooking show features rarely seen aboriginal recipes and cooking methods, like adding hot stones to a broth to cook fish. Other programs teach traditional songs and dances - an important way to communicate history because many aboriginal languages are unwritten - and ancient methods of fishing with simple tools, a disappearing skill as young people leave villages for the cities. But TITV faces many challenges, including the large number of aboriginal languages, and the difficulty hiring aborigines with the right skills. Some critics say the station is not doing enough to promote tribal languages that face extinction. Few aborigines younger than 40 are fluent in their tribal language, and less than 5 percent of children are believed to able to speak their tribal language at all, thanks to previous government efforts of assimilation. "The station should do more to reverse this trend, but most of its broadcast is in Mandarin," said Namoh Rata, an aboriginal language professor at National Dong Hwa University in eastern Taiwan. Masao, the station director, said it would be difficult to broadcast mostly in aboriginal languages because there are so many. "Which language do you choose?" he asked. Other than the language lessons and weekly news broadcasts in the major tribes' languages, most of TITV's programs, including the daily news, are in Chinese. Janubark, an aboriginal ethnic relations scholar at National Dong Hwa University, said tribes would benefit more if each had its own station in its own language. "That would be more helpful in preserving our languages and cultures, which is what Taiwan's aborigines need most," said Janubark, who uses only one name. But there is no financing for multiple stations, and TITV has difficulty maintaining aboriginal staffing at its current level of 87 percent, given the lower educational levels among indigenous peoples. Most of the station's technical jobs go to Han Chinese. Even so, TITV's critics say the station has had a significant impact in a short time. Mainstream stations have picked up numerous stories the station has broken. Meanwhile, station officials are focusing on providing more appealing programs, like the matchmaking show, which is not purely entertainment. At a time when many aborigines marry Han Chinese, the station hopes it can help single aborigines meet each other. "I don't really care whether the girl I date is an aborigine or not, but of course my parents would prefer I marry someone who's aboriginal," said Yan Qi, 20, one of the contestants at the Saturday taping. Each contestant had been asked to show viewers something that was meaningful to them. Yan brought an aboriginal-style necklace he made. That sort of cultural pride is where Masao believes TITV is making a difference. "The sense of self-acceptance among aborigines is stronger now," he said. Many people, he said, now feel they "can wear aboriginal clothes on the street." "What we're trying to do at the station is to get people to think about who they are. Where are you from? How do you speak your language? How do you dance your dance?" he said. "If we always focus on learning about the West, learning Mandarin, then over time, our own culture and languages will disappear." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 3 17:11:19 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 10:11:19 -0700 Subject: Picture dictionaries to boost Aboriginal language teaching (fwd) Message-ID: Picture dictionaries to boost Aboriginal language teaching Posted Tue Jul 3, 2007 7:31am AEST http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/03/1968104.htm?section=justin Teachers at the Anangu Lands Education Conference in Alice Springs are being urged to use picture dictionaries to help Aboriginal students learn in their native language. A total of five picture dictionaries for different Indigenous languages in central Australia are planned. Paul Eckert is presenting a workshop at the conference on how teachers can use the book in their classrooms. "Many of the schools have already pre-bought quite a number of copies - I think Pitjantatjara people themselves will be quite able to purchase them for their homes," he said. One thousand copies of the first edition have been printed and 50 have so far been pre-purchased by schools. Teachers at the conference were told that Aborginal children will learn more easily if taught in their own languages. "They really should be developing their intellectual skills in their mother tongue first, and then transfering that across to English and other languages" Mr Eckert said. "I think Aboriginal people when they're forced really to do their thinking and intellectual development in a language that they don't understand very well, that's one of the reasons why Aboriginal people are finding it so difficult to really get the skills they need in English." Tags: indigenous, education, schools, From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Tue Jul 3 17:12:39 2007 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 10:12:39 -0700 Subject: Preserving past secures natives' future (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20070703095834.ml4w88kwcsko0s4k@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Has anyone done a newspaper article about the CRIT Mohave singers?? This is similar news ...should be done if it hasn't.... Have a happy 4th... By the way, I was blown away by the increased fluency you CLEARLY have achieved in micro-teaching -- I shared that at the faculty meeting --- how much your confidence in teaching the language had improved since the first time at AILDI (remember that??...) Keep up the good work...See you soon I hope.... Susan On 7/3/07, phil cash cash wrote: > > Preserving past secures natives' future > > Katie May / Standard Freeholder > Local News - Tuesday, July 03, 2007 @ 08:00 > > http://www.standard-freeholder.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=595682&catname=Local%20News&classif= > > Theresa Kenkiohkoktha Fox loves to sing. And she sings to keep her culture > alive. > > As one of the founding members of the Akwesasne Women's Singing Society, > Fox > said singing is her way of supporting the unity of First Nations people > across Canada. > > "It's part of our culture to sing," she said. > > The women's musical group formed roughly 10 years ago. It now has > approximately 13 members, six of which performed traditional songs during > the National Day of Action festivities last week. Fox said the songs, > mainly written about peace, are ways for all community members to learn > the > Mohawk language and experience aboriginal culture. > > > Elizabeth Kahontihson Nanticoke, a fellow member, agreed. > > "When we hear the children singing the songs we know the language is going > to survive," she said. "They don't just sing the words - they know the > meaning behind the words." > > Language is the key to preserving Mohawk culture for future generations, > said Akwesasne's grand chief. > > Tim Thompson spoke about the damaging effects of a November 2006 $160 > million government-funding cut for aboriginal language programs on the > First Nations community as part of the Day of Action ceremonies. > > "If there's no language, there's no culture," he said. > > Steevi King, 18, of St. Regis, Que., said students in the Akwesasne area > need more opportunities for cultural education in school. > > "A lot of it comes from our elders and our parents," said the recent > Massena > High School graduate. > > "We have to go off the reserve to go to high school and that's where, I > think, the tradition and language get lost." > > Thompson pointed to a ban on aboriginal languages enforced in residential > schools generations ago as a major reason why maintaining language classes > is important for today's youth. > > He said today's children are learning the Mohawk language Kanienkeha in > school and re-teaching their parents. > > "They are our future and they are learning the language to preserve it for > the future," said Thompson. "That's a big success for the community." > > The Assembly of First Nations organized the National Day of Action last > Friday to provide First Nations people with a unified opportunity for > peaceful protest and to raise awareness of aboriginal rights across the > country. > -- ____________________________________________________________ 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 Acquisition & 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: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 3 17:09:47 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 10:09:47 -0700 Subject: Worlds apart (fwd) Message-ID: Worlds apart Australia's prime minister is sending in the army to tackle child abuse and alcoholism in the Aboriginal homelands. But his aggressive campaign will only make the situation worse, says Germaine Greer Tuesday July 3, 2007 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,2117202,00.html [photo inset - Aboriginal children in Kakadu National Park. Photograph: John Van Hasselt/Sygma/Corbis] Ever since white men set foot in Australia more than 200 years ago, they have persecuted, harassed, tormented and tyrannised the people they found there. The more cold-blooded decided that the most humane way of dealing with a galaxy of peoples who would never be able to adapt to the "whitefella" regime was to eliminate them as quickly as possible, so they shot and poisoned them. Others believed that they owed it to their God to rescue the benighted savage, strip him of his pagan culture, clothe his nakedness, and teach him the value of work. Leaving the original inhabitants alone was never an option; learning from them was beyond any notion of what was right and proper. As far as the pink people were concerned, black Australians were primitive peoples, survivors from the stone age in a land that time forgot. Any hopes that this attitude might have changed were dashed two weeks ago, when Prime Minister John Howard announced a new crusade. Following a report calling for action on child abuse in Aboriginal communities, he announced a six-month ban on alcohol and pornography within the homelands, compulsory medical checks for indigenous children and restrictions on welfare payments. As commander-in-chief of an army of police, the Australian Defence Force and hordes of doctors and nurses, he will storm the 70 or so autonomous Aboriginal settlements in the Northern Territory. He can do this because the Northern Territory, having failed in a recent, rather half-hearted bid for statehood, is directly administered by the Australian government. For Aboriginal people, Howard's edict is just another sudden and draconian shift in the law as it relates to them; just another pillar in a lifetime of being shoved from pillar to post. It is hard not to view this as yet another attack on native title by the white establishment. No sooner had Aboriginal peoples achieved, after a tremendous expenditure of time, effort, expertise and money, freehold title to bits and pieces of country under the 1976 Aboriginal Land Rights Act, than there was an attempt to redefine freehold as it applied to Aboriginal areas, so that they could be reclaimed if there should be a need - for minerals, fossil fuels, foreign bases, tracking stations, whatever. New laws in 1993 and 1998 sealed this flagrant violation. Now, having had such resounding success in rescuing Iraq from tyranny, fanaticism and madness, Howard claims to be riding to the rescue of Aboriginal children in distress. The prime minister of Australia should know, however, that most of the areas under Aboriginal control in the Northern Territory are already dry. The elders would have greater success in keeping them that way if Howard and his Myrmidons would do the job they have been elected to do. Rather than wresting nominal control of Aboriginal homelands to himself and so undermining the authority of the elders still further, Howard could bring the full force of the law to bear on the white bootleggers who bring grog into dry Aboriginal communities by night and sell it at exorbitant prices. Even in apparently successful communities such as Utopia, homeland of the great painter Emily Kngwarreye, the bootleggers turn up almost every night. I was staying there in 2000 when drunken hoodlums smashed up the health centre in the small hours. The next day the senior law women sent the offenders into the bush to live off the land for six months, as punishment. My car had been searched when I arrived to make sure that I had brought no alcohol with me; but next morning all the men I saw were either staggering drunk or lying unconscious in the scrub. Though the bootleggers drive unmistakable four-wheel-drive trucks with giant balloon tyres that carry them over the roadless expanse, leaving a mile-long dust plume easily visible from the sky, the federal authorities remain curiously unable to intercept the traffic, even though the government is missing out on significant revenue. Anyone who really cared about what alcohol was doing to Aboriginal communities would surely have done something to curb the illicit trade. Perhaps they would also have done something about the fact that, in Alice Springs, as in most other frontier towns, there are dozens of liquor outlets and hardly any shops selling fresh foodstuffs, which, if you can find them, are crushingly expensive. If your feet are bare, you are not allowed in the Alice Springs food mall at all. The name of the game, as usual, is bad faith. Everything Howard does is calculated to win him votes. The suffering of Aboriginal women and children at the hands of their deranged menfolk has been going on all Howard's life. For most of that time whitefellas made a joke of it. At this late hour, on the eve of a general election, he is suddenly taking it seriously. It is of no consequence that what he is doing is illegal. His treatment of asylum seekers and boat people is just as illegal, and it is widely admired by Australians and people who should know better. Not for nothing did Howard single out the best-known Aboriginal community in Australia, Mutitjulu, home of the traditional owners of Uluru, visited by 500,000 tourists a year, to begin his campaign against child abuse in Aboriginal communities. The papers call it paedophilia; to someone standing closer it looks less like a sexual perversion than a hideous extension of demented self-destructiveness. It is part of a continuum that includes the tragically high rates of suicide in Aboriginal communities. In 2005, suicide accounted for 4.3% of Aboriginal deaths, compared with 1.6% of other Australians. As whitefellas tear their country apart, blackfellas are tearing themselves apart. For years, the extinction of the Australian Aborigine has been eagerly looked forward to and repeatedly described as imminent. In fact, there are probably more Aboriginal people alive in Australia today than there were when Captain Cook planted the British flag at Botany Bay in 1770. But while their numbers are growing, so is their unending suffering. Aboriginal people are tough, and it is the fate of the toughest to suffer longest and hardest. A year ago, the government stripped Mutitjulu of its annual funding of A$3m (£1m) and installed a white man from Perth as adminstrator to the council. Two weeks ago the federal court ruled the appointment invalid. The elders rejoiced. Then Howard announced his coup d'etat. Until then tourists couldn't get to see Mutitjulu, because no one could get in without a permit. Simply walking in could get you a fine of A$1,000. Now Howard has swept away the right of Aboriginal freeholders to keep interlopers off their land; the permit system is to be abolished and tourists will be able to add Aboriginal dysfunction to the sights they go to see. Boundaries are important to Aboriginal peoples, who have always respected each other's space and have suffered acutely whenever disparate groups have been forced to occupy the same space. Land confers identity; failing to protect the integrity of one's land is tantamount to annihilation. The police, who are even now marching towards Aboriginal settlements under Howard's banner, have had so little success in dealing with urban Aboriginal people that there were anti-police riots in Sydney's inner suburb of Redfern in January 2004. The unfortunates who are sent to enforce Howard's bans will have no special training in dealing with rural tribal peoples and will probably find themselves in real danger. The situation is complex. Lately, British newspapers have been hearing about Wadeye (pronounced Wa-de-ye), otherwise known as Port Keats. Like many Aboriginal communities, Wadeye had its beginnings as a mission, in this case a Catholic mission founded in 1935 at the request of the federal government. The Bishop of Darwin appointed a missionary of the Sacred Heart, West Australian Richard Docherty, to set up the suggested mission at a place called Werntek Nganayi, where he was to establish a garden and teach the Aborigines to grow their food rather than gathering it. The mission also ran a cattle station in the Daly River reserve. In 1975, however, the federal government recognised Aboriginal claims to the reserve and it therefore became inalienable freehold land vested in the Daly River/Port Keats Aboriginal Trust. Aborigines were happier working with a stock whip than a hoe, but even so, when they managed to redeem the land from the pastoralists who had employed them, they usually ate the cattle and allowed the land to recover. There being no game to hunt any more, they now usually live on rotisserie chicken and frozen mutton chops from the local store. Though they see no point in working nine-to-five, Aboriginal people find as little satisfaction in doing nothing as anyone else. Their lives used to be full of activity - not only finding food, preparing and eating it, but interpreting the places they were travelling through and the time they were in, and how all things came to be as they are. If I take a four-wheel-drive to visit friends at the Anmatyerre women's camp at Atangkere, on what used to be Utopia Station, further south in the Northern Territory, the women will grab their crowbars and axes and pile in, making me drive 50 miles into the bush so we can go hunting for goanna (monitor lizards). People who seem too idle and dispirited to do anything will walk for whole days in search of bush tucker. Nothing is brought back from such a foray; the hunter-gatherer way is to make a fire, cook the food, and eat it on the spot. Father Docherty's first choice of site was mistaken. The sea encroached in the rainy season and turned the surface water to salt, so the mission moved south to Port Keats. The indigenous people who were driven off their land to end up at Wadeye came from 23 clans who would normally have hunted and gathered on their own traditional lands; between them they spoke seven languages. The land at Wadeye belonged to the Kardu Diminin, who spoke Murrinh-Patha; no one asked them how they felt about having to accommodate outsiders and no one asked the outsiders how they felt about having Murrinh-Patha taught to their children along with Catholic doctrine. Officialdom has never made any attempt to cope with the multiplicity and complexity of Aboriginal culture. For groups who have jealously guarded their distinctness and carefully managed their intercommunal negotiations for 40,000 years, enforced togetherness brings intense psychological stress. For six months of the year the disparate clans of Wadeye cannot get out of each other's way, as they are hemmed in by the wet, with neither roads nor runways usable. Like most of its ilk, the Wadeye mission combined indoctrination with forced labour. The natives lived in dormitories and had no choice but to attend school every day or put in the hours working. There are now 800 children of school age in Wadeye but only 57 of them can be relied on to turn up at school every day. That is partly because in 2004, after a tremendous drive to force parents to get their children to school under threat of withdrawal of welfare, the school facilities were found to be hopelessly inadequate, with neither teachers nor space for the number of children. In 2005, the Thamarrur regional council, which now governs Wadeye, took legal advice on their chances of suing the federal government for violation of their civil rights by not providing basic education; the complaint was finally lodged a month ago. As there are no employment opportunities, education has no obvious point. All but about 50 of Wadeye's indigenous population of 2,700 live on "sit-down" money, as welfare payments are known. For years, some of the elders at Wadeye have dreamed of returning to their homelands, or "outstations", but depression and stress have sapped their energy. Catholic education replaced the discipline of "learning country" and preparing for initiation, so young men are now incapable of living off the land. Men who know how to bag magpie geese, track and bring down introduced feral pigs and native kangaroos, find barramundi, catfish, dugong and turtles, may still command respect, but too many of the senior men with the necessary skills are no longer living in Wadeye. Why? Because Wadeye is dry. The missing men have moved to Darwin, where they can drink. Howard's latest spasm of concern for the people of the Northern Territory could result in a double irony. Already, areas where the liquor ban has been effective are suffering because adult men are moving to urban areas where they can drink; a more effective imposition of the ban by non-Aboriginal authorities is likely to intensify this trend. Behaviour that is now shame-faced could soon be seen as defiant and assertive. Petrol-sniffing used to be a problem, but now petrol has been rendered unsniffable. The drug of choice for young men in Wadeye is marijuana, known to them as gunja. Meanwhile, Wadeye has grown to be the sixth biggest town in the Northern Territory, yet it has only 154 houses, 33 of which are derelict and should be demolished. In the others, occupancy stands at between five and six people per bedroom, a common state of affairs in the homelands. Dislocation, dispersion, rounding up and regimentation were followed, as usual, by neglect. In 2001, a vast gas field, christened Blacktip, was discovered 70 miles offshore from Wadeye. Development of this priceless resource is now well under way. The gas from the Blacktip field will be piped to Yeltherr beach, just south of Wadeye, where an onshore gas plant will be constructed and the gas piped east to Ban Ban Springs on the Adelaide River to supply Darwin. Work on the pipeline began a few weeks ago and is expected to be complete by next August; 130 Northern Territory companies will be involved in the works, including the construction of the pipelines, the oil wells, the offshore platform and the onshore gas plant, but not one word has been said about the involvement of the inhabitants of Wadeye. As most of them have not completed primary education, and can neither read nor write nor speak English, it is hard to see how they could be involved. An earlier deal that would have provided Aboriginal groups with equity of $250m in recognition of the pipeline crossing their land was abandoned, when the client, the aluminium giant Alcan, found a cheaper supplier in Papua New Guinea. Perhaps it was the increasing attention paid to Wadeye by the international community during the negotiations for the development of the gasfield that prompted the arrival of a GP for Wadeye, where for years there had been no doctor. When Pat Rebgetz arrived at the beginning of 2006, he was horrified by what he found and by the inadequacy of the resources. He had been in place only six months when gang warfare exploded, which occasioned an earlier threat from Howard to deploy the army against his own citizens. In the immediate aftermath of the mayhem, Mal Brough, minister for families, communities and indigenous affairs, came to town. Instead of being appalled at the evidence of criminal neglect on the part of the authorities whom he represented, he laid into the inhabitants, ordering them to clean the graffiti off their walls, collect the rubbish littering the streets, and get their kids to the school that wasn't big enough to hold them, on pain of having their funding frozen. The people responded badly, saying they were not "going to bloody fall down in a heap just because some clown like Brough comes along and wants to bounce us". As one citizen told a reporter, "I won't do it, because of him asking me." Brough just didn't get it. He thought the Wadeye people recognised his authority, but they didn't. The people of Wadeye will take government money as part payment for what the whitefellas took away from them, namely, everything, including their natural gas, but they simply don't see that that gives the whitefellas the right to tell them what to do. Their recalcitrance is not stupidity or wickedness but resistance - eternal, implacable, self-destructive resistance. When Howard takes over the policing of the Aboriginal communities he can expect more of the same. He will never defeat the Aboriginal peoples, but he will surely increase the bitterness of their suffering. White settlers have never truly understood the Aborigines. By the time the newcomers registered the fact that the Aboriginal peoples belonged to something like 700 language groups, many of those groups consisted of only a handful of people. What had not been thought of even as a nation was a ramified commonwealth with an elaborate diplomacy, in which envoys were dispatched to negotiate terms for crossing disparate territories, sharing particular resources, righting wrongs. The Aboriginal peoples reacted to contact in different ways. Some were used to foreigners visiting their land. Most assumed that the newcomers would adapt to their way of life, and offered to help them find food and show them how to survive by studying and venerating country. Even when diseases brought by the Europeans reduced thriving communities to a handful of traumatised survivors, there was no concerted attempt to drive the interlopers away. By the time the Aboriginal peoples realised that the newcomers had laid claim to the whole country and everything in it, it was too late. It did not occur to Aboriginal Australians that the newcomers did not consider them fully human; they were outraged when they saw men whipped for insubordination. A man who offended against tribal law was to be speared; whether he was speared in a vital organ or not was a measure of the gravity of the offence, but he was not to be beaten like a dog. The crushing blow that destroyed Aboriginal self-esteem was the gradual realisation that the strangers they had accepted as human like themselves did not reciprocate their respect. Because Aboriginal people had few visible possessions, their culture seemed simple. In terms of invisible possessions such as language, spirituality and relationships, it was actually astonishingly complex, and this complexity still hampers interaction with the de facto rulers of Australia. Rebgetz told Barbara McMahon of the Observer: "There's a lot of cultural stuff about kinship that means you are obliged to feed a family member if he comes in and says he's hungry or give him somewhere to stay ..." This "cultural stuff", a problem for white administrators ever since welfare began, will not go away. Whether whitey likes it or not, this is what matters to many Aboriginal people; it is why two days after they have collected their "kid money" they are broke. Likewise, when white administrators have offered Aboriginal people "decent housing" they have seen it wrecked and even burned down, yet it does not occur to them that the three-bedroom brick veneer is not what Aboriginal people can use. Many live in segregated camps, or would if they could. Indeed, the problem of child abuse would be mitigated if they went back to the tradition of men's camps and camps for women and children. My Yolngu friends at Yirrkala tend to live on the verandahs of their houses, where they lie in heaps on bare mattresses for most of the day. They are more likely to light a fire in the front garden than grow flowers in it. If people have been hunting on the foreshore, there will be oysters roasted on the fire, and the shells thrown in a heap. Some of the shell middens in Australia are thousands of years old. Aboriginal people could decide to clean up their oyster shells, but as things stand it is far more important that they don't. The insignia of consumer society can be found in heaps around every Aboriginal settlement: discarded clothes, rotting bedding, broken ghetto-blasters, burned-out cars. You will find versions of this behaviour wherever you find self-regulating Aboriginal people. Hunter-gatherer morality does not permit the accumulation of possessions and the hunter-gatherer lifestyle does not recognise the (utterly notional) value of money. Emily Kngwarreye once asked one of her patrons for a car for her nephew in payment for one of her paintings. The car was supplied, Kngwarreye gave it to her nephew and a few weeks later her patron was annoyed to learn that the nephew had sold the new car for A$300. "Why did he sell the car, a new car, for just A$300?" he asked. "Because he only needed A$300," said Kngwarreye. Capitalism simply doesn't know how to deal with people like this, except perhaps to make money out of them. Nowadays you'd need more than the price of a car if you wanted to buy an Emily painting, but she chose to live out her last months of life on her iron bedstead under a tarpaulin, far from the comforts of consumer society, in her own country. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 5 16:11:48 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 09:11:48 -0700 Subject: Salish language conference held (fwd) Message-ID: Salish language conference held Posted: July 04, 2007 by: Jack McNeel / Indian Country Today http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415304 [Photo by Jack McNeel -- Stephen Small Salmon quizzed two of his students from the Flathead Reservation in Montana. Miss Kalispel Salish Fair Aspen Smith, 14, and Lil Miss Honor Our Youth Nicole Perry, 8, were questioned in the Salish language and their responses also had to be in Salish.] WELLPINIT, Wash. - The Spokane Tribe recently hosted its first ''Honor the Salish Language'' conference at Wellpinit High School. Organizers hope it becomes an annual event dedicated to preserving the Salish language and exchanging ideas on ways of teaching it. Spokane elder Joe Flett, who served as the conference's master of ceremonies, recognized tribal elder Ann McCrea for her idea for such a day. ''Language is important to Indian people, for without the language we lose our identity, our culture. Language and culture are one and the same,'' he said. The idea was to bring people together to exchange ideas and see what other tribes are doing to preserve the language and teach it to the young and the community in general. Various speakers throughout the day from several tribes reflected on the loss of people who are fluent in the Salish language and how it's seldom spoken in homes anymore, thus preventing children from learning it at a young age. Pat Moses, Spokane, questioned how long there would even be speakers fluent in the language, as the few that still speak are rapidly passing on. Merle Andrew Sr., Spokane, has been teaching language classes to third- to sixth-grade students here since 2004. He explained how the kids seem to have a great appreciation for the language and spoke of their improvement during the year, ''almost bringing tears to my eyes.'' He teaches the cultural activities of the various seasons. ''They seem to absorb those things pretty well because they are involved in those activities throughout the year,'' Andrew said. He stressed listening, making it fun and giving the students respect so they aren't made to feel incompetent. Bill Matt, Spokane, was raised in a traditional family. ''You don't wake up and have tradition; you are raised that way from childhood,'' he said. He spoke of his mother before her death and how she desired to speak to those fluent in Salish so she didn't have to use a ''borrowed language'' to express her thoughts. ''Stories are more true in the Salish language than when told in English,'' he said. Another person commented, ''Jokes seem to be funnier in Indian.'' Tony Incashola, Pend d'Oreille, is from the Flathead Reservation. He spoke about how Native peoples had survived a lot including wars, termination and smallpox. ''We have much to be thankful for today and I think it is our language that has kept us together, that has helped us survive. It is language that has kept us Indian people and we continue to survive because of our language. Our culture is in our language. To survive in the future we have to hold on to our language,'' Incashola said. ''Our ceremonies, our prayers, our stories - everything that's important to us is in our language. Without it we are not different, we are not special,'' he added. He spoke of those who pushed to keep the language alive and who have now passed. ''Today it is on our shoulders. It's up to us to show our children how important language is.'' Incashola has been collecting information for the past 33 years from elders. They now have over 1,200 audio tapes of interviews and stories. They are assembling the information so children will learn and understand the history, culture and language. Time is becoming urgent while those elders are still alive. He said it inspires him to continue when he sees groups of people striving to keep the language and culture alive as this conference is doing. Stephen Small Salmon, Pend d'Oreille, also from the Flathead Reservation, brought two students with him to help illustrate their language program. Aspen Smith, 14, and Nicole Perry, 8, both spoke in Salish and demonstrated their knowledge by responding in Salish to questions asked by Small Salmon in Salish and identifying photos of animals as he pointed to them. They are two of 33 students taking language classes. Smith is the oldest in the class and indicates an interest in eventually becoming a Salish language teacher herself. Numerous people spoke throughout the day. Felix Aripa, an elder from the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, mentioned how expressions change the meaning of words. He noticed, even in the 1930s, that the language was fading but added, ''It's good to see our language sticking its head up like the sun coming up,'' and said how good a feeling he got in hearing young people like Smith and Perry speak the language. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 5 16:14:03 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 09:14:03 -0700 Subject: Unique Tlingit Curriculum Series Produced (fwd) Message-ID: Unique Tlingit Curriculum Series Produced July 04, 2007 Wednesday http://www.sitnews.us/0707news/070407/070407_series.html Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) has produced a unique collection of Tlingit curriculum and distributed it to every school district in Southeast Alaska, in hopes of weaving more Native lessons into the public school system. The curriculum, co-produced by the Juneau School District, is unique because it's the first Tlingit language and culture curriculum done on a broad scale that meets state academic and cultural standards. The curriculum was distributed in hardcopy binders, some of which include CDs with computer games and audio of Tlingit words and songs. The 18-unit series of culture and language lessons also is posted online at www.sealaskaheritage.org. The audio CDs are meant to encourage correct pronunciation of Tlingit language components. The interactive vocabulary games are an effort to make language learning fun, and to reach students through technology, said SHI President Rosita Worl. "In the past children just had text," Worl said. "But today we know children are watching TV, they're listening to CDs, so we've tried to build on all of the approaches that children are utilizing to learn today." The curriculum was developed and field tested by primary teachers from the Juneau School District and SHI language specialists. Although the series was intended for the primary grades, it can be easily adapted for teachers of higher grade levels," Worl said. "The most important thing is this curriculum, I think, is going to lead to better academic achievement for our students, both Native students and non-Native students, because it really builds on the environment of Southeast Alaska," Worl said. The audio of Tlingit was recorded by fluent Tlingit Elders John Marks and June Pegues. The songs were performed by Nancy Douglas and George Holly. The lessons were written by a team of teachers and specialists led by Nancy Douglas, Elementary Cultural Curriculum Coordinator, Juneau School District. The team included Juneau teachers Kitty Eddy, Shgen George, Kathy Nielson, Hans Chester and Rocky Eddy, and SHI language team members Linda Belarde, Yarrow Vaara, David Katzeek, John Marks, Mary Foletti, Rose Natkong and Jessica Chester. Curriculum consultants Julie Folta and Toni Mallott assisted and Annie Calkins edited and evaluated the lessons and units. Lessons were field tested in Juneau classrooms in 2005 and 2006. Teachers who want to use the hardcopy materials are encouraged by Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) to contact their superintendents or district curriculum libraries. The three-year project was funded by two grants from the U.S. Department of Education. SHI plans to release a similar set of curriculum for the Haida language and culture. The curriculum includes units and resources on the following topics: 01. Elizabeth Peratrovich 02. Hooligan 03. Spruce Trees 04. Totem Poles 05. Canoes 06. Herring 07. Hemlock 08. Yellow and Red Cedar 09. Alder and Cottonwood 10. Plants 11. Salmon 12. Who Am I? 13. Berries 14. Sea Mammals 15. How Raven Stole the Sun 16. Tale of an Alaska Whale 17. The Girl Who Lived with the Bears 18. The Beach Sealaska Heritage Institute is a Native nonprofit established in 1981 to administer educational and cultural programs for Sealaska, a regional Native corporation formed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The institute's mission is to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures. Language revitalization is a priority of SHI. On the Web: The 18-unit series of culture and language lessons www.sealaskaheritage.org. Source of News: Sealaska Heritage Institute www.sealaskaheritage.org From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 5 16:15:00 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 09:15:00 -0700 Subject: Teacher preserves traditional Athabascan values (fwd) Message-ID: Teacher preserves traditional Athabascan values Woman has taught Denaakk'e to hundreds FAIRBANKS - If Susan Paskvan had her wish, all the people in the Interior villages along the Koyukuk River would know how to speak their native language - Koyukon Athabascan, or Denaakk'e. Right now, only about 300 villagers speak it, she said, plus some who have moved to Fairbanks. That doesn't include children. For the last four years, Paskvan has coordinated the Yukon-Koyukuk School District's Native language program. By videoconference from Fairbanks, she helps teach Denaakk'e and Lower Tanana Athabascan to students in the district's nine villages. Other times, she'll gather up students, parents and elders and go camping near the villages to immerse students in Athabascan language and culture. "She just tries to grab each opportunity to use the language," said Martha Demoski, a teacher from Nulato who has worked with Paskvan at the camps. At one summer camp, Paskvan had students put up signs all over with the Denaakk'e words for things and made them repeat the words for whatever they were doing. Students made birch bark baskets, fished and kept journals in English and Denaakk'e. "She had a way of drawing them in and teaching the language, making sure they learn," Demoski said. Girls would gather around her when she was doing beadwork, and she would teach them. Over the years, Paskvan has taught some Denaakk'e to hundreds of students. To Paskvan, the Athabascan culture is contained in the language itself. Athabascans believe certain animals have strong spirits. So in Denaakk'e, boys will call a black bear by name, ses, but girls will only refer to it indirectly - belel daaletl'edzee, they'll say, or "the black one." "There's so much in a language," Paskvan said. "You're not only learning a language, you're also learning the traditional values." Paskvan lived in Koyukuk until her family moved to Fairbanks when she was 7. Her father, Benedict Jones, worked for the state's department of transportation. Her mother, Eliza Jones, taught language classes at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and co-authored the "Koyukon Athabaskan Dictionary," a tome of more than 1,000 pages. Paskvan keeps a copy of the dictionary in her office. Growing up, she learned Denaakk'e words and expressions but mostly spoke English. Her Native name is K'etsoo, a pet name her great grandmother gave her meaning "somebody's grandmother." "Onee'," she told her new Fairbanks neighbors when they came to the door, without knowing she was speaking Athabascan. Paskvan graduated from West Valley High School in 1981 and went to college at UAF, where she took classes taught by her mother. She kept her notes from those classes, but didn't dive into Denaakk'e till later. First, Paskvan went to work for the Tanana Chiefs Conference helping people get title to their land under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. She married Steve Paskvan, who teaches at West Valley, and they had two children, Jason, 14, and Adam, 13. "And then I realized, I have to learn this, I have to teach my kids," she said, referring to Denaakk'e. Paskvan signed up for a mentor-apprentice program through TCC's Interior Athabascan Tribal College and spent two hours a day, five days a week, with a woman named Madeline Williams, who spoke the language. Her sons went with her. Paskvan studied in Williams' home, rather than a classroom, and learned words for actual objects, rather than pictures on a page. When they cooked, she learned the words for individual ingredients and the act of mixing them. A few years later, the Yukon-Koyukuk School District board directed the district to provide Native language instruction in its schools. "I went around and asked different people," Superintendent Christopher Simon said. "(Paskvan) was just so excited about the Native language, it was like, 'Here's our person."' Around the same time, the district won a four-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education to improve reading and writing skills and teach Athabascan. The grant provided for curriculum development and the language camps, as well as language training for teachers and teaching aides. Now the district teaches the two Athabascan languages half an hour every day to students in kindergarten through fourth grade. Simon said it's working. "We hear anecdotal stories of kids, you know, when they're playing, they're using the native language," he said. Paskvan said the language is complex and the teachers, including herself, are learning as they go. Word roots are added on to convey something that could take a whole sentence in English, she said. Kids like to learn the word edeghoyeneegheleedeneek, which means roughly, "take care of yourself." Paskvan co-teaches the district's language classes with her mother, Jones, who joins the videoconferences from Koyukuk. "I think most people want to learn their languages," she said, but it takes lots of time, and people also want to join the workforce and do other things. One of Paskvan's goals is to set up an interactive Web site where anyone can go and see pictures, hear snippets of Denaakk'e, and read translations. Another goal is to finish her masters degree, for which she's compiling a history of the Kaltag area by telling the stories behind place names. For now, Paskvan is working to keep the district's language programs going after the federal grant ends this year. She said it makes her happy to go into communities and ask kids how they're doing in Denaakk'e, and have them respond in it. Having kids speak the language means a lot to the elders, too, she said. "It really gives them joy to know that it's not being lost." Click here to return to story: http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/070507/sta_20070705009.shtml From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 5 16:19:11 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 09:19:11 -0700 Subject: Fund targets fading aboriginal languages (fwd) Message-ID: Fund targets fading aboriginal languages [photo inset - Don Denton/Black Press. Aboriginal Relations Minister Mike de Jong (in baseball cap) arrives by canoe with government and aboriginal representatives to re-enact a traditional ceremony requesting permission to come ashore at Victoria harbour Thursday.] By Tom Fletcher Black Press Jul 04 2007 http://www.peninsulanewsreview.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=24&cat=23&id=1018007&more=0 The B.C. government is dedicating an additional $400,000 towards the preservation of the province’s more than 30 aboriginal languages. The latest fund is in addition to a $1 million expenditure announced by the province last year, said B.C.. Aboriginal Relations Minister Mike de Jong, who helped paddle a canoe into Victoria’s downtown harbour to make the announcement Thursday. A total of $1.2 million was committed to increase the program, aimed at keeping traditional languages from disappearing from everyday use. It will fund language and culture camps, master-apprentice programs for elders and younger people, pre-school language and cultural immersion programs and community language and culture authorities. The largest partner in the latest funding is the New Relationship Trust, with a $500,000 contribution. It’s the first major investment for the trust, established last year with a $100 million endowment from the provincial government and an appointed board of directors with majority aboriginal membership. Elaborate ceremonies for Thursday’s announcement coincided with National Aboriginal Day, and demonstrated the high priority placed on native affairs by the B.C. government this year. With votes set for July on the first two agreements from the B.C. Treaty Commission, with the Tsawwassen and Maa-Nulth First Nations, and dozens of other treaty tables looking for results, Premier Gordon Campbell’s government is looking for tangible progress to show for its effort and expense to settle historic disputes. Loss of language is one of the bitterest legacies of the Canadian aboriginal history. Residential schools were established to break the ties of aboriginal children with their language and culture, and now government’s efforts are focused on trying to reverse that before the cultures are lost. Monique Gray Smith, executive director of the Aboriginal Head Start Association of B.C., said language and cultural training is a key part of both its urban and on-reserve education programs. In addition to treaty discussions, the federal and provincial governments are trying to settle a backlog of specific claims, some arising out of historic treaties and others from legal actions. De Jong confirmed that negotiations with the Musqueam First Nation in Vancouver may involve the University Golf Club, part of a disputed property sale from the province to the University of B.C. in 2003. The Musqueam claim ownership of the Point Grey territory around the university, and the 120-acre golf course is one of the only undeveloped parcels left that could form part of a settlement. tfletcher at blackpress.ca From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 5 16:22:33 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 09:22:33 -0700 Subject: Ms. Ipana's Inuvialuktun class (fwd) Message-ID: Ms. Ipana's Inuvialuktun class Philippe Morin Northern News Services Monday, July 2, 2007 http://nnsl.com/northern-news-services/stories/papers/jul2_07k.html INUVIK - When the first day of kindergarten approaches for students in Inuvik, their parents face an important decision. Should the children study in English, French, or Inuvialuktun? Sandra Ipana, who is the aboriginal language instructor, said the school offers the three options in kindergarten. When parents choose Inuvialuktun, she said, the children are sent to her class, where they learn the basics of the traditional language. This can mean colours, numbers, names of animals, songs, and small poems or prayers. On June 28, the last day of the school year, Ipana reflected on how things have changed since she was a child. "When I was five, I was in this class and they were trying to teach me English. Now I'm trying to teach the language. The roles have switched," she said. Indeed, teaching Inuvialuktun has been a very personal journey for Ipana, who attended the Stringer Hall residential school. "I never forgot it. I was one of the lucky ones," she said. "My mother never spoke English because when she did, it didn't make any sense"," she added with a laugh. While some residential school children were forbidden from speaking traditional languages, Ipana said this did not happen to her at Stringer. "They provided translators," she said. Of course, Ipana said the greater effect of residential schools was altogether devastating. As the language was lost, she said, generations of traditions were nearly brought to a stop. "We went through a stage of residential schools, where the language got lost. Those who lost their languages started their families in strict English. Now, we are teaching their children," Ipana said. In addition to teaching language, Ipana said her goal is to make young aboriginal children proud of their heritage. She said students in her class often hear stories from elders, and even drum dance using pots and pans. "If you tell a child 'your granddad was a really good whale hunter,' they start to take pride in that," Ipana said. She added her class also has Slavey and Gwich'in students, who are taught their own languages whenever possible. After fifteen years of teaching - including seven alongside Donna Johns, who Ipana mentioned as an invaluable help in preparing materials such as books - she added things seem to be getting better for the world's few speakers of Inuvialuktun. Students today can continue their language studies until Grade 6, she said, and even continue learning Inuvialuktun in high-school when Inuvialuktun is covered in Northern Studies. But she said mastery of the language is extremely difficult for anyone in this generation. "I wouldn't call myself a fluent speaker," she said modestly. "At least I can understand the stories the elders tell me." From sjtatsch at UCDAVIS.EDU Thu Jul 5 20:37:13 2007 From: sjtatsch at UCDAVIS.EDU (Sheri Tatsch) Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 13:37:13 -0700 Subject: Call for Papers - 22nd Annual California Conference & Gathering Message-ID: Call for Papers 22nd Annual California Indian Conference & Gathering: California Indians Building Community Friday, October 26 & Saturday, October 27, 2007 Proposals are invited for the 22nd Annual California Indian Conference and Gathering. Submissions are welcome on topics relating to the indigenous peoples of California. Abstracts and proposals should be received by August 15, 2007. Organizers and presenters will be notified by September 20, 2007. Abstracts for sessions, papers, and workshops should be 250 words or less double-spaced, 12 point font. They should include title of paper name of presenter e-mail or other contact information tribal/institutional affiliation. Abstracts for sessions and workshops should also include the names of the organizer and panelists abstracts from each of the panelists. Submit abstracts as e-mail an electronic document (PC or Mac .doc file) or mail a paper copy. Send abstracts or direct any questions to Sheri Tatsch at , (530) 754-8361 Department of Native American Studies One Shields Avenue UC Davis Davis, CA 95616 _______________________________________________________ Please Post and/or forward to all who may be interested in presenting at the CICG 2007. Additional information on the conference can be found at http:// nas.ucdavis.edu/NALC/cicg/  -Thanks, Sheri ________________________ Sheri Tatsch, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Scholar Native American Language Center Department of Native American Studies University of California-Davis One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616-8667 530-754-8361 FAX: 752-7097 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Jul 6 17:18:17 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2007 10:18:17 -0700 Subject: Safeguarding the Keys to Knowledge (fwd) Message-ID: UBC Reports | Vol. 53 | No. 7 | Jul 5, 2007 Safeguarding the Keys to Knowledge Indigenous scholar says preserving languages keeps cultural knowledge alive By Bud Mortenson http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/ubcreports/2007/07jul05/knowledge.html If indigenous languages disappear so, too, will invaluable knowledge about our environment and sustainable ways of life, warns Lester-Irrabina Rigney, a visiting research fellow with UBC’s Department of Education Studies. “The world’s indigenous languages are in crisis,” Rigney points out. “The way things are going, only a few hundred languages amongst the world’s 6,000 or so look like surviving in the long term. The rate of extinction of languages and cultures far exceeds that of fauna and flora.” An Aboriginal scholar from South Australia’s Narungga Nation, Rigney is an associate professor with the Yunggorendi First Nations Centre for Higher Education and Research at Australia’s Flinders University. He holds a PhD in indigenous research, and is collaborating with the newly formed Indigenous Education Research Institute of Canada located at UBC. The institute, he explains, is developing a Pacific consortium on research into indigenous education in partnership with researchers in Australia, Hawaii, New Zealand and Indonesia. Rigney recently conducted a week-long seminar for UBC Okanagan’s Summer Institute in Interdisciplinary Indigenous Studies, now in its second year offering PhD- and master’s-level seminars for mature, mid-career indigenous students. He’s teaching a new generation of researchers about pitfalls and best practices in conducting research with indigenous communities. “Researchers are now starting to advance what we know about how you keep indigenous knowledge intact,” says Rigney. “We now need to look at different ways for accessing indigenous knowledge. In any society, language holds the key to knowledge – indigenous communities are no different. The key to indigenous knowledge is indigenous language.” Rigney has observed the threatened state of these languages in all the colonized areas of the world he has visited, including Canada. “What astounds me is that in Canada there’s lots of emphasis on saving wildlife, rivers, and so on, yet you have indigenous languages that are not found anywhere else in the world,” he says. “They are not official languages in Canada, so they suffer a range of fates. Once they go to sleep, it’s very hard to awaken them.” He argues that when an indigenous language is firmly supported, it creates a stronger sense of place for its people, and allows services to be provided in ways that make people feel comfortable. That can lead to better education and greater development opportunities. For all these reasons, he says, “we need more numeracy and literacy in these languages.” Improving how research is conducted is important in the quest to better understand and help preserve First languages and cultures. Historically, researchers haven’t done a good job, Rigney notes. “Over the first 150 years of Australian -- and Canadian -- colonization, indigenous peoples were viewed as static, as if they were statues behind glass,” he says. “In the past, research was done pretty inappropriately.” Communities were studied without engaging or even showing much consideration for the people who were studied. In what Rigney describes as being akin to “intellectual gymnastics,” today’s researchers must be aware of a host of complex issues, legalities and ethics, and employ research techniques that are sensitive and productive for everyone. He views programs like the UBC Okanagan Summer Institute as an important part of the solution. Only in the last decade or so, with a small but growing number of indigenous students earning advanced degrees, have indigenous people around the world become involved in researching their own communities, he observes. A history of invasive research in indigenous communities remains sharp in people’s minds, yet positive changes are taking place, Rigney suggests. “Research is still a dirty word for some. But now more and more people want to be a part of research -- they see that it’s a part of building the future.” “It’s exciting -- it has taken a long time to get indigenous researchers and scholars, and there are now some extraordinary researchers, from ethnobotany to speech pathology. I’m fortunate to be working with some of Canada’s most skilled PhDs, and they will all make a difference.” - - - - Last reviewed 05-Jul-2007 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Jul 6 17:24:42 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2007 10:24:42 -0700 Subject: Preserving the language (fwd) Message-ID: Preserving the language Jul 06 2007 http://www.pgfreepress.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=26&cat=23&id=1020696&more=0 The B.C. government is dedicating an additional $400,000 towards the preservation of the province’s more than 30 aboriginal languages. The latest fund is in addition to a $1 million expenditure announced by the province last year, said B.C.. Aboriginal Relations Minister Mike de Jong, who helped paddle a canoe into Victoria’s downtown harbour to make the announcement Thursday. A total of $1.2 million was committed to increase the program, aimed at keeping traditional languages from disappearing from everyday use. It will fund language and culture camps, master-apprentice programs for elders and younger people, pre-school language and cultural immersion programs and community language and culture authorities. The largest partner in the latest funding is the New Relationship Trust, with a $500,000 contribution. It’s the first major investment for the trust, established last year with a $100 million endowment from the provincial government and an appointed board of directors with majority aboriginal membership. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 9 16:17:09 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 09:17:09 -0700 Subject: Language archive position (fwd) Message-ID: ENDANGERED LANGUAGE ARCHIVE MANAGER AND ARCHIVIST UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY Position #6809: for full information go to http://jobs.berkeley.edu/ Annual full time salary range: $36,528 - $58,776 depending upon experience. This requisition will remain open until filled. Job Description: The Survey of California and Other Indian Languages (SCOIL) is a unit of the Dept. of Linguistics, at UC Berkeley. SCOIL has sponsored documentary linguistic work on the native languages of California and elsewhere for over 50 years; it houses one of the major linguistic archives of American languages; and it sponsors many activities to bring members of California indigenous communities to study material in its archive. With 3 years of grant funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation, the Dept. wants to hire an archivist, curator, and manager to improve the content description and broad intellectual accessibility of SCOIL's language documentation. This project generally involves improving the quality and quantity of information in the SCOIL catalog, creating metadata records conforming to the OLAC standard, creating a controlled vocabulary for California languages, developing a web interface to give access to metadata and digital content, refining access and use policies, and supporting community revitalization and documentation projects. Responsibilities: -Analyze and describe archival material in the SCOIL collection to produce detailed metadata records conforming to current language-archive standards -Supervise digitization of material in the SCOIL archive -Assist to acquire and curate new archival material from collectors (linguists and anthropologists) and native communities -Design database structure and help design web interface for the SCOIL collection -Participate actively in developing national and international standards for the emerging field of endangered language archives -Attend meetings of the Linguistic Society of America and the Digital Endangered Language and Music Archives Network. -Serve as liaison with staff concerned with language archives in the Berkeley Language Ctr., Bancroft Library, and Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology. - Supervise the SCOIL student staff Requirements & Qualifications: Required: -ALA-accredited MLS or MA in history with concentration in archival studies -Knowledge of national archival standards and practices, with an emphasis on digital materials and cultural property -Knowledge of ethical issues related to language documentation and indigenous cultural property -Sophisticated computer literacy is essential; at least basic knowledge of web applications and programming, and database programming -Excellent communication skills, oral, written and interpersonal. -Demonstrated supervisory experience -Ability to work independently and be self-motivated -Must have an interest in participating in the national and international standards-development community for digital endangered language archives Preferred: -Experience or educational background in Linguistics, Anthropology, Native American Studies, or a related discipline This position has been designated as sensitive and may require a Criminal Background Check. We reserve the right to make employment contingent upon successful completion of a Criminal Background Check. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 9 16:36:41 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 09:36:41 -0700 Subject: Schools count on a few Native speakers to preserve language (fwd) Message-ID: Schools count on a few Native speakers to preserve language ATHABASCAN: To teacher Susan Paskvan, Native culture is lost without it. By STEFAN MILKOWSKI Fairbanks Daily News-Miner Published: July 9, 2007 Last Modified: July 9, 2007 at 03:09 AM http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/9118313p-9034643c.html FAIRBANKS -- If Susan Paskvan had her wish, everyone in the Interior villages along the Koyukuk River would know how to speak their native language -- Koyukon Athabascan, or Denaakk'e. Right now, only about 300 villagers speak it, she said, plus some who have moved to Fairbanks. That doesn't include children. For the last four years, Paskvan has coordinated the Yukon-Koyukuk School District's Native language program. By videoconference from Fairbanks, she helps teach Denaakk'e and Lower Tanana Athabascan to students in the district's nine villages. Other times, she'll gather up students, parents and elders and go camping near the villages to immerse students in Athabascan language and culture. "She just tries to grab each opportunity to use the language," said Martha Demoski, a teacher from Nulato who has worked with Paskvan at the camps. At one summer camp, Paskvan had students put up signs all over with the Denaakk'e words for things and made them repeat the words for whatever they were doing. Students made birch bark baskets, fished and kept journals in English and Denaakk'e. "She had a way of drawing them in and teaching the language, making sure they learn," Demoski said. Girls would gather around her when she was doing beadwork, and she would teach them. Over the years, Paskvan has taught some Denaakk'e to hundreds of students. To Paskvan, the Athabascan culture is contained in the language itself. Athabascans believe certain animals have strong spirits. So in Denaakk'e, boys will call a black bear by name, ses, but girls will only refer to it indirectly -- belel daaletl'edzee, they'll say, or "the black one." "There's so much in a language," Paskvan said. "You're not only learning a language, you're also learning the traditional values." Paskvan lived in Koyukuk until her family moved to Fairbanks when she was 7. Her father, Benedict Jones, worked for the state's department of transportation. Her mother, Eliza Jones, taught language classes at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and co-authored the "Koyukon Athabaskan Dictionary," a tome of more than 1,000 pages. Paskvan keeps a copy of the dictionary in her office. Growing up, she learned Denaakk'e words and expressions but mostly spoke English. Her Native name is K'etsoo, a pet name her great-grandmother gave her meaning "somebody's grandmother." "Onee,' " she told her new Fairbanks neighbors when they came to the door, without knowing she was speaking Athabascan. Paskvan graduated from West Valley High School in 1981 and went to college at UAF, where she took classes taught by her mother. She kept her notes from those classes, but didn't dive into Denaakk'e till later. First, Paskvan went to work for the Tanana Chiefs Conference helping people get title to their land under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. She married Steve Paskvan, who teaches at West Valley, and they had two children, Jason, 14, and Adam, 13. "And then I realized, I have to learn this, I have to teach my kids," she said, referring to Denaakk'e. Paskvan signed up for a mentor-apprentice program through TCC's Interior Athabascan Tribal College and spent two hours a day, five days a week, with a woman named Madeline Williams, who spoke the language. Her sons went with her. Paskvan studied in Williams' home, rather than a classroom, and learned words for actual objects, rather than pictures on a page. When they cooked, she learned the words for individual ingredients and the act of mixing them. A few years later, the Yukon-Koyukuk School District board directed the district to provide Native language instruction in its schools. "I went around and asked different people," Superintendent Christopher Simon said. "(Paskvan) was just so excited about the Native language, it was like, 'Here's our person.' " Around the same time, the district won a four-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education to improve reading and writing skills and teach Athabascan. The grant provided for curriculum development and the language camps, as well as language training for teachers and teaching aides. Now the district teaches the two Athabascan languages half an hour every day to students in kindergarten through fourth grade. Simon said it's working. "We hear anecdotal stories of kids, you know, when they're playing, they're using the native language," he said. Paskvan said the language is complex and the teachers, including herself, are learning as they go. Word roots are added on to convey something that could take a whole sentence in English, she said. Kids like to learn the word edeghoyeneegheleedeneek, which means roughly, "take care of yourself." Paskvan co-teaches the district's language classes with her mother, Jones, who joins the videoconferences from Koyukuk. "I think most people want to learn their languages," she said, but it takes lots of time, and people also want to join the work force and do other things. One of Paskvan's goals is to set up an interactive Web site where anyone can go and see pictures, hear snippets of Denaakk'e, and read translations. Another goal is to finish her master's degree, for which she's compiling a history of the Kaltag area by telling the stories behind place names. For now, Paskvan is working to keep the district's language programs going after the federal grant ends this year. She said it makes her happy to go into communities and ask kids how they're doing in Denaakk'e, and have them respond in it. Having kids speak the language means a lot to the elders, too, she said. "It really gives them joy to know that it's not being lost." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 9 16:41:00 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 09:41:00 -0700 Subject: Ojibwe language camp July 10-13 (fwd) Message-ID: Ojibwe language camp July 10-13 The Daily Press Monday, July 09th, 2007 09:59:11 AM http://www.ashlandwi.com/dailypress/index.php?sect_rank=4&story_id=214103 The Red Cliff tribe will again host a summer camp program to encourage Ojibwe language learning among Ojibwe youth and young adults on July 10-13 at the Raspberry Bay tribal campgrounds in Red Cliff. Andrew Gokee, senior outreach specialist for the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Native American Center, provides coordination assistance for the program. On Monday, July 9, participants, teachers, and presenters and staff will begin to arrive to set up campsites and workstations. The program formally begins Tuesday morning with an opening ceremony and feast. Each day of the camp will include sessions of language instruction, periods of language immersion, crafts, cultural skills, and games. Past activities have included wigwam construction, moccasin making, traditional games, deerskin tanning, netting and plant identification. The Ojibwe language will be taught at all levels; beginning students as well as advanced learners are welcomed. The program will conclude on Friday, July 13. Campers must provide their own tents and gear, and children under age 14 must be accompanied by an adult. Food is provided for all visitors and participants. Participants may register on site. Community members and visitors are welcome to visit the camp throughout the week. There is no cost for the program. Currently in its fifth year, the Ojibwe Language Camp program is sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point's Department of Multicultural Affairs and the Red Cliff Tribal Council. For more information, contact Andrew Gokee at (715) 346-4147. From mona at ALLIESMEDIAART.COM Tue Jul 10 14:46:45 2007 From: mona at ALLIESMEDIAART.COM (Mona Smith) Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 09:46:45 -0500 Subject: Is anyone aware of research concerning ambient audio and language learning? Message-ID: Or any learning for that matter. I've been asked to think about creating a sound space for immersion pre-schools. I'm excited by the idea, but am curious if there's any research or info out there.... Pidamaya, Mona Smith http://www.alliesmediaart.com From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Tue Jul 10 15:26:11 2007 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 08:26:11 -0700 Subject: Dakota Message-ID: http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1293363.html Home ||Local Recording and preserving the Dakota language - *Audio:* Wayne Wells and Curtis Campbell, Sr. Dakota language teacher Wayne Wells pulled a chair next to tribal elder Curtis Campbell, who had settled into his favorite living room rocker to begin an unusual recording session. Wells clutched a gray metal box called a "phraselator," an electronic interpreter first introduced in Iraq and Afghanistan for use by U.S. soldiers at military checkpoints and security zones. He handed a microphone to Campbell, and asked him to repeat -- in Dakota -- decidedly civilian phrases such as "I want some coffee." Campbell responded, "Pezutasapa mak'u wo." And the words were added to a databank of hundreds of phrases and sentences stored in the device. Word by word, the effort is helping students at Prairie Island Indian Community preserve their fragile native language. "There's only about two or three people here who speak Dakota fluently, so time is of the essence," said Wells, the language teacher at the community outside of Red Wing. "If the kids don't learn it now, there won't be anyone left who knows it." Last year, the Prairie Island Community became one of more than 50 Indian communities nationwide to integrate phraselators into their arsenal of language preservation tools. The hand-held device resembles a small computer, with a monitor showing tabs for "weather,"family,"animals" and "Dakota virtues and values," among other subjects. "You can scroll up and down and find different phrases," explained 12-year-old Kachina Yeager, one of Wells' students, sitting on her front porch and fiddling with the tabs. "Say I want to hear the word for 'mother.' I can find it here and then tap it. Or I can just speak 'mother' into the top of the phraselator." A few seconds after explaining this, Campbell's deep voice boomed "een na" out of the phraselator. The first batch of phraselators was loaded with phrases in languages such as Arabic, Pashto and Farsi, said John Hall, president of VoxTec International, the device's Maryland-based manufacturer. The stock phrases would include "show me your hands" or "stay away from the area," he said. But a few years ago, it began catching on with Indian communities as well, Hall said. Because Campbell is one of just a handful of native speakers left, he and Wells have spent hundreds of hours together in his living room decorated with tall Indian vases from the Southwest and Native American art on the walls. Last week, the two were completing a section on food. The session showed the challenges of bringing ancient languages into modern times. Wells asked Campbell to translate, "I want some cake."There is no word for 'cake'," responded Campbell. "How about 'sweet bread'?" Ditto for "restaurant."How about 'food house'?" he asked. Campbell, a retired construction worker, said he speaks Dakota fluently in part because of a lucky turn in his childhood. Growing up in the 1940s, he was able to avoid being sent to a Indian boarding school, where children were beaten if they spoke their native language. He did, however, have to cut his long shiny hair in order to start school at a little one-room schoolhouse, he recalled, and had to learn to speak English fluently. But he continued to speak Dakota at home. Wells wasn't so fortunate. He said his grandfather refused to speak Dakota with his children because he was so "traumatized" by the boarding school experience. So Wells learned Dakota at the University of Minnesota. He's still nowhere near fluent, but recording with the phraselator is helping, he said. Kachina's mother, Shelley Buck-Yaeger, has been so impressed with the device that she's planning to buy one for the family. Her parents didn't speak Dakota either, she said, and she's always wanted to learn. Plus the phraselators are practically indestructible, a key feature given the wear and tear they can undergo at the hands of active children. Made for combat, they can be dropped 6 feet onto cement without damage, according to the VoxTech advertisements. The phraselators aren't cheap: The cost of purchasing three of them, plus installing the software, and receiving training and technical support, was about $25,000, said Alan Childs, treasurer for the Prairie Island tribal council. But the device can be used for more than just basic translation, he said. It can also preserve traditional Dakota songs and stories, said Childs, who is a singer in the community. Over the years, there have been other attempts to preserve the Dakota language, which now only has about 100 fluent speakers in four Indian communities in Minnesota, Childs said. It's still too soon to tell whether the phraselators are going to make a breakthrough, he said. But a combination of a fancy high-tech tool and a dedicated teacher from the tribe could start making a difference, he said. "You start building the wheel," Childs said, "and eventually it will start turning." Jean Hopfensperger • 612-673-4511 • hopfen at startribune.com -- ____________________________________________________________ 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 Acquisition & 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: From thien at UNIMELB.EDU.AU Tue Jul 10 15:41:41 2007 From: thien at UNIMELB.EDU.AU (Nicholas Thieberger) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:41:41 +1000 Subject: Dakota In-Reply-To: <39a679e20707100826y45e62f84n994783b6c97de811@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I've read about the phraselators for a little while now and I want to ask about the format they record in. They sound like a great delivery tool for learning, but once they are being used to create lots of primary recordings then the community for whom these recordings are being made should be aware that they are not as good quality as proper recorders with good microphones. It's a balance between the ease of use of units like the phraselator and the longer term view of making the best possible recording now so it will be available to language learners in future. Of course any recording is better than none, but if we have a choice shouldn't we be making as good a recording as we can? All the best, Nick Thieberger At 8:26 AM -0700 10/7/07, Susan Penfield wrote: > >Recording and preserving the Dakota language > > >Audio: Wayne >Wells and Curtis Campbell, Sr. > >Dakota language teacher Wayne Wells pulled a chair next to tribal >elder Curtis Campbell, who had settled into his favorite living room >rocker to begin an unusual recording session. Wells clutched a gray >metal box called a "phraselator," an electronic interpreter first >introduced in Iraq and Afghanistan for use by U.S. soldiers at >military checkpoints and security zones. He handed a microphone to >Campbell, and asked him to repeat -- in Dakota -- decidedly civilian >phrases such as "I want some coffee." > >Campbell responded, "Pezutasapa mak'u wo." And the words were added >to a databank of hundreds of phrases and sentences stored in the >device. Word by word, the effort is helping students at Prairie >Island Indian Community preserve their fragile native language. > >"There's only about two or three people here who speak Dakota >fluently, so time is of the essence," said Wells, the language >teacher at the community outside of Red Wing. "If the kids don't >learn it now, there won't be anyone left who knows it." > >Last year, the Prairie Island Community became one of more than 50 >Indian communities nationwide to integrate phraselators into their >arsenal of language preservation tools. The hand-held device >resembles a small computer, with a monitor showing tabs for >"weather,"family,"animals" and "Dakota virtues and values," among >other subjects. > >"You can scroll up and down and find different phrases," explained >12-year-old Kachina Yeager, one of Wells' students, sitting on her >front porch and fiddling with the tabs. "Say I want to hear the word >for 'mother.' I can find it here and then tap it. Or I can just >speak 'mother' into the top of the phraselator." > >A few seconds after explaining this, Campbell's deep voice boomed >"een na" out of the phraselator. > >The first batch of phraselators was loaded with phrases in languages >such as Arabic, Pashto and Farsi, said John Hall, president of >VoxTec International, the device's Maryland-based manufacturer. The >stock phrases would include "show me your hands" or "stay away from >the area," he said. But a few years ago, it began catching on with >Indian communities as well, Hall said. > >Because Campbell is one of just a handful of native speakers left, >he and Wells have spent hundreds of hours together in his living >room decorated with tall Indian vases from the Southwest and Native >American art on the walls. > >Last week, the two were completing a section on food. The session >showed the challenges of bringing ancient languages into modern >times. Wells asked Campbell to translate, "I want some cake."There >is no word for 'cake'," responded Campbell. "How about 'sweet >bread'?" Ditto for "restaurant."How about 'food house'?" he asked. > >Campbell, a retired construction worker, said he speaks Dakota >fluently in part because of a lucky turn in his childhood. > >Growing up in the 1940s, he was able to avoid being sent to a Indian >boarding school, where children were beaten if they spoke their >native language. He did, however, have to cut his long shiny hair in >order to start school at a little one-room schoolhouse, he recalled, >and had to learn to speak English fluently. But he continued to >speak Dakota at home. > >Wells wasn't so fortunate. He said his grandfather refused to speak >Dakota with his children because he was so "traumatized" by the >boarding school experience. So Wells learned Dakota at the >University of Minnesota. He's still nowhere near fluent, but >recording with the phraselator is helping, he said. > >Kachina's mother, Shelley Buck-Yaeger, has been so impressed with >the device that she's planning to buy one for the family. Her >parents didn't speak Dakota either, she said, and she's always >wanted to learn. > >Plus the phraselators are practically indestructible, a key feature >given the wear and tear they can undergo at the hands of active >children. Made for combat, they can be dropped 6 feet onto cement >without damage, according to the VoxTech advertisements. > >The phraselators aren't cheap: The cost of purchasing three of them, >plus installing the software, and receiving training and technical >support, was about $25,000, said Alan Childs, treasurer for the >Prairie Island tribal council. > >But the device can be used for more than just basic translation, he >said. It can also preserve traditional Dakota songs and stories, >said Childs, who is a singer in the community. > >Over the years, there have been other attempts to preserve the >Dakota language, which now only has about 100 fluent speakers in >four Indian communities in Minnesota, Childs said. It's still too >soon to tell whether the phraselators are going to make a >breakthrough, he said. But a combination of a fancy high-tech tool >and a dedicated teacher from the tribe could start making a >difference, he said. > >"You start building the wheel," Childs said, "and eventually it will >start turning." > >Jean Hopfensperger * 612-673-4511 * >hopfen at startribune.com > > > > > > > >-- >____________________________________________________________ >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 Acquisition & 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...) -- Project Manager PARADISEC Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics University of Melbourne, Vic 3010 Australia nicholas.thieberger at paradisec.org.au Ph 61 (0)3 8344 5185 PARADISEC Pacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures http://paradisec.org.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wjposer at LDC.UPENN.EDU Tue Jul 10 17:01:53 2007 From: wjposer at LDC.UPENN.EDU (William J Poser) Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 13:01:53 -0400 Subject: Is anyone aware of research concerning ambient audio and language learning? In-Reply-To: <46939BD5.5060309@alliesmediaart.com> Message-ID: I'm guessing that what you mean by "a sound space" and "ambient audio and language" is playing stuff in a language as "background music"? If that is right, I would note two things: (a) there is evidence that children learning their first language begin to acquire its sound system before they exhibit any actual ability to understand or produce language. This comes from the fact that the distribution of sounds produced in "babbling" becomes decreasingly random and approaches the distribution of sounds in the ambient language. As I recall this takes place VERY early, possibly even still in the womb. By the beginning of preschool as it is usually defined, this stage is over. (b) a number of studies of L1 acquisition have shown that children pay no attention to speech not directed to them. Their learning is based entirely on speech directed to them. This would suggest that it would not be useful to provide language simply as "background music". However, there are also studies that show that in some cultures people very rarely speak to young children. This seems weird to people from cultures in which adults and older children explicitly try to teach language (e.g. "That's a doggie. Can you say 'doggie'?") and seems to relatively rare as a cultural behaviour. Nonetheless, children in such societies do acquire language. I'm not aware of work that attempts to reconcile these two strands of research. Bill From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 10 17:28:44 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:28:44 -0700 Subject: Dakota In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi Nick, The Phraselator company came to the American Indian Language development Institute (AILDI) here in Tucson last month.  They gave a demo of their phraselator to the tried and true language teachers and afterwords pretty much everybody was neutral on its use and some skeptical.  They did say that the audio recordings are in .wav format.  During the live demo, a number of recording were done and it seemed of fairly good quality.  However, the actual playback was only as good as the phraselator speaker...which is not bad for a small hand held device.  I am thinking of writing a short informal review/first impressions of the phraselator and posting it here on ILAT. Phil Cash Cash (Cayuse/Nez Perce) UofA Quoting Nicholas Thieberger : > I've read about the phraselators for a little while now and I want to > ask about the format they record in. They sound like a great delivery > tool for learning, but once they are being used to create lots of > primary recordings then the community for whom these recordings are > being made should be aware that they are not as good quality as > proper recorders with good microphones. > > It's a balance between the ease of use of units like the phraselator > and the longer term view of making the best possible recording now so > it will be available to language learners in future. Of course any > recording is better than none, but if we have a choice shouldn't we > be making as good a recording as we can? > > All the best, > > Nick Thieberger > > At 8:26 AM -0700 10/7/07, Susan Penfield wrote: >> >> Recording and preserving the Dakota language >> >> >> Audio: Wayne Wells and Curtis Campbell, Sr. >> >> Dakota language teacher Wayne Wells pulled a chair next to tribal >> elder Curtis Campbell, who had settled into his favorite living room >> rocker to begin an unusual recording session. Wells clutched a gray >> metal box called a "phraselator," an electronic interpreter first >> introduced in Iraq and Afghanistan for use by U.S. soldiers at >> military checkpoints and security zones. He handed a microphone to >> Campbell, and asked him to repeat -- in Dakota -- decidedly civilian >> phrases such as "I want some coffee." >> >> Campbell responded, "Pezutasapa mak'u wo." And the words were added >> to a databank of hundreds of phrases and sentences stored in the >> device. Word by word, the effort is helping students at Prairie >> Island Indian Community preserve their fragile native language. >> >> "There's only about two or three people here who speak Dakota >> fluently, so time is of the essence," said Wells, the language >> teacher at the community outside of Red Wing. "If the kids don't >> learn it now, there won't be anyone left who knows it." >> >> Last year, the Prairie Island Community became one of more than 50 >> Indian communities nationwide to integrate phraselators into their >> arsenal of language preservation tools. The hand-held device >> resembles a small computer, with a monitor showing tabs for >> "weather,"family,"animals" and "Dakota virtues and values," among >> other subjects. >> >> "You can scroll up and down and find different phrases," explained >> 12-year-old Kachina Yeager, one of Wells' students, sitting on her >> front porch and fiddling with the tabs. "Say I want to hear the word >> for 'mother.' I can find it here and then tap it. Or I can just >> speak 'mother' into the top of the phraselator." >> >> A few seconds after explaining this, Campbell's deep voice boomed >> "een na" out of the phraselator. >> >> The first batch of phraselators was loaded with phrases in languages >> such as Arabic, Pashto and Farsi, said John Hall, president of >> VoxTec International, the device's Maryland-based manufacturer. The >> stock phrases would include "show me your hands" or "stay away from >> the area," he said. But a few years ago, it began catching on with >> Indian communities as well, Hall said. >> >> Because Campbell is one of just a handful of native speakers left, >> he and Wells have spent hundreds of hours together in his living >> room decorated with tall Indian vases from the Southwest and Native >> American art on the walls. >> >> Last week, the two were completing a section on food. The session >> showed the challenges of bringing ancient languages into modern >> times. Wells asked Campbell to translate, "I want some cake."There >> is no word for 'cake'," responded Campbell. "How about 'sweet >> bread'?" Ditto for "restaurant."How about 'food house'?" he asked. >> >> Campbell, a retired construction worker, said he speaks Dakota >> fluently in part because of a lucky turn in his childhood. >> >> Growing up in the 1940s, he was able to avoid being sent to a Indian >> boarding school, where children were beaten if they spoke their >> native language. He did, however, have to cut his long shiny hair in >> order to start school at a little one-room schoolhouse, he recalled, >> and had to learn to speak English fluently. But he continued to >> speak Dakota at home. >> >> Wells wasn't so fortunate. He said his grandfather refused to speak >> Dakota with his children because he was so "traumatized" by the >> boarding school experience. So Wells learned Dakota at the >> University of Minnesota. He's still nowhere near fluent, but >> recording with the phraselator is helping, he said. >> >> Kachina's mother, Shelley Buck-Yaeger, has been so impressed with >> the device that she's planning to buy one for the family. Her >> parents didn't speak Dakota either, she said, and she's always >> wanted to learn. >> >> Plus the phraselators are practically indestructible, a key feature >> given the wear and tear they can undergo at the hands of active >> children. Made for combat, they can be dropped 6 feet onto cement >> without damage, according to the VoxTech advertisements. >> >> The phraselators aren't cheap: The cost of purchasing three of them, >> plus installing the software, and receiving training and technical >> support, was about $25,000, said Alan Childs, treasurer for the >> Prairie Island tribal council. >> >> But the device can be used for more than just basic translation, he >> said. It can also preserve traditional Dakota songs and stories, >> said Childs, who is a singer in the community. >> >> Over the years, there have been other attempts to preserve the >> Dakota language, which now only has about 100 fluent speakers in >> four Indian communities in Minnesota, Childs said. It's still too >> soon to tell whether the phraselators are going to make a >> breakthrough, he said. But a combination of a fancy high-tech tool >> and a dedicated teacher from the tribe could start making a >> difference, he said. >> >> "You start building the wheel," Childs said, "and eventually it will >> start turning." >> >> Jean Hopfensperger * 612-673-4511 * hopfen at startribune.com> >> hopfen at startribune.com >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> -- >> ____________________________________________________________ >> 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 Acquisition & 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...) > > > -- > Project Manager > PARADISEC > Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics > University of Melbourne, Vic 3010 > Australia > > nicholas.thieberger at paradisec.org.au > Ph 61 (0)3 8344 5185 > > PARADISEC > Pacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures > http://paradisec.org.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From phonosemantics at EARTHLINK.NET Tue Jul 10 20:00:14 2007 From: phonosemantics at EARTHLINK.NET (jess tauber) Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:00:14 -0400 Subject: Is anyone aware of research concerning ambient audio and language learning? Message-ID: I'm wondering whether there is a typological link. I've read that child-directed speech tends to focus on verbs, whereas parents tend to focus on nouns. This may be a variable as well typologically, given that some languages are verb-heavy, some noun-heavy. Perhaps younger folks tend to direct their OWN attention then to high-agentivity/animacy-associated activities (successful actions of the powerful- egocentric POV), not particularly caring where the info comes from, and may actively query someone about what they are seeing? Parent-directed speech would focus on participants, their properties, abilities, weaknesses, ranks, privileges, responsibilities, etc. more about LIMITATIONS (perhaps not a favorite topic for the young)- a SOCIAL theme, encouraging other-centered POV's, ) Opposition between the sensory and motor systems? I'd also be curious to know what TYPES of action most typically attract attention- ones needing high levels of training and control of preparations, subactions and outcomes might be a total bore to young folks preferring simplex actions (the ones often grammaticalized in aux. verb systems, or in ideophones). What about nouns? Do heroes, leaders, powerful or capable animals, etc. require less prodding from parents than their opposites? I'm sure this is all a lot more intricately layered and pragmatically motivated- but are there any universals that one can start with?? Have all different linguistic types had adequate acquisitional studies done on them? Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net From wjposer at LDC.UPENN.EDU Tue Jul 10 20:20:57 2007 From: wjposer at LDC.UPENN.EDU (William J Poser) Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:20:57 -0400 Subject: Is anyone aware of research concerning ambient audio and language learning? In-Reply-To: <1007852.1184097615184.JavaMail.root@elwamui-sweet.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: My impression is that L1 acquisition studies have unfortunately been focussed very heavily on a small number of languages, due in large part to the fact that it is quite difficult to study acquisition in the field - people tend to study their own children or children readily accessible in the vicinity of their university. So there is tons of work on English, French, and German, and a good bit on Hebrew and Turkish (which, when it started, was itself part of an effort to broaden the range of languages), but much less on other languages. For example, I know of exactly one study of L1 acquisition of Navajo. An additional problem is of course that in the case of endangered languages there are no children acquiring the language to study. The expert on the study of L1 aquisition of "exotic" languages is Cliff Pye at the University of Kansas (http://web.ku.edu/~pyersqr/) He himself has worked on acquisition of Mayan languages. He has also written about the need for studies of acquisition in a wider range of languages and cultures. Bill From thien at UNIMELB.EDU.AU Tue Jul 10 21:22:51 2007 From: thien at UNIMELB.EDU.AU (Nicholas Thieberger) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 07:22:51 +1000 Subject: Is anyone aware of research concerning ambient audio and language learning? In-Reply-To: <20070710202057.9DECDB2774@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: There is currently a fieldwork-based project looking at the acquisition of several Australian Indigenous languages, run by Jane Simpson, Patrick McConvell and Gillian Wigglesworth. Its webpage is here: http://www.linguistics.unimelb.edu.au/research/projects/ACLA/ Nick At 4:20 PM -0400 10/7/07, William J Poser wrote: >My impression is that L1 acquisition studies have unfortunately been >focussed very heavily on a small number of languages, due in large >part to the fact that it is quite difficult to study acquisition >in the field - people tend to study their own children or children >readily accessible in the vicinity of their university. So there is >tons of work on English, French, and German, and a good bit on >Hebrew and Turkish (which, when it started, was itself part of an >effort to broaden the range of languages), but much less on other >languages. For example, I know of exactly one study of L1 >acquisition of Navajo. An additional problem is of course that >in the case of endangered languages there are no children acquiring >the language to study. > >The expert on the study of L1 aquisition of "exotic" languages is >Cliff Pye at the University of Kansas (http://web.ku.edu/~pyersqr/) >He himself has worked on acquisition of Mayan languages. He has >also written about the need for studies of acquisition in a wider >range of languages and cultures. > >Bill > From rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 11 08:50:41 2007 From: rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudy Troike) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:50:41 -0700 Subject: Native language acquisition Message-ID: Bill Poser is right -- it is particularly sad that so much effort is expended on the study of the acquisition of well-known and accessible languages, while the potential for our understanding of the acquisition of typologically distinct and even unique languages is allowed to slip away as they cease to be learned by children. Bill's reference to the one study of Navajo L1 acquisition is probably that of Muriel Saville- Troike, who found, in agreement with native-speaker intuition that Navajo is a verb-centered language, that children somehow extracted verb stems from the prefixed forms they commonly heard and used these before nouns. Older children in preschool who were asked to describe pictures (which English and Spanish speaking children had described in terms of names for the objects represented) by constructing action/event scenarios using verbs (e.g. a picture of a boy and a wagon: the boy is pulling the wagon). Contra the studies that Bill references on the convergence of babbling with the phonological/phonotactic structure of the ambient language(s), our twins, now 21 months old, have consistently produced very distinct "babbling" (as we adults call it, because we don't understand it -- it is presumably meaningful to them), neither sounding like either English or Spanish, both of which they are regularly exposed to. One of their earliest common "pre-words" was [nga] (velar nasal + vowel), and this week they began pronouncing their word for triangle, "ga", as [gah], sounding very much like the Navajo word for "rabbit", although neither English nor Spanish (at least not the variety they are exposed to) uses syllable-final [h]. It would be particularly valuable to see how children might acquire Cheyenne, since computationally the possible combinations of sets of interrelated suffixes is a huge number, which was successfully mastered by many generations of children in the past. This would be one of the most interesting potential studies for child language acquisition, given the particular morphological structure of the language, and could resolve some major theoretical issues, if it could be engineered somehow. Some years ago one of my students discovered a girl from a Spanish- speaking home in a first-grade classroom who had been labeled a "learning problem", since for six weeks she had wandered around the classroom paying no attention to the teacher, who spoke entirely in English and knew no Spanish. When my student (Caroline Willard) spoke to the girl in Spanish, she was perfectly fluent in her responses. Further inquiry revealed that when her parents went to work, not having money for a baby-sitter, they left the TV on tuned to a local channel which was entirely in English. The girl had apparently learned to ignore the English she heard on the TV as "background ambient noise", and so continued to ignore it when she heard the teacher producing English with other students. Only after Caroline showed her the equivalence between Spanish and English terms did she begin to pay attention to the teacher's language, and within six weeks was ahead of all the children in the class. So it would appear that introducing a language as "background ambient noise" would be the best way to insure that it would NOT be learned. Rudy Troike From mona at ALLIESMEDIAART.COM Wed Jul 11 12:35:13 2007 From: mona at ALLIESMEDIAART.COM (Mona Smith) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 07:35:13 -0500 Subject: [Possible SPAM] [ILAT] Native language acquisition In-Reply-To: <20070711015041.deokkwco0440gow4@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Pidamaya. We are planning to use nature sounds as opposed to actual language, but I had been toying with the idea of including words or phrases, if it made sense. Your comments will help me hold off on using language in the ambient audio at this point anyway.... Rudy Troike wrote: > Bill Poser is right -- it is particularly sad that so much effort is > expended on the study of the acquisition of well-known and accessible > languages, while the potential for our understanding of the acquisition > of typologically distinct and even unique languages is allowed to slip > away as they cease to be learned by children. Bill's reference to the > one study of Navajo L1 acquisition is probably that of Muriel Saville- > Troike, who found, in agreement with native-speaker intuition that > Navajo is a verb-centered language, that children somehow extracted > verb stems from the prefixed forms they commonly heard and used these > before nouns. Older children in preschool who were asked to describe > pictures (which English and Spanish speaking children had described in > terms of names for the objects represented) by constructing action/event > scenarios using verbs (e.g. a picture of a boy and a wagon: the boy is > pulling the wagon). > > Contra the studies that Bill references on the convergence of babbling > with the phonological/phonotactic structure of the ambient language(s), > our twins, now 21 months old, have consistently produced very distinct > "babbling" (as we adults call it, because we don't understand it -- it > is presumably meaningful to them), neither sounding like either English > or Spanish, both of which they are regularly exposed to. One of their > earliest common "pre-words" was [nga] (velar nasal + vowel), and this > week they began pronouncing their word for triangle, "ga", as [gah], > sounding very much like the Navajo word for "rabbit", although neither > English nor Spanish (at least not the variety they are exposed to) uses > syllable-final [h]. > > It would be particularly valuable to see how children might acquire > Cheyenne, since computationally the possible combinations of sets of > interrelated suffixes is a huge number, which was successfully mastered > by many generations of children in the past. This would be one of the > most interesting potential studies for child language acquisition, given > the particular morphological structure of the language, and could resolve > some major theoretical issues, if it could be engineered somehow. > > Some years ago one of my students discovered a girl from a Spanish- > speaking home in a first-grade classroom who had been labeled a "learning > problem", since for six weeks she had wandered around the classroom > paying no attention to the teacher, who spoke entirely in English and > knew no Spanish. When my student (Caroline Willard) spoke to the girl > in Spanish, she was perfectly fluent in her responses. Further inquiry > revealed that when her parents went to work, not having money for a > baby-sitter, they left the TV on tuned to a local channel which was > entirely in English. The girl had apparently learned to ignore the English > she heard on the TV as "background ambient noise", and so continued to > ignore it when she heard the teacher producing English with other students. > Only after Caroline showed her the equivalence between Spanish and English > terms did she begin to pay attention to the teacher's language, and within > six weeks was ahead of all the children in the class. So it would appear > that introducing a language as "background ambient noise" would be the > best way to insure that it would NOT be learned. > > Rudy Troike > > From rzs at TDS.NET Wed Jul 11 15:45:31 2007 From: rzs at TDS.NET (Richard Smith) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 08:45:31 -0700 Subject: Native language acquisition In-Reply-To: <20070711015041.deokkwco0440gow4@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: This discussion of background sound has been really interesting to follow I wonder how "continual TV presence" works on a young mind as well? Does the continual mist of sprayed information/entertainment eventually harden minds so that listening and even seeing requires "conscious effort?" I notice a strange lethargy in kids before a TV screen, Rarely laughing at jokes,rarely even smiling at what is obviously funny. There seems to be no expression of reaction or interaction. But when I tell/act out traditional stories in a class full of kiddos MOST of the kids are right with me...snickering,laughing at silly parts And just a few remain with those glazed over eyes. Richard Wyandotte Oklahoma On 7/11/07 1:50 AM, "Rudy Troike" wrote: > Bill Poser is right -- it is particularly sad that so much effort is > expended on the study of the acquisition of well-known and accessible > languages, while the potential for our understanding of the acquisition > of typologically distinct and even unique languages is allowed to slip > away as they cease to be learned by children. Bill's reference to the > one study of Navajo L1 acquisition is probably that of Muriel Saville- > Troike, who found, in agreement with native-speaker intuition that > Navajo is a verb-centered language, that children somehow extracted > verb stems from the prefixed forms they commonly heard and used these > before nouns. Older children in preschool who were asked to describe > pictures (which English and Spanish speaking children had described in > terms of names for the objects represented) by constructing action/event > scenarios using verbs (e.g. a picture of a boy and a wagon: the boy is > pulling the wagon). > > Contra the studies that Bill references on the convergence of babbling > with the phonological/phonotactic structure of the ambient language(s), > our twins, now 21 months old, have consistently produced very distinct > "babbling" (as we adults call it, because we don't understand it -- it > is presumably meaningful to them), neither sounding like either English > or Spanish, both of which they are regularly exposed to. One of their > earliest common "pre-words" was [nga] (velar nasal + vowel), and this > week they began pronouncing their word for triangle, "ga", as [gah], > sounding very much like the Navajo word for "rabbit", although neither > English nor Spanish (at least not the variety they are exposed to) uses > syllable-final [h]. > > It would be particularly valuable to see how children might acquire > Cheyenne, since computationally the possible combinations of sets of > interrelated suffixes is a huge number, which was successfully mastered > by many generations of children in the past. This would be one of the > most interesting potential studies for child language acquisition, given > the particular morphological structure of the language, and could resolve > some major theoretical issues, if it could be engineered somehow. > > Some years ago one of my students discovered a girl from a Spanish- > speaking home in a first-grade classroom who had been labeled a "learning > problem", since for six weeks she had wandered around the classroom > paying no attention to the teacher, who spoke entirely in English and > knew no Spanish. When my student (Caroline Willard) spoke to the girl > in Spanish, she was perfectly fluent in her responses. Further inquiry > revealed that when her parents went to work, not having money for a > baby-sitter, they left the TV on tuned to a local channel which was > entirely in English. The girl had apparently learned to ignore the English > she heard on the TV as "background ambient noise", and so continued to > ignore it when she heard the teacher producing English with other students. > Only after Caroline showed her the equivalence between Spanish and English > terms did she begin to pay attention to the teacher's language, and within > six weeks was ahead of all the children in the class. So it would appear > that introducing a language as "background ambient noise" would be the > best way to insure that it would NOT be learned. > > Rudy Troike From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 11 15:36:31 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 08:36:31 -0700 Subject: One Native Life (fwd) Message-ID: One Native Life © Indian Country Today July 11, 2007. All Rights Reserved Posted: July 11, 2007 by: Richard Wagamese http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415347 Learning Ojibway I was 24 when the first Ojibway word rolled off my tongue. It felt all round and rolling, not like the spikey sound of English with all those hard-edged consonants. When I said it aloud, I felt like I'd really, truly spoken for the first time in my life. I was a toddler when I was removed from my family and if I spoke Ojibway at all then, it was baby talk and the language never had a chance to sit in me and grow. English became my prime language and even though I developed an ease and facility with it, there was always something lacking. It never really quite felt real, valid even. It was like a hazy memory that never quite reaches clarity and leaves you puzzled whenever it arises. When that first Ojibway word floated out from between my teeth, I understood. You see, that first word opened the door to my culture. When I spoke it, I stepped over the threshold into an entirely new way of understanding myself and my place in the world. Until then I had been almost like a guest in my own life, standing around waiting for someone or something to explain things for me. That one word made me an inhabitant. It was peendigaen. Come in. Peendigaen, spoken with an outstretched hand and a rolling of the wrist. Beckoning. Come in. Welcome. This is where you belong. I had never encountered an English word that had that resonance - one that could change things so completely. It was awkward at first. There's a softness to the language that's off-putting when you first begin to speak it. It's almost as if timelessness had a vocabulary. With each enunciation the word gained strength, clarity and I got the feeling that I was speaking a language that had existed for longer than any the world has known. This one had never been adapted to become other languages like English had evolved from Germanic tongues. Instead, the feeling of Ojibway in my throat was permanence. I stood on ground I had never encountered before, an unknown territory whose sweep was compelling and uplifting and full. Peendigaen. Come in. And I walked fully into the world of my people for the first time. After that, I learned more words. Then I struggled to put whole sentences together. I made a lot of mistakes. I was used to the English process of talk and I created sentences that were mispronounced and wrong. People laughed when they heard me and I understood what cultural embarrassment could feel like. It made me feel like quitting, like English could spare me the laughter of my people. Then I heard a wise woman talk at a conference. She spoke of being removed from her culture, unplugged from it, disconnected and set aside like an old toaster. But she was always a toaster and the day came when someone plugged her back in and the electricity flowed. She became functional again - and the tool of her reawakening was her language. She spoke of the struggle to relearn her talk. She spoke of the same embarrassment I felt and the feeling of being an oddity amongst her own. She spoke of the difficulty in getting past the cultural shame and reaching out for her talk with every fiber of her being. And she spoke of the warm wash of the language on the hurts she'd carried all her life, how the soft roll of the talk was like a balm for her spirit. Then she spoke of prayer. Praying in her language was like having the ear of Creator for the first time. She felt heard and blessed and healed. It wasn't much, she said. Just a few words of gratitude, like prayers should be; but the words went outward from her and became a part of the whole, a portion of the great sacred breath of Creation again. She understood then, she said, that our talk is sacred and to speak it is the way we reconnect to our sacredness. We owe it to others to pass it on. That was the other thing she said. If we have even one word of our talk, if that's all we know, then we have a responsibility to pass it on to our children and those who have had it removed from them. You learn to speak for them. You learn to speak to function as a tool for someone else's reconnection. I have never forgotten that. These days I'm far from fluent and I still spend far more time using English, but the Ojibway talk sits there in the middle of my chest like a hope and when I use it, in a prayer, in a greeting, in a talk somewhere, I felt the same sensation as I did with that first word at 24 - the feeling of being ushered in, of welcome, of familiarity and belonging. An English word I admire is reclaim. It means to bring back, to return to a proper course. When I learned to speak Ojibway, I reclaimed a huge part of myself. It wasn't lost, I always owned it; it was just adrift on the great sea of influence that is the modern world. And like a mariner lost upon foreign seas, I sought a friendly shore to step out upon and learn to walk again. My language became that shore. I have an Ojibway name now. I introduce myself with it according to our traditional protocols when I speak somewhere. I can ask important questions in my language. I can greet people in the proper manner and I can pray. For me, peendigaen, come in, meant I could express myself as who I was created to be, and that's what this journey is all about - to learn to express yourself as who you were created to be. You don't need to be a Native person to understand that, just human. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 11 15:39:31 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 08:39:31 -0700 Subject: Students Help Save Native Language (fwd) Message-ID: Students Help Save Native Language http://www.uwyo.edu/news/showrelease.asp?id=16080 July 10, 2007 -- Students in a University of Wyoming Northern Arapaho language class are working to preserve the native language for future generations. Aware that tribal elders estimate there are only 10 years to save Northern Arapaho language, the class submitted grant proposals to improve the native language's teaching tools. The students, collaborating with the UW American Indian Studies Program, received money from UW's President's Advisory Council on Minorities' and Women's Affairs, and a private nonprofit foundation, The Heart of the Healer. Judy Antell, director of American Indian Studies, says the funds will be used to improve DVDs containing lessons from elders, create a student workbook, and hire native artists to design culturally-appropriate line drawings for a coloring book. Robyn Lopez of Rawlins, who in May graduated with a B.A. degree from UW, has been named grant director. The first project will be to develop the DVDs. "The class wanted to create DVD chapters for easier lesson navigation and subtitles to provide both visual and audio components to learning," says Amy Crowell, Dean of Students Office employee and language class guest. Crowell says the group hopes to develop a workbook for the DVD to help certify teachers. Crowell led the grant writing process for the class, but doesn't take sole credit for its process or results. "Most of the work that went into the grant was a synthesis of class member conversations both in and out of class," she says. "The way people spoke about learning the language and how much it meant to them was the basis for the vision letter." Antell acknowledges course instructor Wayne C'Hair, a tribal elder, with developing a unique teaching method and a learning atmosphere that imparts not only a language, but an expanded world view. In addition to meeting for classes, the group shares Friday night meals with C'Hair and occasional guests from the Wind River Indian Reservation. The informal environment allows the class to experience aspects of the culture, she says. "Northern Arapaho is not just a language, it's a way of being and a way of living that couldn't be needed more than it is now," Antell says. Posted on Tuesday, July 10, 2007 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 11 15:44:46 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 08:44:46 -0700 Subject: Aboriginal stories made visible (fwd) Message-ID: Aboriginal stories made visible [photo inset - Bush reality. Photo: Sahlan Hayes] Leon Gettler July 12, 2007 http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/aboriginal-stories-made-visible/2007/07/11/1183833598832.html# ELEVEN years ago, teachers sent to indigenous outback schools in the Northern Territory noticed one thing missing from the children's textbooks: Aboriginal faces. Just white faces, white kids and white stories relayed to remote Aboriginal communities. It was a point picked up by Victoria University education lecturer Lawry Mahon in 1996 on a visit to Atitjere, an indigenous community 240 kilometres north-east of Alice Springs. With the local culture absent from any of the classroom books and stories — something consistent with a nation that had lived there for thousands of years being turned into an invisible people for the rest of the country — Mr Mahon held informal astronomy classes for the children and got them to write about what they had experienced together. He returned to Atitjere the following year with plans for student teachers from the university to come and help develop the children's literacy and computer skills. He approached IBM for assistance and SWIRL — Story Writing In Remote Locations — was born. The program, focused on a section of Australia's school population with poor attendance and low literacy rates, offered Aboriginal children an education based on their own world. The partnership between IBM and the university allows children to write their own books on all sorts of topics, from their family histories to bush medicine, from rock art to what you can buy for $5 at the local shop, from playing sport to building a garden. Students as young as five and up to 16 take part in activities, documenting them in English and then their own language. They are taught how to use digital cameras and computers to tell their stories through the written and spoken word. They learn how to use video and audio recording, artwork, photos and even clay animation. The stories are then published in books that are printed, laminated and bound, with copies for families, friends and the school libraries. The result is an archive of many hundreds of stories, giving teachers a unique tool to connect with the community. When SWIRL is brought into a community, school attendance goes up by as much as 100 per cent. Over the past 10 years, IBM has provided more than 100 computers, ThinkPads and printers. The equipment at the school gives the community access to computing, printing, faxing and colour photocopying. According to IBM's corporate responsibility report, SWIRL was conducted in 18 locations in 2006. The computer giant has also been working with the university to encourage student teachers to pursue careers in outback schools. Andrew Hocking, IBM Australia and New Zealand's corporate citizenship and corporate affairs manager, said negotiations were under way with the Queensland and West Australian governments to expand the program. There were also talks with the Department of Education, Science and Training about building on the program. The plan was to make it a worldwide model for engagement with indigenous communities. "Our model is for corporate engagement with universities so it fits that strategy," Mr Hocking said. http://tinyurl.com/3dldmz From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 11 15:48:15 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 08:48:15 -0700 Subject: Helping the hidden tribes of Amazonia (fwd) Message-ID: Article published Jul 10, 2007 Brazil Helping the hidden tribes of Amazonia Some natives have no contact with outside By Monte Reel The Washington Post Jul 10, 2007 http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070710/REPOSITORY/707100374/1013/NEWS03 At first, few believed the story that two brothers told about four unknown Indians who suddenly appeared to them one afternoon on the outskirts of their Brazilian village. Like most Kayapo Indians, the brothers - named Bepro and Beprytire - live in a government-demarcated reserve, wear modern clothing and get energy from solar-powered generators. But the four unclothed visitors were a different kind of Kayapo. They spoke in an antiquated tongue that seemed a precursor to the language spoken in the village, located in the Capoto-Jarina Indian Reserve in central Brazil. The four men had come from a tribe that had remained in the forest, the brothers said, untouched by the modern world. Over the next seven days, the doubt expressed by the villagers evaporated when they saw more than 60 of the Indians emerge from the forest, sleeping in huts on the edge of the village. Then as quickly as they had come, the Indians disappeared. They haven't been seen since. The Indians' brief appearance this spring was enough to put them in the middle of a debate that is challenging governments throughout the Amazon region: How should the rights and territories of isolated populations be protected when the locations of those groups remain largely unknown? In recent months, Brazil and Peru have set aside protected areas for so-called uncontacted groups, which have never been spoken to and rarely - if ever - glimpsed. Brazil is believed to have more uncontacted tribes than any country in the world, and the government this year announced that as many as 67 tribes could be living in complete isolation - considerably more than the 40 estimated earlier. Previously uncontacted tribes have been discovered periodically since deep Amazon exploration began in the late 1800s. In the 1970s, for example, such tribes as the Panara were found as construction crews built roads into the forest, and periodic discoveries of small tribes continued in the following decades. Today, because the Amazon region is shrinking by thousands of square miles a year, the chances of unintentional encounters involving such groups grow. The issue has become a significant focus for the Federal Indian Bureau, or Funai, the government agency that oversees indigenous groups. Indigenous rights advocates have issued calls to protect largely unexplored areas of the forest from logging and mining. But the renewed focus on uncontacted groups has also sparked suspicions among skeptics, who believe the groups could be more mythical than real and suspect the numbers are exaggerated by special interest groups seeking to block exploration projects. "It is like the Loch Ness monster," said Cecilia Quiroz, legal counsel for Perupetro, the Peruvian state agency in charge of doling out prospecting rights to energy companies eager to explore the country's vast interior. "Everyone seems to have seen or heard about uncontacted peoples, but there is no evidence." Megaron Txucarramae grew up in the village where the uncontacted Indians approached the two brothers in late May. He was 2 years old when anthropologists first made contact with his own branch of the Kayapo tribe in the 1950s. He regularly heard his elders tell the story of how one part of the tribe had fled the anthropologists' advances to remain alone in the woods, never to be seen again. Now Megaron is the regional representative for Funai in Colider, the nearest city to Capoto and two nearby reserves. The land, set aside for the Indians and protected from development, is a sprawling green expanse of dense jungle. Together, the three Kayapo reservations in the area are roughly the size of the Czech Republic. When he heard of the isolated tribe's recent appearance, Megaron quickly flew to the village of Kapot to collect evidence. He took a miniature tape recorder with him, giving it to one of the brothers to slip into the pocket of his shorts while he spoke to the Indians. Taking pictures, he concluded, was out of the question. "No one had a camera, and even if someone had had one, they were afraid of machines," Megaron explained later. "If anyone pointed a camera at them, the situation could have been very dangerous." The group remained highly suspicious of the villagers, agreeing to talk only with the two brothers whom they had initially approached. They accepted bananas and cassava offered by the brothers but rejected rice because it wasn't part of their traditional diet, Megaron said. One of the old men in the group had a scar on his side, a wound that the villagers attributed to a run-in with illegal loggers, who occasionally were involved in bloody confrontations with Indians in the region in the 1990s. "The man told Beprytire he had been hurt by a 'strong sound,' " Megaron said. "So we are guessing that he had been shot." Most of the Indians were unclothed, though some of the men wore penis sheaths and most were partially covered by body paint. Some of the men also had plates inserted in their lower lips, creating the decorative protrusions seen in various Amazonian tribes. Megaron closed the village to visitors - a lockdown that remains in force. Officials were afraid that the previously uncontacted Indians could easily become sick. As has been proved in the past when uncontacted tribes are introduced to other populations and the microbes they carry, maladies as simple as the common cold can be deadly. In the 1970s, 185 members of the Panara tribe died within two years of discovery after contracting such diseases as flu and chickenpox, leaving only 69 survivors. Antonio Sergio Iole, head of health services for Funai in Colider, quickly assembled a team of doctors and Kayapo assistants ready to travel to the village on a moment's notice. The team immediately realized how many difficult questions the tribe's appearance had raised. "Even the simple things are complicated," said Iole, who said his team remains on call to travel to the village should the tribe reappear. "How should we act in the first moment we approach them? Would they accept vaccine? Would they let us inspect their mouths? Listen to their hearts? Would they allow a doctor to treat the women? How would they physically react to treatment? Some vaccines have side effects - how would they interpret a fever? And how would they react if we had to take someone away, even if it was for their own good?" After the tribe left the village, Iole - still in Colider - began to notice that some other people around town were asking different questions: Why couldn't anyone get a picture? Why was no one except the Kayapo allowed into the village? How could a group of people remain uncontacted in the 21st century? Could someone be making this whole story up for some sort of personal or political gain? "I don't believe it - this is an area with lots of loggers and farmers who are always going out into the forest, making studies," said Albeni de Souza, 22, a university student who works in a hotel in Colider. "Even the Indians from the tribes on reservations walk around the forest all the time. Someone would have seen them before." That kind of doubt spreads easily in towns such as Colider, where logging companies and farmers have cleared most of the surrounding area and small planes regularly fly overhead. From the air here, the land looks much like the American Midwest - a patchwork of farms. The picture is much different less than 250 miles away in Kapot - unreachable by car and boat - on the edge of an Amazon forest that is almost as big as the continental United States. Several years ago, Brazil's government changed its policy regarding isolated tribes: Instead of taking the initiative to try to contact them, it now aims only to protect them. Contact is made only if the Indians themselves initiate it or the tribe is in imminent danger. Funai officials plan to fly over the forest in the coming weeks to try to locate the area where the tribe is based, Megaron said. The plan after that is to build a small field station in the forest - not to contact them but to protect the area and make sure loggers and farmers do not come near them. That plan, of course, would be unnecessary if the Indians chose to make contact again. "Everybody wants to see them, because we love to compare them with ourselves," said Bepko, 26, a Kayapo who lives in the village of Kubenkokre in a nearby reserve. "We just want to hear their stories and learn about what their lives have been like." According to the stealth tape recording made by the brothers, there is evidence that at least some in the tribe would like to return. Megaron said he was able to decipher the language sufficiently enough to determine that a young member of the tribe was trying to convince his elders that the contact was a good thing. "The son told his father not to be afraid, that they would protect each other," Megaron recounted. It was later, Funai said, that a tribal leader emerged from the forest and persuaded everyone to leave the village. "They might have been scared of the sound of airplanes," said Luis Sampaio, a biologist who for 12 years has worked with the Kayapo in the reserve, which features a small landing strip. "Or they could have been scared by the clothes they saw people wearing - we are not sure." Megaron said they left without explanation or warning. "Uncontacted Indians," he said, "don't say goodbye when they leave." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 11 15:50:11 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 08:50:11 -0700 Subject: Aussie TV Chief to Address Indigenous Broadcasters (fwd) Message-ID: Aussie TV Chief to Address Indigenous Broadcasters Tuesday, 10 July 2007, 11:53 am Press Release: Maori TV PUBLICITY RELEASE TUESDAY JULY 10 2007 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU0707/S00183.htm Australian TV Chief to Address Indigenous Broadcasters The head of Australia’s first national Indigenous television service will be among the featured guest speakers at next year’s inaugural World Indigenous Television Broadcasting Conference to be hosted by Maori Television in Auckland, New Zealand. Patricia Turner was appointed chief executive of National Indigenous TV (NITV) at the beginning of this year and will oversee the imminent launch of the long-awaited service. Ms Turner – who will speak about the challenges faced by the new broadcaster – is a member of the Order of Australia for her public service work and has extensive experience in Indigenous affairs. SEARCH NZ JOBS Scoop VIDEO & AUDIO MORTGAGE Calculators Scoop MEDIA TRACKING Scoop NEWS by TOPIC To be held from March 26 to 28, WITBC ‘08 will be the first ever gathering of Indigenous television leaders from around the world. Internationally renowned speakers who are industry experts in broadcasting, media and Indigenous languages include the leader of Welsh-language channel S4C, John Walter Jones. A World Indigenous Television Broadcasters Network will also be launched as part of the event. Maori Television chief executive Jim Mather says the confirmation of Patricia Turner as a featured guest speaker is another major coup for WITBC ’08. “Ms Turner has been the most senior Indigenous person in the Australian public service with a career spanning 28 years. In that time, she's been deputy chief executive of Centrelink, head of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, and deputy secretary in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet,” Mr Mather says. “NITV has been created for similar reasons to Maori Television – based on a premise of preserving culture and language – so it will be fascinating to hear first-hand how the new service will impact on the Australian media landscape.” Leaders, producers and planners involved in Indigenous and public television can register their interest to attend the World Indigenous Television Broadcasting Conference at www.witbc.org. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 12 16:43:31 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:43:31 -0700 Subject: Aboriginal leaders seek $2.6 billion (fwd) Message-ID: Aboriginal leaders seek $2.6 billion First Nations languages are dying CHARLES MANDEL, CanWest News Service http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=f50b57a8-b43f-4ebf-b105-eaf943152c53 An Assembly of First Nations call yesterday for $2.6 billion over 11 years to revitalize aboriginal languages resonated with Deborah Jacobs. The 50-year-old educator and member of British Columbia's Squamish Nation is minimally fluent in her own language. But that's not surprising when out of the Squamish Nation's 3,600 people, only 15 are still able to speak their native tongue. The problem came into focus yesterday at the Assembly of First Nation's annual meeting. The AFN seeks $2.6 billion over 11 years to follow through on its National First Nations Language Strategy that would see the languages back in common use by 2027. "Our languages are the cornerstone of who we are as people," said Katherine Whitecloud, a regional chief from Manitoba. Whitecloud criticized the Conservative federal government for cutting $160 million in funding for aboriginal languages in 2006. In its place, Ottawa made available $5 million per year for aboriginal languages, amounting to $5 for each native in Canada to learn aboriginal languages, Whitecloud said. She blamed the decline partly on the residential school system, in which aboriginal children were sent to live in the schools, where they were abused for speaking their own languages. © The Gazette (Montreal) 2007 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 12 16:53:20 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:53:20 -0700 Subject: Unconscious automatic translation detected (fwd) Message-ID: Unconscious automatic translation detected http://presszoom.com/story_136468.html Even fluent bilingual speakers of a language acquired beyond adolescence subconsciously resort to their native language, in a sort of 'unconscious instant translation service'. These surprising findings of the research team, at Bangor University's School of Psychology are published in the prestigious American Journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA (Thierry and Wu, 2007, 06-09927 available on-line 10.7.07). (PressZoom) - Even fluent bilingual speakers of a language acquired beyond adolescence subconsciously resort to their native language, in a sort of 'unconscious instant translation service'. These surprising findings of the research team, at Bangor University's School of Psychology are published in the prestigious American Journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA ( Thierry and Wu, 2007, 06-09927 available on-line 10.7.07 ). By literally 'reading the minds' of Chinese-English bilingual speakers, the authors, Dr Guillaume Thierry and Yan Jing Wu were able to tell their Chinese participants that they had been accessing their native language, although they were totally unaware of it. "Psycholinguists have tried to investigate how the brain copes with two language systems for nearly half a century. Following this evidence, we now have a clearer understanding of what happens when our brains process a late acquired second language, however it now throws up more questions that we'd like to answer, said Yan Jing Wu. "Even while we consciously listen to late-acquired second language words, our brains are automatically also 'listening' in the first language," he explains. The Chinese participants, who'd been living in the UK for an average of 18 months, took part in an English language test based on whether pairs of English words were related in meaning or not. What was not apparent to them was that some of the English word pairs had a character overlap and sound connection in their Chinese translations. When there was no relationship in meaning between English words but there was a relationship between Chinese translations, e.g., ham and train ( Huo Che - Huo Tui in Chinese ), the repetition in Chinese was detected by brain waves recorded at the surface of the scalp. "The results show that the Chinese-English speakers, who'd describe themselves as fluent English speakers who access meaning directly from English without word-by-word translation in Chinese, are in fact accessing Chinese subconsciously" said Dr Guillaume Thierry. How the brain copes with two languages systems has been the subject of investigation by psycho-linguists for decades. Does one language system remain dormant while the other is active? Which language takes priority? Most tests devised so far involved both the languages studied and often involved translation from the first to the acquired language or vice versa. However, since they used both languages, the subjects were likely to realise that translation was the subject of study- this can affect the findings it also creates artificial experimental conditions compared to the real life experience of a native speaker of one language immersed in a foreign language environment. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Jul 13 15:24:27 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 08:24:27 -0700 Subject: AFN calls for massive investment in languages (fwd) Message-ID: AFN calls for massive investment in languages Charles Mandel CanWest News Service Thursday, July 12, 2007 http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/national/story.html?id=2b6dbd06-be70-4360-942e-410fb6b9f1d7 HALIFAX -- An Assembly of First Nations call Wednesday for $2.6 billion over 11 years to revitalize aboriginal languages resonated with Deborah Jacobs. The 50-year-old educator and member of British Columbia's Squamish Nation is minimally fluent in her own language. But then that's not surprising when out of the Squamish Nation's 3,600 people, only 15 are still able to speak their native tongue. The problem came into sharp focus during the second day of the Assembly of First Nation's annual meeting on Wednesday. Band chiefs and delegates from across Canada listened as Katherine Whitecloud, a regional chief from Manitoba and a member of the Dakota Nation, told the gathering: "Our languages are the cornerstone of who we are as people. Without our languages, our culture cannot survive." Whitecloud blamed the decline of the languages partly on the residential school system, in which aboriginal children were removed from their homes and sent to live in the schools, where they were abused for speaking their own languages, among other things. Whitecloud said when the children of residential schools became parents, they refused to teach their own children native languages because the ability to do so had been beaten out of them. The residential school system remained in effect for more than 100 years in Canada and the intergenerational effect of their "destructive policies" continue to be felt to this day, Whitecloud told the assembly. "We are in a state of emergency respecting our First Nations' languages. Statistics show that 50 out of 53 First Nation languages are declining, endangered, or in danger of extinction," Whitecloud said. "First Nations languages in Canada are in a desperate state." Statistics on fluency and other data on aboriginal languages is currently limited. At the assembly, questionnaires on the languages were circulated in an attempt to gather more information. Whitecloud criticized the Conservative federal government for cutting $160-million in funding for aboriginal languages in 2006. In its place, the government made available $5 million per year for aboriginal languages, amounting to $5 for each native in Canada to learn aboriginal languages, Whitecloud said. "These funding levels are unacceptable for First Nations, especially when you consider that in budget 2007, the federal government announced that they were going to spend $642 million over five years for the promotion and development of official languages in Canada." She said the federal government has a legal obligation through various treaties and legislation to provide adequate resources to support First Nations' language preservation. "Canada has no national policy or legislation that recognizes the distinct status of First Nations' languages as the original languages of Canada,'' she said. The AFN wants $2.6 billion over 11 years to follow through on its National First Nations Language Strategy that would see the languages back in common use by 2027. Jacobs believes the money the AFN wants for language funding is reasonable given the language needs in the many aboriginal communities. "I find it's a rather thrifty number that's been put out there." Chief Lance Haymond of Quebec's Eagle Village First Nation also supported funding for languages. "We need the investment to maintain and recreate our languages. Most of our culture, our history, is related to language." He said in Kipawa very few people spoke Algonquin, the native language, and those who did are over 50 years of age. Haymond himself is bilingual -- in English and French. He doesn't speak his own language. After Whitecloud addressed the assembly, a number of delegates expressed their frustration with the state of education and negotiations over funding with the federal and provincial governments. "We're not the second, third or fourth: We're the first government of this land," one said to loud applause, before adding his annoyance over band chiefs being unable to secure meetings with government representatives. © The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2007 From CRANEM at ECU.EDU Fri Jul 13 19:09:19 2007 From: CRANEM at ECU.EDU (Bizzaro, Resa Crane) Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 15:09:19 -0400 Subject: Humor Conference CFP Message-ID: Hi, everyone. I'm working with a group of people who are putting together a Humor Conference for Nov. 1-3 on ECU's campus. We're calling for proposals, so we can set up the programs. Here is a copy of the call, along with an electronic version of the flyer. Please share it with anyone you think may be interested. Also, please consider sending a proposal yourself; I've been disappointed that there aren't any submissions on Native American humor. Although the film contest says "regional filmmakers," anyone may participate. The details can be found at the web site listed below. Thanks. Resa ECU Hosts first ever HumorFest The East Carolina Humor Festival and Conference needs scholars, filmmakers and jokesters before Sept. 1. The HumorFest will take place Nov. 1-3. The three-day inaugural event will feature joke contests and stand-up and improv comedy, a film festival, and an academic conference on humor. Featured presenters include North Carolina native and author Jill McCorkle, Texas songwriter and author Kinky Friedman, and poet and NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu. "Humor as an art form rarely attracts the serious attention it deserves," said Tom Douglass, an ECU professor of English. "The East Carolina HumorFest intends to correct this omission and provide performers, scholars, and students an opportunity to enjoy humor in all of its forms." HumorFest participants will also have an opportunity to record their laugh in the new National Registry of Laughter. "The registry will be a human record of vocal joy," Douglass said. "The best presence we have in the world is a good laugh. You know you're present when you're laughing." * The academic conference will include panels on humor and healing, Southern humor, ethnic humor, satire and social change, humor in film, and political cartoons. * The Reel Funny Short-Film Fest will feature work from regional filmmakers. * The Joke Contest seeks out the funniest jokes about North Carolina and the South. Knock-knocks, riddles, puns, tall tales, spoonerisms and whatnots of no more than 150 words are welcome to win a cash prize. The winner and finalists will be considered for publication by the North Carolina Literary Review. The deadline for abstract submissions, jokes and film entries is Sept. 1. Please direct inquiries and abstracts to ECUHUMORFEST at ecu.edu. Visit the ECU HumorFest web site: http://www.ecu.edu/humor/ for a complete list of events, surprises, and for details on the film contest. The HumorFest is co-sponsored by the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences, the ECU English Department and the Office of Co-Curricular Programs and Cultural Outreach. ### Contact: Tom Douglass, douglasst at ecu.edu, ecuhumorfest at ecu.edu or (252) 328-6723. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 17 17:44:59 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 10:44:59 -0700 Subject: Kamchatka Struggles to Keep Traditions (fwd) Message-ID: Kamchatka Struggles to Keep Traditions By Olesya Dmitracova Reuters The St. Petersburg Times Issue #1289 (55), Tuesday, July 17, 2007 http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=22373 Folk performer Lidia Chechulina in the forest near her village, Pimchakh, in July. PIMCHAKH, Russia — Listening to enigmatic Koryak-language songs and eating traditional salmon soup and cutlets in this village, it is easy to imagine that indigenous cultures still thrive on Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula. In fact it is only the sheer tenacity of local Koryaks, Itelmens, Evens and other aborigines, that keep centuries-old customs and languages from dying out in Russia’s wild Far East after much was eroded by Soviet rule. “Native people must live on. Without them this land will be poor and it will be impossible to bring meaning to this land,” said Vera Koveinik, who heads the ethnic community of Pimchakh, 40 kilometers from regional capital Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. When Russians began settling in Kamchatka — a volcanic region 12,000 kilometers and nine time zones east of Moscow — in the second half of the 17th century, up to 11,000 Koryaks lived here fishing, herding deer and hunting whale and walrus. Three centuries of pervasive Russian and Soviet influence and intermarriage have left an indelible mark on Kamchatka’s Koryaks, who now number around 7,300 — by far the largest indigenous group on the peninsula. “Everyone of my generation speaks the Koryak language, knows the customs, dances and dishes like in the ancient times. But some of our children don’t know anything at all,” said folk performer Lidia Chechulina, slightly breathless after dancing to the beat of a deer-skin drum and the music of her own voice. Her songs, sung in a guttural language reminiscent of Chinese, describe the beauty of the tundra, volcanoes and the sea, she explains. She adds that songs, one for each person, accompany Koryaks all their lives and act as a charm. “Our parents preserved everything as it was before the (Bolshevik) revolution,” added Chechulina, a small, bubbly woman in her 50s. Probably the most effective Soviet assimilation policy was that of forcibly putting Koryak children in state-run boarding schools to teach them the Russian language and customs. “The Soviet culture was imposed on them,” said Andrei Samar, a researcher at the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the People of the Far East. Since the children came back home only once or twice a year, he adds, they knew very little about their native culture let alone traditional skills such as the difficult and dangerous trade of hunting at sea. Some of those children, now adults, and their parents are actively working to revive indigenous cultures. Many schools offer classes in Koryak and other aboriginal languages as an extra-curricular activity, and families observe ancient holidays. There are also efforts to expand deer herding in regions where it is dwindling rapidly. The Pimchakh community organizes summer camps in the village where children learn about ancient traditions and do crafts. The regional government says it runs cultural programs and provides financial aid for ethnic communities. But Koveinik says there are no signs in Kamchatka in any of the indigenous languages and no monuments to celebrate the aboriginal culture and history. “The government probably helps somehow. I don’t know, I wouldn’t say so,” said Chechulina, wearing a traditional suede-and-fur overcoat, a headdress made of beads and soft leather boots meant to protect from moss and mosquitoes in the tundra. Hardly any aborigines wear such costumes every day and many are university-educated, but the way they talk retains traces of their ancient spirituality rooted in still practiced shamanism. Pimchakh leader Koveinik, an Itelmen, told the audience after the community ensemble’s performance they were privileged. “You are today the richest people, you’ve received so much power and energy,” she said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 17 17:48:13 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 10:48:13 -0700 Subject: Grassroots must protect language (fwd) Message-ID: July 14, 2007 Grassroots must protect language By JOSEPH QUESNEL http://winnipegsun.com/News/Columnists/Quesnel_Joseph/2007/07/14/4338749.html Only community consensus can truly save an endangered language. The government cannot prevent languages from going extinct if people do not choose to live in them. Someone should remind aboriginal leaders attending an annual general meeting of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) of this fact. The AFN said they want the federal government to provide $2.6 billion over 11 years in order to bring aboriginal languages back in common use by 2027. Looking at the statistics, this is a daunting task. A recent study, drawing from 2001 Census data, found that of 976,300 people who identified themselves as aboriginal, 235,000 (24%) reported they were able to engage in a conversation in an aboriginal language. Or one could say only one in four aboriginal Canadians speak their language. >From a cultural perspective, this is sad. But there are signs of hope. Although this represents a substantial decline in the number of aboriginals who claim their language as a mother tongue, evidence shows an increasing number of younger First Nations are learning their dialects as a second language. Although having a language as a mother tongue is better, this shows youth value identity. This is the start of the solution. It will be the conscious choices of younger First Nations to speak their language at home and in the community, or in enrolling their own children in second-language programs, that will protect them. The state cannot make these choices. It would also involve band governments making more allowance for the dominance of native languages, if people choose, in their communities. This is the model that works in Quebec. First Nations could also convince governments to enshrine aboriginal languages in the Constitution as a way to protect them. It should be acknowledged residential schools played a role in the problem, as native students were in many cases not allowed to speak their language. Perhaps the residential schools settlement should have included restitution for this. However, it must be acknowledged there are personal choices involved in this decline. These are factors affecting language that can never be changed through laws or more money. For example, aboriginals are choosing to inter-marry with non-aboriginals in greater numbers and this leads to language loss as the family uses English or French at home. This is not something the state can prevent. Moving to cities is also leading to the decline of native speakers, as First Nations adopt the majority language. As most members of society conduct themselves in one or both official languages, speaking one is the way to get ahead. This is what happened in Britain, as Welsh and Scottish speakers changed to English as it is the language of commerce and social exchange. So some language loss is inevitable in the case of indigenous peoples, as it would be wrong to deny anyone the tools to live in mainstream society. But the long-term survival of the languages will start at the grassroots. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 17 18:03:51 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 11:03:51 -0700 Subject: Language center publishes new Athabascan dictionary (fwd) Message-ID: Language center publishes new Athabascan dictionary Published: July 15, 2007 Last Modified: July 15, 2007 at 03:52 AM http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/9135520p-9051666c.html The Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has published a new Athabascan dictionary. The "Dena'ina Topical Dictionary" is an effort to document and preserve Alaska's Native languages. The university said this is the most complete topical dictionary for any of the 20 Alaska Native languages. Dena'ina is also known as Tanaina and is a language spoken by Alaska's Athabascans. It was spoken by the original inhabitants of the Cook Inlet region in Southcentral Alaska. The university said that today about 75 of the 900 Dena'ina people in Alaska speak their Native language. Dictionary editor Tom Alton said public awareness and interest in the Dena'ina people has recently increased throughout Southcentral Alaska. James Kari, professor emeritus of Athabascan languages, is the dictionary's author. The university said Kari has worked with more than 100 Dena'ina speakers since 1972. -- The Associated Press From jordanlachler at GMAIL.COM Tue Jul 17 18:00:47 2007 From: jordanlachler at GMAIL.COM (Jordan Lachler) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 12:00:47 -0600 Subject: District sets Tlingit curriculum Message-ID: District sets Tlingit curriculum Plan provides resources to teach Native language, culture to Southeast students Sealaska Heritage Institute and the Juneau School District have co-produced what they say is the first broad-scale Tlingit language and culture curriculum that meets state academic and cultural standards. The curriculum, composed of 18 units, has been distributed to every public school district in Southeast Alaska with the intent of providing more tools to teach the Native language at a time when the number of fluent speakers is dwindling, said Yarrow Vaara, Tlingit language specialist for the institute. "It's designed to put resources in the hands of teachers who aren't necessarily cultural experts or language teachers so they can learn along with their students," she said. The curriculum provides contemporary technology to help engage the students, Vaara said. Along with binders of text covering the 18 units, audio components and interactive vocabulary games have been developed to help grab the attention of the 21st-century Native student. "This curriculum has a particular language focus that is unique that is also addressing the academic standards," she said. "We're merging technology with the different focuses too." The curriculum is the result of a three-year project funded by two grants from the U.S. Department of Education. The lessons were field-tested by several Juneau teachers in 2005 and 2006 prior to being sent to other school districts. Vaara said the district's Tlingit immersion program spawned the project. "We quickly realized that in order for that to be a successful program, they needed the resources and materials to use in the classroom," she said. "Just because someone can speak Tlingit doesn't mean they can teach it." The curriculum is designed for beginning speakers and targeted at kindergarten to second grade, but can be used as a tool to teach any age. Vaara said the students she teaches appear to be learning the language more quickly and are benefiting from the resources. "I think there are many more younger students that are showing an interest and are getting a basic language exposure," Vaara said. "As they continue to grow and are more exposed, they will certainly increase their chance of learning the language." Some of the students are becoming teachers themselves, she said. "We actually have the students going home and teaching their parents, which is kind of a unique situation too," Vaara said. It is a particularly crucial time for the younger generations to take stock in the language because many of the fluent speakers are passing away, Vaara said. "People are saying we have about a 10-year window ... of people who speak Tlingit as their first language," she said. Fluent Tlingit elders John Marks and June Pegues recorded audio components of the curriculum, with songs performed by Nancy Douglas and George Holly. "I think it will increase the number of fluent speakers," Vaara said. Although each school district in Southeast Alaska has been provided with the curriculum, it is up to each district how it will utilize the resources. "It's designed to be very flexible," Vaara said. "It can be done seasonal or thematically." The curriculum has a heavy focus on the environment of Southeast Alaska and includes units of study on salmon, sea mammals, berries, plants, totem poles, herring and more. There is also a unit on Native civil rights leader Elizabeth Peratrovich and others focusing on Tlingit stories, such as "How Raven Stole the Sun." The institute eventually will have a curriculum for beginning and advanced language learners, she said. The new curriculum is a step in the right direction to help expand the language around the region, Vaara said. "I don't think it's going to be all of everything that people want, but it's a good starting point," she said. A parallel curriculum focusing on the Haida language will be coming out in the next several months, Vaara said. • Eric Morrison can be reached at 523-2269 or by e-mail at eric.morrison at juneauempire.com. Click here to return to story: http://juneauempire.com/stories/071607/loc_tlingit001.shtml -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 18 17:15:21 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 10:15:21 -0700 Subject: Polyglot babies 'more tolerant' (fwd) Message-ID: Polyglot babies 'more tolerant' Leigh Dayton, Science writer | July 18, 2007 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22093479-30417,00.html A STUDY of newborn babies and preschoolers has revealed that language may be the root of prejudice - and the way to avoid it. US and French researchers have found that the language babies hear spoken in their first six months of life leads to a preference for speakers of that language. The preference is so entrenched that by age five youngsters prefer playmates who not only speak the same language but do so with the same accent. A key implication of the findings - reported in the US publication Proceedings of the National Academy of Science - is that children exposed to different languages grow into more tolerant adults than their monolingual mates. Linguist Stephen Crain of Sydney's Macquarie University tended to agree: "I've always thought it would be beneficial to expose our children to more than one language," he said. "If they no longer have a prejudice against people who don't sound the same as they, they may be more accepting of people from different backgrounds who don't sound the same," Professor Crain said. Cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Spelke of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, conducted a series of experiments with Harvard doctoral student Katherine Kinzler and Emmanuel Dupoux of the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris. They judged the preferences of three groups of children. Five-to six-month-old infants looked at native speakers longer than non-native speakers. Ten-month-olds selected toys most often from native speakers, and most five-year-olds chose native speaking playmates over children with an accent. According to Professor Spelke, the most surprising result came from the group's experiment with five-year-olds. "The findings suggest that (the preference) has nothing to do with information, the semantics of language, but rather with group identity," she said. If so, Professor Crain said that may answer the mystery about human languages: why do they diverge yet retain common structural properties? "One obvious answer is the differences are the means by which people segregate themselves by speaking a language which can't be understood by people from the next community," he said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 19 16:21:16 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 09:21:16 -0700 Subject: Five Nations Energy launches Cree-language site (fwd) Message-ID: Five Nations Energy launches Cree-language site Scott Paradis, The Daily Press Local News - Wednesday, July 18, 2007 Updated @ 4:32:00 PM http://www.timminspress.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=617453&catname=Local+News&classif=News+Live A Cree organization has officially launched a version of its website in its native tongue. The Five Nations Energy Inc. has launched the Cree-language version of its website, which will run alongside its English version. The electricity transmission company is Ontario’s only aboriginal-owned company of its kind and it has had an English website available since 2000. Making a Cree-language site available was vital for the company to more comfortably serve some of its customer base, a company official said. “Many of our community members use Cree as their first language,” said Mike Metatawabin, president of the Five Nations Energy Inc. “We translate our First Nation Energy Inc. newsletter into Cree and it was important for us to make the website available in Cree as well. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Jul 20 15:47:43 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 08:47:43 -0700 Subject: Tusaalanga lets you hear it (fwd) Message-ID: Nunavut July 20, 2007 Tusaalanga lets you hear it Web site uses sound to teach Inuktitut CHRIS WINDEYER http://www.nunatsiaq.com/news/nunavut/70720_327.html Qallunaat who are impressed with their mastery of Inuktitut phrases such as "nakurmiik" and "illali" are going to have to get to work. Iqaluit's Piruvik Centre last week officially launched Tusaalanga.ca, a website that puts online the same curriculum that's used to teach Inuktitut to Government of Nunavut deputy ministers. "Sometimes a lack of resources is used as an excuse not to learn," said Piruvik co-founder Gavin Nesbitt, before Tusaalanga's official launch July 13. "You have to hear Inuktitut to get it." [photo inset - Piruvik Centre co-founder Gavin Nesbitt shows off the Tusaalanga website to visitors during its launch July 13. The site features 15 introductory Inuktitut lessons with streaming audio to help teach pronunciation. (PHOTO BY CHRIS WINDEYER)] Tusaalanga, Inuktitut for "let me hear it" tackles the single biggest obstacle to learning Inuktitut: the fact that words are sometimes pronounced much differently than Roman orthography would indicate to a southern tongue. Each of the site's 15 lessons come with audio files, voiced by Nunavut's former languages commissioner Eva Aariak, demonstrating the proper pronunciation. There are more than 600 audio files on the site. It's a solution for people who can't afford or don't have access to classroom lessons, Nesbitt said. Before Tusaalanga came along, "there was really no way to know if you were getting the pronunciation down pat." The online material is drawn from the same lesson plans Piruvik that uses to teach Inuktitut to GN workers, and which they designed to get new Inuktitut speakers conversant in the language as quickly as possible. It's based on the pioneering work of Inuktitut educators Mick Mallon and Alexina Kublu, Nesbitt said. The early lessons focus on learning how to say where you come from and how you are doing, then build in complexity to body parts and places of work. "It was really developed from scratch," Piruvik co-founder Leena Evic said of the curriculum. "[The GN] told us it should be practical." While Inuktitut classes may cost thousands of dollars, the folks behind the Piruvik centre say they've unveiled Tusaalanga as a public resource that can get people to a basic level of conversational Inuktitut, though they caution there's no replacing classroom conversation as a way to learn the language. Piruvik plans to eventually develop an intermediate online program, with an introduction to writing in syllabics, for people with basic fluency or, as Evic put it, "cultural knowledge." Evic said sites like Tusaalanga show how useful the internet can be for preserving and spreading Inuit culture. "It definitely will have a positive impact. Sharing this kind of program with Inuit from around the globe is a very positive move." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Jul 20 16:44:15 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:44:15 -0700 Subject: ultra-portable audio devices... Message-ID: This interesting product came out earlier this year, so take a peek: Samson H2 - Handy Recorder http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1916 If you haven't already checked out their H4 just follow the links on the above page. I would suggest looking at some H4 reviews via Google, however. Anyway, just some more new ultra-portable gadgetry for the language-oriented masses. If you have one, let us know how you what you do with it and so on... Phil From tmp at NUNASOFT.COM Fri Jul 20 19:03:45 2007 From: tmp at NUNASOFT.COM (Eric Poncet [NunaSoft]) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:03:45 -0400 Subject: H4 Message-ID: Hi all, I bought one Zoom H4 recently, after a careful study of what was on the market. I need it for upcoming fieldwork in Central Yukon. So far I've done a bunch of tests, and they all pass! It cost me $379 (CAN$). This device has all the features I was dreaming of (and I'm quite a dreamer when it comes to technology and languages...). As the guy has XLR plugs and Phantom Power, I'll use it with an AKG C451B (very good pencil mike) and/or an Audio-Technica AT897 (great shotgun mike). I'll record everything in WAV (uncompressed) on a 2GB SD card (it's the max size managed by the H4). Having an SD slot on my laptop, I'll be able to burn those raw recordings on an audio CD in a snap, freeing up space on the SD card AND archiving the data in a standard format playable by any CD player around. This will hopefully give great recordings of Elders' speeches, performances, songs, nature sounds, allowing for lots of linguistic work on all this cultural material. FYI, it manages MP3 pretty well also, with several bitrates available (including VBR=Variable Bit Rate). There's one remaining question, though: I have no clue, so far, about the robustness of the device. (Yukon) Time will tell... A huge "Thank You" to Phil and all participants for their outstanding job on ILAT!!! Cheers from Montreal, Eric http://www.nunasoft.com phil cash cash a écrit : > This interesting product came out earlier this year, so take a peek: > > Samson H2 - Handy Recorder > http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1916 > > If you haven't already checked out their H4 just follow the links on the > above page. I would suggest looking at some H4 reviews via Google, > however. > > Anyway, just some more new ultra-portable gadgetry for the > language-oriented > masses. If you have one, let us know how you what you do with it and so > on... > > Phil > From annier at SFU.CA Fri Jul 20 19:42:37 2007 From: annier at SFU.CA (annie ross) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:42:37 -0700 Subject: ipod recording Message-ID: An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Jul 20 21:19:06 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 14:19:06 -0700 Subject: H4 In-Reply-To: <46A10711.2090303@nunasoft.com> Message-ID: Eric, Good luck and I hope your H4 works out well!  One of the constant dilemmas is not knowing if your equipment will stand up to the ongoing struggles of fieldwork.  Just make sure to get hard casing for all your equipment...mine was so essential.   Phil UofA Quoting "Eric Poncet [NunaSoft]" : > Hi all, > > I bought one Zoom H4 recently, after a careful study of what was on the > market. I need it for upcoming fieldwork in Central Yukon. So far I've > done a bunch of tests, and they all pass! > It cost me $379 (CAN$). This device has all the features I was dreaming > of (and I'm quite a dreamer when it comes to technology and languages...). > As the guy has XLR plugs and Phantom Power, I'll use it with an AKG > C451B (very good pencil mike) and/or an Audio-Technica AT897 (great > shotgun mike). > I'll record everything in WAV (uncompressed) on a 2GB SD card (it's the > max size managed by the H4). Having an SD slot on my laptop, I'll be > able to burn those raw recordings on an audio CD in a snap, freeing up > space on the SD card AND archiving the data in a standard format > playable by any CD player around. > This will hopefully give great recordings of Elders' speeches, > performances, songs, nature sounds, allowing for lots of linguistic work > on all this cultural material. > > FYI, it manages MP3 pretty well also, with several bitrates available > (including VBR=Variable Bit Rate). > > There's one remaining question, though: I have no clue, so far, about > the robustness of the device. (Yukon) Time will tell... > > A huge "Thank You" to Phil and all participants for their outstanding > job on ILAT!!! > > Cheers from Montreal, > Eric > http://www.nunasoft.com > > phil cash cash a écrit : >> This interesting product came out earlier this year, so take a peek: >> >> Samson H2 - Handy Recorder >> http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1916 >> >> If you haven't already checked out their H4 just follow the links on the >> above page. I would suggest looking at some H4 reviews via Google, >> however. >> >> Anyway, just some more new ultra-portable gadgetry for the language-oriented >> masses. If you have one, let us know how you what you do with it and so >> on... >> >> Phil >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sat Jul 21 14:05:05 2007 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 07:05:05 -0700 Subject: ipod recording In-Reply-To: <200707201942.l6KJgbDG018161@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> Message-ID: Does this work???? On Jul 20, 2007, at 12:42 PM, annie ross wrote: hi friends i was just in the field and used an ipod to record interviews (sound only). i purchased a microphone for the ipod from ebay. the microphone is called 'bilkin tune talk stereo" and cost 70.00 US $. from there, i downloaded the files. actually, itunes (on the mac) automatically downloaded it to the computer as a voice memo. then it converted itself to an mp3 file. it was so quick and amazing... i don't know if this is archival enough for anyone but it worked for me. annie On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:03:45 -0400 ILAT wrote: > Hi all, > > I bought one Zoom H4 recently, after a careful study of what was on > the > market. I need it for upcoming fieldwork in Central Yukon. So far I've > done a bunch of tests, and they all pass! > It cost me $379 (CAN$). This device has all the features I was > dreaming > of (and I'm quite a dreamer when it comes to technology and > languages...). > As the guy has XLR plugs and Phantom Power, I'll use it with an AKG > C451B (very good pencil mike) and/or an Audio-Technica AT897 (great > shotgun mike). > I'll record everything in WAV (uncompressed) on a 2GB SD card (it's > the > max size managed by the H4). Having an SD slot on my laptop, I'll be > able to burn those raw recordings on an audio CD in a snap, freeing up > space on the SD card AND archiving the data in a standard format > playable by any CD player around. > This will hopefully give great recordings of Elders' speeches, > performances, songs, nature sounds, allowing for lots of linguistic > work > on all this cultural material. > > FYI, it manages MP3 pretty well also, with several bitrates available > (including VBR=Variable Bit Rate). > > There's one remaining question, though: I have no clue, so far, about > the robustness of the device. (Yukon) Time will tell... > > A huge "Thank You" to Phil and all participants for their outstanding > job on ILAT!!! > > Cheers from Montreal, > Eric > http://www.nunasoft.com > > phil cash cash a écrit : >> This interesting product came out earlier this year, so take a peek: >> >> Samson H2 - Handy Recorder >> http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1916 >> >> If you haven't already checked out their H4 just follow the links >> on the >> above page. I would suggest looking at some H4 reviews via Google, >> however. >> >> Anyway, just some more new ultra-portable gadgetry for the >> language-oriented >> masses. If you have one, let us know how you what you do with it >> and so >> on... >> >> Phil >> > annie g. ross First Nations Studies School for the Contemporary Arts Simon Fraser University 8888 University Drive Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6 annier at sfu.ca Telephone: 604-291-3575 Facsimile: 604-291-5666 From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Sun Jul 22 14:09:48 2007 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 07:09:48 -0700 Subject: ipod recording In-Reply-To: <013F8885-2A95-4C54-9CDF-2DE5007E6C15@ncidc.org> Message-ID: Hi, Haven't tried this myself, but Mp3's are not generally a good format for sound recordings for language work because they are compressed. It is not so much about archiving, as about making sure that the recordings are truly accurate representations of the sound(s) of the language. Guess it depends on what the planned use for the recordings is... My two cents...other opinions?? susan On 7/21/07, Andre Cramblit wrote: > > Does this work???? > > > On Jul 20, 2007, at 12:42 PM, annie ross wrote: > > hi friends > > i was just in the field and used an ipod to record interviews (sound > only). > > i purchased a microphone for the ipod from ebay. the microphone is > called > 'bilkin tune talk stereo" and cost 70.00 US $. > > from there, i downloaded the files. actually, itunes (on the mac) > automatically downloaded it to the computer as a voice memo. > then it converted itself to an mp3 file. > > it was so quick and amazing... > > i don't know if this is archival enough for anyone but it worked for me. > > annie > > On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:03:45 -0400 ILAT wrote: > > Hi all, > > > > I bought one Zoom H4 recently, after a careful study of what was on > > the > > market. I need it for upcoming fieldwork in Central Yukon. So far I've > > done a bunch of tests, and they all pass! > > It cost me $379 (CAN$). This device has all the features I was > > dreaming > > of (and I'm quite a dreamer when it comes to technology and > > languages...). > > As the guy has XLR plugs and Phantom Power, I'll use it with an AKG > > C451B (very good pencil mike) and/or an Audio-Technica AT897 (great > > shotgun mike). > > I'll record everything in WAV (uncompressed) on a 2GB SD card (it's > > the > > max size managed by the H4). Having an SD slot on my laptop, I'll be > > able to burn those raw recordings on an audio CD in a snap, freeing up > > space on the SD card AND archiving the data in a standard format > > playable by any CD player around. > > This will hopefully give great recordings of Elders' speeches, > > performances, songs, nature sounds, allowing for lots of linguistic > > work > > on all this cultural material. > > > > FYI, it manages MP3 pretty well also, with several bitrates available > > (including VBR=Variable Bit Rate). > > > > There's one remaining question, though: I have no clue, so far, about > > the robustness of the device. (Yukon) Time will tell... > > > > A huge "Thank You" to Phil and all participants for their outstanding > > job on ILAT!!! > > > > Cheers from Montreal, > > Eric > > http://www.nunasoft.com > > > > phil cash cash a écrit : > >> This interesting product came out earlier this year, so take a peek: > >> > >> Samson H2 - Handy Recorder > >> http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1916 > >> > >> If you haven't already checked out their H4 just follow the links > >> on the > >> above page. I would suggest looking at some H4 reviews via Google, > >> however. > >> > >> Anyway, just some more new ultra-portable gadgetry for the > >> language-oriented > >> masses. If you have one, let us know how you what you do with it > >> and > so > >> on... > >> > >> Phil > >> > > > > > annie g. ross > First Nations Studies > School for the Contemporary Arts > Simon Fraser University > 8888 University Drive > Burnaby, British Columbia > V5A 1S6 > annier at sfu.ca > Telephone: 604-291-3575 Facsimile: 604-291-5666 > -- ____________________________________________________________ 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 Acquisition & 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: From wjposer at LDC.UPENN.EDU Sun Jul 22 23:21:57 2007 From: wjposer at LDC.UPENN.EDU (William J Poser) Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 19:21:57 -0400 Subject: ipod recording In-Reply-To: <39a679e20707220709t6471fe59h8d995736f4d3df59@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: As Susan Penfield says, MP3 is a lossy compression format. In this day and age, with such large amounts of storage readily available, there is really no justification for using lossy compression for language recordings. My advice is: (a) always record uncompressed PCM data (what is often called "raw"); (b) if you feel a need to compress it, use one of the lossless compression techniques, such as FLAC. I've put a few notes on lossless compression with links to code at: http://www.billposer.org/Linguistics/Computation/LectureNotes/LosslessCompression.html You may also want to consider some other methods of saving storage: http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phonetics/SavingSpace.html One other point to note. WAV is not an audio format. It is a FILE format. A WAV file can contain audio data in any of dozens of audio formats. Often what people mean when they talk about saving audio in WAV format is that the file is in WAV format and contains audio data in raw PCM format, but you have to be careful. If you don't understand the settings of the device you are using, you could end up with a WAV file containing some sort of compressed audio, and a WAV file that you get from somewhere else is by means guaranteed to contain raw PCM data. (I have some notes on audio file and data formats at: http://www.billposer.org/Linguistics/Computation/LectureNotes/AudioData.html Bill From nicole.rosen at ULETH.CA Mon Jul 23 02:41:30 2007 From: nicole.rosen at ULETH.CA (Rosen, Nicole) Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 20:41:30 -0600 Subject: ipod recording Message-ID: I've also recorded using the ipod voice memo feature with an external Belkin microphone adapter with microphone as well, and it was perfectly adequate and very easy, unless of course you want to do serious phonetic analysis. I'm not sure whether the new ipods allow you to do this anymore, though - the input doesn't seem to be the same. I'm no ipod expert, however - I just know it worked for me for simple recordings with my 2 year old ipod. Nicole ********************************************** Nicole Rosen Assistant Professor, Department of Modern Languages University of Lethbridge 4401 University Drive Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada T1K 3M4 Office B532, University Hall tel. 403.329.5122 nicole.rosen at uleth.ca ________________________________ From: Indigenous Languages and Technology on behalf of ILAT automatic digest system Sent: Sun 7/22/2007 1:01 AM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: ILAT Digest - 20 Jul 2007 to 21 Jul 2007 (#2007-129) There is 1 message totalling 108 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. ipod recording ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 07:05:05 -0700 From: Andre Cramblit Subject: ipod recording Does this work???? On Jul 20, 2007, at 12:42 PM, annie ross wrote: hi friends i was just in the field and used an ipod to record interviews (sound =20 only). i purchased a microphone for the ipod from ebay. the microphone is =20 called 'bilkin tune talk stereo" and cost 70.00 US $.=09 from there, i downloaded the files. actually, itunes (on the mac) automatically downloaded it to the computer as a voice memo. then it converted itself to an mp3 file. it was so quick and amazing... i don't know if this is archival enough for anyone but it worked for me. annie From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 23 04:51:14 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 21:51:14 -0700 Subject: Face to face with Stone Age man: The Hadzabe tribe of Tanzania (fwd) Message-ID: FACE TO FACE WITH STONE AGE MAN: THE HADZABE TRIBE OF TANZANIA by ANDREW MALONE - Last updated at 23:06pm on 20th July 2007 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=469847&in_page_id=1770 The rocks by the fire were still warm. Old animal bones and feathers were scattered around the clearing. The skin of a wild cat was stretched out to dry in the sun. Startled impala and dik-dik — small deer — darted through the undergrowth; colourful birds whirred into the sky. "They are near," whispered our tracker, Naftal Petro, as clouds of tsetse fly swarmed around us in the stifling African bush. "We must wait and see if they come. They will decide if they want us to know them." Andrew with Gonga, whose ancient tribe could soon perish After a four-day quest covering thousands of miles by light aircraft, Land Rover and, finally, on foot, we knew we were on the brink of an unforgettable experience — the chance to reach back in time and meet our living human ancestors from countless millennia ago. We waited in silence. Suddenly, shadows of human forms started moving around the bush. The noise of sing-song voices floated towards us. Here, in one of the world's last untouched wildernesses — the dense bush south of Africa's Rift Valley where the first humans emerged upright more than two million years ago — a group of men from the mysterious Stone Age tribe were ready to make their introductions. Draped in animal skins and carrying arrows tipped with poison, two slim, wiry characters walked slowly towards us in the clearing. Time has stood still for these men — two of an estimated 400 remaining survivors of the Hadzabe tribe — whose way of life has scarcely changed since human evolution began. These nomadic hunter-gatherers live as all humans once lived: wandering the plains with the changing seasons, killing game for survival, constantly avoiding aggressive wild beasts, and, finally, dying as they were born — under the sun and the stars. They meet other humans only a handful of times in their entire lives. This was one of those rare occasions. The men shouted greetings to us in clicks and whistles — their sole form of language, which, although it sounds basic, is capable of expressing complete thoughts and concepts. They had been out hunting with bows, and rested them alongside their arrows against a fallen tree. I introduced myself and Naftal translated my words into clicks and whistles to an older Hadza called Gonga (Good Hunter in Swahili). He smiled warmly, revealing surprisingly well-kept teeth. But his response was startling: "You are welcome here. But please tell your people how things are for the Hadzabe. Please do not add things and please do not take things away. Please just tell the world that we are dying." More than wild animals or sleeping sickness, what Gonga fears is that rich men with guns and helicopters from the 'new world' are about to arrive on his doorstep, spelling the end for a tribe that, with the exception of headhunters in remote parts of Papua New Guinea, represent the only bridge between modern and ancient man. The Hadzabe tribe live a life unchanged for thousands of years It is the modern story — of clashes between people from the first world eager to exploit Africa, whatever the cost to ancient customs, and the desperate battle by the world's few remaining indigenous people to survive. Once numbering more than 10,000, the Hadzabe are the last huntergatherers on the African continent, where 'homo habilis' (the forerunner of modern man) first emerged more than two million years ago. It is only in the past 12,000 years that man has managed to domesticate animals and grow crops. Before that, we all lived like the Hadza. To the dismay of anthropologists and champions of the Earth's remaining tribal people, two wealthy Arab princes, who have made billions from oil and gas in the United Arab Emirates, are negotiating with the Tanzanian government to buy the Hadzabe's ancient lands to use as their own private hunting grounds. To them, it's just another commercial deal — and a chance to kill wild animals. But to the Stone Age tribesmen, it would spell the end. In return for the dubious pleasure of shooting lion, leopard, buffalo and elephant, Crown Prince Hamdan bin Zayed (the UAE's deputy prime minister) and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed (deputy supreme commander of the air force) want the Hadza evicted from the area to prevent them competing for game. As bait, they are offering to pay the impoverished East African country a reported £30million, and have offered to build private homes, hospitals and schools for the displaced tribe. The Tanzanian government supports the plan and, for years, has considered the Hadzabe an embarrassment — 'a backward people who should be living decently in proper houses'. The Dubai princes have also pledged to pay Tanzania a 'tax' of £5,000 for each animal killed. But apart from removing one of the world's last tribes, the Arabs will likely bring their ruthless hunting habits to the bush. For example, royal big game hunters from Dubai were accused five years ago of starting fires along ancient migration routes used by animals on their way into the famous Serengeti wildlife park, in a bid to drive them onto land which they have already leased in a separate deal and where they could be shot. There have also been allegations — never refuted — that a private airstrip large enough for cargo planes had been carved out of the bush to let the princes and their guests airlift vast quantities of skins and trophies out of Africa to decorate their Gulf state homes. For these men, money is the main weapon. But for tribesman Gonga, hunting in an area 200 miles from the nearest village, his weapon of choice is a wooden bow with a string made from giraffe tendons, which he raises to his eye while crouched behind the twisted roots of an ancient baobab tree. Pulling back the string, he held the 100lb tension for ten seconds, making sure of his aim before firing. The arrow sped away, striking a bird (a Crested Francolin — similar to a grouse) 30 yards away. As it twitched and fluttered, he ran to collect it and cut off its head. A small child emerged from a nearby hut, grabbed the carcass and scampered off to hand it over to be prepared for supper. Gonga sat back by the fire and told how, with the exception of elephants, he had killed every species of animal, including lions and leopards. "Only when I am sleeping, I am not a hunter. I am a hunter all the time I am awake. That is what I am and who I am. I kill animals for meat." For 24 hours, I had the privilege of being one of only a handful of westerners to have experienced how the original Hadza live, eating with them and spending the night in their camp as they spoke of the deep meaning of their lives — one said he had heard from other tribes, whom he encountered only once a year, that the modern world was falling to pieces. Gonga lives with his family — his two wives, his mother, an aunt, his son and his wife, and five grandchildren — near Lake Eyasi, south of the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater parks, where western tourists pay up to $1,000 a day to view the animals. Accessible only by driving along dried out river beds and through seemingly impenetrable scrub for hours, the Yaida Valley is home to all manner of game, ranging from the smallest squirrels to herds of giraffe, elephant and armies of deadly soldier ants. The Hadza women and children had been nearby when we arrived, collecting wild vegetables and tubers from surrounding scrubland, and cautiously came up to introduce themselves. Matayo, the youngest of Gonga's five grandchildren, was particularly perplexed by my presence. Aged around three (the Hadza don't count years), he didn't understand why my skin was white. He gently took my little finger in his hand, then started rubbing it, as if trying to clean it, seemingly baffled that black skin was not underneath. "He thinks you are hurt," said Philimon, his father. "He thinks you have scraped away your own skin. He thinks that you must be in pain. He doesn't understand that you have a different colour of skin." Matayo wandered off. The children tumbled around in the dust, laughing and playing, while they waited for food the women were cooking on tree branches. The sun was slipping below the horizon; embers from the fire flickered in the dusk, turning the dancing children into tiny silhouettes. This scene must have happened unchanged, every day, for centuries. The men eat separately, after a day's hunting. Often disguised under animal skins as they wait for passing prey, they then leap out and shoot their poisoned arrows. They sometimes hide under meat, pouncing on vultures when they land. They are also expert fire-makers, taking less than 30 seconds to light some kindling by rubbing two pieces of wood together until sparks ignite it. They come and go as they like, disappearing for days on end during hunting expeditions. Bahatia, Lea, Ngwalu and Rachu — the four women — do all the rest of the work: preparing the meat, looking after the children, collecting roots and berries, building the camps, cleaning the huts, skinning animals and doing the cooking. They must have sex with the men on demand; they cannot refuse. "We are happy as long as we have meat," said Bahatia, prodding the fire. "We are all equal here — we have as much say in things as the men. They cannot do anything unless we agree. It is all fair — they are good hunters and we look after the children." All ages contribute to Hadza life. By the time they were toddlers, Matayo and his siblings were being taken with the women to learn how to identify roots and plants. When he is ten, Matayo will have been taught how to shoot small animals such as birds, squirrels and hares. He will be given a bigger six-foot bow at a ceremony. "To become a man, he must kill a lion," said Philimon, Gonga's son. In the rainy season, the family retreat to caves in the valley, which have been used for thousands of years. In the dry season, they move camp every two or three weeks, leaving behind only animal bones and feathers. James Woodburn, the Cambridge anthropologist who published the definitive work on the Hadzabe more than 30 years ago, discovered that the men hunt as a group only in exceptional circumstances. In search of baboon meat, men from different camps join forces to hunt the fierce primates. The Hadza are opportunist hunters. Operating solo, they eat most animals, except reptiles, and they are lovers of honey, braving huge swarms of bees to steal combs from high up in baobab trees. "The bees get our blood — we get their honey," laughed Philimon. "It is fair exchange." Gonga, whose sole contact with the 'white' world has been a handful of encounters with anthropologists, priests and explorers, looked up at the night sky. "Is it true you have lost men in the stars?" he asked. While the Hadzabe like to live alone, they periodically come across other tribes and travellers in the bush, who tell them what is happening in the world and trade tobacco in return for animal skins. Told that a craft had exploded on a space mission, Gonga was puzzled about why anyone would want to go there. "You would fall off the moon and the stars if you got there," he said. "They are too small to stand on. We have lived a pure life since creation," said Gonga. "But we hear bad things about the modern world. The people there are confused, they want more and more. But that's not happiness. We, the Hadza on this earth, believe the life we have is enough for us. We are always happy — as long as we have meat and honey." But what of their souls? Missionaries have made attempts over the past century to bring Christianity to the Hadza. But they all failed. The tribe worship their own God — Hine, whose skin is black and who the Hadzabe believe is responsible for all creation. "Our God is miraculous," said Philimon. "Our people don't die. They come back somewhere else — far away in distant lands. But the Hadza must not start misbehaving, or Hine will be angry." The plan by the Arabs to buy their land is all the more ironic: the Hadza have no concept of private property, roaming unchecked for thousands of years alongside the animals they hunt. Nevertheless, the Tanzanian government has repeatedly tried to 'tame' the Hadza, building houses and trying to teach them to grow crops. One attempt to resettle them ended when a dozen perished when they were forced into modern homes. "They just rotted inside and died," said Charles Ngereza, a tribal expert. After another bid to clear them off the land, ten Hadza died in police custody. Naftal, our translator, who was educated at a church school after being 'liberated' from the bush by missionaries, is campaigning to raise awareness of the tribe's plight, but faces a five-year jail sentence for allegedly 'causing a disturbance' during one protest. "I will never stop because this is my motherland," he says. "I am the only educated person in this society. The Arabs will just come and kill all the animals. And that means the Hadza will die." The tribe is already perishing. Numbers have declined rapidly in recent years. As the new threat looms, Tatoga herders are moving in, pushing the Hadza farther back into their 4,500-square-mile - territory. Some tour companies have been criticised for offering tourist trips to visit the Hadzas, who have moved into settlements after giving up their hunting ways to live off holidaymakers' dollars. As a result, alcoholism and drug abuse has become rife among them. Such a life is not for Gonga. "Look at the happiness we have," he said after dinner, lighting the wild tobacco in his tubular stone pipe with a twig from the fire. "All we want to do is live in peace and hunt for meat. We don't want to fight anyone. We just want to be left alone on our land." While the UAE Embassy in London refused to comment on the princes' hunting plans, groups fighting for indigenous people condemned their safari scheme. "We owe the Hadzabe the chance to perpetuate their way of life,' says Oxfam. 'In their ancient simplicity, they have a huge amount to teach us in our allconsuming age." As I said farewell, I knew that the memory of my time with Gonga and his family would stay with me. Who could fail to be moved by sitting around a fire on a starlit night in the African bush, chatting to members of an ancient tribe who take us to the very roots of our past. Yet there is no place for sentiment in the natural world. As Gonga instinctively knows, the weak seldom survive in Africa. "If any one species does not become modified and improved in a corresponding degree with its competitors, it will soon be exterminated," wrote Charles Darwin in The Origin Of Species, under the heading Natural Selection. Whether they are driven off their land by the petro-dollars of Arab princes, forced into 'modern' homes by the Tanzanian government, or corrupted with cash and alcohol as a result of performing for tourists, you sense that time is running out for the Hadzabe. "Our voices will never be heard," said Gonga. "Tell the world we are dying. Tell the world we want to live." Without help, there will be no shadows in the bush for much longer. Matayo and his brother and sisters may be the last Hadza children to dance round the fire in the deep of the African night. Soon, there may be only ghosts in the Yaida Valley, and a unique way of life will be replaced for ever by the sound of guns bought with Arab gold. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 114827 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 73747 bytes Desc: not available URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 23 05:32:31 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 22:32:31 -0700 Subject: DVD to help keep Six Nations language alive (fwd) Message-ID: DVD to help keep Six Nations language alive Susan Gamble Monday, July 23, 2007 - 07:00 http://tinyurl.com/3cv93w Local News - An accomplished storyteller and poetry-reader, Six Nations’ Mona Staats is clearly determined to leave behind more than just fading memories of her voice. Well-known for her public prayers in her native language, her readings of Pauline Johnson’s poems and her telling of the legends and culture of the Six Nations people, Staats -- now 79 -- has worked to create items of substance that can continue to carry her message. At age 75 she developed a book which she ensured was placed in local libraries and schools. Paying for the book herself, Staats collected chapters about the area clans, native remedies and directions on making maple syrup. Each Six Nations school got a copy of Sago 2005 and it was sold in the Chiefswood Museum. The book was updated in 2006. Now, Staats using modern techniques to capture on DVD the poetry of Pauline Johnson, the famed daughter of Chiefswood mansion -- now a museum on Highway 54. She was participating in the first taping session over the weekend, reading poems in various suitable settings such as outside the museum and in a 20-foot canoe on the Grand River, provided by the local Aka:we Canoe Club. “This is my project. It’s important because I’m going to distribute it in the schools to help promote poetry and short-story writing.” Once that’s done, the DVD will also be for sale to the general public. Dressed in the traditional native outfit favoured by Pauline Johnson -- including a bear claw necklace -- Staats has recited poems such as The Song My Paddle Sings, Bird’s Lullaby, Workworn and Lullaby of the Iroquois for the video. “This might complete my vision,” Staats said. Through the years she has instructed groups in native ways ranging from food and stories to games and dancing. Thousands of people have passed through her cabin and sat by her fire. She was nominated for The Expositor’s Citizen of the Year in 2002. A diabetic, Staats said she is still in good health. “I was at the doctor the other day and he said I have a lot of years ahead of me yet,” said Staats. “I said ‘Write that down for me.’” From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Mon Jul 23 14:21:04 2007 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 07:21:04 -0700 Subject: ipod recording In-Reply-To: <202E9095E570BB429EEF852654955F919CCA2F@EXCHCL2.uleth.ca> Message-ID: Good point, This discussion raises a question worth addressing: Even if the purposes of recording an Indigenous language might not require the best quality recordings right now, it might matter later. Because of the extreme language endangerment, taking time to use the best type of recording formats is worth it ...possibly for someone in the future. The ultimate source of knowledge about some of these languages may not be from carefully archived collections, but from random material collected by individuals (as many of us now working with language documentation have learned; community folks often have a rich store of personal language tapes, etc. sitting at home because someone just wanted to record a relative or friend. As the languages become seriously endangered, these things come forth and do become part of the archival record). I recorded oral history in an Indigenous language almost forty years ago, not having much of a vision of what that work might be used for today. Because I was encouraged at the time to use the very best German made reel-to-reel recording equipment, the data (now being analyzed for linguistic purposes) is still quite good (considering ...yikes... how long ago they were done). Just a thought... Susan On 7/22/07, Rosen, Nicole wrote: > > I've also recorded using the ipod voice memo feature with an external > Belkin microphone adapter with microphone as well, and it was perfectly > adequate and very easy, unless of course you want to do serious phonetic > analysis. I'm not sure whether the new ipods allow you to do this anymore, > though - the input doesn't seem to be the same. I'm no ipod expert, however > - I just know it worked for me for simple recordings with my 2 year old > ipod. > Nicole > > ********************************************** > Nicole Rosen > Assistant Professor, Department of Modern Languages > University of Lethbridge > 4401 University Drive > Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada T1K 3M4 > Office B532, University Hall > tel. 403.329.5122 > nicole.rosen at uleth.ca > > ________________________________ > > From: Indigenous Languages and Technology on behalf of ILAT automatic > digest system > Sent: Sun 7/22/2007 1:01 AM > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > Subject: ILAT Digest - 20 Jul 2007 to 21 Jul 2007 (#2007-129) > > > > There is 1 message totalling 108 lines in this issue. > > Topics of the day: > > 1. ipod recording > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 07:05:05 -0700 > From: Andre Cramblit > Subject: ipod recording > > Does this work???? > > > On Jul 20, 2007, at 12:42 PM, annie ross wrote: > > hi friends > > i was just in the field and used an ipod to record interviews (sound =20 > only). > > i purchased a microphone for the ipod from ebay. the microphone is =20 > called > 'bilkin tune talk stereo" and cost 70.00 US $.=09 > > from there, i downloaded the files. actually, itunes (on the mac) > automatically downloaded it to the computer as a voice memo. > then it converted itself to an mp3 file. > > it was so quick and amazing... > > i don't know if this is archival enough for anyone but it worked for me. > > annie > -- ____________________________________________________________ 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 Acquisition & 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: From anggarrgoon at GMAIL.COM Mon Jul 23 16:33:54 2007 From: anggarrgoon at GMAIL.COM (Claire Bowern) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 11:33:54 -0500 Subject: ipod recording In-Reply-To: <202E9095E570BB429EEF852654955F919CCA2F@EXCHCL2.uleth.ca> Message-ID: A sociolinguist I know recently started work on documenting variation in a US city. She was talking to a sociologist who had demographic data on the city for the past 40 years or so, and he mentioned that he'd been doing in depth interviews with a cross-section of the population for the last few years. The interviews were all "digitally" recorded and transcribed, and there was about 150 hours of speech there. *However*, since the interviews were recorded with mp3 recorders, all those data were useless for the sociolinguistics research, and the project has to start from scratch. If the sociologists had used an uncompressed format, it wouldn't have mattered much to them, but would have made all the difference to the linguistics project, and would have saved a heap of time. This is English, so it's not hard to recreate the sample base (just time-consuming), but if it had been an endangered language, it would have severely limited the utility of the corpus in a way that we just can't afford, given how few people work on most languages. Claire From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 23 20:56:25 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 13:56:25 -0700 Subject: ipod recording In-Reply-To: <46A4D872.8030308@gmail.com> Message-ID: More on the ubiquitous iPod...here are several articles worth looking at regarding its use as a language learning tool. EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES Going to the MALL: Mobile Assisted Language Learning George M. Chinnery Language Learning & Technology Vol. 10, No. 1, January 2006, pp. 9-16 http://llt.msu.edu/vol10num1/emerging/default.html iPod in Education: The Potential for Language Acquisition Jeff McQuillan Fall 2006 http://e2t2.binghamton.edu/pdfs/iPod_Lang_Acquisition_whitepaper.pdf Just quickly sampled from a google search, thanks to annie for pointing these out. Phil UofA From nwarner at U.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 24 07:28:51 2007 From: nwarner at U.ARIZONA.EDU (Natasha L Warner) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 00:28:51 -0700 Subject: ipod recording In-Reply-To: <46A4D872.8030308@gmail.com> Message-ID: Hi, before we totally write off all compressed data that already exists, let's think twice. Sure, if you're choosing at the beginning of a project, it's probably far better to just record uncompressed in the first place. But if data exists that was recorded in a compressed format, that doesn't make it useless, it depends greatly on what you're going to be measuring. Pitch, for example, is extremely robust, even under atrocious recording conditions and with poor equipment. One of the few things that will make pitch unmeasurable is overlapping voices (or other periodic sound sources) where the one you're trying to measure is not substantially louder than the others. But considering that you can measure pitch even with shocking amounts of background noise, or an extremely clipped signal, I'd be surprised if you couldn't measure it pretty reliably on mp3 data. On the other hand, if you want to measure voice quality (creaky voice, breathy voice, etc.), then you need to know that you have a really reliable recording that didn't mess with the spectral tilt. But at that point, position of the mic relative to the mouth is also going to be pretty important. A few years ago when the compression at issue was minidiscs, I heard that a few phoneticians, including Ian Maddieson, did a test of compressed vs. uncompressed recordings and couldn't find a difference in any part of the signal they were interested in. They concluded the compression wasn't so bad. Of course, I'd rather know I have uncompressed data so I just don't have to worry about it. But given a choice of using existing compressed data or starting over, I would look at the signal and see what looked measurable and what didn't, keeping the compression in mind. Also, it's worth considering that in many field recording situations, the background noise (whether it's airplanes, construction noise, chickens, kids, crickets, refrigerator hum, a college cafeteria, or a preschool setting--I've run into all of these at least indirectly, for acoustic phonetics work) is going to contribute a whole lot more problems to the signal than the compression creates. And sometimes we do work with data collected over the phone, which limits the signal a lot more than compression does. So my personal approach would be to use a reasonably good headmounted mic, get it as close to the speaker's mouth as possible, make sure any other noise sources are far further from the mic than the speaker's mouth is, and record uncompressed if possible. It would also be nice to have a clearer understanding than I do at this point of just what we lose during the compression. Thanks for the discussion, everyone, Natasha Warner ******************************************************************************* Natasha Warner Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics University of Arizona PO Box 210028 Tucson, AZ 85721-0028 From wjposer at LDC.UPENN.EDU Tue Jul 24 08:59:00 2007 From: wjposer at LDC.UPENN.EDU (William J Poser) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 04:59:00 -0400 Subject: ipod recording In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I don't think that anyone has suggested that existing audio recorded with lossy compression be discarded. The topic has been how to make NEW recordings, and for those lossy compression methods should be avoided since they are both potentially destructive of information and unnecessary. There have been a number of studies of the effects of minidisc compression, and indeed, for most purposes, it is not a problem. However, this doesn't bear on most of the devices under discussion since the algorithm used for minidiscs, known as ATRAC, is not the same as the more common MP3 compression. Bill From rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 24 08:59:25 2007 From: rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudy Troike) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 01:59:25 -0700 Subject: Question re recording on a VCR In-Reply-To: Message-ID: For a long time I've assumed that recordings made with VCRs would provide some of the best quality, since they record in "hi-fi", so long as good microphones are used. About 20 years ago we did some recording using a VHS video camera and bought some good quality microphones (about $150 then) with the intent of being able to record a speaker at a distance. This turned out not to work well, so we wound up using small radio microphones, which gave excellent quality and allowed great flexibility. I haven't checked out Bill Poser's links yet, but he may discuss some of these issues there. I have assumed that it would be possible to attach the microphones directly to the VCR, and even take advantage of the stereo recording capability to record two speakers on separate tracks, with the added advantage that, from what I had read, the hi-fi quality of the recording remained the same at all speeds, allowing up to 8 hours of continuous recording on a single casette, certainly ideal for recording language use in natural settings. However, when I tried this week to put my assumptions to the test, I found somewhat to my surprise that there was no direct input for a microphone on the two VCRs we have, only audio inputs using RCA plugs. Neither was there on the tuner-amplifier I have with all sorts of bells and whistles on it. So I dug out an ancient 1970s-era Pioneer tuner-amplifier with a banana-plug microphone input on the front, and with an adapter, plugged in each of the microphones in turn, connected the amplifier output to the VCR audio input, and tried recording, with no audible result in either case. (I did put a new battery into each of the microphones, and found that they gave very clear recordings when using a small Radio Shack cassette recorder, but of course the audio cassettes are limited to 45 minutes per side, and the quality, while it sounds good and clear, is presumably not "hi-fi".) I am guessing that the problem in trying to use the VCR via the amplifier is that there is a mismatch in the impedence of the microphones, while the cassette recorder matches the input impedence. (Unfortunately, there is no surviving information on the impedence of the microphones themselves.) I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for how to use such microphones to record on a VCR? Thanks, Rudy Troike From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Tue Jul 24 13:40:38 2007 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 06:40:38 -0700 Subject: ipod recording In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks for this, Natasha -- point well taken. The background noise issue is certainly something that field linguists always have to deal with and consider. The bottom line, for endangered language work at least, is still that any recording is better than none. I wouldn't want anyone to wait to have the perfect equipment while letting the perfect opportunity slip away. S. On 7/24/07, Natasha L Warner wrote: > > Hi, > > before we totally write off all compressed data that already exists, let's > think twice. Sure, if you're choosing at the beginning of a project, it's > probably far better to just record uncompressed in the first place. But > if data exists that was recorded in a compressed format, that doesn't make > it useless, it depends greatly on what you're going to be measuring. > Pitch, for example, is extremely robust, even under atrocious recording > conditions and with poor equipment. One of the few things that will make > pitch unmeasurable is overlapping voices (or other periodic sound sources) > where the one you're trying to measure is not substantially louder than > the others. But considering that you can measure pitch even with shocking > amounts of background noise, or an extremely clipped signal, I'd be > surprised if you couldn't measure it pretty reliably on mp3 data. On the > other hand, if you want to measure voice quality (creaky voice, breathy > voice, etc.), then you need to know that you have a really reliable > recording that didn't mess with the spectral tilt. But at that point, > position of the mic relative to the mouth is also going to be pretty > important. > > A few years ago when the compression at issue was minidiscs, I > heard that a few phoneticians, including Ian Maddieson, did a test of > compressed vs. uncompressed recordings and couldn't find a difference in > any part of the signal they were interested in. They concluded the > compression wasn't so bad. Of course, I'd rather know I have uncompressed > data so I just don't have to worry about it. But given a choice of using > existing compressed data or starting over, I would look at the signal and > see what looked measurable and what didn't, keeping the compression in > mind. > > Also, it's worth considering that in many field recording situations, the > background noise (whether it's airplanes, construction noise, chickens, > kids, crickets, refrigerator hum, a college cafeteria, or a preschool > setting--I've run into all of these at least indirectly, for acoustic > phonetics work) is going to contribute a whole lot more problems to the > signal than the compression creates. And sometimes we do work with data > collected over the phone, which limits the signal a lot more than > compression does. So my personal approach would be to use a reasonably > good headmounted mic, get it as close to the speaker's mouth as possible, > make sure any other noise sources are far further from the mic than the > speaker's mouth is, and record uncompressed if possible. It would also be > nice to have a clearer understanding than I do at this point of just what > we lose during the compression. > > Thanks for the discussion, everyone, > > Natasha Warner > > > ******************************************************************************* > Natasha Warner > Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics > University of Arizona > PO Box 210028 > Tucson, AZ 85721-0028 > -- ____________________________________________________________ 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 Acquisition & 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: From dpwiese at AOL.COM Tue Jul 24 16:19:16 2007 From: dpwiese at AOL.COM (Dr. Dorene Wiese) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:19:16 -0400 Subject: Cassette Tape Transfeer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: What programs do researchers recommend for transferring cassette tapes to cds and other formats? Dorene -----Original Message----- From: Natasha L Warner To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Sent: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 2:28 am Subject: Re: [ILAT] ipod recording Hi, before we totally write off all compressed data that already exists, let's think twice. Sure, if you're choosing at the beginning of a project, it's probably far better to just record uncompressed in the first place. But if data exists that was recorded in a compressed format, that doesn't make it useless, it depends greatly on what you're going to be measuring. Pitch, for example, is extremely robust, even under atrocious recording conditions and with poor equipment. One of the few things that will make pitch unmeasurable is overlapping voices (or other periodic sound sources) where the one you're trying to measure is not substantially louder than the others. But considering that you can measure pitch even with shocking amounts of background noise, or an extremely clipped signal, I'd be surprised if you couldn't measure it pretty reliably on mp3 data. On the other hand, if you want to measure voice quality (creaky voice, breathy voice, etc.), then you need to know that you have a really reliable recording that didn't mess with the spectral tilt. But at that point, position of the mic relative to the mouth is also going to be pretty important. A few years ago when the compression at issue was minidiscs, I heard that a few phoneticians, including Ian Maddieson, did a test of compressed vs. uncompressed recordings and couldn't find a difference in any part of the signal they were interested in. They concluded the compression wasn't so bad. Of course, I'd rather know I have uncompressed data so I just don't have to worry about it. But given a choice of using existing compressed data or starting over, I would look at the signal and see what looked measurable and what didn't, keeping the compression in mind. Also, it's worth considering that in many field recording situations, the background noise (whether it's airplanes, construction noise, chickens, kids, crickets, refrigerator hum, a college cafeteria, or a preschool setting--I've run into all of these at least indirectly, for acoustic phonetics work) is going to contribute a whole lot more problems to the signal than the compression creates. And sometimes we do work with data collected over the phone, which limits the signal a lot more than compression does. So my personal approach would be to use a reasonably good headmounted mic, get it as close to the speaker's mouth as possible, make sure any other noise sources are far further from the mic than the speaker's mouth is, and record uncompressed if possible. It would also be nice to have a clearer understanding than I do at this point of just what we lose during the compression. Thanks for the discussion, everyone, Natasha Warner ******************************************************************************* Natasha Warner Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics University of Arizona PO Box 210028 Tucson, AZ 85721-0028 ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From MBuckner at MISSOURISTATE.EDU Tue Jul 24 19:31:27 2007 From: MBuckner at MISSOURISTATE.EDU (Buckner, Margaret L) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:31:27 -0500 Subject: Cassette Tape Transfeer Message-ID: I've had really good luck with the iMic, which imports sound very easily onto a Mac, using the (free) sound-editiing software program, Audacity. I've imported from reels recorded in 1960s on a Uher, and also from cassette tapes. (It took a while to find the right connecting cable for the Uher, but once I found one, it worked great.) The iMic costs about $30. For PCs, others will have to answer... Margie Buckner -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology on behalf of Dr. Dorene Wiese Sent: Tue 7/24/2007 11:19 To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Cassette Tape Transfeer What programs do researchers recommend for transferring cassette tapes to cds and other formats? Dorene -----Original Message----- From: Natasha L Warner To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Sent: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 2:28 am Subject: Re: [ILAT] ipod recording Hi, before we totally write off all compressed data that already exists, let's think twice. Sure, if you're choosing at the beginning of a project, it's probably far better to just record uncompressed in the first place. But if data exists that was recorded in a compressed format, that doesn't make it useless, it depends greatly on what you're going to be measuring. Pitch, for example, is extremely robust, even under atrocious recording conditions and with poor equipment. One of the few things that will make pitch unmeasurable is overlapping voices (or other periodic sound sources) where the one you're trying to measure is not substantially louder than the others. But considering that you can measure pitch even with shocking amounts of background noise, or an extremely clipped signal, I'd be surprised if you couldn't measure it pretty reliably on mp3 data. On the other hand, if you want to measure voice quality (creaky voice, breathy voice, etc.), then you need to know that you have a really reliable recording that didn't mess with the spectral tilt. But at that point, position of the mic relative to the mouth is also going to be pretty important. A few years ago when the compression at issue was minidiscs, I heard that a few phoneticians, including Ian Maddieson, did a test of compressed vs. uncompressed recordings and couldn't find a difference in any part of the signal they were interested in. They concluded the compression wasn't so bad. Of course, I'd rather know I have uncompressed data so I just don't have to worry about it. But given a choice of using existing compressed data or starting over, I would look at the signal and see what looked measurable and what didn't, keeping the compression in mind. Also, it's worth considering that in many field recording situations, the background noise (whether it's airplanes, construction noise, chickens, kids, crickets, refrigerator hum, a college cafeteria, or a preschool setting--I've run into all of these at least indirectly, for acoustic phonetics work) is going to contribute a whole lot more problems to the signal than the compression creates. And sometimes we do work with data collected over the phone, which limits the signal a lot more than compression does. So my personal approach would be to use a reasonably good headmounted mic, get it as close to the speaker's mouth as possible, make sure any other noise sources are far further from the mic than the speaker's mouth is, and record uncompressed if possible. It would also be nice to have a clearer understanding than I do at this point of just what we lose during the compression. Thanks for the discussion, everyone, Natasha Warner ******************************************************************************* Natasha Warner Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics University of Arizona PO Box 210028 Tucson, AZ 85721-0028 ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 24 20:03:37 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 13:03:37 -0700 Subject: Conference on Call for papers: Conference on Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory (fwd link) Message-ID: Conference on Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory: 75 years of Linguistics at SOAS, 5 years of the Endangered Languages Project 7-8th December 2007 School of Oriental and African Studies, London Call for Papers http://www.hrelp.org/events/conference2007/index.html The deadline for abstract submissions is 17th August 2007. From thien at UNIMELB.EDU.AU Tue Jul 24 21:06:13 2007 From: thien at UNIMELB.EDU.AU (Nicholas Thieberger) Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 07:06:13 +1000 Subject: Cassette Tape Transfeer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: For what it's worth, my experience of digitizing files by myself may be useful. I just connected the computer and the tape recorder and did the work that way, but the files produced by doing this were not great. This is because the analog to digital converter in computers is not very good. But I used Transcriber to link to those files, and then later I had an archive digitize them at the sort of quality they needed, using thebest equipment. So then my Transcriber files didn't link to the better quality files. And since I want my transcriptions to relate to the files that will be around in the long term, I then had to realign my transcripts and audio. The lesson for me is that I should have made the best possible digital version of the cassette to begin with, before I put all the time into transcribing it. And that file has to go into an archive so that it is available for the speakers of the language in future. Nick >I've had really good luck with the iMic, which imports sound very >easily onto a Mac, using the (free) sound-editiing software program, >Audacity. I've imported from reels recorded in 1960s on a Uher, and >also from cassette tapes. (It took a while to find the right >connecting cable for the Uher, but once I found one, it worked >great.) The iMic costs about $30. >For PCs, others will have to answer... > >Margie Buckner -- Project Manager PARADISEC Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics University of Melbourne, Vic 3010 Australia nicholas.thieberger at paradisec.org.au Ph 61 (0)3 8344 5185 PARADISEC Pacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures http://paradisec.org.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From donaghy at HAWAII.EDU Tue Jul 24 21:19:15 2007 From: donaghy at HAWAII.EDU (Keola Donaghy) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 11:19:15 -1000 Subject: Cassette Tape Transfeer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Aloha kakou. One thing to be careful of in converting from cassette and even reel-to-reel is to know what kind of noise reduction, if any, was used during the recording process. Dobly B, Dolby C, and DBX were all popular in their days. It is sometimes best to make sure that you have same NR selected in the digitization process, though I've generally been happier with the results when I have no NR selected on the playback machine. If the tapes aren't marked you may have to make a few digital samples with each type of NR. I've found it fairly easy to recognize when the NR formats are not in alignment by just listening to playback. Keola On 24 Iul. 2007, at 11:06 AM, Nicholas Thieberger wrote: > For what it's worth, my experience of digitizing files by myself > may be useful. I just connected the computer and the tape recorder > and did the work that way, but the files produced by doing this > were not great. This is because the analog to digital converter in > computers is not very good. > > But I used Transcriber to link to those files, and then later I had > an archive digitize them at the sort of quality they needed, using > thebest equipment. So then my Transcriber files didn't link to the > better quality files. And since I want my transcriptions to relate > to the files that will be around in the long term, I then had to > realign my transcripts and audio. > > The lesson for me is that I should have made the best possible > digital version of the cassette to begin with, before I put all the > time into transcribing it. And that file has to go into an archive > so that it is available for the speakers of the language in future. > ======================================================================== Keola Donaghy Assistant Professor of Hawaiian Studies Ka Haka 'Ula O Ke'elikolani keola at leoki.uhh.hawaii.edu University of Hawai'i at Hilo http://www2.hawaii.edu/~donaghy/ "Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam." (Irish Gaelic saying) A country without its language is a country without its soul. ======================================================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Tue Jul 24 21:34:28 2007 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:34:28 -0700 Subject: Cassette Tape Transfeer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I also like Audacity -- a free download -- and use it with a PC , just running cassette tapes into it. This is a very straight forward way to do it... Ah yes, Margaret -- I remember those Uher recorders (though I think mine was a Wallensach)... S. yes On 7/24/07, Buckner, Margaret L wrote: > > I've had really good luck with the iMic, which imports sound very easily > onto a Mac, using the (free) sound-editiing software program, > Audacity. I've imported from reels recorded in 1960s on a Uher, and also > from cassette tapes. (It took a while to find the right connecting cable > for the Uher, but once I found one, it worked great.) The iMic costs about > $30. > For PCs, others will have to answer... > > Margie Buckner > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Indigenous Languages and Technology on behalf of Dr. Dorene Wiese > Sent: Tue 7/24/2007 11:19 > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > Subject: [ILAT] Cassette Tape Transfeer > > What programs do researchers recommend for transferring cassette tapes to > cds and other formats? > Dorene > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Natasha L Warner > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > Sent: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 2:28 am > Subject: Re: [ILAT] ipod recording > > > > Hi, > > before we totally write off all compressed data that already exists, let's > think twice. Sure, if you're choosing at the beginning of a project, it's > probably far better to just record uncompressed in the first place. But > if data exists that was recorded in a compressed format, that doesn't make > it useless, it depends greatly on what you're going to be measuring. > Pitch, for example, is extremely robust, even under atrocious recording > conditions and with poor equipment. One of the few things that will make > pitch unmeasurable is overlapping voices (or other periodic sound sources) > where the one you're trying to measure is not substantially louder than > the others. But considering that you can measure pitch even with shocking > amounts of background noise, or an extremely clipped signal, I'd be > surprised if you couldn't measure it pretty reliably on mp3 data. On the > other hand, if you want to measure voice quality (creaky voice, breathy > voice, etc.), then you need to know that you have a really reliable > recording that didn't mess with the spectral tilt. But at that point, > position of the mic relative to the mouth is also going to be pretty > important. > > A few years ago when the compression at issue was minidiscs, I > heard that a few phoneticians, including Ian Maddieson, did a test of > compressed vs. uncompressed recordings and couldn't find a difference in > any part of the signal they were interested in. They concluded the > compression wasn't so bad. Of course, I'd rather know I have uncompressed > data so I just don't have to worry about it. But given a choice of using > existing compressed data or starting over, I would look at the signal and > see what looked measurable and what didn't, keeping the compression in > mind. > > Also, it's worth considering that in many field recording situations, the > background noise (whether it's airplanes, construction noise, chickens, > kids, crickets, refrigerator hum, a college cafeteria, or a preschool > setting--I've run into all of these at least indirectly, for acoustic > phonetics work) is going to contribute a whole lot more problems to the > signal than the compression creates. And sometimes we do work with data > collected over the phone, which limits the signal a lot more than > compression does. So my personal approach would be to use a reasonably > good headmounted mic, get it as close to the speaker's mouth as possible, > make sure any other noise sources are far further from the mic than the > speaker's mouth is, and record uncompressed if possible. It would also be > nice to have a clearer understanding than I do at this point of just what > we lose during the compression. > > Thanks for the discussion, everyone, > > Natasha Warner > > > ******************************************************************************* > Natasha Warner > Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics > University of Arizona > PO Box 210028 > Tucson, AZ 85721-0028 > > > ________________________________________________________________________ > AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free > from AOL at AOL.com. > -- ____________________________________________________________ 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 Acquisition & 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: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 25 19:25:16 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 12:25:16 -0700 Subject: LANGUAGE COMMISSION CEO: WE CAN HELP (fwd) Message-ID: LANGUAGE COMMISSION CEO: WE CAN HELP Date: 24 July 2007 http://www.niufm.com/?t=3&View=FullStory&newsID=2226 Auckland 9am: The CEO of Te Taura Whiri says Pacific communities can look to Maori for support in the battle to save indigenous languages. Huhana Rokx says the models they've used to promote te reo in New Zealand are working and that they'd like to share this with communities like Niuean, Tokelauns and the Cook Islands, the three nations most at risk of losing their language. A new survey out yesterday shows more Maori are now able to speak te reo. Rokx says they've already started working with the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs on ways to preserve Pacific languages under threat. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 26 22:15:29 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:15:29 -0700 Subject: Maori TV to set up a 100% Te Reo digital channel (fwd) Message-ID: Maori TV to set up a 100% Te Reo digital channel Posted at 4:17pm on 26 Jul 2007 http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/latest/200707261617/maori_tv_to_set_up_a_100_te_reo_digital_channel Maori Television has announced it is setting up a 100% Te Reo digital channel. The second channel will transmit via the Freeview digital platform and broadcast each day during the prime time hours of 7.30pm to 10.30pm. It will be free of advertising. Maori Television chief executive Jim Mather says the channel will meet the needs of older and more fluent Maori speakers and will ensure the native language survives. The channel is expected to be launched at the beginning of next year. Copyright © 2007 Radio New Zealand From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 26 22:17:28 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:17:28 -0700 Subject: Google Looks At Maori Language (fwd) Message-ID: Google Looks At Maori Language Submitted by Doug Caverly on Wed, 07/25/2007 - 14:00. http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/07/25/google-looks-at-maori-language Google’s Australian branch is quite proud of the country’s culture and origins. As word spreads about a new project, it seems that Google’s taking a strong interest in New Zealand, as well; the search engine should soon be available in Maori, a language native to the area. Of course, New Zealand’s only about 1,200 miles off Australia’s coast (“only” in the sense there’s not much nearer), so the project sort of makes sense. And as Potaua Biasiny-Tule told Yvonne Tahana for an article in The New Zealand Herald, “They had Klingon and the Muppets, even Elmer Fudd. We asked ourselves, ‘Where was Maori?’” You’ll note that Mr. Biasiny-Tule referred to Google as “they” - he and his wife, who are developing the Maori version of Google, don’t actually work for the company. Tahana reports, “Google had provided a template but making sure translations lined up with technology-based Maori words, agreeing on common words across different dialects and relying on a team of volunteers” is all up to the Biasiny-Tules. Sounds like a quite an undertaking, eh? There’s no mention of how many volunteers are a part of the team, or when, exactly, a “final result” can be expected. Tahana does mention, “The project started about five weeks ago and the first of eight pages will be submitted to Google . . . to coincide with the launch of Maori Language Week.” At this point in time, adjust “will be” to “have been.” And keep an eye on Google’s language interface options; you never know when Maori could appear between Maltese and Marathi. Tags: Google, New Zealand, Maori About the Author Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 26 22:20:34 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:20:34 -0700 Subject: Hualapai youth learn language and customs of their culture (fwd) Message-ID: Hualapai youth learn language and customs of their culture Thursday, July 26, 2007 http://www.kingmandailyminer.com/main.asp?SectionID=13&SubSectionID=18&ArticleID=12725&TM=54429.34 KINGMAN - The Haulapai Nation preserve their culture and traditions by passing them on to their children. The 7th Annual Pai Language Immersion Camp being held this week at the Hualapai Mountain Park is designed to accomplish this daunting task. According to Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Loretta Jackson, the camp teaches the youth of the tribe the language, traditional arts and crafts, as well as the cultural background of their tribe. The children wake up at 5:30 a.m. each day to greet the morning. They hike to the highest point of camp to greet the sun and say the morning prayers. Adults of the group teach them a morning girls' song and a morning boys' song. After their hike back to camp and breakfast, the tribal children are divided into groups to learn the Hualapai language. The groups are divided by age and skill level to allow for more effective instruction. During the afternoon, the children are taught traditional arts and crafts. These lessons are always interspersed with language lessons. Lucille Watahomigie, one of several certified teachers leading the camp, taught a group of children how to play Wisdo. Wisdo is a stick game that helps the children learn how to count from one to 10. The game is sort of like "Sorry" and is a good way for them to practice their vocabulary, she said. Beading lessons teach the words for the primary colors. The seed beads, with the assistance of veteran teacher Jorigine Bender, are used to make doll capes for cornhusk dolls the children will make by the end of the week. Bender said they are making smaller versions of ceremonial capes made for the dancers who perform during rituals. Throughout the lessons, language and history are stressed. Jackson said it is important to pass down the lessons history has taught the Hualapai tribe, as well as to pass down the culture. As the modern age continues to plow ahead, culture can get lost very quickly. Survival in the wilderness is taught at the camp as Drake Havatone, Leroy Kopelra and Travis Majenta help the boys make bows and arrows out of tree branches, homemade string and reed arrows. It teaches the children about native plants and their uses. When they grow older, Havatone said, these lessons will help them make a real bow out of oak or hickory for hunting. Cheryle Beecher taught children about the native plants and their traditional uses. Her hope is that they walk away being able to recognize and use at least six plants. Holding this year's immersion camp in the Hualapai Mountains is poignant for the tribe, because it is sacred ground. Elder Delores Honga said their ancestors grew up and lived off this land. Before the Calvary came and killed so many and forced the Hualapai tribe off of their land, the Hualapai Mountains were their home. When the Calvary came, many ancestors were buried in the earth of the mountains. Artifacts and history cover this area, and teaching the youth of today the proper respect is paramount. The camp continues through Friday. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 26 22:28:47 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:28:47 -0700 Subject: Northern Natives Tenacious in Preserving Cultures (fwd) Message-ID: Friday, July 27, 2007. Issue 3708. Page 4. Northern Natives Tenacious in Preserving Cultures By Olesya Dmitracova Reuters http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/07/27/015.html [photo inset - Olesya Dmitracova / Reuters Koryaks performing a traditional song in June in Pimchakh, Kamchatka.] PIMCHAKH, Kamchatka Region -- Listening to enigmatic Koryak-language songs and eating traditional salmon soup and cutlets in this village, it is easy to imagine indigenous cultures still thrive on the Kamchatka Peninsula. In fact, it is only the sheer tenacity of local Koryaks, Itelmens, Evens and other aborigines that keeps centuries-old customs and languages from dying out in the wild Far East after much was eroded by Soviet rule. "Native people must live on. Without them this land will be poor and it will be impossible to bring any meaning to this land," said Vera Koveinik who heads the ethnic community of Pimchakh, 40 kilometers from the regional capital, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. When Russians began settling in Kamchatka in the second half of the 17th century, up to 11,000 Koryaks lived here fishing, herding deer and hunting whale and walrus. Three centuries of pervasive Russian and Soviet influence and intermarriage have left an indelible mark on Kamchatka's Koryaks, who now number around 7,300 -- by far the largest indigenous group on the peninsula. "Everyone of my generation speaks the Koryak language, knows the customs, dances, dishes like in the ancient times. But some of our children don't know anything at all," said folk performer Lidia Chechulina, slightly breathless after dancing to the beat of a deer-skin drum and the music of her own voice. Her songs, sung in a guttural language reminiscent of Chinese, describe the beauty of the tundra, volcanoes and the sea, she explained. She said that songs, one for each person, accompany Koryaks all their lives and act as a charm. "Our parents preserved everything as it was before the [1917] Revolution," said Chechulina, a small, bubbly woman in her 50s. Probably the most effective Soviet assimilation policy was that of forcibly putting Koryak children in state-run boarding schools to teach them the Russian language and customs. "The Soviet culture was imposed on them," said Andrei Samar, a researcher at the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the People of the Far East. Since the children came back home only once or twice a year, he said, they knew very little about their native culture let alone traditional skills such as the difficult and dangerous trade of hunting at sea. Some of those children, now adults, and their parents are actively working to revive indigenous cultures. A large number of schools offer classes in the Koryak and other aboriginal languages as an extracurricular activity, and families observe ancient holidays. There are also efforts to expand deer herding in regions where it is dwindling rapidly. The Pimchakh community organizes summer camps in the village where children learn about ancient traditions and do crafts. The regional government says it runs cultural programs and also provides financial aid for ethnic communities. But Koveinik said there were no signs in Kamchatka in any of the indigenous languages and no monuments to celebrate the aboriginal culture and history. "The government probably helps somehow. I don't know, I wouldn't say so," said Chechulina, wearing a traditional suede-and-fur overcoat, a headdress made of beads and soft leather boots meant to protect from moss and mosquitoes in the tundra. Hardly any aborigines wear such costumes every day and many are university-educated, but the way they talk retains traces of their ancient spirituality rooted in the shamanism that is still practiced. Pimchakh leader Koveinik, an Itelmen, told the audience after the community ensemble's performance that they were privileged. "You are today the richest people, you've received so much power and energy," she said. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sun Jul 29 16:36:10 2007 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 09:36:10 -0700 Subject: Online Karuk Language Class - Registration Now Open Message-ID: Reply-To: sgehr at karuk.us ayukîi! I am pleased to announce that we are now taking registrations for the first ever online Karuk language class. Some of you have expressed interest in signing up for the class in the past. Please confirm that you will be participating in the class by returning the requested information below as soon as possible. The class will start on Monday, August 13th and run until Saturday, September 29th. Every week there will be a lesson with written, audio and video lessons. There will also be several telephone conference calls for students to participate in. This first session is limited to 25 students. If you end up on the waiting list for this class, don’t worry. We will be running the class at least two more times over the following year. The class is free, but you must register for the class by sending me the following information. Return the registration information to me at sgehr at karuk.us ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------- Karuk Online Language Class Registration Form Name: Mailing Address: City: State: Zip: Day Phone: Evening Phone: Email: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------- yôotva, -- Susan Gehr Karuk Language Program Director Karuk Tribe of California PO Box 1016, Happy Camp, CA 96039 (800) 505-2785 x2205 NEW FAX # (530) 493-1658 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jul 29 17:06:55 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 10:06:55 -0700 Subject: Tlingit curriculum employs technology in classroom (fwd) Message-ID: Tlingit curriculum employs technology in classroom (Published: July 29, 2007) http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/9173974p-9090480c.html Every public school district in Southeast Alaska has been provided with a new tool to teach the Tlingit language at a time when the number of fluent speakers is dwindling. The first broad Tlingit language and culture curriculum was co-produced by Sealaska Heritage Institute and the Juneau School District. "It's designed to put resources in the hands of teachers who aren't necessarily cultural experts or language teachers so they can learn along with their students," said Yarrow Vaara, Tlingit language specialist for the institute. The curriculum uses technology to help engage the students in learning, Vaara said. Along with binders of text covering the 18 units, audio components and interactive vocabulary games are included. "This curriculum has a particular language focus that is unique that is also addressing the academic standards," she said. "We're merging technology with the different focuses, too." The curriculum is the result of a three-year project funded by two grants from the U.S. Department of Education. The lessons were field-tested by several Juneau teachers in 2005 and 2006 prior to being sent to other school districts. Vaara said the district's Tlingit immersion program spawned the project. "We quickly realized that in order for that to be a successful program, they needed the resources and materials to use in the classroom," she said. "Just because someone can speak Tlingit doesn't mean they can teach it." The curriculum is designed for beginning speakers and aimed at kindergarten to second grade but can be used as a tool to teach any age. -- The Associated Press From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jul 29 16:57:14 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 09:57:14 -0700 Subject: Keeping tribal languages alive (fwd) Message-ID: Keeping tribal languages alive Saturday, July 28, 2007 10:02 PM PDT By DOMINIKA MASLIKOWSKI The Daily News http://www.mohavedailynews.com/articles/2007/07/29/news/top_story/top1.txt [photo inset - JEFF MANGUM/The Daily News LANGUAGE LESSON: Joe Scerato teaches a class about the Mojave language in Needles.] NEEDLES - In a small modular home surrounded by a dirt parking lot, Joe Scerato works to preserve an endangered language spoken for centuries by the Mojave Indians. His crowded office at Aha Macav Cultural Preservation is filled with pottery wheels, beads and fabric used to sew ribbon dresses. Currently, he's the department's director and its sole Mojave language instructor. When he was growing up, Scerato's foster parents spoke Mojave exclusively in their home. It was all he heard on the reservation - the language was a part of the tribe's culture, something that preserved their identity and made them unique. But now - over the course of Scerato's lifetime - Mojave has gone from a familiar sound that was often heard to a dying language spoken mostly by a few tribal elders. It's rarely taught to children. And as the years pass and more elders die off, the language risks being wiped out completely. “Now you can go to a person's house and you don't even hear one word, unless it's an elder,” Scerato said. “Things became more accessible and there's people moving away and coming back (who) are not being a part of the language.” Scerato estimates up to 60 members of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe understand Mojave fluently and about 20 percent of the Tribe speak it at some level, but the fluent speakers don't always practice the language and sometimes reply in English when they're addressed in Mojave. “I would hope that some of the older people that understand it would start speaking it because a lot of those people are grandparents,” Scerato said. “We're getting further and further away from the language itself.” The cultural preservation department offers three classes a day in basic Mojave for children age 5-16 during its summer program. But although language classes have been offered for the past five years, there are fewer available now than before. Since instructor Betty Barrackman's recent death there are no more evening classes and classroom space in the modular home is limited. In his language classes for children, Scerato has students working out of coloring books with the Mojave word and its English translation written below pictures of foods or animals. He listens to their pronunciation and, once the students learn enough words, he uses their vocabulary to build sentences. They take the copied booklets home to practice. “We try to help them with some of the history of the tribe so when they go somewhere they have a knowledge of their culture and the reservation so they know who they are,” he said. “It's our identity.” He says younger children grasp the language much faster, while teens or adults are often embarrassed when they can't say a word. The biggest challenge is the rolling Spanish R sound that's hard to pronounce for someone who hasn't taken Spanish in school or grown up speaking Mojave. Because the language is passed down orally and has no alphabet, Mojave words are written phonetically using the English alphabet. Some words for items the Mojave people didn't have, like apples, are based on how elders pronounced the English word (appuleh), while others, like orange, are named after how the fruit sounds when it's eaten (scho 'cow.) It's not known how old the language is or how many words it contains, Scerato said, because it once had three different dialects when the Mojave Indians lived scattered along the Colorado River in the 1920s and '30s. The dialects merged when the Mojave people began living in one concentrated area on the reservation. Now, Scerato says he can go to Peach Springs, Yuma or different rancheros in California, and the dialects are similar enough to Mojave for him to understand. A linguist once developed a dictionary of the language in the 1990s, but Scerato said the book is questionable because some dialects have different versions of the same word. But the dictionary does have merits, Scerato said, because it lists words for things like wood chips or insect types that were common in older times but have passed out of modern vocabulary. It's reading the forgotten words of his ancestors that gives Scerato a sense of the past and connection with history. “You get almost a feel of what it was like,” he said. Preserving the language hasn't been easy for the tribe. Other tribes like the Hualapais, who live north of Kingman near the Grand Canyon National Park, have preserved their language because they've had the advantage of being isolated. There are no nearby towns and there's little need for interaction with those outside the tribe. But the Mojave Indians live near Bullhead City, Laughlin and in Needles. Scerato said their daily needs don't center around tribal lands and the language is slowly disappearing. “It's like we're losing a part of our history and our tradition,” he said. “Once you lose the language, you're assimilated into the general population. You don't have uniqueness anymore and you're speaking English or Spanish like everybody else.” Yet Scerato remains hopeful. He's encouraged by compliments he's received from parents who send their children to his language classes. One said their child carries his coloring book with Mojave words everywhere and practices them all the time. “(Parents) are glad their kids are coming,” he said. “They wish they had those classes growing up because their parents didn't speak Mojave in their home.” KEEPING LANGUAGES ALIVE Scerato isn't alone in his efforts to preserve an American Indian language - he's joined by grass-roots organizations, university departments and language institutes who also fight to keep indigenous languages alive and protect cultural identity. The Yuman Language Family Summit is an annual gathering that brings representatives together from Colorado River Indian Tribes to discuss ways of preserving their languages. There are discussions on programs that pair Mojave children with tribal teachers and ways to create an environment for language immersion. “We have to have the language used every day and spoken so people can pick it up,” said Lucille Watahomigie, summit participant and director of education for the Hualapai Tribe. “It doesn't have to be taught. It can be acquired just by being in the environment where the language is used.” At the University of Arizona, the American Indian Language Development Institute works to train language teachers on how to use immersion and modern technology to encourage younger people to learn their language. This year, the institute hopes to focus on grant-writing for indigenous populations and skills in documenting languages for preservation. The university and the Colorado River Indian Tribe have a collaborative grant to document both Mojave and Chemehuevi, both considered extremely endangered, and to train tribal members in linguistics, data collection and archiving. Susan Penfield, the principal investigator on the grant, says dying American Indian languages are part of a larger world language crisis where by best estimates the planet loses one language every two weeks. And when a language is lost, she said, so are the warehouses of knowledge that are carried in its expressions, words and phrases. Linguists estimate there were once between 750 to 1,000 indigenous languages spoken in what's now the United States, says Philip Klasky, professor of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State University. Today, about 50 of those languages remain and 80 percent are no longer taught. “We all, as human beings, interpret the world around us through language and each language does this in a unique way. Losing even one language does not just impact the speakers of that language but hurts all of us and destroys - particularly in the case of native languages where there is no written record - huge volumes of knowledge and systems of cognition,” Penfield said. “Imagine how much information is included in a set of encyclopedias and realize that every language holds at least 10 times that much knowledge.” Klasky said Native American languages are a rich library of information on stewardship of the environment, animals and the medicinal purposes of plants. They're also carriers of a tribe's identity that hold untranslatable concepts and words with no equivalents in the English language. “When you lose a language you lose all this incredible knowledge,” Klasky said. “Who knows how many medicines exist in these languages that we may lose?” Klasky has been working with the Mojave Indians for the past 17 years and continues to aid the tribe in preserving their sacred songs, which he says are essential in passing down language. As director of the Storyscape Project, Klasky aims to protect ancestral lands and preserve and revitalize endangered stories and songs. In 2000, Klasky helped Llewellyn and Betty Barrackman, late elders of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, to transfer reel-to-reel tapes made in the 1970s to digital format. Now the stories, songs and languages of the tribe are preserved in University of California archives at Berkeley and Davis. A year later Klasky recorded Llewellyn Barrackman as he translated Mojave creation songs into English. The creation songs - a 525-song cycle - include practical maps used by the Mojaves to cross the desert, stories of the death of God Mutavilya and journeys of legendary figures. In the recordings, Barrackman first describes the song in Mojave, sings it in proto-Mojave (a language older than the spoken version) and then it is translated into English. “You can make that comparison, you can see the roots of words and understand the words being spoken,” Klasky said. “For many indigenous languages, where there are fewer and fewer speakers left, these tapes are invaluable.” THE NEXT GENERATION Watahomigie says out of 2,000 Hualapai tribal members, about 60 percent understand the Hualapai language and 30 percent speak it fluently. But younger members hardly speak it anymore, and they're the ones Watahomigie targets to keep the language alive. The Hualapais, along with two other tribes who speak similar languages, recently offered a five-day language camp in the Hualapai mountains attended by nearly 80 children from beginners to fluent speakers. There was no English spoken - or at least as little as possible - in an attempt to immerse the students in the language and get them to pick it up through listening to their elders and teachers. “The language is a gift that was given to us. We feel that when you have a gift you don't disrespect it and leave it laying around. You take care of it,” Watahomigie said. “A lot of our youth who don't have their culture are lost. They don't know who they are, they don't know their past or their history or their lineage. We feel the most important aspect of a person is their identity because when they have that they have the self-respect.” The camp offers crafts in the afternoons and evening activities like pow wows and traditional dances. Tribal elders stay in cabins while children camp out in traditional tents. There are daily language lessons before lunch and talking circles where each person says what they're thankful for. In the mornings, the children are woken up before dawn and follow their elders along dirt trails to greet the sunrise from the mountain tops. “(Our tribal council is) looking for healing, looking for ways to combat our drugs and alcoholism,” Watahomigie said. “This is one of the most important things that they want us to preserve - the language and culture.” From hsouter at GMAIL.COM Sun Jul 29 21:11:02 2007 From: hsouter at GMAIL.COM (Heather Souter) Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 16:11:02 -0500 Subject: Online Karuk Language Class - Registration Now Open In-Reply-To: <74C7E1DB-F0F1-4714-A713-B6B552B7DB5E@ncidc.org> Message-ID: Ayukîi, Taanshi, Susan, How are you doing? It looks like you are really moving forward with your Karuk langauge learning resources! That's great! If you have time, II would love to hear more about your on-line course. It sounds VERY exciting! Yôotva, Kihchi-marsii, thanks! Heather On 7/29/07, Andre Cramblit wrote: > > > Reply-To: sgehr at karuk.us > > ayukîi! > > I am pleased to announce that we are now taking registrations for > the first ever online Karuk language class. > > Some of you have expressed interest in signing up for the class in > the past. Please confirm that you will be participating in the class > by returning the requested information below as soon as possible. > > The class will start on Monday, August 13th and run until Saturday, > September 29th. Every week there will be a lesson with written, > audio and video lessons. There will also be several telephone > conference calls for students to participate in. > > This first session is limited to 25 students. If you end up on the > waiting list for this class, don't worry. We will be running the > class at least two more times over the following year. > > The class is free, but you must register for the class by sending me > the following information. Return the registration information to me > at sgehr at karuk.us > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > ------- > Karuk Online Language Class > > Registration Form > > > > Name: > > > > Mailing Address: > > City: > > State: > > Zip: > > > > Day Phone: > > Evening Phone: > > > > Email: > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > ------- > > > > > > yôotva, > > -- > > Susan Gehr > > Karuk Language Program Director > > Karuk Tribe of California > > PO Box 1016, Happy Camp, CA 96039 > > (800) 505-2785 x2205 NEW FAX # (530) 493-1658 > > > > From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 30 17:31:26 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:31:26 -0700 Subject: Cocopah language class seeks to keep ancient tongue from dying out (fwd) Message-ID: Cocopah language class seeks to keep ancient tongue from dying out BY DARIN FENGER, SUN STAFF WRITER July 29, 2007 - 8:51PM http://www.yumasun.com/articles/language_35558___article_news.html/cocopah_tribe.html [photo inset - JOE RODRIQUEZ teaches the proper way to pronounce a series of Cocopah words during a recent language class at the Cocopah West Reservation.] JOE RODRIQUEZ teaches the proper way to pronounce a series of Cocopah words during a recent language class at the Cocopah West Reservation. Bingo may help rescue an ancient language from the brink of extinction. Cocopah Indian Tribe elders, educators and cultural authorities are struggling to preserve the tribe's dying language. "We don't want to be like those tribes you hear about where they have no language speakers or recordings," said Felicia Gutierrez, a language preservation specialist for the tribe. "Today we don't know our language as much. It could be extinct pretty soon, so we just want to revive it." The Cocopah Museum, which develops cultural programming for the tribe, began offering language classes to children nine years ago. Classes this summer mark the first time the opportunity has been extended to adult tribal members, as well as nonnatives who work for the tribe. Playing a language-version of bingo during those classes seems to be slowly breathing life into words that could have been silenced forever. Students use specially-made bingo cards designed with rows of simple, but useful, Cocopah words. Players listen carefully as the teacher calls out word after word, crossing out each lucky word with bright-colored markers. Skits are also used to teach the language. To recover the language, Cocopah leaders are essentially relying on the same setting that started its deterioration: the classroom. Leaders explain that mainstream society's battle to wipe out the Cocopah language began in the mid-1900s, when school teachers would strike children, like Gutierrez, for speaking their native tongue. She grew up speaking only Cocopah in her family's home and she learned English in school in nearby Somerton. "They would hit my hands in school every time I spoke my language," Gutierrez said. "But I didn't understand (why), not as a child ..." Gutierrez and Lisa Wanstall, director of the Cocopah Museum, explained that widespread knowledge of the language began to fade in the 1950s and started to disappear in earnest by the 1960s. Wanstall stressed that boarding schools, missionaries and public schools all pushed local natives to abandon their languages and adopt English. "They pushed the tribal community to be involved with town people, and our clothing and food we ate changed," Wanstall said. "Then in the last two decades, we have seen a lot more television and movies come into play. You have all these distractions taking them away from their culture, so we have to fight really hard." The number of fully fluent speakers of Cocopah dipped down to "just a handful" in recent years. But the tribe's classes and overall rededication to the language seem to be working when the spoken language can be heard among tribal friends when they chat. "A lot of elders speak the language," Wanstall said. "People in their 30s and 40s do understand and usually speak the language, but the younger ones are where we are losing it ... You hear the language on a daily basis. There is a native speaker in almost every home ... Some tribal members do their prayers in Cocopah." Teaching the language presents an impressive challenge, according to tribal officials. The Cocopah language traditionally was never a written language. A university student created the first written form in the 1970s for a dissertation but unfortunately for the tribe, the words presented tended to be too academic and not very applicable to everyday life. "There was some communication with tribal leaders when it was developed, but not much. It's there, but it's really not useful," Wanstall said. "We came in and we changed a lot of it. We had to develop a new alphabet about four years ago." Another challenge for leaders has been designing words to describe modern objects and notions. "For us to create new words for 'microwave' or 'refrigerator' we have to ask the elders," Wanstall said. "Every word, everything we are teaching has to go through the elders. We ask them 'How can we say this? Is this the most appropriate way?'" If the leaders' recent efforts do fail, they have a safety net to help ensure that their language isn't lost forever. The museum staff has recorded countless examples of the language being spoken. The recordings are archived within the safety of the museum repository. Student Miguel Herrera, 25, said the class has revived the language that he used to speak as a child. "I used to know it when my grandparents were around because that's all they spoke," Herrera said. "I have a son that's 5 who probably knows more than me! His grandma speaks to him, and he's around a lot of the elders more than I am. He'll correct me, too, 'No daddy, it goes like this.'" But for Wanstall, the preservation goes beyond childhood memories. "Our language is so important to us because it was given to us by our creator," she said. "This is an ancient language. It belongs to us and it's special and sacred. It's part of our identity as a culture and the various traditions we do to maintain who we are as Cocopahs." ---- Darin Fenger can be reached at dfenger at yumasun.com or 539-6860. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 30 17:35:37 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:35:37 -0700 Subject: Maori TV to host world-first conference (fwd) Message-ID: Maori TV to host world-first conference By MERVYN DYKES - Manawatu Standard | Monday, 30 July 2007 http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4146353a8153.html Maori Television will host the first World Indigenous Television Broadcasting Conference in Auckland on March 26-28 next year. The conference is expected to bring together about 300 of the world's top indigenous broadcasters from countries such as Ireland, Canada, Wales, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand. It will also see the presentation of an inaugural lifetime achievement award and the launch of the World Indigenous Television Broadcasters' Network. "The purpose of the network will be to promote indigenous broadcasting at the highest level internationally and to foster closer relationships between broadcasters," said Maori TV general manager of sales and marketing Sonya Haggie yesterday. "It will encourage joint venture productions, programme sharing and resource development. The conference will be a significant milestone in the development of indigenous television broadcasting and language and culture revitalisation." She said Maori TV wanted to establish the conference as a prestigious and permanent international event. The conference patron will be Huirangi Waikerepuru, a leading Maori academic and an original supporter of the establishment of a Maori television channel. Its ambassador will be former Governor-General Sir Paul Reeves, whom Ms Haggie described as being "notable for his services to our country and his tireless work in indigenous communities around the world." The conference theme would be "reclaiming the future of indigenous languages, cultures and identities". "For the first time ever, the world's leading indigenous broadcasters will gather in one place to share, discuss, debate, challenge, inspire and motivate." From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Sun Jul 1 04:10:09 2007 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 21:10:09 -0700 Subject: Losing languages.... Message-ID: http://www.nanaimobulletin.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=51&cat=48&id=1017101&more=0 Losing languages defies description By Mitch Wright Assistant Editor Jun 30 2007 Language is one of the most important ways a culture asserts itself. Whether it's Scottish, South African, English or Eritrean, language is often the first and perhaps most important entry point to understanding a particular culture. In many ways, we define ourselves through our use of language ? imagine if the Inuit had only the word snow, instead of 150-ish variations. Or look at our own uniquely Canadian take on English. As a country, we've taken ownership of certain words and phrases used nowhere else in the world, or at least, not with the same meaning. Tell a Brit your toaster's had the biscuit and he'll likely look at you like you're looney. By the same token, a Canuck trying to understand a Cockney Londoner's linguistics will be wearing a similarly puzzled expression. Even within Canada, our use of the same language differs greatly. The English of Nova Scotia or Newfoundland and Labrador is most definitely not the same English of Vancouver Island. The French of Quebec is hardly recognizable compared to the French of France. The way each culture develops its language ? even if it's technically the same language ? is a reflection of who we are and from whence we've come. That's why it's so important we do everything we can to protect those languages. Dictionaries are one way that occurs for major languages, but what of others that are at risk of disappearing? How to preserve the African or South American bush dialects? Or closer to home, the oral tradition First Nations languages? Some of these languages are on the brink of extinction, with only a few elders holding the last links to the past. It's certain we've already lost some. Hul'qumi'num was once spoken by thousands of First Nations people, including the Snuneymuxw and Nanoose bands, as well as nearby Chemainus, Halalt, Penelakut, Lyackson and Cowichan First Nations. Today it's estimated that perhaps two-dozen people learned to speak the dialect as their first language. The story of Hul'qumi'num's decline is the same for languages and cultures around the world ? another culture tried to assimilate it. For First Nations, one of the biggest blows was residential schools. Children were pulled from their homes and families and one of the many unspeakable indignities forced upon them (including horrendous abuse that did immediate emotional and physical damage) was being forbidden to speak their native tongue. The long-term effect has been the steady decline of the language. Without everyday use, the words withered. At least we're starting to see some recognition that preserving languages is significant. The province recently announced it's dedicating $1.2 million to help 30 aboriginal communities protect and preserve their native tongues. That will help, but more is needed ? more money, more effort, more commitment. First Nations elders and leaders have recognized the risks. Cowichan Tribes and the Snuneymuxw First Nation are creating dictionaries and other resources (see www.snuneymuxw.ca/hulqdictionary.htm) to keep the words from being silenced. Those few people who speak the language are using it, sharing it, allowing their people to hear it in an attempt to re-establish its links. Given the importance of language and communication in understanding culture, it's a mystery why society and governments don't treat the loss of a language similar to that of a species. Worldwide, protected and at-risk species get special consideration and funding. Loss of a species ? be it plant or animal ? is deemed a devastating blow to our world (although it continues unabated, at a rate of one per hour, by some estimates). Why not the same concern for languages? There aren't words to describe the cultural impact of losing even a single language. -- ____________________________________________________________ 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 Acquisition & 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: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jul 1 18:00:07 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2007 11:00:07 -0700 Subject: Protests by Native Groups in Canada Close Road and Rail Links (fwd) Message-ID: Protests by Native Groups in Canada Close Road and Rail Links By IAN AUSTEN Published: June 30, 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/30/world/americas/30canada.html?_r=1&oref=slogin OTTAWA, June 29 ? Canadian travelers faced road closings and rail shutdowns on Friday as they set out for the Canada Day holiday weekend during nationwide protests by native groups against the Conservative government over several recent disputes about land claims and financing. While most native groups heeded a call from the national leadership to stage only nondisruptive protests, members of a Mohawk tribe in Ontario shut down passenger and freight train service along Canada?s busiest rail corridor and caused a section of Canada?s busiest highway to be closed for about 11 hours. Via Rail Canada, the passenger rail system, canceled service between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa for the rest of the day, leaving thousands stranded. Canadian National said that about 25 freight trains were also affected. Most demonstrations on Friday, however, mirrored a peaceful march of about 1,000 people past the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa that was led by Phil Fontaine, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, the main native group. Speaking on an Ottawa River island that is claimed by an Algonquin tribe, Mr. Fontaine said the protest day ?is certainly not about political power ? it?s about hope and giving our children a reason to live.? He told marchers that his 13-year-old niece had recently committed suicide, a disproportionately high cause of death for many young people on native reserves. Topping the list of grievances is a decision taken by the Conservatives shortly after they took power last year. It canceled an agreement between the federal government, the provinces and the territories that would have provided $5 billion Canadian ($4.7 billion) for education, employment training and health care improvements for native people. The government also eliminated financing for native language training programs and reversed Canada?s longstanding support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Late last month, the government announced a new system for settling native land claims that met with a favorable reaction from Mr. Fontaine. But that did not change his overall view of the Conservatives and Prime Minister Stephen Harper. ?We will not be bought off, never, ever, by any government,? Mr. Fontaine said Friday. The Mohawk tribe that blocked roads and rail lines on Friday had shut down the Canadian National tracks in April. Shawn Brant, a spokesman for the men?s council at the Mohawk Tyendinaga reserve, who is the subject of an arrest warrant from that episode, suggested that it might block Highway 401 again. As a safety measure, the Ontario Provincial Police shut 18 miles of Highway 401, the main link between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa, as members of the reserve were about to move onto it shortly after midnight. In Montreal, a vast traffic jam developed after Mohawks blocked a major bridge over the St. Lawrence for about 90 minutes. The Ontario police said a road in Muskoka, a popular resort north of Toronto, was also barricaded by protesters, as was another road in a rural area southwest of Ottawa. The Mohawk protesters agreed to allow the reopening of Highway 401 late in the morning, but they planned to maintain their blockade of a smaller highway and the main line of the Canadian National Railway until midnight Friday. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jul 1 18:12:23 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2007 11:12:23 -0700 Subject: Hope for Weipa schools to use new Indigenous dictionary (fwd) Message-ID: Thursday, 28 June 2007, 09:10:44 AEST http://abc.net.au/message/news/stories/ms_news_1964216.htm Hope for Weipa schools to use new Indigenous dictionary For the first time the language of a western Cape York Aboriginal tribe, in far north Queensland, has been published in a reference book. Elder Thanakupi Gloria Fletcher made the dictionary that includes the traditional stories, songs and art of the Thaynakwith people. She is the only fluent speaker of the language left. Dr Fletcher says she hopes schools in Weipa use the dictionary to pass on traditional knowledge to the younger generation. "I hope that it will happen, that somebody will carry it and carry it through into the future. I hope that anybody that reads the book will happily feel that they would like to read the language," she said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 3 16:58:34 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 09:58:34 -0700 Subject: Preserving past secures natives' future (fwd) Message-ID: Preserving past secures natives' future Katie May / Standard Freeholder Local News - Tuesday, July 03, 2007 @ 08:00 http://www.standard-freeholder.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=595682&catname=Local%20News&classif= Theresa Kenkiohkoktha Fox loves to sing. And she sings to keep her culture alive. As one of the founding members of the Akwesasne Women's Singing Society, Fox said singing is her way of supporting the unity of First Nations people across Canada. "It's part of our culture to sing," she said. The women's musical group formed roughly 10 years ago. It now has approximately 13 members, six of which performed traditional songs during the National Day of Action festivities last week. Fox said the songs, mainly written about peace, are ways for all community members to learn the Mohawk language and experience aboriginal culture. Elizabeth Kahontihson Nanticoke, a fellow member, agreed. "When we hear the children singing the songs we know the language is going to survive," she said. "They don't just sing the words - they know the meaning behind the words." Language is the key to preserving Mohawk culture for future generations, said Akwesasne's grand chief. Tim Thompson spoke about the damaging effects of a November 2006 $160 million government-funding cut for aboriginal language programs on the First Nations community as part of the Day of Action ceremonies. "If there's no language, there's no culture," he said. Steevi King, 18, of St. Regis, Que., said students in the Akwesasne area need more opportunities for cultural education in school. "A lot of it comes from our elders and our parents," said the recent Massena High School graduate. "We have to go off the reserve to go to high school and that's where, I think, the tradition and language get lost." Thompson pointed to a ban on aboriginal languages enforced in residential schools generations ago as a major reason why maintaining language classes is important for today's youth. He said today's children are learning the Mohawk language Kanienkeha in school and re-teaching their parents. "They are our future and they are learning the language to preserve it for the future," said Thompson. "That's a big success for the community." The Assembly of First Nations organized the National Day of Action last Friday to provide First Nations people with a unified opportunity for peaceful protest and to raise awareness of aboriginal rights across the country. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 3 17:02:27 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 10:02:27 -0700 Subject: 24-hour TV station devoted to aborigines in Taiwan (fwd) Message-ID: 24-hour TV station devoted to aborigines in Taiwan By Cindy Sui Tuesday, July 3, 2007 http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/03/news/taiwan.php TAIPEI: It is Saturday at Taiwan Indigenous TV, and the station is abuzz with giggles and flirtations. One of TITV's most popular shows, an aboriginal matchmaking program called "I Love You, What Should I Do?", is taping, and the young contestants are getting ready to go onstage. Their initial shyness fades as a vivacious hostess in a black evening gown coaxes them to start a sexy dance. Before long, the three women and three men are checking each other out. It is all part of the mission of Taiwan's first aboriginal television station. The two-year-old Channel 16, which marked its second anniversary Sunday, aims to help the island's 470,000 aborigines regain a sense of pride in their long-devastated cultures. The station also hopes to raise consciousness in Taiwan's larger society about aborigines, who make up less than 2 percent of the population but have inhabited the island for thousands of years, longer than the majority Han Chinese. It comes at a time when Taiwan's government is eager to promote local heritage and underscore its separateness from mainland China, which considers the island a breakaway province. TITV is one of a small number of stations devoted to telling the stories and preserving the cultures of indigenous peoples, along with Canada's Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and New Zealand's Maori Television, among others. "In the past, Taiwan's aborigines didn't feel comfortable expressing our culture in mainstream society because there was a lot of discrimination," said TITV's director, Masao Aki, who is an aborigine. "Once people knew you were aboriginal, they thought you were backwards, liked to drink or, if you're a woman, they thought you're a prostitute. "Only by having our own TV station are we able to have discussions about issues that concern us and have aborigines' point of view heard in Taiwan's media, laws, education, et cetera," he said in an interview. "And only when we have a joint way of expressing ourselves as a group can we realize who we are." Aborigine advocates had discussed a channel since the 1980s, and a Han Chinese legislator from a small political party, hoping to win aboriginal votes, publicly proposed it in the late 1990s. TITV went on the air July 1, 2005. Previously, the only programs about Taiwan's 13 officially recognized indigenous tribes - people of Austronesian heritage similar to those in Australia, the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia - were two once-a-week shows on public television. Mainstream stations' reports were rare or tended to promote stereotypes. With about 100 workers and 350 million Taiwan new dollars, or about $10.6 million, in annual government funding, TITV offers 24-hour programming, including news, interviews and aboriginal language lessons, as well as a music and a cooking show, and soon, the first aboriginal situation comedy. The station regularly invites experts, including doctors and academics, to address issues like alienation among aboriginal youth, alcohol abuse and the encroachment on aborigines' land by development projects. Aborigines have shorter life spans and higher unemployment and suicide rates than the rest of Taiwan's population. The cooking show features rarely seen aboriginal recipes and cooking methods, like adding hot stones to a broth to cook fish. Other programs teach traditional songs and dances - an important way to communicate history because many aboriginal languages are unwritten - and ancient methods of fishing with simple tools, a disappearing skill as young people leave villages for the cities. But TITV faces many challenges, including the large number of aboriginal languages, and the difficulty hiring aborigines with the right skills. Some critics say the station is not doing enough to promote tribal languages that face extinction. Few aborigines younger than 40 are fluent in their tribal language, and less than 5 percent of children are believed to able to speak their tribal language at all, thanks to previous government efforts of assimilation. "The station should do more to reverse this trend, but most of its broadcast is in Mandarin," said Namoh Rata, an aboriginal language professor at National Dong Hwa University in eastern Taiwan. Masao, the station director, said it would be difficult to broadcast mostly in aboriginal languages because there are so many. "Which language do you choose?" he asked. Other than the language lessons and weekly news broadcasts in the major tribes' languages, most of TITV's programs, including the daily news, are in Chinese. Janubark, an aboriginal ethnic relations scholar at National Dong Hwa University, said tribes would benefit more if each had its own station in its own language. "That would be more helpful in preserving our languages and cultures, which is what Taiwan's aborigines need most," said Janubark, who uses only one name. But there is no financing for multiple stations, and TITV has difficulty maintaining aboriginal staffing at its current level of 87 percent, given the lower educational levels among indigenous peoples. Most of the station's technical jobs go to Han Chinese. Even so, TITV's critics say the station has had a significant impact in a short time. Mainstream stations have picked up numerous stories the station has broken. Meanwhile, station officials are focusing on providing more appealing programs, like the matchmaking show, which is not purely entertainment. At a time when many aborigines marry Han Chinese, the station hopes it can help single aborigines meet each other. "I don't really care whether the girl I date is an aborigine or not, but of course my parents would prefer I marry someone who's aboriginal," said Yan Qi, 20, one of the contestants at the Saturday taping. Each contestant had been asked to show viewers something that was meaningful to them. Yan brought an aboriginal-style necklace he made. That sort of cultural pride is where Masao believes TITV is making a difference. "The sense of self-acceptance among aborigines is stronger now," he said. Many people, he said, now feel they "can wear aboriginal clothes on the street." "What we're trying to do at the station is to get people to think about who they are. Where are you from? How do you speak your language? How do you dance your dance?" he said. "If we always focus on learning about the West, learning Mandarin, then over time, our own culture and languages will disappear." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 3 17:11:19 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 10:11:19 -0700 Subject: Picture dictionaries to boost Aboriginal language teaching (fwd) Message-ID: Picture dictionaries to boost Aboriginal language teaching Posted Tue Jul 3, 2007 7:31am AEST http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/03/1968104.htm?section=justin Teachers at the Anangu Lands Education Conference in Alice Springs are being urged to use picture dictionaries to help Aboriginal students learn in their native language. A total of five picture dictionaries for different Indigenous languages in central Australia are planned. Paul Eckert is presenting a workshop at the conference on how teachers can use the book in their classrooms. "Many of the schools have already pre-bought quite a number of copies - I think Pitjantatjara people themselves will be quite able to purchase them for their homes," he said. One thousand copies of the first edition have been printed and 50 have so far been pre-purchased by schools. Teachers at the conference were told that Aborginal children will learn more easily if taught in their own languages. "They really should be developing their intellectual skills in their mother tongue first, and then transfering that across to English and other languages" Mr Eckert said. "I think Aboriginal people when they're forced really to do their thinking and intellectual development in a language that they don't understand very well, that's one of the reasons why Aboriginal people are finding it so difficult to really get the skills they need in English." Tags: indigenous, education, schools, From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Tue Jul 3 17:12:39 2007 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 10:12:39 -0700 Subject: Preserving past secures natives' future (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20070703095834.ml4w88kwcsko0s4k@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Has anyone done a newspaper article about the CRIT Mohave singers?? This is similar news ...should be done if it hasn't.... Have a happy 4th... By the way, I was blown away by the increased fluency you CLEARLY have achieved in micro-teaching -- I shared that at the faculty meeting --- how much your confidence in teaching the language had improved since the first time at AILDI (remember that??...) Keep up the good work...See you soon I hope.... Susan On 7/3/07, phil cash cash wrote: > > Preserving past secures natives' future > > Katie May / Standard Freeholder > Local News - Tuesday, July 03, 2007 @ 08:00 > > http://www.standard-freeholder.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=595682&catname=Local%20News&classif= > > Theresa Kenkiohkoktha Fox loves to sing. And she sings to keep her culture > alive. > > As one of the founding members of the Akwesasne Women's Singing Society, > Fox > said singing is her way of supporting the unity of First Nations people > across Canada. > > "It's part of our culture to sing," she said. > > The women's musical group formed roughly 10 years ago. It now has > approximately 13 members, six of which performed traditional songs during > the National Day of Action festivities last week. Fox said the songs, > mainly written about peace, are ways for all community members to learn > the > Mohawk language and experience aboriginal culture. > > > Elizabeth Kahontihson Nanticoke, a fellow member, agreed. > > "When we hear the children singing the songs we know the language is going > to survive," she said. "They don't just sing the words - they know the > meaning behind the words." > > Language is the key to preserving Mohawk culture for future generations, > said Akwesasne's grand chief. > > Tim Thompson spoke about the damaging effects of a November 2006 $160 > million government-funding cut for aboriginal language programs on the > First Nations community as part of the Day of Action ceremonies. > > "If there's no language, there's no culture," he said. > > Steevi King, 18, of St. Regis, Que., said students in the Akwesasne area > need more opportunities for cultural education in school. > > "A lot of it comes from our elders and our parents," said the recent > Massena > High School graduate. > > "We have to go off the reserve to go to high school and that's where, I > think, the tradition and language get lost." > > Thompson pointed to a ban on aboriginal languages enforced in residential > schools generations ago as a major reason why maintaining language classes > is important for today's youth. > > He said today's children are learning the Mohawk language Kanienkeha in > school and re-teaching their parents. > > "They are our future and they are learning the language to preserve it for > the future," said Thompson. "That's a big success for the community." > > The Assembly of First Nations organized the National Day of Action last > Friday to provide First Nations people with a unified opportunity for > peaceful protest and to raise awareness of aboriginal rights across the > country. > -- ____________________________________________________________ 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 Acquisition & 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: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 3 17:09:47 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 10:09:47 -0700 Subject: Worlds apart (fwd) Message-ID: Worlds apart Australia's prime minister is sending in the army to tackle child abuse and alcoholism in the Aboriginal homelands. But his aggressive campaign will only make the situation worse, says Germaine Greer Tuesday July 3, 2007 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,2117202,00.html [photo inset - Aboriginal children in Kakadu National Park. Photograph: John Van Hasselt/Sygma/Corbis] Ever since white men set foot in Australia more than 200 years ago, they have persecuted, harassed, tormented and tyrannised the people they found there. The more cold-blooded decided that the most humane way of dealing with a galaxy of peoples who would never be able to adapt to the "whitefella" regime was to eliminate them as quickly as possible, so they shot and poisoned them. Others believed that they owed it to their God to rescue the benighted savage, strip him of his pagan culture, clothe his nakedness, and teach him the value of work. Leaving the original inhabitants alone was never an option; learning from them was beyond any notion of what was right and proper. As far as the pink people were concerned, black Australians were primitive peoples, survivors from the stone age in a land that time forgot. Any hopes that this attitude might have changed were dashed two weeks ago, when Prime Minister John Howard announced a new crusade. Following a report calling for action on child abuse in Aboriginal communities, he announced a six-month ban on alcohol and pornography within the homelands, compulsory medical checks for indigenous children and restrictions on welfare payments. As commander-in-chief of an army of police, the Australian Defence Force and hordes of doctors and nurses, he will storm the 70 or so autonomous Aboriginal settlements in the Northern Territory. He can do this because the Northern Territory, having failed in a recent, rather half-hearted bid for statehood, is directly administered by the Australian government. For Aboriginal people, Howard's edict is just another sudden and draconian shift in the law as it relates to them; just another pillar in a lifetime of being shoved from pillar to post. It is hard not to view this as yet another attack on native title by the white establishment. No sooner had Aboriginal peoples achieved, after a tremendous expenditure of time, effort, expertise and money, freehold title to bits and pieces of country under the 1976 Aboriginal Land Rights Act, than there was an attempt to redefine freehold as it applied to Aboriginal areas, so that they could be reclaimed if there should be a need - for minerals, fossil fuels, foreign bases, tracking stations, whatever. New laws in 1993 and 1998 sealed this flagrant violation. Now, having had such resounding success in rescuing Iraq from tyranny, fanaticism and madness, Howard claims to be riding to the rescue of Aboriginal children in distress. The prime minister of Australia should know, however, that most of the areas under Aboriginal control in the Northern Territory are already dry. The elders would have greater success in keeping them that way if Howard and his Myrmidons would do the job they have been elected to do. Rather than wresting nominal control of Aboriginal homelands to himself and so undermining the authority of the elders still further, Howard could bring the full force of the law to bear on the white bootleggers who bring grog into dry Aboriginal communities by night and sell it at exorbitant prices. Even in apparently successful communities such as Utopia, homeland of the great painter Emily Kngwarreye, the bootleggers turn up almost every night. I was staying there in 2000 when drunken hoodlums smashed up the health centre in the small hours. The next day the senior law women sent the offenders into the bush to live off the land for six months, as punishment. My car had been searched when I arrived to make sure that I had brought no alcohol with me; but next morning all the men I saw were either staggering drunk or lying unconscious in the scrub. Though the bootleggers drive unmistakable four-wheel-drive trucks with giant balloon tyres that carry them over the roadless expanse, leaving a mile-long dust plume easily visible from the sky, the federal authorities remain curiously unable to intercept the traffic, even though the government is missing out on significant revenue. Anyone who really cared about what alcohol was doing to Aboriginal communities would surely have done something to curb the illicit trade. Perhaps they would also have done something about the fact that, in Alice Springs, as in most other frontier towns, there are dozens of liquor outlets and hardly any shops selling fresh foodstuffs, which, if you can find them, are crushingly expensive. If your feet are bare, you are not allowed in the Alice Springs food mall at all. The name of the game, as usual, is bad faith. Everything Howard does is calculated to win him votes. The suffering of Aboriginal women and children at the hands of their deranged menfolk has been going on all Howard's life. For most of that time whitefellas made a joke of it. At this late hour, on the eve of a general election, he is suddenly taking it seriously. It is of no consequence that what he is doing is illegal. His treatment of asylum seekers and boat people is just as illegal, and it is widely admired by Australians and people who should know better. Not for nothing did Howard single out the best-known Aboriginal community in Australia, Mutitjulu, home of the traditional owners of Uluru, visited by 500,000 tourists a year, to begin his campaign against child abuse in Aboriginal communities. The papers call it paedophilia; to someone standing closer it looks less like a sexual perversion than a hideous extension of demented self-destructiveness. It is part of a continuum that includes the tragically high rates of suicide in Aboriginal communities. In 2005, suicide accounted for 4.3% of Aboriginal deaths, compared with 1.6% of other Australians. As whitefellas tear their country apart, blackfellas are tearing themselves apart. For years, the extinction of the Australian Aborigine has been eagerly looked forward to and repeatedly described as imminent. In fact, there are probably more Aboriginal people alive in Australia today than there were when Captain Cook planted the British flag at Botany Bay in 1770. But while their numbers are growing, so is their unending suffering. Aboriginal people are tough, and it is the fate of the toughest to suffer longest and hardest. A year ago, the government stripped Mutitjulu of its annual funding of A$3m (?1m) and installed a white man from Perth as adminstrator to the council. Two weeks ago the federal court ruled the appointment invalid. The elders rejoiced. Then Howard announced his coup d'etat. Until then tourists couldn't get to see Mutitjulu, because no one could get in without a permit. Simply walking in could get you a fine of A$1,000. Now Howard has swept away the right of Aboriginal freeholders to keep interlopers off their land; the permit system is to be abolished and tourists will be able to add Aboriginal dysfunction to the sights they go to see. Boundaries are important to Aboriginal peoples, who have always respected each other's space and have suffered acutely whenever disparate groups have been forced to occupy the same space. Land confers identity; failing to protect the integrity of one's land is tantamount to annihilation. The police, who are even now marching towards Aboriginal settlements under Howard's banner, have had so little success in dealing with urban Aboriginal people that there were anti-police riots in Sydney's inner suburb of Redfern in January 2004. The unfortunates who are sent to enforce Howard's bans will have no special training in dealing with rural tribal peoples and will probably find themselves in real danger. The situation is complex. Lately, British newspapers have been hearing about Wadeye (pronounced Wa-de-ye), otherwise known as Port Keats. Like many Aboriginal communities, Wadeye had its beginnings as a mission, in this case a Catholic mission founded in 1935 at the request of the federal government. The Bishop of Darwin appointed a missionary of the Sacred Heart, West Australian Richard Docherty, to set up the suggested mission at a place called Werntek Nganayi, where he was to establish a garden and teach the Aborigines to grow their food rather than gathering it. The mission also ran a cattle station in the Daly River reserve. In 1975, however, the federal government recognised Aboriginal claims to the reserve and it therefore became inalienable freehold land vested in the Daly River/Port Keats Aboriginal Trust. Aborigines were happier working with a stock whip than a hoe, but even so, when they managed to redeem the land from the pastoralists who had employed them, they usually ate the cattle and allowed the land to recover. There being no game to hunt any more, they now usually live on rotisserie chicken and frozen mutton chops from the local store. Though they see no point in working nine-to-five, Aboriginal people find as little satisfaction in doing nothing as anyone else. Their lives used to be full of activity - not only finding food, preparing and eating it, but interpreting the places they were travelling through and the time they were in, and how all things came to be as they are. If I take a four-wheel-drive to visit friends at the Anmatyerre women's camp at Atangkere, on what used to be Utopia Station, further south in the Northern Territory, the women will grab their crowbars and axes and pile in, making me drive 50 miles into the bush so we can go hunting for goanna (monitor lizards). People who seem too idle and dispirited to do anything will walk for whole days in search of bush tucker. Nothing is brought back from such a foray; the hunter-gatherer way is to make a fire, cook the food, and eat it on the spot. Father Docherty's first choice of site was mistaken. The sea encroached in the rainy season and turned the surface water to salt, so the mission moved south to Port Keats. The indigenous people who were driven off their land to end up at Wadeye came from 23 clans who would normally have hunted and gathered on their own traditional lands; between them they spoke seven languages. The land at Wadeye belonged to the Kardu Diminin, who spoke Murrinh-Patha; no one asked them how they felt about having to accommodate outsiders and no one asked the outsiders how they felt about having Murrinh-Patha taught to their children along with Catholic doctrine. Officialdom has never made any attempt to cope with the multiplicity and complexity of Aboriginal culture. For groups who have jealously guarded their distinctness and carefully managed their intercommunal negotiations for 40,000 years, enforced togetherness brings intense psychological stress. For six months of the year the disparate clans of Wadeye cannot get out of each other's way, as they are hemmed in by the wet, with neither roads nor runways usable. Like most of its ilk, the Wadeye mission combined indoctrination with forced labour. The natives lived in dormitories and had no choice but to attend school every day or put in the hours working. There are now 800 children of school age in Wadeye but only 57 of them can be relied on to turn up at school every day. That is partly because in 2004, after a tremendous drive to force parents to get their children to school under threat of withdrawal of welfare, the school facilities were found to be hopelessly inadequate, with neither teachers nor space for the number of children. In 2005, the Thamarrur regional council, which now governs Wadeye, took legal advice on their chances of suing the federal government for violation of their civil rights by not providing basic education; the complaint was finally lodged a month ago. As there are no employment opportunities, education has no obvious point. All but about 50 of Wadeye's indigenous population of 2,700 live on "sit-down" money, as welfare payments are known. For years, some of the elders at Wadeye have dreamed of returning to their homelands, or "outstations", but depression and stress have sapped their energy. Catholic education replaced the discipline of "learning country" and preparing for initiation, so young men are now incapable of living off the land. Men who know how to bag magpie geese, track and bring down introduced feral pigs and native kangaroos, find barramundi, catfish, dugong and turtles, may still command respect, but too many of the senior men with the necessary skills are no longer living in Wadeye. Why? Because Wadeye is dry. The missing men have moved to Darwin, where they can drink. Howard's latest spasm of concern for the people of the Northern Territory could result in a double irony. Already, areas where the liquor ban has been effective are suffering because adult men are moving to urban areas where they can drink; a more effective imposition of the ban by non-Aboriginal authorities is likely to intensify this trend. Behaviour that is now shame-faced could soon be seen as defiant and assertive. Petrol-sniffing used to be a problem, but now petrol has been rendered unsniffable. The drug of choice for young men in Wadeye is marijuana, known to them as gunja. Meanwhile, Wadeye has grown to be the sixth biggest town in the Northern Territory, yet it has only 154 houses, 33 of which are derelict and should be demolished. In the others, occupancy stands at between five and six people per bedroom, a common state of affairs in the homelands. Dislocation, dispersion, rounding up and regimentation were followed, as usual, by neglect. In 2001, a vast gas field, christened Blacktip, was discovered 70 miles offshore from Wadeye. Development of this priceless resource is now well under way. The gas from the Blacktip field will be piped to Yeltherr beach, just south of Wadeye, where an onshore gas plant will be constructed and the gas piped east to Ban Ban Springs on the Adelaide River to supply Darwin. Work on the pipeline began a few weeks ago and is expected to be complete by next August; 130 Northern Territory companies will be involved in the works, including the construction of the pipelines, the oil wells, the offshore platform and the onshore gas plant, but not one word has been said about the involvement of the inhabitants of Wadeye. As most of them have not completed primary education, and can neither read nor write nor speak English, it is hard to see how they could be involved. An earlier deal that would have provided Aboriginal groups with equity of $250m in recognition of the pipeline crossing their land was abandoned, when the client, the aluminium giant Alcan, found a cheaper supplier in Papua New Guinea. Perhaps it was the increasing attention paid to Wadeye by the international community during the negotiations for the development of the gasfield that prompted the arrival of a GP for Wadeye, where for years there had been no doctor. When Pat Rebgetz arrived at the beginning of 2006, he was horrified by what he found and by the inadequacy of the resources. He had been in place only six months when gang warfare exploded, which occasioned an earlier threat from Howard to deploy the army against his own citizens. In the immediate aftermath of the mayhem, Mal Brough, minister for families, communities and indigenous affairs, came to town. Instead of being appalled at the evidence of criminal neglect on the part of the authorities whom he represented, he laid into the inhabitants, ordering them to clean the graffiti off their walls, collect the rubbish littering the streets, and get their kids to the school that wasn't big enough to hold them, on pain of having their funding frozen. The people responded badly, saying they were not "going to bloody fall down in a heap just because some clown like Brough comes along and wants to bounce us". As one citizen told a reporter, "I won't do it, because of him asking me." Brough just didn't get it. He thought the Wadeye people recognised his authority, but they didn't. The people of Wadeye will take government money as part payment for what the whitefellas took away from them, namely, everything, including their natural gas, but they simply don't see that that gives the whitefellas the right to tell them what to do. Their recalcitrance is not stupidity or wickedness but resistance - eternal, implacable, self-destructive resistance. When Howard takes over the policing of the Aboriginal communities he can expect more of the same. He will never defeat the Aboriginal peoples, but he will surely increase the bitterness of their suffering. White settlers have never truly understood the Aborigines. By the time the newcomers registered the fact that the Aboriginal peoples belonged to something like 700 language groups, many of those groups consisted of only a handful of people. What had not been thought of even as a nation was a ramified commonwealth with an elaborate diplomacy, in which envoys were dispatched to negotiate terms for crossing disparate territories, sharing particular resources, righting wrongs. The Aboriginal peoples reacted to contact in different ways. Some were used to foreigners visiting their land. Most assumed that the newcomers would adapt to their way of life, and offered to help them find food and show them how to survive by studying and venerating country. Even when diseases brought by the Europeans reduced thriving communities to a handful of traumatised survivors, there was no concerted attempt to drive the interlopers away. By the time the Aboriginal peoples realised that the newcomers had laid claim to the whole country and everything in it, it was too late. It did not occur to Aboriginal Australians that the newcomers did not consider them fully human; they were outraged when they saw men whipped for insubordination. A man who offended against tribal law was to be speared; whether he was speared in a vital organ or not was a measure of the gravity of the offence, but he was not to be beaten like a dog. The crushing blow that destroyed Aboriginal self-esteem was the gradual realisation that the strangers they had accepted as human like themselves did not reciprocate their respect. Because Aboriginal people had few visible possessions, their culture seemed simple. In terms of invisible possessions such as language, spirituality and relationships, it was actually astonishingly complex, and this complexity still hampers interaction with the de facto rulers of Australia. Rebgetz told Barbara McMahon of the Observer: "There's a lot of cultural stuff about kinship that means you are obliged to feed a family member if he comes in and says he's hungry or give him somewhere to stay ..." This "cultural stuff", a problem for white administrators ever since welfare began, will not go away. Whether whitey likes it or not, this is what matters to many Aboriginal people; it is why two days after they have collected their "kid money" they are broke. Likewise, when white administrators have offered Aboriginal people "decent housing" they have seen it wrecked and even burned down, yet it does not occur to them that the three-bedroom brick veneer is not what Aboriginal people can use. Many live in segregated camps, or would if they could. Indeed, the problem of child abuse would be mitigated if they went back to the tradition of men's camps and camps for women and children. My Yolngu friends at Yirrkala tend to live on the verandahs of their houses, where they lie in heaps on bare mattresses for most of the day. They are more likely to light a fire in the front garden than grow flowers in it. If people have been hunting on the foreshore, there will be oysters roasted on the fire, and the shells thrown in a heap. Some of the shell middens in Australia are thousands of years old. Aboriginal people could decide to clean up their oyster shells, but as things stand it is far more important that they don't. The insignia of consumer society can be found in heaps around every Aboriginal settlement: discarded clothes, rotting bedding, broken ghetto-blasters, burned-out cars. You will find versions of this behaviour wherever you find self-regulating Aboriginal people. Hunter-gatherer morality does not permit the accumulation of possessions and the hunter-gatherer lifestyle does not recognise the (utterly notional) value of money. Emily Kngwarreye once asked one of her patrons for a car for her nephew in payment for one of her paintings. The car was supplied, Kngwarreye gave it to her nephew and a few weeks later her patron was annoyed to learn that the nephew had sold the new car for A$300. "Why did he sell the car, a new car, for just A$300?" he asked. "Because he only needed A$300," said Kngwarreye. Capitalism simply doesn't know how to deal with people like this, except perhaps to make money out of them. Nowadays you'd need more than the price of a car if you wanted to buy an Emily painting, but she chose to live out her last months of life on her iron bedstead under a tarpaulin, far from the comforts of consumer society, in her own country. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 5 16:11:48 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 09:11:48 -0700 Subject: Salish language conference held (fwd) Message-ID: Salish language conference held Posted: July 04, 2007 by: Jack McNeel / Indian Country Today http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415304 [Photo by Jack McNeel -- Stephen Small Salmon quizzed two of his students from the Flathead Reservation in Montana. Miss Kalispel Salish Fair Aspen Smith, 14, and Lil Miss Honor Our Youth Nicole Perry, 8, were questioned in the Salish language and their responses also had to be in Salish.] WELLPINIT, Wash. - The Spokane Tribe recently hosted its first ''Honor the Salish Language'' conference at Wellpinit High School. Organizers hope it becomes an annual event dedicated to preserving the Salish language and exchanging ideas on ways of teaching it. Spokane elder Joe Flett, who served as the conference's master of ceremonies, recognized tribal elder Ann McCrea for her idea for such a day. ''Language is important to Indian people, for without the language we lose our identity, our culture. Language and culture are one and the same,'' he said. The idea was to bring people together to exchange ideas and see what other tribes are doing to preserve the language and teach it to the young and the community in general. Various speakers throughout the day from several tribes reflected on the loss of people who are fluent in the Salish language and how it's seldom spoken in homes anymore, thus preventing children from learning it at a young age. Pat Moses, Spokane, questioned how long there would even be speakers fluent in the language, as the few that still speak are rapidly passing on. Merle Andrew Sr., Spokane, has been teaching language classes to third- to sixth-grade students here since 2004. He explained how the kids seem to have a great appreciation for the language and spoke of their improvement during the year, ''almost bringing tears to my eyes.'' He teaches the cultural activities of the various seasons. ''They seem to absorb those things pretty well because they are involved in those activities throughout the year,'' Andrew said. He stressed listening, making it fun and giving the students respect so they aren't made to feel incompetent. Bill Matt, Spokane, was raised in a traditional family. ''You don't wake up and have tradition; you are raised that way from childhood,'' he said. He spoke of his mother before her death and how she desired to speak to those fluent in Salish so she didn't have to use a ''borrowed language'' to express her thoughts. ''Stories are more true in the Salish language than when told in English,'' he said. Another person commented, ''Jokes seem to be funnier in Indian.'' Tony Incashola, Pend d'Oreille, is from the Flathead Reservation. He spoke about how Native peoples had survived a lot including wars, termination and smallpox. ''We have much to be thankful for today and I think it is our language that has kept us together, that has helped us survive. It is language that has kept us Indian people and we continue to survive because of our language. Our culture is in our language. To survive in the future we have to hold on to our language,'' Incashola said. ''Our ceremonies, our prayers, our stories - everything that's important to us is in our language. Without it we are not different, we are not special,'' he added. He spoke of those who pushed to keep the language alive and who have now passed. ''Today it is on our shoulders. It's up to us to show our children how important language is.'' Incashola has been collecting information for the past 33 years from elders. They now have over 1,200 audio tapes of interviews and stories. They are assembling the information so children will learn and understand the history, culture and language. Time is becoming urgent while those elders are still alive. He said it inspires him to continue when he sees groups of people striving to keep the language and culture alive as this conference is doing. Stephen Small Salmon, Pend d'Oreille, also from the Flathead Reservation, brought two students with him to help illustrate their language program. Aspen Smith, 14, and Nicole Perry, 8, both spoke in Salish and demonstrated their knowledge by responding in Salish to questions asked by Small Salmon in Salish and identifying photos of animals as he pointed to them. They are two of 33 students taking language classes. Smith is the oldest in the class and indicates an interest in eventually becoming a Salish language teacher herself. Numerous people spoke throughout the day. Felix Aripa, an elder from the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, mentioned how expressions change the meaning of words. He noticed, even in the 1930s, that the language was fading but added, ''It's good to see our language sticking its head up like the sun coming up,'' and said how good a feeling he got in hearing young people like Smith and Perry speak the language. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 5 16:14:03 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 09:14:03 -0700 Subject: Unique Tlingit Curriculum Series Produced (fwd) Message-ID: Unique Tlingit Curriculum Series Produced July 04, 2007 Wednesday http://www.sitnews.us/0707news/070407/070407_series.html Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) has produced a unique collection of Tlingit curriculum and distributed it to every school district in Southeast Alaska, in hopes of weaving more Native lessons into the public school system. The curriculum, co-produced by the Juneau School District, is unique because it's the first Tlingit language and culture curriculum done on a broad scale that meets state academic and cultural standards. The curriculum was distributed in hardcopy binders, some of which include CDs with computer games and audio of Tlingit words and songs. The 18-unit series of culture and language lessons also is posted online at www.sealaskaheritage.org. The audio CDs are meant to encourage correct pronunciation of Tlingit language components. The interactive vocabulary games are an effort to make language learning fun, and to reach students through technology, said SHI President Rosita Worl. "In the past children just had text," Worl said. "But today we know children are watching TV, they're listening to CDs, so we've tried to build on all of the approaches that children are utilizing to learn today." The curriculum was developed and field tested by primary teachers from the Juneau School District and SHI language specialists. Although the series was intended for the primary grades, it can be easily adapted for teachers of higher grade levels," Worl said. "The most important thing is this curriculum, I think, is going to lead to better academic achievement for our students, both Native students and non-Native students, because it really builds on the environment of Southeast Alaska," Worl said. The audio of Tlingit was recorded by fluent Tlingit Elders John Marks and June Pegues. The songs were performed by Nancy Douglas and George Holly. The lessons were written by a team of teachers and specialists led by Nancy Douglas, Elementary Cultural Curriculum Coordinator, Juneau School District. The team included Juneau teachers Kitty Eddy, Shgen George, Kathy Nielson, Hans Chester and Rocky Eddy, and SHI language team members Linda Belarde, Yarrow Vaara, David Katzeek, John Marks, Mary Foletti, Rose Natkong and Jessica Chester. Curriculum consultants Julie Folta and Toni Mallott assisted and Annie Calkins edited and evaluated the lessons and units. Lessons were field tested in Juneau classrooms in 2005 and 2006. Teachers who want to use the hardcopy materials are encouraged by Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) to contact their superintendents or district curriculum libraries. The three-year project was funded by two grants from the U.S. Department of Education. SHI plans to release a similar set of curriculum for the Haida language and culture. The curriculum includes units and resources on the following topics: 01. Elizabeth Peratrovich 02. Hooligan 03. Spruce Trees 04. Totem Poles 05. Canoes 06. Herring 07. Hemlock 08. Yellow and Red Cedar 09. Alder and Cottonwood 10. Plants 11. Salmon 12. Who Am I? 13. Berries 14. Sea Mammals 15. How Raven Stole the Sun 16. Tale of an Alaska Whale 17. The Girl Who Lived with the Bears 18. The Beach Sealaska Heritage Institute is a Native nonprofit established in 1981 to administer educational and cultural programs for Sealaska, a regional Native corporation formed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The institute's mission is to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures. Language revitalization is a priority of SHI. On the Web: The 18-unit series of culture and language lessons www.sealaskaheritage.org. Source of News: Sealaska Heritage Institute www.sealaskaheritage.org From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 5 16:15:00 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 09:15:00 -0700 Subject: Teacher preserves traditional Athabascan values (fwd) Message-ID: Teacher preserves traditional Athabascan values Woman has taught Denaakk'e to hundreds FAIRBANKS - If Susan Paskvan had her wish, all the people in the Interior villages along the Koyukuk River would know how to speak their native language - Koyukon Athabascan, or Denaakk'e. Right now, only about 300 villagers speak it, she said, plus some who have moved to Fairbanks. That doesn't include children. For the last four years, Paskvan has coordinated the Yukon-Koyukuk School District's Native language program. By videoconference from Fairbanks, she helps teach Denaakk'e and Lower Tanana Athabascan to students in the district's nine villages. Other times, she'll gather up students, parents and elders and go camping near the villages to immerse students in Athabascan language and culture. "She just tries to grab each opportunity to use the language," said Martha Demoski, a teacher from Nulato who has worked with Paskvan at the camps. At one summer camp, Paskvan had students put up signs all over with the Denaakk'e words for things and made them repeat the words for whatever they were doing. Students made birch bark baskets, fished and kept journals in English and Denaakk'e. "She had a way of drawing them in and teaching the language, making sure they learn," Demoski said. Girls would gather around her when she was doing beadwork, and she would teach them. Over the years, Paskvan has taught some Denaakk'e to hundreds of students. To Paskvan, the Athabascan culture is contained in the language itself. Athabascans believe certain animals have strong spirits. So in Denaakk'e, boys will call a black bear by name, ses, but girls will only refer to it indirectly - belel daaletl'edzee, they'll say, or "the black one." "There's so much in a language," Paskvan said. "You're not only learning a language, you're also learning the traditional values." Paskvan lived in Koyukuk until her family moved to Fairbanks when she was 7. Her father, Benedict Jones, worked for the state's department of transportation. Her mother, Eliza Jones, taught language classes at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and co-authored the "Koyukon Athabaskan Dictionary," a tome of more than 1,000 pages. Paskvan keeps a copy of the dictionary in her office. Growing up, she learned Denaakk'e words and expressions but mostly spoke English. Her Native name is K'etsoo, a pet name her great grandmother gave her meaning "somebody's grandmother." "Onee'," she told her new Fairbanks neighbors when they came to the door, without knowing she was speaking Athabascan. Paskvan graduated from West Valley High School in 1981 and went to college at UAF, where she took classes taught by her mother. She kept her notes from those classes, but didn't dive into Denaakk'e till later. First, Paskvan went to work for the Tanana Chiefs Conference helping people get title to their land under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. She married Steve Paskvan, who teaches at West Valley, and they had two children, Jason, 14, and Adam, 13. "And then I realized, I have to learn this, I have to teach my kids," she said, referring to Denaakk'e. Paskvan signed up for a mentor-apprentice program through TCC's Interior Athabascan Tribal College and spent two hours a day, five days a week, with a woman named Madeline Williams, who spoke the language. Her sons went with her. Paskvan studied in Williams' home, rather than a classroom, and learned words for actual objects, rather than pictures on a page. When they cooked, she learned the words for individual ingredients and the act of mixing them. A few years later, the Yukon-Koyukuk School District board directed the district to provide Native language instruction in its schools. "I went around and asked different people," Superintendent Christopher Simon said. "(Paskvan) was just so excited about the Native language, it was like, 'Here's our person."' Around the same time, the district won a four-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education to improve reading and writing skills and teach Athabascan. The grant provided for curriculum development and the language camps, as well as language training for teachers and teaching aides. Now the district teaches the two Athabascan languages half an hour every day to students in kindergarten through fourth grade. Simon said it's working. "We hear anecdotal stories of kids, you know, when they're playing, they're using the native language," he said. Paskvan said the language is complex and the teachers, including herself, are learning as they go. Word roots are added on to convey something that could take a whole sentence in English, she said. Kids like to learn the word edeghoyeneegheleedeneek, which means roughly, "take care of yourself." Paskvan co-teaches the district's language classes with her mother, Jones, who joins the videoconferences from Koyukuk. "I think most people want to learn their languages," she said, but it takes lots of time, and people also want to join the workforce and do other things. One of Paskvan's goals is to set up an interactive Web site where anyone can go and see pictures, hear snippets of Denaakk'e, and read translations. Another goal is to finish her masters degree, for which she's compiling a history of the Kaltag area by telling the stories behind place names. For now, Paskvan is working to keep the district's language programs going after the federal grant ends this year. She said it makes her happy to go into communities and ask kids how they're doing in Denaakk'e, and have them respond in it. Having kids speak the language means a lot to the elders, too, she said. "It really gives them joy to know that it's not being lost." Click here to return to story: http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/070507/sta_20070705009.shtml From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 5 16:19:11 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 09:19:11 -0700 Subject: Fund targets fading aboriginal languages (fwd) Message-ID: Fund targets fading aboriginal languages [photo inset - Don Denton/Black Press. Aboriginal Relations Minister Mike de Jong (in baseball cap) arrives by canoe with government and aboriginal representatives to re-enact a traditional ceremony requesting permission to come ashore at Victoria harbour Thursday.] By Tom Fletcher Black Press Jul 04 2007 http://www.peninsulanewsreview.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=24&cat=23&id=1018007&more=0 The B.C. government is dedicating an additional $400,000 towards the preservation of the province?s more than 30 aboriginal languages. The latest fund is in addition to a $1 million expenditure announced by the province last year, said B.C.. Aboriginal Relations Minister Mike de Jong, who helped paddle a canoe into Victoria?s downtown harbour to make the announcement Thursday. A total of $1.2 million was committed to increase the program, aimed at keeping traditional languages from disappearing from everyday use. It will fund language and culture camps, master-apprentice programs for elders and younger people, pre-school language and cultural immersion programs and community language and culture authorities. The largest partner in the latest funding is the New Relationship Trust, with a $500,000 contribution. It?s the first major investment for the trust, established last year with a $100 million endowment from the provincial government and an appointed board of directors with majority aboriginal membership. Elaborate ceremonies for Thursday?s announcement coincided with National Aboriginal Day, and demonstrated the high priority placed on native affairs by the B.C. government this year. With votes set for July on the first two agreements from the B.C. Treaty Commission, with the Tsawwassen and Maa-Nulth First Nations, and dozens of other treaty tables looking for results, Premier Gordon Campbell?s government is looking for tangible progress to show for its effort and expense to settle historic disputes. Loss of language is one of the bitterest legacies of the Canadian aboriginal history. Residential schools were established to break the ties of aboriginal children with their language and culture, and now government?s efforts are focused on trying to reverse that before the cultures are lost. Monique Gray Smith, executive director of the Aboriginal Head Start Association of B.C., said language and cultural training is a key part of both its urban and on-reserve education programs. In addition to treaty discussions, the federal and provincial governments are trying to settle a backlog of specific claims, some arising out of historic treaties and others from legal actions. De Jong confirmed that negotiations with the Musqueam First Nation in Vancouver may involve the University Golf Club, part of a disputed property sale from the province to the University of B.C. in 2003. The Musqueam claim ownership of the Point Grey territory around the university, and the 120-acre golf course is one of the only undeveloped parcels left that could form part of a settlement. tfletcher at blackpress.ca From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 5 16:22:33 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 09:22:33 -0700 Subject: Ms. Ipana's Inuvialuktun class (fwd) Message-ID: Ms. Ipana's Inuvialuktun class Philippe Morin Northern News Services Monday, July 2, 2007 http://nnsl.com/northern-news-services/stories/papers/jul2_07k.html INUVIK - When the first day of kindergarten approaches for students in Inuvik, their parents face an important decision. Should the children study in English, French, or Inuvialuktun? Sandra Ipana, who is the aboriginal language instructor, said the school offers the three options in kindergarten. When parents choose Inuvialuktun, she said, the children are sent to her class, where they learn the basics of the traditional language. This can mean colours, numbers, names of animals, songs, and small poems or prayers. On June 28, the last day of the school year, Ipana reflected on how things have changed since she was a child. "When I was five, I was in this class and they were trying to teach me English. Now I'm trying to teach the language. The roles have switched," she said. Indeed, teaching Inuvialuktun has been a very personal journey for Ipana, who attended the Stringer Hall residential school. "I never forgot it. I was one of the lucky ones," she said. "My mother never spoke English because when she did, it didn't make any sense"," she added with a laugh. While some residential school children were forbidden from speaking traditional languages, Ipana said this did not happen to her at Stringer. "They provided translators," she said. Of course, Ipana said the greater effect of residential schools was altogether devastating. As the language was lost, she said, generations of traditions were nearly brought to a stop. "We went through a stage of residential schools, where the language got lost. Those who lost their languages started their families in strict English. Now, we are teaching their children," Ipana said. In addition to teaching language, Ipana said her goal is to make young aboriginal children proud of their heritage. She said students in her class often hear stories from elders, and even drum dance using pots and pans. "If you tell a child 'your granddad was a really good whale hunter,' they start to take pride in that," Ipana said. She added her class also has Slavey and Gwich'in students, who are taught their own languages whenever possible. After fifteen years of teaching - including seven alongside Donna Johns, who Ipana mentioned as an invaluable help in preparing materials such as books - she added things seem to be getting better for the world's few speakers of Inuvialuktun. Students today can continue their language studies until Grade 6, she said, and even continue learning Inuvialuktun in high-school when Inuvialuktun is covered in Northern Studies. But she said mastery of the language is extremely difficult for anyone in this generation. "I wouldn't call myself a fluent speaker," she said modestly. "At least I can understand the stories the elders tell me." From sjtatsch at UCDAVIS.EDU Thu Jul 5 20:37:13 2007 From: sjtatsch at UCDAVIS.EDU (Sheri Tatsch) Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 13:37:13 -0700 Subject: Call for Papers - 22nd Annual California Conference & Gathering Message-ID: Call for Papers 22nd Annual California Indian Conference & Gathering: California Indians Building Community Friday, October 26 & Saturday, October 27, 2007 Proposals are invited for the 22nd Annual California Indian Conference and Gathering. Submissions are welcome on topics relating to the indigenous peoples of California. Abstracts and proposals should be received by August 15, 2007. Organizers and presenters will be notified by September 20, 2007. Abstracts for sessions, papers, and workshops should be 250 words or less double-spaced, 12 point font. They should include title of paper name of presenter e-mail or other contact information tribal/institutional affiliation. Abstracts for sessions and workshops should also include the names of the organizer and panelists abstracts from each of the panelists. Submit abstracts as e-mail an electronic document (PC or Mac .doc file) or mail a paper copy. Send abstracts or direct any questions to Sheri Tatsch at , (530) 754-8361 Department of Native American Studies One Shields Avenue UC Davis Davis, CA 95616 _______________________________________________________ Please Post and/or forward to all who may be interested in presenting at the CICG 2007. Additional information on the conference can be found at http:// nas.ucdavis.edu/NALC/cicg/ ? -Thanks, Sheri ________________________ Sheri Tatsch, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Scholar Native American Language Center Department of Native American Studies University of California-Davis One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616-8667 530-754-8361 FAX: 752-7097 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Call_for_Papers.doc Type: application/octet-stream Size: 43008 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Jul 6 17:18:17 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2007 10:18:17 -0700 Subject: Safeguarding the Keys to Knowledge (fwd) Message-ID: UBC Reports | Vol. 53 | No. 7 | Jul 5, 2007 Safeguarding the Keys to Knowledge Indigenous scholar says preserving languages keeps cultural knowledge alive By Bud Mortenson http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/ubcreports/2007/07jul05/knowledge.html If indigenous languages disappear so, too, will invaluable knowledge about our environment and sustainable ways of life, warns Lester-Irrabina Rigney, a visiting research fellow with UBC?s Department of Education Studies. ?The world?s indigenous languages are in crisis,? Rigney points out. ?The way things are going, only a few hundred languages amongst the world?s 6,000 or so look like surviving in the long term. The rate of extinction of languages and cultures far exceeds that of fauna and flora.? An Aboriginal scholar from South Australia?s Narungga Nation, Rigney is an associate professor with the Yunggorendi First Nations Centre for Higher Education and Research at Australia?s Flinders University. He holds a PhD in indigenous research, and is collaborating with the newly formed Indigenous Education Research Institute of Canada located at UBC. The institute, he explains, is developing a Pacific consortium on research into indigenous education in partnership with researchers in Australia, Hawaii, New Zealand and Indonesia. Rigney recently conducted a week-long seminar for UBC Okanagan?s Summer Institute in Interdisciplinary Indigenous Studies, now in its second year offering PhD- and master?s-level seminars for mature, mid-career indigenous students. He?s teaching a new generation of researchers about pitfalls and best practices in conducting research with indigenous communities. ?Researchers are now starting to advance what we know about how you keep indigenous knowledge intact,? says Rigney. ?We now need to look at different ways for accessing indigenous knowledge. In any society, language holds the key to knowledge ? indigenous communities are no different. The key to indigenous knowledge is indigenous language.? Rigney has observed the threatened state of these languages in all the colonized areas of the world he has visited, including Canada. ?What astounds me is that in Canada there?s lots of emphasis on saving wildlife, rivers, and so on, yet you have indigenous languages that are not found anywhere else in the world,? he says. ?They are not official languages in Canada, so they suffer a range of fates. Once they go to sleep, it?s very hard to awaken them.? He argues that when an indigenous language is firmly supported, it creates a stronger sense of place for its people, and allows services to be provided in ways that make people feel comfortable. That can lead to better education and greater development opportunities. For all these reasons, he says, ?we need more numeracy and literacy in these languages.? Improving how research is conducted is important in the quest to better understand and help preserve First languages and cultures. Historically, researchers haven?t done a good job, Rigney notes. ?Over the first 150 years of Australian -- and Canadian -- colonization, indigenous peoples were viewed as static, as if they were statues behind glass,? he says. ?In the past, research was done pretty inappropriately.? Communities were studied without engaging or even showing much consideration for the people who were studied. In what Rigney describes as being akin to ?intellectual gymnastics,? today?s researchers must be aware of a host of complex issues, legalities and ethics, and employ research techniques that are sensitive and productive for everyone. He views programs like the UBC Okanagan Summer Institute as an important part of the solution. Only in the last decade or so, with a small but growing number of indigenous students earning advanced degrees, have indigenous people around the world become involved in researching their own communities, he observes. A history of invasive research in indigenous communities remains sharp in people?s minds, yet positive changes are taking place, Rigney suggests. ?Research is still a dirty word for some. But now more and more people want to be a part of research -- they see that it?s a part of building the future.? ?It?s exciting -- it has taken a long time to get indigenous researchers and scholars, and there are now some extraordinary researchers, from ethnobotany to speech pathology. I?m fortunate to be working with some of Canada?s most skilled PhDs, and they will all make a difference.? - - - - Last reviewed 05-Jul-2007 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Jul 6 17:24:42 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2007 10:24:42 -0700 Subject: Preserving the language (fwd) Message-ID: Preserving the language Jul 06 2007 http://www.pgfreepress.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=26&cat=23&id=1020696&more=0 The B.C. government is dedicating an additional $400,000 towards the preservation of the province?s more than 30 aboriginal languages. The latest fund is in addition to a $1 million expenditure announced by the province last year, said B.C.. Aboriginal Relations Minister Mike de Jong, who helped paddle a canoe into Victoria?s downtown harbour to make the announcement Thursday. A total of $1.2 million was committed to increase the program, aimed at keeping traditional languages from disappearing from everyday use. It will fund language and culture camps, master-apprentice programs for elders and younger people, pre-school language and cultural immersion programs and community language and culture authorities. The largest partner in the latest funding is the New Relationship Trust, with a $500,000 contribution. It?s the first major investment for the trust, established last year with a $100 million endowment from the provincial government and an appointed board of directors with majority aboriginal membership. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 9 16:17:09 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 09:17:09 -0700 Subject: Language archive position (fwd) Message-ID: ENDANGERED LANGUAGE ARCHIVE MANAGER AND ARCHIVIST UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY Position #6809: for full information go to http://jobs.berkeley.edu/ Annual full time salary range: $36,528 - $58,776 depending upon experience. This requisition will remain open until filled. Job Description: The Survey of California and Other Indian Languages (SCOIL) is a unit of the Dept. of Linguistics, at UC Berkeley. SCOIL has sponsored documentary linguistic work on the native languages of California and elsewhere for over 50 years; it houses one of the major linguistic archives of American languages; and it sponsors many activities to bring members of California indigenous communities to study material in its archive. With 3 years of grant funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation, the Dept. wants to hire an archivist, curator, and manager to improve the content description and broad intellectual accessibility of SCOIL's language documentation. This project generally involves improving the quality and quantity of information in the SCOIL catalog, creating metadata records conforming to the OLAC standard, creating a controlled vocabulary for California languages, developing a web interface to give access to metadata and digital content, refining access and use policies, and supporting community revitalization and documentation projects. Responsibilities: -Analyze and describe archival material in the SCOIL collection to produce detailed metadata records conforming to current language-archive standards -Supervise digitization of material in the SCOIL archive -Assist to acquire and curate new archival material from collectors (linguists and anthropologists) and native communities -Design database structure and help design web interface for the SCOIL collection -Participate actively in developing national and international standards for the emerging field of endangered language archives -Attend meetings of the Linguistic Society of America and the Digital Endangered Language and Music Archives Network. -Serve as liaison with staff concerned with language archives in the Berkeley Language Ctr., Bancroft Library, and Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology. - Supervise the SCOIL student staff Requirements & Qualifications: Required: -ALA-accredited MLS or MA in history with concentration in archival studies -Knowledge of national archival standards and practices, with an emphasis on digital materials and cultural property -Knowledge of ethical issues related to language documentation and indigenous cultural property -Sophisticated computer literacy is essential; at least basic knowledge of web applications and programming, and database programming -Excellent communication skills, oral, written and interpersonal. -Demonstrated supervisory experience -Ability to work independently and be self-motivated -Must have an interest in participating in the national and international standards-development community for digital endangered language archives Preferred: -Experience or educational background in Linguistics, Anthropology, Native American Studies, or a related discipline This position has been designated as sensitive and may require a Criminal Background Check. We reserve the right to make employment contingent upon successful completion of a Criminal Background Check. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 9 16:36:41 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 09:36:41 -0700 Subject: Schools count on a few Native speakers to preserve language (fwd) Message-ID: Schools count on a few Native speakers to preserve language ATHABASCAN: To teacher Susan Paskvan, Native culture is lost without it. By STEFAN MILKOWSKI Fairbanks Daily News-Miner Published: July 9, 2007 Last Modified: July 9, 2007 at 03:09 AM http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/9118313p-9034643c.html FAIRBANKS -- If Susan Paskvan had her wish, everyone in the Interior villages along the Koyukuk River would know how to speak their native language -- Koyukon Athabascan, or Denaakk'e. Right now, only about 300 villagers speak it, she said, plus some who have moved to Fairbanks. That doesn't include children. For the last four years, Paskvan has coordinated the Yukon-Koyukuk School District's Native language program. By videoconference from Fairbanks, she helps teach Denaakk'e and Lower Tanana Athabascan to students in the district's nine villages. Other times, she'll gather up students, parents and elders and go camping near the villages to immerse students in Athabascan language and culture. "She just tries to grab each opportunity to use the language," said Martha Demoski, a teacher from Nulato who has worked with Paskvan at the camps. At one summer camp, Paskvan had students put up signs all over with the Denaakk'e words for things and made them repeat the words for whatever they were doing. Students made birch bark baskets, fished and kept journals in English and Denaakk'e. "She had a way of drawing them in and teaching the language, making sure they learn," Demoski said. Girls would gather around her when she was doing beadwork, and she would teach them. Over the years, Paskvan has taught some Denaakk'e to hundreds of students. To Paskvan, the Athabascan culture is contained in the language itself. Athabascans believe certain animals have strong spirits. So in Denaakk'e, boys will call a black bear by name, ses, but girls will only refer to it indirectly -- belel daaletl'edzee, they'll say, or "the black one." "There's so much in a language," Paskvan said. "You're not only learning a language, you're also learning the traditional values." Paskvan lived in Koyukuk until her family moved to Fairbanks when she was 7. Her father, Benedict Jones, worked for the state's department of transportation. Her mother, Eliza Jones, taught language classes at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and co-authored the "Koyukon Athabaskan Dictionary," a tome of more than 1,000 pages. Paskvan keeps a copy of the dictionary in her office. Growing up, she learned Denaakk'e words and expressions but mostly spoke English. Her Native name is K'etsoo, a pet name her great-grandmother gave her meaning "somebody's grandmother." "Onee,' " she told her new Fairbanks neighbors when they came to the door, without knowing she was speaking Athabascan. Paskvan graduated from West Valley High School in 1981 and went to college at UAF, where she took classes taught by her mother. She kept her notes from those classes, but didn't dive into Denaakk'e till later. First, Paskvan went to work for the Tanana Chiefs Conference helping people get title to their land under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. She married Steve Paskvan, who teaches at West Valley, and they had two children, Jason, 14, and Adam, 13. "And then I realized, I have to learn this, I have to teach my kids," she said, referring to Denaakk'e. Paskvan signed up for a mentor-apprentice program through TCC's Interior Athabascan Tribal College and spent two hours a day, five days a week, with a woman named Madeline Williams, who spoke the language. Her sons went with her. Paskvan studied in Williams' home, rather than a classroom, and learned words for actual objects, rather than pictures on a page. When they cooked, she learned the words for individual ingredients and the act of mixing them. A few years later, the Yukon-Koyukuk School District board directed the district to provide Native language instruction in its schools. "I went around and asked different people," Superintendent Christopher Simon said. "(Paskvan) was just so excited about the Native language, it was like, 'Here's our person.' " Around the same time, the district won a four-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education to improve reading and writing skills and teach Athabascan. The grant provided for curriculum development and the language camps, as well as language training for teachers and teaching aides. Now the district teaches the two Athabascan languages half an hour every day to students in kindergarten through fourth grade. Simon said it's working. "We hear anecdotal stories of kids, you know, when they're playing, they're using the native language," he said. Paskvan said the language is complex and the teachers, including herself, are learning as they go. Word roots are added on to convey something that could take a whole sentence in English, she said. Kids like to learn the word edeghoyeneegheleedeneek, which means roughly, "take care of yourself." Paskvan co-teaches the district's language classes with her mother, Jones, who joins the videoconferences from Koyukuk. "I think most people want to learn their languages," she said, but it takes lots of time, and people also want to join the work force and do other things. One of Paskvan's goals is to set up an interactive Web site where anyone can go and see pictures, hear snippets of Denaakk'e, and read translations. Another goal is to finish her master's degree, for which she's compiling a history of the Kaltag area by telling the stories behind place names. For now, Paskvan is working to keep the district's language programs going after the federal grant ends this year. She said it makes her happy to go into communities and ask kids how they're doing in Denaakk'e, and have them respond in it. Having kids speak the language means a lot to the elders, too, she said. "It really gives them joy to know that it's not being lost." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 9 16:41:00 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 09:41:00 -0700 Subject: Ojibwe language camp July 10-13 (fwd) Message-ID: Ojibwe language camp July 10-13 The Daily Press Monday, July 09th, 2007 09:59:11 AM http://www.ashlandwi.com/dailypress/index.php?sect_rank=4&story_id=214103 The Red Cliff tribe will again host a summer camp program to encourage Ojibwe language learning among Ojibwe youth and young adults on July 10-13 at the Raspberry Bay tribal campgrounds in Red Cliff. Andrew Gokee, senior outreach specialist for the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Native American Center, provides coordination assistance for the program. On Monday, July 9, participants, teachers, and presenters and staff will begin to arrive to set up campsites and workstations. The program formally begins Tuesday morning with an opening ceremony and feast. Each day of the camp will include sessions of language instruction, periods of language immersion, crafts, cultural skills, and games. Past activities have included wigwam construction, moccasin making, traditional games, deerskin tanning, netting and plant identification. The Ojibwe language will be taught at all levels; beginning students as well as advanced learners are welcomed. The program will conclude on Friday, July 13. Campers must provide their own tents and gear, and children under age 14 must be accompanied by an adult. Food is provided for all visitors and participants. Participants may register on site. Community members and visitors are welcome to visit the camp throughout the week. There is no cost for the program. Currently in its fifth year, the Ojibwe Language Camp program is sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point's Department of Multicultural Affairs and the Red Cliff Tribal Council. For more information, contact Andrew Gokee at (715) 346-4147. From mona at ALLIESMEDIAART.COM Tue Jul 10 14:46:45 2007 From: mona at ALLIESMEDIAART.COM (Mona Smith) Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 09:46:45 -0500 Subject: Is anyone aware of research concerning ambient audio and language learning? Message-ID: Or any learning for that matter. I've been asked to think about creating a sound space for immersion pre-schools. I'm excited by the idea, but am curious if there's any research or info out there.... Pidamaya, Mona Smith http://www.alliesmediaart.com From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Tue Jul 10 15:26:11 2007 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 08:26:11 -0700 Subject: Dakota Message-ID: http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1293363.html Home ||Local Recording and preserving the Dakota language - *Audio:* Wayne Wells and Curtis Campbell, Sr. Dakota language teacher Wayne Wells pulled a chair next to tribal elder Curtis Campbell, who had settled into his favorite living room rocker to begin an unusual recording session. Wells clutched a gray metal box called a "phraselator," an electronic interpreter first introduced in Iraq and Afghanistan for use by U.S. soldiers at military checkpoints and security zones. He handed a microphone to Campbell, and asked him to repeat -- in Dakota -- decidedly civilian phrases such as "I want some coffee." Campbell responded, "Pezutasapa mak'u wo." And the words were added to a databank of hundreds of phrases and sentences stored in the device. Word by word, the effort is helping students at Prairie Island Indian Community preserve their fragile native language. "There's only about two or three people here who speak Dakota fluently, so time is of the essence," said Wells, the language teacher at the community outside of Red Wing. "If the kids don't learn it now, there won't be anyone left who knows it." Last year, the Prairie Island Community became one of more than 50 Indian communities nationwide to integrate phraselators into their arsenal of language preservation tools. The hand-held device resembles a small computer, with a monitor showing tabs for "weather,"family,"animals" and "Dakota virtues and values," among other subjects. "You can scroll up and down and find different phrases," explained 12-year-old Kachina Yeager, one of Wells' students, sitting on her front porch and fiddling with the tabs. "Say I want to hear the word for 'mother.' I can find it here and then tap it. Or I can just speak 'mother' into the top of the phraselator." A few seconds after explaining this, Campbell's deep voice boomed "een na" out of the phraselator. The first batch of phraselators was loaded with phrases in languages such as Arabic, Pashto and Farsi, said John Hall, president of VoxTec International, the device's Maryland-based manufacturer. The stock phrases would include "show me your hands" or "stay away from the area," he said. But a few years ago, it began catching on with Indian communities as well, Hall said. Because Campbell is one of just a handful of native speakers left, he and Wells have spent hundreds of hours together in his living room decorated with tall Indian vases from the Southwest and Native American art on the walls. Last week, the two were completing a section on food. The session showed the challenges of bringing ancient languages into modern times. Wells asked Campbell to translate, "I want some cake."There is no word for 'cake'," responded Campbell. "How about 'sweet bread'?" Ditto for "restaurant."How about 'food house'?" he asked. Campbell, a retired construction worker, said he speaks Dakota fluently in part because of a lucky turn in his childhood. Growing up in the 1940s, he was able to avoid being sent to a Indian boarding school, where children were beaten if they spoke their native language. He did, however, have to cut his long shiny hair in order to start school at a little one-room schoolhouse, he recalled, and had to learn to speak English fluently. But he continued to speak Dakota at home. Wells wasn't so fortunate. He said his grandfather refused to speak Dakota with his children because he was so "traumatized" by the boarding school experience. So Wells learned Dakota at the University of Minnesota. He's still nowhere near fluent, but recording with the phraselator is helping, he said. Kachina's mother, Shelley Buck-Yaeger, has been so impressed with the device that she's planning to buy one for the family. Her parents didn't speak Dakota either, she said, and she's always wanted to learn. Plus the phraselators are practically indestructible, a key feature given the wear and tear they can undergo at the hands of active children. Made for combat, they can be dropped 6 feet onto cement without damage, according to the VoxTech advertisements. The phraselators aren't cheap: The cost of purchasing three of them, plus installing the software, and receiving training and technical support, was about $25,000, said Alan Childs, treasurer for the Prairie Island tribal council. But the device can be used for more than just basic translation, he said. It can also preserve traditional Dakota songs and stories, said Childs, who is a singer in the community. Over the years, there have been other attempts to preserve the Dakota language, which now only has about 100 fluent speakers in four Indian communities in Minnesota, Childs said. It's still too soon to tell whether the phraselators are going to make a breakthrough, he said. But a combination of a fancy high-tech tool and a dedicated teacher from the tribe could start making a difference, he said. "You start building the wheel," Childs said, "and eventually it will start turning." Jean Hopfensperger ? 612-673-4511 ? hopfen at startribune.com -- ____________________________________________________________ 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 Acquisition & 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: From thien at UNIMELB.EDU.AU Tue Jul 10 15:41:41 2007 From: thien at UNIMELB.EDU.AU (Nicholas Thieberger) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:41:41 +1000 Subject: Dakota In-Reply-To: <39a679e20707100826y45e62f84n994783b6c97de811@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I've read about the phraselators for a little while now and I want to ask about the format they record in. They sound like a great delivery tool for learning, but once they are being used to create lots of primary recordings then the community for whom these recordings are being made should be aware that they are not as good quality as proper recorders with good microphones. It's a balance between the ease of use of units like the phraselator and the longer term view of making the best possible recording now so it will be available to language learners in future. Of course any recording is better than none, but if we have a choice shouldn't we be making as good a recording as we can? All the best, Nick Thieberger At 8:26 AM -0700 10/7/07, Susan Penfield wrote: > >Recording and preserving the Dakota language > > >Audio: Wayne >Wells and Curtis Campbell, Sr. > >Dakota language teacher Wayne Wells pulled a chair next to tribal >elder Curtis Campbell, who had settled into his favorite living room >rocker to begin an unusual recording session. Wells clutched a gray >metal box called a "phraselator," an electronic interpreter first >introduced in Iraq and Afghanistan for use by U.S. soldiers at >military checkpoints and security zones. He handed a microphone to >Campbell, and asked him to repeat -- in Dakota -- decidedly civilian >phrases such as "I want some coffee." > >Campbell responded, "Pezutasapa mak'u wo." And the words were added >to a databank of hundreds of phrases and sentences stored in the >device. Word by word, the effort is helping students at Prairie >Island Indian Community preserve their fragile native language. > >"There's only about two or three people here who speak Dakota >fluently, so time is of the essence," said Wells, the language >teacher at the community outside of Red Wing. "If the kids don't >learn it now, there won't be anyone left who knows it." > >Last year, the Prairie Island Community became one of more than 50 >Indian communities nationwide to integrate phraselators into their >arsenal of language preservation tools. The hand-held device >resembles a small computer, with a monitor showing tabs for >"weather,"family,"animals" and "Dakota virtues and values," among >other subjects. > >"You can scroll up and down and find different phrases," explained >12-year-old Kachina Yeager, one of Wells' students, sitting on her >front porch and fiddling with the tabs. "Say I want to hear the word >for 'mother.' I can find it here and then tap it. Or I can just >speak 'mother' into the top of the phraselator." > >A few seconds after explaining this, Campbell's deep voice boomed >"een na" out of the phraselator. > >The first batch of phraselators was loaded with phrases in languages >such as Arabic, Pashto and Farsi, said John Hall, president of >VoxTec International, the device's Maryland-based manufacturer. The >stock phrases would include "show me your hands" or "stay away from >the area," he said. But a few years ago, it began catching on with >Indian communities as well, Hall said. > >Because Campbell is one of just a handful of native speakers left, >he and Wells have spent hundreds of hours together in his living >room decorated with tall Indian vases from the Southwest and Native >American art on the walls. > >Last week, the two were completing a section on food. The session >showed the challenges of bringing ancient languages into modern >times. Wells asked Campbell to translate, "I want some cake."There >is no word for 'cake'," responded Campbell. "How about 'sweet >bread'?" Ditto for "restaurant."How about 'food house'?" he asked. > >Campbell, a retired construction worker, said he speaks Dakota >fluently in part because of a lucky turn in his childhood. > >Growing up in the 1940s, he was able to avoid being sent to a Indian >boarding school, where children were beaten if they spoke their >native language. He did, however, have to cut his long shiny hair in >order to start school at a little one-room schoolhouse, he recalled, >and had to learn to speak English fluently. But he continued to >speak Dakota at home. > >Wells wasn't so fortunate. He said his grandfather refused to speak >Dakota with his children because he was so "traumatized" by the >boarding school experience. So Wells learned Dakota at the >University of Minnesota. He's still nowhere near fluent, but >recording with the phraselator is helping, he said. > >Kachina's mother, Shelley Buck-Yaeger, has been so impressed with >the device that she's planning to buy one for the family. Her >parents didn't speak Dakota either, she said, and she's always >wanted to learn. > >Plus the phraselators are practically indestructible, a key feature >given the wear and tear they can undergo at the hands of active >children. Made for combat, they can be dropped 6 feet onto cement >without damage, according to the VoxTech advertisements. > >The phraselators aren't cheap: The cost of purchasing three of them, >plus installing the software, and receiving training and technical >support, was about $25,000, said Alan Childs, treasurer for the >Prairie Island tribal council. > >But the device can be used for more than just basic translation, he >said. It can also preserve traditional Dakota songs and stories, >said Childs, who is a singer in the community. > >Over the years, there have been other attempts to preserve the >Dakota language, which now only has about 100 fluent speakers in >four Indian communities in Minnesota, Childs said. It's still too >soon to tell whether the phraselators are going to make a >breakthrough, he said. But a combination of a fancy high-tech tool >and a dedicated teacher from the tribe could start making a >difference, he said. > >"You start building the wheel," Childs said, "and eventually it will >start turning." > >Jean Hopfensperger * 612-673-4511 * >hopfen at startribune.com > > > > > > > >-- >____________________________________________________________ >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 Acquisition & 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...) -- Project Manager PARADISEC Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics University of Melbourne, Vic 3010 Australia nicholas.thieberger at paradisec.org.au Ph 61 (0)3 8344 5185 PARADISEC Pacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures http://paradisec.org.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wjposer at LDC.UPENN.EDU Tue Jul 10 17:01:53 2007 From: wjposer at LDC.UPENN.EDU (William J Poser) Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 13:01:53 -0400 Subject: Is anyone aware of research concerning ambient audio and language learning? In-Reply-To: <46939BD5.5060309@alliesmediaart.com> Message-ID: I'm guessing that what you mean by "a sound space" and "ambient audio and language" is playing stuff in a language as "background music"? If that is right, I would note two things: (a) there is evidence that children learning their first language begin to acquire its sound system before they exhibit any actual ability to understand or produce language. This comes from the fact that the distribution of sounds produced in "babbling" becomes decreasingly random and approaches the distribution of sounds in the ambient language. As I recall this takes place VERY early, possibly even still in the womb. By the beginning of preschool as it is usually defined, this stage is over. (b) a number of studies of L1 acquisition have shown that children pay no attention to speech not directed to them. Their learning is based entirely on speech directed to them. This would suggest that it would not be useful to provide language simply as "background music". However, there are also studies that show that in some cultures people very rarely speak to young children. This seems weird to people from cultures in which adults and older children explicitly try to teach language (e.g. "That's a doggie. Can you say 'doggie'?") and seems to relatively rare as a cultural behaviour. Nonetheless, children in such societies do acquire language. I'm not aware of work that attempts to reconcile these two strands of research. Bill From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 10 17:28:44 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:28:44 -0700 Subject: Dakota In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi Nick, The Phraselator company came to the American Indian Language development Institute (AILDI) here in Tucson last month.? They gave a demo of their phraselator to the tried and true language teachers and afterwords pretty much everybody was neutral on its use and some skeptical.? They did say that the audio recordings are in .wav format.? During the live demo, a number of recording were done and it seemed of fairly good quality.? However, the actual playback was only as good as the phraselator speaker...which is not bad for a small hand held device.? I am thinking of writing a short informal review/first impressions of the phraselator and posting it here on ILAT. Phil Cash Cash (Cayuse/Nez Perce) UofA Quoting Nicholas Thieberger : > I've read about the phraselators for a little while now and I want to > ask about the format they record in. They sound like a great delivery > tool for learning, but once they are being used to create lots of > primary recordings then the community for whom these recordings are > being made should be aware that they are not as good quality as > proper recorders with good microphones. > > It's a balance between the ease of use of units like the phraselator > and the longer term view of making the best possible recording now so > it will be available to language learners in future. Of course any > recording is better than none, but if we have a choice shouldn't we > be making as good a recording as we can? > > All the best, > > Nick Thieberger > > At 8:26 AM -0700 10/7/07, Susan Penfield wrote: >> >> Recording and preserving the Dakota language >> >> >> Audio: Wayne Wells and Curtis Campbell, Sr. >> >> Dakota language teacher Wayne Wells pulled a chair next to tribal >> elder Curtis Campbell, who had settled into his favorite living room >> rocker to begin an unusual recording session. Wells clutched a gray >> metal box called a "phraselator," an electronic interpreter first >> introduced in Iraq and Afghanistan for use by U.S. soldiers at >> military checkpoints and security zones. He handed a microphone to >> Campbell, and asked him to repeat -- in Dakota -- decidedly civilian >> phrases such as "I want some coffee." >> >> Campbell responded, "Pezutasapa mak'u wo." And the words were added >> to a databank of hundreds of phrases and sentences stored in the >> device. Word by word, the effort is helping students at Prairie >> Island Indian Community preserve their fragile native language. >> >> "There's only about two or three people here who speak Dakota >> fluently, so time is of the essence," said Wells, the language >> teacher at the community outside of Red Wing. "If the kids don't >> learn it now, there won't be anyone left who knows it." >> >> Last year, the Prairie Island Community became one of more than 50 >> Indian communities nationwide to integrate phraselators into their >> arsenal of language preservation tools. The hand-held device >> resembles a small computer, with a monitor showing tabs for >> "weather,"family,"animals" and "Dakota virtues and values," among >> other subjects. >> >> "You can scroll up and down and find different phrases," explained >> 12-year-old Kachina Yeager, one of Wells' students, sitting on her >> front porch and fiddling with the tabs. "Say I want to hear the word >> for 'mother.' I can find it here and then tap it. Or I can just >> speak 'mother' into the top of the phraselator." >> >> A few seconds after explaining this, Campbell's deep voice boomed >> "een na" out of the phraselator. >> >> The first batch of phraselators was loaded with phrases in languages >> such as Arabic, Pashto and Farsi, said John Hall, president of >> VoxTec International, the device's Maryland-based manufacturer. The >> stock phrases would include "show me your hands" or "stay away from >> the area," he said. But a few years ago, it began catching on with >> Indian communities as well, Hall said. >> >> Because Campbell is one of just a handful of native speakers left, >> he and Wells have spent hundreds of hours together in his living >> room decorated with tall Indian vases from the Southwest and Native >> American art on the walls. >> >> Last week, the two were completing a section on food. The session >> showed the challenges of bringing ancient languages into modern >> times. Wells asked Campbell to translate, "I want some cake."There >> is no word for 'cake'," responded Campbell. "How about 'sweet >> bread'?" Ditto for "restaurant."How about 'food house'?" he asked. >> >> Campbell, a retired construction worker, said he speaks Dakota >> fluently in part because of a lucky turn in his childhood. >> >> Growing up in the 1940s, he was able to avoid being sent to a Indian >> boarding school, where children were beaten if they spoke their >> native language. He did, however, have to cut his long shiny hair in >> order to start school at a little one-room schoolhouse, he recalled, >> and had to learn to speak English fluently. But he continued to >> speak Dakota at home. >> >> Wells wasn't so fortunate. He said his grandfather refused to speak >> Dakota with his children because he was so "traumatized" by the >> boarding school experience. So Wells learned Dakota at the >> University of Minnesota. He's still nowhere near fluent, but >> recording with the phraselator is helping, he said. >> >> Kachina's mother, Shelley Buck-Yaeger, has been so impressed with >> the device that she's planning to buy one for the family. Her >> parents didn't speak Dakota either, she said, and she's always >> wanted to learn. >> >> Plus the phraselators are practically indestructible, a key feature >> given the wear and tear they can undergo at the hands of active >> children. Made for combat, they can be dropped 6 feet onto cement >> without damage, according to the VoxTech advertisements. >> >> The phraselators aren't cheap: The cost of purchasing three of them, >> plus installing the software, and receiving training and technical >> support, was about $25,000, said Alan Childs, treasurer for the >> Prairie Island tribal council. >> >> But the device can be used for more than just basic translation, he >> said. It can also preserve traditional Dakota songs and stories, >> said Childs, who is a singer in the community. >> >> Over the years, there have been other attempts to preserve the >> Dakota language, which now only has about 100 fluent speakers in >> four Indian communities in Minnesota, Childs said. It's still too >> soon to tell whether the phraselators are going to make a >> breakthrough, he said. But a combination of a fancy high-tech tool >> and a dedicated teacher from the tribe could start making a >> difference, he said. >> >> "You start building the wheel," Childs said, "and eventually it will >> start turning." >> >> Jean Hopfensperger * 612-673-4511 * hopfen at startribune.com> >> hopfen at startribune.com >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> -- >> ____________________________________________________________ >> 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 Acquisition & 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...) > > > -- > Project Manager > PARADISEC > Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics > University of Melbourne, Vic 3010 > Australia > > nicholas.thieberger at paradisec.org.au > Ph 61 (0)3 8344 5185 > > PARADISEC > Pacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures > http://paradisec.org.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From phonosemantics at EARTHLINK.NET Tue Jul 10 20:00:14 2007 From: phonosemantics at EARTHLINK.NET (jess tauber) Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:00:14 -0400 Subject: Is anyone aware of research concerning ambient audio and language learning? Message-ID: I'm wondering whether there is a typological link. I've read that child-directed speech tends to focus on verbs, whereas parents tend to focus on nouns. This may be a variable as well typologically, given that some languages are verb-heavy, some noun-heavy. Perhaps younger folks tend to direct their OWN attention then to high-agentivity/animacy-associated activities (successful actions of the powerful- egocentric POV), not particularly caring where the info comes from, and may actively query someone about what they are seeing? Parent-directed speech would focus on participants, their properties, abilities, weaknesses, ranks, privileges, responsibilities, etc. more about LIMITATIONS (perhaps not a favorite topic for the young)- a SOCIAL theme, encouraging other-centered POV's, ) Opposition between the sensory and motor systems? I'd also be curious to know what TYPES of action most typically attract attention- ones needing high levels of training and control of preparations, subactions and outcomes might be a total bore to young folks preferring simplex actions (the ones often grammaticalized in aux. verb systems, or in ideophones). What about nouns? Do heroes, leaders, powerful or capable animals, etc. require less prodding from parents than their opposites? I'm sure this is all a lot more intricately layered and pragmatically motivated- but are there any universals that one can start with?? Have all different linguistic types had adequate acquisitional studies done on them? Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net From wjposer at LDC.UPENN.EDU Tue Jul 10 20:20:57 2007 From: wjposer at LDC.UPENN.EDU (William J Poser) Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:20:57 -0400 Subject: Is anyone aware of research concerning ambient audio and language learning? In-Reply-To: <1007852.1184097615184.JavaMail.root@elwamui-sweet.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: My impression is that L1 acquisition studies have unfortunately been focussed very heavily on a small number of languages, due in large part to the fact that it is quite difficult to study acquisition in the field - people tend to study their own children or children readily accessible in the vicinity of their university. So there is tons of work on English, French, and German, and a good bit on Hebrew and Turkish (which, when it started, was itself part of an effort to broaden the range of languages), but much less on other languages. For example, I know of exactly one study of L1 acquisition of Navajo. An additional problem is of course that in the case of endangered languages there are no children acquiring the language to study. The expert on the study of L1 aquisition of "exotic" languages is Cliff Pye at the University of Kansas (http://web.ku.edu/~pyersqr/) He himself has worked on acquisition of Mayan languages. He has also written about the need for studies of acquisition in a wider range of languages and cultures. Bill From thien at UNIMELB.EDU.AU Tue Jul 10 21:22:51 2007 From: thien at UNIMELB.EDU.AU (Nicholas Thieberger) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 07:22:51 +1000 Subject: Is anyone aware of research concerning ambient audio and language learning? In-Reply-To: <20070710202057.9DECDB2774@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: There is currently a fieldwork-based project looking at the acquisition of several Australian Indigenous languages, run by Jane Simpson, Patrick McConvell and Gillian Wigglesworth. Its webpage is here: http://www.linguistics.unimelb.edu.au/research/projects/ACLA/ Nick At 4:20 PM -0400 10/7/07, William J Poser wrote: >My impression is that L1 acquisition studies have unfortunately been >focussed very heavily on a small number of languages, due in large >part to the fact that it is quite difficult to study acquisition >in the field - people tend to study their own children or children >readily accessible in the vicinity of their university. So there is >tons of work on English, French, and German, and a good bit on >Hebrew and Turkish (which, when it started, was itself part of an >effort to broaden the range of languages), but much less on other >languages. For example, I know of exactly one study of L1 >acquisition of Navajo. An additional problem is of course that >in the case of endangered languages there are no children acquiring >the language to study. > >The expert on the study of L1 aquisition of "exotic" languages is >Cliff Pye at the University of Kansas (http://web.ku.edu/~pyersqr/) >He himself has worked on acquisition of Mayan languages. He has >also written about the need for studies of acquisition in a wider >range of languages and cultures. > >Bill > From rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 11 08:50:41 2007 From: rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudy Troike) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:50:41 -0700 Subject: Native language acquisition Message-ID: Bill Poser is right -- it is particularly sad that so much effort is expended on the study of the acquisition of well-known and accessible languages, while the potential for our understanding of the acquisition of typologically distinct and even unique languages is allowed to slip away as they cease to be learned by children. Bill's reference to the one study of Navajo L1 acquisition is probably that of Muriel Saville- Troike, who found, in agreement with native-speaker intuition that Navajo is a verb-centered language, that children somehow extracted verb stems from the prefixed forms they commonly heard and used these before nouns. Older children in preschool who were asked to describe pictures (which English and Spanish speaking children had described in terms of names for the objects represented) by constructing action/event scenarios using verbs (e.g. a picture of a boy and a wagon: the boy is pulling the wagon). Contra the studies that Bill references on the convergence of babbling with the phonological/phonotactic structure of the ambient language(s), our twins, now 21 months old, have consistently produced very distinct "babbling" (as we adults call it, because we don't understand it -- it is presumably meaningful to them), neither sounding like either English or Spanish, both of which they are regularly exposed to. One of their earliest common "pre-words" was [nga] (velar nasal + vowel), and this week they began pronouncing their word for triangle, "ga", as [gah], sounding very much like the Navajo word for "rabbit", although neither English nor Spanish (at least not the variety they are exposed to) uses syllable-final [h]. It would be particularly valuable to see how children might acquire Cheyenne, since computationally the possible combinations of sets of interrelated suffixes is a huge number, which was successfully mastered by many generations of children in the past. This would be one of the most interesting potential studies for child language acquisition, given the particular morphological structure of the language, and could resolve some major theoretical issues, if it could be engineered somehow. Some years ago one of my students discovered a girl from a Spanish- speaking home in a first-grade classroom who had been labeled a "learning problem", since for six weeks she had wandered around the classroom paying no attention to the teacher, who spoke entirely in English and knew no Spanish. When my student (Caroline Willard) spoke to the girl in Spanish, she was perfectly fluent in her responses. Further inquiry revealed that when her parents went to work, not having money for a baby-sitter, they left the TV on tuned to a local channel which was entirely in English. The girl had apparently learned to ignore the English she heard on the TV as "background ambient noise", and so continued to ignore it when she heard the teacher producing English with other students. Only after Caroline showed her the equivalence between Spanish and English terms did she begin to pay attention to the teacher's language, and within six weeks was ahead of all the children in the class. So it would appear that introducing a language as "background ambient noise" would be the best way to insure that it would NOT be learned. Rudy Troike From mona at ALLIESMEDIAART.COM Wed Jul 11 12:35:13 2007 From: mona at ALLIESMEDIAART.COM (Mona Smith) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 07:35:13 -0500 Subject: [Possible SPAM] [ILAT] Native language acquisition In-Reply-To: <20070711015041.deokkwco0440gow4@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Pidamaya. We are planning to use nature sounds as opposed to actual language, but I had been toying with the idea of including words or phrases, if it made sense. Your comments will help me hold off on using language in the ambient audio at this point anyway.... Rudy Troike wrote: > Bill Poser is right -- it is particularly sad that so much effort is > expended on the study of the acquisition of well-known and accessible > languages, while the potential for our understanding of the acquisition > of typologically distinct and even unique languages is allowed to slip > away as they cease to be learned by children. Bill's reference to the > one study of Navajo L1 acquisition is probably that of Muriel Saville- > Troike, who found, in agreement with native-speaker intuition that > Navajo is a verb-centered language, that children somehow extracted > verb stems from the prefixed forms they commonly heard and used these > before nouns. Older children in preschool who were asked to describe > pictures (which English and Spanish speaking children had described in > terms of names for the objects represented) by constructing action/event > scenarios using verbs (e.g. a picture of a boy and a wagon: the boy is > pulling the wagon). > > Contra the studies that Bill references on the convergence of babbling > with the phonological/phonotactic structure of the ambient language(s), > our twins, now 21 months old, have consistently produced very distinct > "babbling" (as we adults call it, because we don't understand it -- it > is presumably meaningful to them), neither sounding like either English > or Spanish, both of which they are regularly exposed to. One of their > earliest common "pre-words" was [nga] (velar nasal + vowel), and this > week they began pronouncing their word for triangle, "ga", as [gah], > sounding very much like the Navajo word for "rabbit", although neither > English nor Spanish (at least not the variety they are exposed to) uses > syllable-final [h]. > > It would be particularly valuable to see how children might acquire > Cheyenne, since computationally the possible combinations of sets of > interrelated suffixes is a huge number, which was successfully mastered > by many generations of children in the past. This would be one of the > most interesting potential studies for child language acquisition, given > the particular morphological structure of the language, and could resolve > some major theoretical issues, if it could be engineered somehow. > > Some years ago one of my students discovered a girl from a Spanish- > speaking home in a first-grade classroom who had been labeled a "learning > problem", since for six weeks she had wandered around the classroom > paying no attention to the teacher, who spoke entirely in English and > knew no Spanish. When my student (Caroline Willard) spoke to the girl > in Spanish, she was perfectly fluent in her responses. Further inquiry > revealed that when her parents went to work, not having money for a > baby-sitter, they left the TV on tuned to a local channel which was > entirely in English. The girl had apparently learned to ignore the English > she heard on the TV as "background ambient noise", and so continued to > ignore it when she heard the teacher producing English with other students. > Only after Caroline showed her the equivalence between Spanish and English > terms did she begin to pay attention to the teacher's language, and within > six weeks was ahead of all the children in the class. So it would appear > that introducing a language as "background ambient noise" would be the > best way to insure that it would NOT be learned. > > Rudy Troike > > From rzs at TDS.NET Wed Jul 11 15:45:31 2007 From: rzs at TDS.NET (Richard Smith) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 08:45:31 -0700 Subject: Native language acquisition In-Reply-To: <20070711015041.deokkwco0440gow4@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: This discussion of background sound has been really interesting to follow I wonder how "continual TV presence" works on a young mind as well? Does the continual mist of sprayed information/entertainment eventually harden minds so that listening and even seeing requires "conscious effort?" I notice a strange lethargy in kids before a TV screen, Rarely laughing at jokes,rarely even smiling at what is obviously funny. There seems to be no expression of reaction or interaction. But when I tell/act out traditional stories in a class full of kiddos MOST of the kids are right with me...snickering,laughing at silly parts And just a few remain with those glazed over eyes. Richard Wyandotte Oklahoma On 7/11/07 1:50 AM, "Rudy Troike" wrote: > Bill Poser is right -- it is particularly sad that so much effort is > expended on the study of the acquisition of well-known and accessible > languages, while the potential for our understanding of the acquisition > of typologically distinct and even unique languages is allowed to slip > away as they cease to be learned by children. Bill's reference to the > one study of Navajo L1 acquisition is probably that of Muriel Saville- > Troike, who found, in agreement with native-speaker intuition that > Navajo is a verb-centered language, that children somehow extracted > verb stems from the prefixed forms they commonly heard and used these > before nouns. Older children in preschool who were asked to describe > pictures (which English and Spanish speaking children had described in > terms of names for the objects represented) by constructing action/event > scenarios using verbs (e.g. a picture of a boy and a wagon: the boy is > pulling the wagon). > > Contra the studies that Bill references on the convergence of babbling > with the phonological/phonotactic structure of the ambient language(s), > our twins, now 21 months old, have consistently produced very distinct > "babbling" (as we adults call it, because we don't understand it -- it > is presumably meaningful to them), neither sounding like either English > or Spanish, both of which they are regularly exposed to. One of their > earliest common "pre-words" was [nga] (velar nasal + vowel), and this > week they began pronouncing their word for triangle, "ga", as [gah], > sounding very much like the Navajo word for "rabbit", although neither > English nor Spanish (at least not the variety they are exposed to) uses > syllable-final [h]. > > It would be particularly valuable to see how children might acquire > Cheyenne, since computationally the possible combinations of sets of > interrelated suffixes is a huge number, which was successfully mastered > by many generations of children in the past. This would be one of the > most interesting potential studies for child language acquisition, given > the particular morphological structure of the language, and could resolve > some major theoretical issues, if it could be engineered somehow. > > Some years ago one of my students discovered a girl from a Spanish- > speaking home in a first-grade classroom who had been labeled a "learning > problem", since for six weeks she had wandered around the classroom > paying no attention to the teacher, who spoke entirely in English and > knew no Spanish. When my student (Caroline Willard) spoke to the girl > in Spanish, she was perfectly fluent in her responses. Further inquiry > revealed that when her parents went to work, not having money for a > baby-sitter, they left the TV on tuned to a local channel which was > entirely in English. The girl had apparently learned to ignore the English > she heard on the TV as "background ambient noise", and so continued to > ignore it when she heard the teacher producing English with other students. > Only after Caroline showed her the equivalence between Spanish and English > terms did she begin to pay attention to the teacher's language, and within > six weeks was ahead of all the children in the class. So it would appear > that introducing a language as "background ambient noise" would be the > best way to insure that it would NOT be learned. > > Rudy Troike From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 11 15:36:31 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 08:36:31 -0700 Subject: One Native Life (fwd) Message-ID: One Native Life ? Indian Country Today July 11, 2007. All Rights Reserved Posted: July 11, 2007 by: Richard Wagamese http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415347 Learning Ojibway I was 24 when the first Ojibway word rolled off my tongue. It felt all round and rolling, not like the spikey sound of English with all those hard-edged consonants. When I said it aloud, I felt like I'd really, truly spoken for the first time in my life. I was a toddler when I was removed from my family and if I spoke Ojibway at all then, it was baby talk and the language never had a chance to sit in me and grow. English became my prime language and even though I developed an ease and facility with it, there was always something lacking. It never really quite felt real, valid even. It was like a hazy memory that never quite reaches clarity and leaves you puzzled whenever it arises. When that first Ojibway word floated out from between my teeth, I understood. You see, that first word opened the door to my culture. When I spoke it, I stepped over the threshold into an entirely new way of understanding myself and my place in the world. Until then I had been almost like a guest in my own life, standing around waiting for someone or something to explain things for me. That one word made me an inhabitant. It was peendigaen. Come in. Peendigaen, spoken with an outstretched hand and a rolling of the wrist. Beckoning. Come in. Welcome. This is where you belong. I had never encountered an English word that had that resonance - one that could change things so completely. It was awkward at first. There's a softness to the language that's off-putting when you first begin to speak it. It's almost as if timelessness had a vocabulary. With each enunciation the word gained strength, clarity and I got the feeling that I was speaking a language that had existed for longer than any the world has known. This one had never been adapted to become other languages like English had evolved from Germanic tongues. Instead, the feeling of Ojibway in my throat was permanence. I stood on ground I had never encountered before, an unknown territory whose sweep was compelling and uplifting and full. Peendigaen. Come in. And I walked fully into the world of my people for the first time. After that, I learned more words. Then I struggled to put whole sentences together. I made a lot of mistakes. I was used to the English process of talk and I created sentences that were mispronounced and wrong. People laughed when they heard me and I understood what cultural embarrassment could feel like. It made me feel like quitting, like English could spare me the laughter of my people. Then I heard a wise woman talk at a conference. She spoke of being removed from her culture, unplugged from it, disconnected and set aside like an old toaster. But she was always a toaster and the day came when someone plugged her back in and the electricity flowed. She became functional again - and the tool of her reawakening was her language. She spoke of the struggle to relearn her talk. She spoke of the same embarrassment I felt and the feeling of being an oddity amongst her own. She spoke of the difficulty in getting past the cultural shame and reaching out for her talk with every fiber of her being. And she spoke of the warm wash of the language on the hurts she'd carried all her life, how the soft roll of the talk was like a balm for her spirit. Then she spoke of prayer. Praying in her language was like having the ear of Creator for the first time. She felt heard and blessed and healed. It wasn't much, she said. Just a few words of gratitude, like prayers should be; but the words went outward from her and became a part of the whole, a portion of the great sacred breath of Creation again. She understood then, she said, that our talk is sacred and to speak it is the way we reconnect to our sacredness. We owe it to others to pass it on. That was the other thing she said. If we have even one word of our talk, if that's all we know, then we have a responsibility to pass it on to our children and those who have had it removed from them. You learn to speak for them. You learn to speak to function as a tool for someone else's reconnection. I have never forgotten that. These days I'm far from fluent and I still spend far more time using English, but the Ojibway talk sits there in the middle of my chest like a hope and when I use it, in a prayer, in a greeting, in a talk somewhere, I felt the same sensation as I did with that first word at 24 - the feeling of being ushered in, of welcome, of familiarity and belonging. An English word I admire is reclaim. It means to bring back, to return to a proper course. When I learned to speak Ojibway, I reclaimed a huge part of myself. It wasn't lost, I always owned it; it was just adrift on the great sea of influence that is the modern world. And like a mariner lost upon foreign seas, I sought a friendly shore to step out upon and learn to walk again. My language became that shore. I have an Ojibway name now. I introduce myself with it according to our traditional protocols when I speak somewhere. I can ask important questions in my language. I can greet people in the proper manner and I can pray. For me, peendigaen, come in, meant I could express myself as who I was created to be, and that's what this journey is all about - to learn to express yourself as who you were created to be. You don't need to be a Native person to understand that, just human. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 11 15:39:31 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 08:39:31 -0700 Subject: Students Help Save Native Language (fwd) Message-ID: Students Help Save Native Language http://www.uwyo.edu/news/showrelease.asp?id=16080 July 10, 2007 -- Students in a University of Wyoming Northern Arapaho language class are working to preserve the native language for future generations. Aware that tribal elders estimate there are only 10 years to save Northern Arapaho language, the class submitted grant proposals to improve the native language's teaching tools. The students, collaborating with the UW American Indian Studies Program, received money from UW's President's Advisory Council on Minorities' and Women's Affairs, and a private nonprofit foundation, The Heart of the Healer. Judy Antell, director of American Indian Studies, says the funds will be used to improve DVDs containing lessons from elders, create a student workbook, and hire native artists to design culturally-appropriate line drawings for a coloring book. Robyn Lopez of Rawlins, who in May graduated with a B.A. degree from UW, has been named grant director. The first project will be to develop the DVDs. "The class wanted to create DVD chapters for easier lesson navigation and subtitles to provide both visual and audio components to learning," says Amy Crowell, Dean of Students Office employee and language class guest. Crowell says the group hopes to develop a workbook for the DVD to help certify teachers. Crowell led the grant writing process for the class, but doesn't take sole credit for its process or results. "Most of the work that went into the grant was a synthesis of class member conversations both in and out of class," she says. "The way people spoke about learning the language and how much it meant to them was the basis for the vision letter." Antell acknowledges course instructor Wayne C'Hair, a tribal elder, with developing a unique teaching method and a learning atmosphere that imparts not only a language, but an expanded world view. In addition to meeting for classes, the group shares Friday night meals with C'Hair and occasional guests from the Wind River Indian Reservation. The informal environment allows the class to experience aspects of the culture, she says. "Northern Arapaho is not just a language, it's a way of being and a way of living that couldn't be needed more than it is now," Antell says. Posted on Tuesday, July 10, 2007 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 11 15:44:46 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 08:44:46 -0700 Subject: Aboriginal stories made visible (fwd) Message-ID: Aboriginal stories made visible [photo inset - Bush reality. Photo: Sahlan Hayes] Leon Gettler July 12, 2007 http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/aboriginal-stories-made-visible/2007/07/11/1183833598832.html# ELEVEN years ago, teachers sent to indigenous outback schools in the Northern Territory noticed one thing missing from the children's textbooks: Aboriginal faces. Just white faces, white kids and white stories relayed to remote Aboriginal communities. It was a point picked up by Victoria University education lecturer Lawry Mahon in 1996 on a visit to Atitjere, an indigenous community 240 kilometres north-east of Alice Springs. With the local culture absent from any of the classroom books and stories ? something consistent with a nation that had lived there for thousands of years being turned into an invisible people for the rest of the country ? Mr Mahon held informal astronomy classes for the children and got them to write about what they had experienced together. He returned to Atitjere the following year with plans for student teachers from the university to come and help develop the children's literacy and computer skills. He approached IBM for assistance and SWIRL ? Story Writing In Remote Locations ? was born. The program, focused on a section of Australia's school population with poor attendance and low literacy rates, offered Aboriginal children an education based on their own world. The partnership between IBM and the university allows children to write their own books on all sorts of topics, from their family histories to bush medicine, from rock art to what you can buy for $5 at the local shop, from playing sport to building a garden. Students as young as five and up to 16 take part in activities, documenting them in English and then their own language. They are taught how to use digital cameras and computers to tell their stories through the written and spoken word. They learn how to use video and audio recording, artwork, photos and even clay animation. The stories are then published in books that are printed, laminated and bound, with copies for families, friends and the school libraries. The result is an archive of many hundreds of stories, giving teachers a unique tool to connect with the community. When SWIRL is brought into a community, school attendance goes up by as much as 100 per cent. Over the past 10 years, IBM has provided more than 100 computers, ThinkPads and printers. The equipment at the school gives the community access to computing, printing, faxing and colour photocopying. According to IBM's corporate responsibility report, SWIRL was conducted in 18 locations in 2006. The computer giant has also been working with the university to encourage student teachers to pursue careers in outback schools. Andrew Hocking, IBM Australia and New Zealand's corporate citizenship and corporate affairs manager, said negotiations were under way with the Queensland and West Australian governments to expand the program. There were also talks with the Department of Education, Science and Training about building on the program. The plan was to make it a worldwide model for engagement with indigenous communities. "Our model is for corporate engagement with universities so it fits that strategy," Mr Hocking said. http://tinyurl.com/3dldmz From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 11 15:48:15 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 08:48:15 -0700 Subject: Helping the hidden tribes of Amazonia (fwd) Message-ID: Article published Jul 10, 2007 Brazil Helping the hidden tribes of Amazonia Some natives have no contact with outside By Monte Reel The Washington Post Jul 10, 2007 http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070710/REPOSITORY/707100374/1013/NEWS03 At first, few believed the story that two brothers told about four unknown Indians who suddenly appeared to them one afternoon on the outskirts of their Brazilian village. Like most Kayapo Indians, the brothers - named Bepro and Beprytire - live in a government-demarcated reserve, wear modern clothing and get energy from solar-powered generators. But the four unclothed visitors were a different kind of Kayapo. They spoke in an antiquated tongue that seemed a precursor to the language spoken in the village, located in the Capoto-Jarina Indian Reserve in central Brazil. The four men had come from a tribe that had remained in the forest, the brothers said, untouched by the modern world. Over the next seven days, the doubt expressed by the villagers evaporated when they saw more than 60 of the Indians emerge from the forest, sleeping in huts on the edge of the village. Then as quickly as they had come, the Indians disappeared. They haven't been seen since. The Indians' brief appearance this spring was enough to put them in the middle of a debate that is challenging governments throughout the Amazon region: How should the rights and territories of isolated populations be protected when the locations of those groups remain largely unknown? In recent months, Brazil and Peru have set aside protected areas for so-called uncontacted groups, which have never been spoken to and rarely - if ever - glimpsed. Brazil is believed to have more uncontacted tribes than any country in the world, and the government this year announced that as many as 67 tribes could be living in complete isolation - considerably more than the 40 estimated earlier. Previously uncontacted tribes have been discovered periodically since deep Amazon exploration began in the late 1800s. In the 1970s, for example, such tribes as the Panara were found as construction crews built roads into the forest, and periodic discoveries of small tribes continued in the following decades. Today, because the Amazon region is shrinking by thousands of square miles a year, the chances of unintentional encounters involving such groups grow. The issue has become a significant focus for the Federal Indian Bureau, or Funai, the government agency that oversees indigenous groups. Indigenous rights advocates have issued calls to protect largely unexplored areas of the forest from logging and mining. But the renewed focus on uncontacted groups has also sparked suspicions among skeptics, who believe the groups could be more mythical than real and suspect the numbers are exaggerated by special interest groups seeking to block exploration projects. "It is like the Loch Ness monster," said Cecilia Quiroz, legal counsel for Perupetro, the Peruvian state agency in charge of doling out prospecting rights to energy companies eager to explore the country's vast interior. "Everyone seems to have seen or heard about uncontacted peoples, but there is no evidence." Megaron Txucarramae grew up in the village where the uncontacted Indians approached the two brothers in late May. He was 2 years old when anthropologists first made contact with his own branch of the Kayapo tribe in the 1950s. He regularly heard his elders tell the story of how one part of the tribe had fled the anthropologists' advances to remain alone in the woods, never to be seen again. Now Megaron is the regional representative for Funai in Colider, the nearest city to Capoto and two nearby reserves. The land, set aside for the Indians and protected from development, is a sprawling green expanse of dense jungle. Together, the three Kayapo reservations in the area are roughly the size of the Czech Republic. When he heard of the isolated tribe's recent appearance, Megaron quickly flew to the village of Kapot to collect evidence. He took a miniature tape recorder with him, giving it to one of the brothers to slip into the pocket of his shorts while he spoke to the Indians. Taking pictures, he concluded, was out of the question. "No one had a camera, and even if someone had had one, they were afraid of machines," Megaron explained later. "If anyone pointed a camera at them, the situation could have been very dangerous." The group remained highly suspicious of the villagers, agreeing to talk only with the two brothers whom they had initially approached. They accepted bananas and cassava offered by the brothers but rejected rice because it wasn't part of their traditional diet, Megaron said. One of the old men in the group had a scar on his side, a wound that the villagers attributed to a run-in with illegal loggers, who occasionally were involved in bloody confrontations with Indians in the region in the 1990s. "The man told Beprytire he had been hurt by a 'strong sound,' " Megaron said. "So we are guessing that he had been shot." Most of the Indians were unclothed, though some of the men wore penis sheaths and most were partially covered by body paint. Some of the men also had plates inserted in their lower lips, creating the decorative protrusions seen in various Amazonian tribes. Megaron closed the village to visitors - a lockdown that remains in force. Officials were afraid that the previously uncontacted Indians could easily become sick. As has been proved in the past when uncontacted tribes are introduced to other populations and the microbes they carry, maladies as simple as the common cold can be deadly. In the 1970s, 185 members of the Panara tribe died within two years of discovery after contracting such diseases as flu and chickenpox, leaving only 69 survivors. Antonio Sergio Iole, head of health services for Funai in Colider, quickly assembled a team of doctors and Kayapo assistants ready to travel to the village on a moment's notice. The team immediately realized how many difficult questions the tribe's appearance had raised. "Even the simple things are complicated," said Iole, who said his team remains on call to travel to the village should the tribe reappear. "How should we act in the first moment we approach them? Would they accept vaccine? Would they let us inspect their mouths? Listen to their hearts? Would they allow a doctor to treat the women? How would they physically react to treatment? Some vaccines have side effects - how would they interpret a fever? And how would they react if we had to take someone away, even if it was for their own good?" After the tribe left the village, Iole - still in Colider - began to notice that some other people around town were asking different questions: Why couldn't anyone get a picture? Why was no one except the Kayapo allowed into the village? How could a group of people remain uncontacted in the 21st century? Could someone be making this whole story up for some sort of personal or political gain? "I don't believe it - this is an area with lots of loggers and farmers who are always going out into the forest, making studies," said Albeni de Souza, 22, a university student who works in a hotel in Colider. "Even the Indians from the tribes on reservations walk around the forest all the time. Someone would have seen them before." That kind of doubt spreads easily in towns such as Colider, where logging companies and farmers have cleared most of the surrounding area and small planes regularly fly overhead. From the air here, the land looks much like the American Midwest - a patchwork of farms. The picture is much different less than 250 miles away in Kapot - unreachable by car and boat - on the edge of an Amazon forest that is almost as big as the continental United States. Several years ago, Brazil's government changed its policy regarding isolated tribes: Instead of taking the initiative to try to contact them, it now aims only to protect them. Contact is made only if the Indians themselves initiate it or the tribe is in imminent danger. Funai officials plan to fly over the forest in the coming weeks to try to locate the area where the tribe is based, Megaron said. The plan after that is to build a small field station in the forest - not to contact them but to protect the area and make sure loggers and farmers do not come near them. That plan, of course, would be unnecessary if the Indians chose to make contact again. "Everybody wants to see them, because we love to compare them with ourselves," said Bepko, 26, a Kayapo who lives in the village of Kubenkokre in a nearby reserve. "We just want to hear their stories and learn about what their lives have been like." According to the stealth tape recording made by the brothers, there is evidence that at least some in the tribe would like to return. Megaron said he was able to decipher the language sufficiently enough to determine that a young member of the tribe was trying to convince his elders that the contact was a good thing. "The son told his father not to be afraid, that they would protect each other," Megaron recounted. It was later, Funai said, that a tribal leader emerged from the forest and persuaded everyone to leave the village. "They might have been scared of the sound of airplanes," said Luis Sampaio, a biologist who for 12 years has worked with the Kayapo in the reserve, which features a small landing strip. "Or they could have been scared by the clothes they saw people wearing - we are not sure." Megaron said they left without explanation or warning. "Uncontacted Indians," he said, "don't say goodbye when they leave." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 11 15:50:11 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 08:50:11 -0700 Subject: Aussie TV Chief to Address Indigenous Broadcasters (fwd) Message-ID: Aussie TV Chief to Address Indigenous Broadcasters Tuesday, 10 July 2007, 11:53 am Press Release: Maori TV PUBLICITY RELEASE TUESDAY JULY 10 2007 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU0707/S00183.htm Australian TV Chief to Address Indigenous Broadcasters The head of Australia?s first national Indigenous television service will be among the featured guest speakers at next year?s inaugural World Indigenous Television Broadcasting Conference to be hosted by Maori Television in Auckland, New Zealand. Patricia Turner was appointed chief executive of National Indigenous TV (NITV) at the beginning of this year and will oversee the imminent launch of the long-awaited service. Ms Turner ? who will speak about the challenges faced by the new broadcaster ? is a member of the Order of Australia for her public service work and has extensive experience in Indigenous affairs. SEARCH NZ JOBS Scoop VIDEO & AUDIO MORTGAGE Calculators Scoop MEDIA TRACKING Scoop NEWS by TOPIC To be held from March 26 to 28, WITBC ?08 will be the first ever gathering of Indigenous television leaders from around the world. Internationally renowned speakers who are industry experts in broadcasting, media and Indigenous languages include the leader of Welsh-language channel S4C, John Walter Jones. A World Indigenous Television Broadcasters Network will also be launched as part of the event. Maori Television chief executive Jim Mather says the confirmation of Patricia Turner as a featured guest speaker is another major coup for WITBC ?08. ?Ms Turner has been the most senior Indigenous person in the Australian public service with a career spanning 28 years. In that time, she's been deputy chief executive of Centrelink, head of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, and deputy secretary in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet,? Mr Mather says. ?NITV has been created for similar reasons to Maori Television ? based on a premise of preserving culture and language ? so it will be fascinating to hear first-hand how the new service will impact on the Australian media landscape.? Leaders, producers and planners involved in Indigenous and public television can register their interest to attend the World Indigenous Television Broadcasting Conference at www.witbc.org. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 12 16:43:31 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:43:31 -0700 Subject: Aboriginal leaders seek $2.6 billion (fwd) Message-ID: Aboriginal leaders seek $2.6 billion First Nations languages are dying CHARLES MANDEL, CanWest News Service http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=f50b57a8-b43f-4ebf-b105-eaf943152c53 An Assembly of First Nations call yesterday for $2.6 billion over 11 years to revitalize aboriginal languages resonated with Deborah Jacobs. The 50-year-old educator and member of British Columbia's Squamish Nation is minimally fluent in her own language. But that's not surprising when out of the Squamish Nation's 3,600 people, only 15 are still able to speak their native tongue. The problem came into focus yesterday at the Assembly of First Nation's annual meeting. The AFN seeks $2.6 billion over 11 years to follow through on its National First Nations Language Strategy that would see the languages back in common use by 2027. "Our languages are the cornerstone of who we are as people," said Katherine Whitecloud, a regional chief from Manitoba. Whitecloud criticized the Conservative federal government for cutting $160 million in funding for aboriginal languages in 2006. In its place, Ottawa made available $5 million per year for aboriginal languages, amounting to $5 for each native in Canada to learn aboriginal languages, Whitecloud said. She blamed the decline partly on the residential school system, in which aboriginal children were sent to live in the schools, where they were abused for speaking their own languages. ? The Gazette (Montreal) 2007 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 12 16:53:20 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:53:20 -0700 Subject: Unconscious automatic translation detected (fwd) Message-ID: Unconscious automatic translation detected http://presszoom.com/story_136468.html Even fluent bilingual speakers of a language acquired beyond adolescence subconsciously resort to their native language, in a sort of 'unconscious instant translation service'. These surprising findings of the research team, at Bangor University's School of Psychology are published in the prestigious American Journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA (Thierry and Wu, 2007, 06-09927 available on-line 10.7.07). (PressZoom) - Even fluent bilingual speakers of a language acquired beyond adolescence subconsciously resort to their native language, in a sort of 'unconscious instant translation service'. These surprising findings of the research team, at Bangor University's School of Psychology are published in the prestigious American Journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA ( Thierry and Wu, 2007, 06-09927 available on-line 10.7.07 ). By literally 'reading the minds' of Chinese-English bilingual speakers, the authors, Dr Guillaume Thierry and Yan Jing Wu were able to tell their Chinese participants that they had been accessing their native language, although they were totally unaware of it. "Psycholinguists have tried to investigate how the brain copes with two language systems for nearly half a century. Following this evidence, we now have a clearer understanding of what happens when our brains process a late acquired second language, however it now throws up more questions that we'd like to answer, said Yan Jing Wu. "Even while we consciously listen to late-acquired second language words, our brains are automatically also 'listening' in the first language," he explains. The Chinese participants, who'd been living in the UK for an average of 18 months, took part in an English language test based on whether pairs of English words were related in meaning or not. What was not apparent to them was that some of the English word pairs had a character overlap and sound connection in their Chinese translations. When there was no relationship in meaning between English words but there was a relationship between Chinese translations, e.g., ham and train ( Huo Che - Huo Tui in Chinese ), the repetition in Chinese was detected by brain waves recorded at the surface of the scalp. "The results show that the Chinese-English speakers, who'd describe themselves as fluent English speakers who access meaning directly from English without word-by-word translation in Chinese, are in fact accessing Chinese subconsciously" said Dr Guillaume Thierry. How the brain copes with two languages systems has been the subject of investigation by psycho-linguists for decades. Does one language system remain dormant while the other is active? Which language takes priority? Most tests devised so far involved both the languages studied and often involved translation from the first to the acquired language or vice versa. However, since they used both languages, the subjects were likely to realise that translation was the subject of study- this can affect the findings it also creates artificial experimental conditions compared to the real life experience of a native speaker of one language immersed in a foreign language environment. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Jul 13 15:24:27 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 08:24:27 -0700 Subject: AFN calls for massive investment in languages (fwd) Message-ID: AFN calls for massive investment in languages Charles Mandel CanWest News Service Thursday, July 12, 2007 http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/national/story.html?id=2b6dbd06-be70-4360-942e-410fb6b9f1d7 HALIFAX -- An Assembly of First Nations call Wednesday for $2.6 billion over 11 years to revitalize aboriginal languages resonated with Deborah Jacobs. The 50-year-old educator and member of British Columbia's Squamish Nation is minimally fluent in her own language. But then that's not surprising when out of the Squamish Nation's 3,600 people, only 15 are still able to speak their native tongue. The problem came into sharp focus during the second day of the Assembly of First Nation's annual meeting on Wednesday. Band chiefs and delegates from across Canada listened as Katherine Whitecloud, a regional chief from Manitoba and a member of the Dakota Nation, told the gathering: "Our languages are the cornerstone of who we are as people. Without our languages, our culture cannot survive." Whitecloud blamed the decline of the languages partly on the residential school system, in which aboriginal children were removed from their homes and sent to live in the schools, where they were abused for speaking their own languages, among other things. Whitecloud said when the children of residential schools became parents, they refused to teach their own children native languages because the ability to do so had been beaten out of them. The residential school system remained in effect for more than 100 years in Canada and the intergenerational effect of their "destructive policies" continue to be felt to this day, Whitecloud told the assembly. "We are in a state of emergency respecting our First Nations' languages. Statistics show that 50 out of 53 First Nation languages are declining, endangered, or in danger of extinction," Whitecloud said. "First Nations languages in Canada are in a desperate state." Statistics on fluency and other data on aboriginal languages is currently limited. At the assembly, questionnaires on the languages were circulated in an attempt to gather more information. Whitecloud criticized the Conservative federal government for cutting $160-million in funding for aboriginal languages in 2006. In its place, the government made available $5 million per year for aboriginal languages, amounting to $5 for each native in Canada to learn aboriginal languages, Whitecloud said. "These funding levels are unacceptable for First Nations, especially when you consider that in budget 2007, the federal government announced that they were going to spend $642 million over five years for the promotion and development of official languages in Canada." She said the federal government has a legal obligation through various treaties and legislation to provide adequate resources to support First Nations' language preservation. "Canada has no national policy or legislation that recognizes the distinct status of First Nations' languages as the original languages of Canada,'' she said. The AFN wants $2.6 billion over 11 years to follow through on its National First Nations Language Strategy that would see the languages back in common use by 2027. Jacobs believes the money the AFN wants for language funding is reasonable given the language needs in the many aboriginal communities. "I find it's a rather thrifty number that's been put out there." Chief Lance Haymond of Quebec's Eagle Village First Nation also supported funding for languages. "We need the investment to maintain and recreate our languages. Most of our culture, our history, is related to language." He said in Kipawa very few people spoke Algonquin, the native language, and those who did are over 50 years of age. Haymond himself is bilingual -- in English and French. He doesn't speak his own language. After Whitecloud addressed the assembly, a number of delegates expressed their frustration with the state of education and negotiations over funding with the federal and provincial governments. "We're not the second, third or fourth: We're the first government of this land," one said to loud applause, before adding his annoyance over band chiefs being unable to secure meetings with government representatives. ? The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2007 From CRANEM at ECU.EDU Fri Jul 13 19:09:19 2007 From: CRANEM at ECU.EDU (Bizzaro, Resa Crane) Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 15:09:19 -0400 Subject: Humor Conference CFP Message-ID: Hi, everyone. I'm working with a group of people who are putting together a Humor Conference for Nov. 1-3 on ECU's campus. We're calling for proposals, so we can set up the programs. Here is a copy of the call, along with an electronic version of the flyer. Please share it with anyone you think may be interested. Also, please consider sending a proposal yourself; I've been disappointed that there aren't any submissions on Native American humor. Although the film contest says "regional filmmakers," anyone may participate. The details can be found at the web site listed below. Thanks. Resa ECU Hosts first ever HumorFest The East Carolina Humor Festival and Conference needs scholars, filmmakers and jokesters before Sept. 1. The HumorFest will take place Nov. 1-3. The three-day inaugural event will feature joke contests and stand-up and improv comedy, a film festival, and an academic conference on humor. Featured presenters include North Carolina native and author Jill McCorkle, Texas songwriter and author Kinky Friedman, and poet and NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu. "Humor as an art form rarely attracts the serious attention it deserves," said Tom Douglass, an ECU professor of English. "The East Carolina HumorFest intends to correct this omission and provide performers, scholars, and students an opportunity to enjoy humor in all of its forms." HumorFest participants will also have an opportunity to record their laugh in the new National Registry of Laughter. "The registry will be a human record of vocal joy," Douglass said. "The best presence we have in the world is a good laugh. You know you're present when you're laughing." * The academic conference will include panels on humor and healing, Southern humor, ethnic humor, satire and social change, humor in film, and political cartoons. * The Reel Funny Short-Film Fest will feature work from regional filmmakers. * The Joke Contest seeks out the funniest jokes about North Carolina and the South. Knock-knocks, riddles, puns, tall tales, spoonerisms and whatnots of no more than 150 words are welcome to win a cash prize. The winner and finalists will be considered for publication by the North Carolina Literary Review. The deadline for abstract submissions, jokes and film entries is Sept. 1. Please direct inquiries and abstracts to ECUHUMORFEST at ecu.edu. Visit the ECU HumorFest web site: http://www.ecu.edu/humor/ for a complete list of events, surprises, and for details on the film contest. The HumorFest is co-sponsored by the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences, the ECU English Department and the Office of Co-Curricular Programs and Cultural Outreach. ### Contact: Tom Douglass, douglasst at ecu.edu, ecuhumorfest at ecu.edu or (252) 328-6723. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 17 17:44:59 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 10:44:59 -0700 Subject: Kamchatka Struggles to Keep Traditions (fwd) Message-ID: Kamchatka Struggles to Keep Traditions By Olesya Dmitracova Reuters The St. Petersburg Times Issue #1289 (55), Tuesday, July 17, 2007 http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=22373 Folk performer Lidia Chechulina in the forest near her village, Pimchakh, in July. PIMCHAKH, Russia ? Listening to enigmatic Koryak-language songs and eating traditional salmon soup and cutlets in this village, it is easy to imagine that indigenous cultures still thrive on Russia?s Kamchatka peninsula. In fact it is only the sheer tenacity of local Koryaks, Itelmens, Evens and other aborigines, that keep centuries-old customs and languages from dying out in Russia?s wild Far East after much was eroded by Soviet rule. ?Native people must live on. Without them this land will be poor and it will be impossible to bring meaning to this land,? said Vera Koveinik, who heads the ethnic community of Pimchakh, 40 kilometers from regional capital Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. When Russians began settling in Kamchatka ? a volcanic region 12,000 kilometers and nine time zones east of Moscow ? in the second half of the 17th century, up to 11,000 Koryaks lived here fishing, herding deer and hunting whale and walrus. Three centuries of pervasive Russian and Soviet influence and intermarriage have left an indelible mark on Kamchatka?s Koryaks, who now number around 7,300 ? by far the largest indigenous group on the peninsula. ?Everyone of my generation speaks the Koryak language, knows the customs, dances and dishes like in the ancient times. But some of our children don?t know anything at all,? said folk performer Lidia Chechulina, slightly breathless after dancing to the beat of a deer-skin drum and the music of her own voice. Her songs, sung in a guttural language reminiscent of Chinese, describe the beauty of the tundra, volcanoes and the sea, she explains. She adds that songs, one for each person, accompany Koryaks all their lives and act as a charm. ?Our parents preserved everything as it was before the (Bolshevik) revolution,? added Chechulina, a small, bubbly woman in her 50s. Probably the most effective Soviet assimilation policy was that of forcibly putting Koryak children in state-run boarding schools to teach them the Russian language and customs. ?The Soviet culture was imposed on them,? said Andrei Samar, a researcher at the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the People of the Far East. Since the children came back home only once or twice a year, he adds, they knew very little about their native culture let alone traditional skills such as the difficult and dangerous trade of hunting at sea. Some of those children, now adults, and their parents are actively working to revive indigenous cultures. Many schools offer classes in Koryak and other aboriginal languages as an extra-curricular activity, and families observe ancient holidays. There are also efforts to expand deer herding in regions where it is dwindling rapidly. The Pimchakh community organizes summer camps in the village where children learn about ancient traditions and do crafts. The regional government says it runs cultural programs and provides financial aid for ethnic communities. But Koveinik says there are no signs in Kamchatka in any of the indigenous languages and no monuments to celebrate the aboriginal culture and history. ?The government probably helps somehow. I don?t know, I wouldn?t say so,? said Chechulina, wearing a traditional suede-and-fur overcoat, a headdress made of beads and soft leather boots meant to protect from moss and mosquitoes in the tundra. Hardly any aborigines wear such costumes every day and many are university-educated, but the way they talk retains traces of their ancient spirituality rooted in still practiced shamanism. Pimchakh leader Koveinik, an Itelmen, told the audience after the community ensemble?s performance they were privileged. ?You are today the richest people, you?ve received so much power and energy,? she said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 17 17:48:13 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 10:48:13 -0700 Subject: Grassroots must protect language (fwd) Message-ID: July 14, 2007 Grassroots must protect language By JOSEPH QUESNEL http://winnipegsun.com/News/Columnists/Quesnel_Joseph/2007/07/14/4338749.html Only community consensus can truly save an endangered language. The government cannot prevent languages from going extinct if people do not choose to live in them. Someone should remind aboriginal leaders attending an annual general meeting of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) of this fact. The AFN said they want the federal government to provide $2.6 billion over 11 years in order to bring aboriginal languages back in common use by 2027. Looking at the statistics, this is a daunting task. A recent study, drawing from 2001 Census data, found that of 976,300 people who identified themselves as aboriginal, 235,000 (24%) reported they were able to engage in a conversation in an aboriginal language. Or one could say only one in four aboriginal Canadians speak their language. >From a cultural perspective, this is sad. But there are signs of hope. Although this represents a substantial decline in the number of aboriginals who claim their language as a mother tongue, evidence shows an increasing number of younger First Nations are learning their dialects as a second language. Although having a language as a mother tongue is better, this shows youth value identity. This is the start of the solution. It will be the conscious choices of younger First Nations to speak their language at home and in the community, or in enrolling their own children in second-language programs, that will protect them. The state cannot make these choices. It would also involve band governments making more allowance for the dominance of native languages, if people choose, in their communities. This is the model that works in Quebec. First Nations could also convince governments to enshrine aboriginal languages in the Constitution as a way to protect them. It should be acknowledged residential schools played a role in the problem, as native students were in many cases not allowed to speak their language. Perhaps the residential schools settlement should have included restitution for this. However, it must be acknowledged there are personal choices involved in this decline. These are factors affecting language that can never be changed through laws or more money. For example, aboriginals are choosing to inter-marry with non-aboriginals in greater numbers and this leads to language loss as the family uses English or French at home. This is not something the state can prevent. Moving to cities is also leading to the decline of native speakers, as First Nations adopt the majority language. As most members of society conduct themselves in one or both official languages, speaking one is the way to get ahead. This is what happened in Britain, as Welsh and Scottish speakers changed to English as it is the language of commerce and social exchange. So some language loss is inevitable in the case of indigenous peoples, as it would be wrong to deny anyone the tools to live in mainstream society. But the long-term survival of the languages will start at the grassroots. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 17 18:03:51 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 11:03:51 -0700 Subject: Language center publishes new Athabascan dictionary (fwd) Message-ID: Language center publishes new Athabascan dictionary Published: July 15, 2007 Last Modified: July 15, 2007 at 03:52 AM http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/9135520p-9051666c.html The Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has published a new Athabascan dictionary. The "Dena'ina Topical Dictionary" is an effort to document and preserve Alaska's Native languages. The university said this is the most complete topical dictionary for any of the 20 Alaska Native languages. Dena'ina is also known as Tanaina and is a language spoken by Alaska's Athabascans. It was spoken by the original inhabitants of the Cook Inlet region in Southcentral Alaska. The university said that today about 75 of the 900 Dena'ina people in Alaska speak their Native language. Dictionary editor Tom Alton said public awareness and interest in the Dena'ina people has recently increased throughout Southcentral Alaska. James Kari, professor emeritus of Athabascan languages, is the dictionary's author. The university said Kari has worked with more than 100 Dena'ina speakers since 1972. -- The Associated Press From jordanlachler at GMAIL.COM Tue Jul 17 18:00:47 2007 From: jordanlachler at GMAIL.COM (Jordan Lachler) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 12:00:47 -0600 Subject: District sets Tlingit curriculum Message-ID: District sets Tlingit curriculum Plan provides resources to teach Native language, culture to Southeast students Sealaska Heritage Institute and the Juneau School District have co-produced what they say is the first broad-scale Tlingit language and culture curriculum that meets state academic and cultural standards. The curriculum, composed of 18 units, has been distributed to every public school district in Southeast Alaska with the intent of providing more tools to teach the Native language at a time when the number of fluent speakers is dwindling, said Yarrow Vaara, Tlingit language specialist for the institute. "It's designed to put resources in the hands of teachers who aren't necessarily cultural experts or language teachers so they can learn along with their students," she said. The curriculum provides contemporary technology to help engage the students, Vaara said. Along with binders of text covering the 18 units, audio components and interactive vocabulary games have been developed to help grab the attention of the 21st-century Native student. "This curriculum has a particular language focus that is unique that is also addressing the academic standards," she said. "We're merging technology with the different focuses too." The curriculum is the result of a three-year project funded by two grants from the U.S. Department of Education. The lessons were field-tested by several Juneau teachers in 2005 and 2006 prior to being sent to other school districts. Vaara said the district's Tlingit immersion program spawned the project. "We quickly realized that in order for that to be a successful program, they needed the resources and materials to use in the classroom," she said. "Just because someone can speak Tlingit doesn't mean they can teach it." The curriculum is designed for beginning speakers and targeted at kindergarten to second grade, but can be used as a tool to teach any age. Vaara said the students she teaches appear to be learning the language more quickly and are benefiting from the resources. "I think there are many more younger students that are showing an interest and are getting a basic language exposure," Vaara said. "As they continue to grow and are more exposed, they will certainly increase their chance of learning the language." Some of the students are becoming teachers themselves, she said. "We actually have the students going home and teaching their parents, which is kind of a unique situation too," Vaara said. It is a particularly crucial time for the younger generations to take stock in the language because many of the fluent speakers are passing away, Vaara said. "People are saying we have about a 10-year window ... of people who speak Tlingit as their first language," she said. Fluent Tlingit elders John Marks and June Pegues recorded audio components of the curriculum, with songs performed by Nancy Douglas and George Holly. "I think it will increase the number of fluent speakers," Vaara said. Although each school district in Southeast Alaska has been provided with the curriculum, it is up to each district how it will utilize the resources. "It's designed to be very flexible," Vaara said. "It can be done seasonal or thematically." The curriculum has a heavy focus on the environment of Southeast Alaska and includes units of study on salmon, sea mammals, berries, plants, totem poles, herring and more. There is also a unit on Native civil rights leader Elizabeth Peratrovich and others focusing on Tlingit stories, such as "How Raven Stole the Sun." The institute eventually will have a curriculum for beginning and advanced language learners, she said. The new curriculum is a step in the right direction to help expand the language around the region, Vaara said. "I don't think it's going to be all of everything that people want, but it's a good starting point," she said. A parallel curriculum focusing on the Haida language will be coming out in the next several months, Vaara said. ? Eric Morrison can be reached at 523-2269 or by e-mail at eric.morrison at juneauempire.com. Click here to return to story: http://juneauempire.com/stories/071607/loc_tlingit001.shtml -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 18 17:15:21 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 10:15:21 -0700 Subject: Polyglot babies 'more tolerant' (fwd) Message-ID: Polyglot babies 'more tolerant' Leigh Dayton, Science writer | July 18, 2007 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22093479-30417,00.html A STUDY of newborn babies and preschoolers has revealed that language may be the root of prejudice - and the way to avoid it. US and French researchers have found that the language babies hear spoken in their first six months of life leads to a preference for speakers of that language. The preference is so entrenched that by age five youngsters prefer playmates who not only speak the same language but do so with the same accent. A key implication of the findings - reported in the US publication Proceedings of the National Academy of Science - is that children exposed to different languages grow into more tolerant adults than their monolingual mates. Linguist Stephen Crain of Sydney's Macquarie University tended to agree: "I've always thought it would be beneficial to expose our children to more than one language," he said. "If they no longer have a prejudice against people who don't sound the same as they, they may be more accepting of people from different backgrounds who don't sound the same," Professor Crain said. Cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Spelke of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, conducted a series of experiments with Harvard doctoral student Katherine Kinzler and Emmanuel Dupoux of the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris. They judged the preferences of three groups of children. Five-to six-month-old infants looked at native speakers longer than non-native speakers. Ten-month-olds selected toys most often from native speakers, and most five-year-olds chose native speaking playmates over children with an accent. According to Professor Spelke, the most surprising result came from the group's experiment with five-year-olds. "The findings suggest that (the preference) has nothing to do with information, the semantics of language, but rather with group identity," she said. If so, Professor Crain said that may answer the mystery about human languages: why do they diverge yet retain common structural properties? "One obvious answer is the differences are the means by which people segregate themselves by speaking a language which can't be understood by people from the next community," he said. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 19 16:21:16 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 09:21:16 -0700 Subject: Five Nations Energy launches Cree-language site (fwd) Message-ID: Five Nations Energy launches Cree-language site Scott Paradis, The Daily Press Local News - Wednesday, July 18, 2007 Updated @ 4:32:00 PM http://www.timminspress.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=617453&catname=Local+News&classif=News+Live A Cree organization has officially launched a version of its website in its native tongue. The Five Nations Energy Inc. has launched the Cree-language version of its website, which will run alongside its English version. The electricity transmission company is Ontario?s only aboriginal-owned company of its kind and it has had an English website available since 2000. Making a Cree-language site available was vital for the company to more comfortably serve some of its customer base, a company official said. ?Many of our community members use Cree as their first language,? said Mike Metatawabin, president of the Five Nations Energy Inc. ?We translate our First Nation Energy Inc. newsletter into Cree and it was important for us to make the website available in Cree as well. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Jul 20 15:47:43 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 08:47:43 -0700 Subject: Tusaalanga lets you hear it (fwd) Message-ID: Nunavut July 20, 2007 Tusaalanga lets you hear it Web site uses sound to teach Inuktitut CHRIS WINDEYER http://www.nunatsiaq.com/news/nunavut/70720_327.html Qallunaat who are impressed with their mastery of Inuktitut phrases such as "nakurmiik" and "illali" are going to have to get to work. Iqaluit's Piruvik Centre last week officially launched Tusaalanga.ca, a website that puts online the same curriculum that's used to teach Inuktitut to Government of Nunavut deputy ministers. "Sometimes a lack of resources is used as an excuse not to learn," said Piruvik co-founder Gavin Nesbitt, before Tusaalanga's official launch July 13. "You have to hear Inuktitut to get it." [photo inset - Piruvik Centre co-founder Gavin Nesbitt shows off the Tusaalanga website to visitors during its launch July 13. The site features 15 introductory Inuktitut lessons with streaming audio to help teach pronunciation. (PHOTO BY CHRIS WINDEYER)] Tusaalanga, Inuktitut for "let me hear it" tackles the single biggest obstacle to learning Inuktitut: the fact that words are sometimes pronounced much differently than Roman orthography would indicate to a southern tongue. Each of the site's 15 lessons come with audio files, voiced by Nunavut's former languages commissioner Eva Aariak, demonstrating the proper pronunciation. There are more than 600 audio files on the site. It's a solution for people who can't afford or don't have access to classroom lessons, Nesbitt said. Before Tusaalanga came along, "there was really no way to know if you were getting the pronunciation down pat." The online material is drawn from the same lesson plans Piruvik that uses to teach Inuktitut to GN workers, and which they designed to get new Inuktitut speakers conversant in the language as quickly as possible. It's based on the pioneering work of Inuktitut educators Mick Mallon and Alexina Kublu, Nesbitt said. The early lessons focus on learning how to say where you come from and how you are doing, then build in complexity to body parts and places of work. "It was really developed from scratch," Piruvik co-founder Leena Evic said of the curriculum. "[The GN] told us it should be practical." While Inuktitut classes may cost thousands of dollars, the folks behind the Piruvik centre say they've unveiled Tusaalanga as a public resource that can get people to a basic level of conversational Inuktitut, though they caution there's no replacing classroom conversation as a way to learn the language. Piruvik plans to eventually develop an intermediate online program, with an introduction to writing in syllabics, for people with basic fluency or, as Evic put it, "cultural knowledge." Evic said sites like Tusaalanga show how useful the internet can be for preserving and spreading Inuit culture. "It definitely will have a positive impact. Sharing this kind of program with Inuit from around the globe is a very positive move." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Jul 20 16:44:15 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:44:15 -0700 Subject: ultra-portable audio devices... Message-ID: This interesting product came out earlier this year, so take a peek: Samson H2 - Handy Recorder http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1916 If you haven't already checked out their H4 just follow the links on the above page. I would suggest looking at some H4 reviews via Google, however. Anyway, just some more new ultra-portable gadgetry for the language-oriented masses. If you have one, let us know how you what you do with it and so on... Phil From tmp at NUNASOFT.COM Fri Jul 20 19:03:45 2007 From: tmp at NUNASOFT.COM (Eric Poncet [NunaSoft]) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:03:45 -0400 Subject: H4 Message-ID: Hi all, I bought one Zoom H4 recently, after a careful study of what was on the market. I need it for upcoming fieldwork in Central Yukon. So far I've done a bunch of tests, and they all pass! It cost me $379 (CAN$). This device has all the features I was dreaming of (and I'm quite a dreamer when it comes to technology and languages...). As the guy has XLR plugs and Phantom Power, I'll use it with an AKG C451B (very good pencil mike) and/or an Audio-Technica AT897 (great shotgun mike). I'll record everything in WAV (uncompressed) on a 2GB SD card (it's the max size managed by the H4). Having an SD slot on my laptop, I'll be able to burn those raw recordings on an audio CD in a snap, freeing up space on the SD card AND archiving the data in a standard format playable by any CD player around. This will hopefully give great recordings of Elders' speeches, performances, songs, nature sounds, allowing for lots of linguistic work on all this cultural material. FYI, it manages MP3 pretty well also, with several bitrates available (including VBR=Variable Bit Rate). There's one remaining question, though: I have no clue, so far, about the robustness of the device. (Yukon) Time will tell... A huge "Thank You" to Phil and all participants for their outstanding job on ILAT!!! Cheers from Montreal, Eric http://www.nunasoft.com phil cash cash a ?crit : > This interesting product came out earlier this year, so take a peek: > > Samson H2 - Handy Recorder > http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1916 > > If you haven't already checked out their H4 just follow the links on the > above page. I would suggest looking at some H4 reviews via Google, > however. > > Anyway, just some more new ultra-portable gadgetry for the > language-oriented > masses. If you have one, let us know how you what you do with it and so > on... > > Phil > From annier at SFU.CA Fri Jul 20 19:42:37 2007 From: annier at SFU.CA (annie ross) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:42:37 -0700 Subject: ipod recording Message-ID: An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Jul 20 21:19:06 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 14:19:06 -0700 Subject: H4 In-Reply-To: <46A10711.2090303@nunasoft.com> Message-ID: Eric, Good luck and I hope your H4 works out well!? One of the constant dilemmas is not knowing if your equipment will stand up to the ongoing struggles of fieldwork.? Just make sure to get hard casing for all your equipment...mine was so essential.?? Phil UofA Quoting "Eric Poncet [NunaSoft]" : > Hi all, > > I bought one Zoom H4 recently, after a careful study of what was on the > market. I need it for upcoming fieldwork in Central Yukon. So far I've > done a bunch of tests, and they all pass! > It cost me $379 (CAN$). This device has all the features I was dreaming > of (and I'm quite a dreamer when it comes to technology and languages...). > As the guy has XLR plugs and Phantom Power, I'll use it with an AKG > C451B (very good pencil mike) and/or an Audio-Technica AT897 (great > shotgun mike). > I'll record everything in WAV (uncompressed) on a 2GB SD card (it's the > max size managed by the H4). Having an SD slot on my laptop, I'll be > able to burn those raw recordings on an audio CD in a snap, freeing up > space on the SD card AND archiving the data in a standard format > playable by any CD player around. > This will hopefully give great recordings of Elders' speeches, > performances, songs, nature sounds, allowing for lots of linguistic work > on all this cultural material. > > FYI, it manages MP3 pretty well also, with several bitrates available > (including VBR=Variable Bit Rate). > > There's one remaining question, though: I have no clue, so far, about > the robustness of the device. (Yukon) Time will tell... > > A huge "Thank You" to Phil and all participants for their outstanding > job on ILAT!!! > > Cheers from Montreal, > Eric > http://www.nunasoft.com > > phil cash cash a ?crit : >> This interesting product came out earlier this year, so take a peek: >> >> Samson H2 - Handy Recorder >> http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1916 >> >> If you haven't already checked out their H4 just follow the links on the >> above page. I would suggest looking at some H4 reviews via Google, >> however. >> >> Anyway, just some more new ultra-portable gadgetry for the language-oriented >> masses. If you have one, let us know how you what you do with it and so >> on... >> >> Phil >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sat Jul 21 14:05:05 2007 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 07:05:05 -0700 Subject: ipod recording In-Reply-To: <200707201942.l6KJgbDG018161@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> Message-ID: Does this work???? On Jul 20, 2007, at 12:42 PM, annie ross wrote: hi friends i was just in the field and used an ipod to record interviews (sound only). i purchased a microphone for the ipod from ebay. the microphone is called 'bilkin tune talk stereo" and cost 70.00 US $. from there, i downloaded the files. actually, itunes (on the mac) automatically downloaded it to the computer as a voice memo. then it converted itself to an mp3 file. it was so quick and amazing... i don't know if this is archival enough for anyone but it worked for me. annie On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:03:45 -0400 ILAT wrote: > Hi all, > > I bought one Zoom H4 recently, after a careful study of what was on > the > market. I need it for upcoming fieldwork in Central Yukon. So far I've > done a bunch of tests, and they all pass! > It cost me $379 (CAN$). This device has all the features I was > dreaming > of (and I'm quite a dreamer when it comes to technology and > languages...). > As the guy has XLR plugs and Phantom Power, I'll use it with an AKG > C451B (very good pencil mike) and/or an Audio-Technica AT897 (great > shotgun mike). > I'll record everything in WAV (uncompressed) on a 2GB SD card (it's > the > max size managed by the H4). Having an SD slot on my laptop, I'll be > able to burn those raw recordings on an audio CD in a snap, freeing up > space on the SD card AND archiving the data in a standard format > playable by any CD player around. > This will hopefully give great recordings of Elders' speeches, > performances, songs, nature sounds, allowing for lots of linguistic > work > on all this cultural material. > > FYI, it manages MP3 pretty well also, with several bitrates available > (including VBR=Variable Bit Rate). > > There's one remaining question, though: I have no clue, so far, about > the robustness of the device. (Yukon) Time will tell... > > A huge "Thank You" to Phil and all participants for their outstanding > job on ILAT!!! > > Cheers from Montreal, > Eric > http://www.nunasoft.com > > phil cash cash a ?crit : >> This interesting product came out earlier this year, so take a peek: >> >> Samson H2 - Handy Recorder >> http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1916 >> >> If you haven't already checked out their H4 just follow the links >> on the >> above page. I would suggest looking at some H4 reviews via Google, >> however. >> >> Anyway, just some more new ultra-portable gadgetry for the >> language-oriented >> masses. If you have one, let us know how you what you do with it >> and so >> on... >> >> Phil >> > annie g. ross First Nations Studies School for the Contemporary Arts Simon Fraser University 8888 University Drive Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6 annier at sfu.ca Telephone: 604-291-3575 Facsimile: 604-291-5666 From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Sun Jul 22 14:09:48 2007 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 07:09:48 -0700 Subject: ipod recording In-Reply-To: <013F8885-2A95-4C54-9CDF-2DE5007E6C15@ncidc.org> Message-ID: Hi, Haven't tried this myself, but Mp3's are not generally a good format for sound recordings for language work because they are compressed. It is not so much about archiving, as about making sure that the recordings are truly accurate representations of the sound(s) of the language. Guess it depends on what the planned use for the recordings is... My two cents...other opinions?? susan On 7/21/07, Andre Cramblit wrote: > > Does this work???? > > > On Jul 20, 2007, at 12:42 PM, annie ross wrote: > > hi friends > > i was just in the field and used an ipod to record interviews (sound > only). > > i purchased a microphone for the ipod from ebay. the microphone is > called > 'bilkin tune talk stereo" and cost 70.00 US $. > > from there, i downloaded the files. actually, itunes (on the mac) > automatically downloaded it to the computer as a voice memo. > then it converted itself to an mp3 file. > > it was so quick and amazing... > > i don't know if this is archival enough for anyone but it worked for me. > > annie > > On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:03:45 -0400 ILAT wrote: > > Hi all, > > > > I bought one Zoom H4 recently, after a careful study of what was on > > the > > market. I need it for upcoming fieldwork in Central Yukon. So far I've > > done a bunch of tests, and they all pass! > > It cost me $379 (CAN$). This device has all the features I was > > dreaming > > of (and I'm quite a dreamer when it comes to technology and > > languages...). > > As the guy has XLR plugs and Phantom Power, I'll use it with an AKG > > C451B (very good pencil mike) and/or an Audio-Technica AT897 (great > > shotgun mike). > > I'll record everything in WAV (uncompressed) on a 2GB SD card (it's > > the > > max size managed by the H4). Having an SD slot on my laptop, I'll be > > able to burn those raw recordings on an audio CD in a snap, freeing up > > space on the SD card AND archiving the data in a standard format > > playable by any CD player around. > > This will hopefully give great recordings of Elders' speeches, > > performances, songs, nature sounds, allowing for lots of linguistic > > work > > on all this cultural material. > > > > FYI, it manages MP3 pretty well also, with several bitrates available > > (including VBR=Variable Bit Rate). > > > > There's one remaining question, though: I have no clue, so far, about > > the robustness of the device. (Yukon) Time will tell... > > > > A huge "Thank You" to Phil and all participants for their outstanding > > job on ILAT!!! > > > > Cheers from Montreal, > > Eric > > http://www.nunasoft.com > > > > phil cash cash a ?crit : > >> This interesting product came out earlier this year, so take a peek: > >> > >> Samson H2 - Handy Recorder > >> http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1916 > >> > >> If you haven't already checked out their H4 just follow the links > >> on the > >> above page. I would suggest looking at some H4 reviews via Google, > >> however. > >> > >> Anyway, just some more new ultra-portable gadgetry for the > >> language-oriented > >> masses. If you have one, let us know how you what you do with it > >> and > so > >> on... > >> > >> Phil > >> > > > > > annie g. ross > First Nations Studies > School for the Contemporary Arts > Simon Fraser University > 8888 University Drive > Burnaby, British Columbia > V5A 1S6 > annier at sfu.ca > Telephone: 604-291-3575 Facsimile: 604-291-5666 > -- ____________________________________________________________ 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 Acquisition & 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: From wjposer at LDC.UPENN.EDU Sun Jul 22 23:21:57 2007 From: wjposer at LDC.UPENN.EDU (William J Poser) Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 19:21:57 -0400 Subject: ipod recording In-Reply-To: <39a679e20707220709t6471fe59h8d995736f4d3df59@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: As Susan Penfield says, MP3 is a lossy compression format. In this day and age, with such large amounts of storage readily available, there is really no justification for using lossy compression for language recordings. My advice is: (a) always record uncompressed PCM data (what is often called "raw"); (b) if you feel a need to compress it, use one of the lossless compression techniques, such as FLAC. I've put a few notes on lossless compression with links to code at: http://www.billposer.org/Linguistics/Computation/LectureNotes/LosslessCompression.html You may also want to consider some other methods of saving storage: http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phonetics/SavingSpace.html One other point to note. WAV is not an audio format. It is a FILE format. A WAV file can contain audio data in any of dozens of audio formats. Often what people mean when they talk about saving audio in WAV format is that the file is in WAV format and contains audio data in raw PCM format, but you have to be careful. If you don't understand the settings of the device you are using, you could end up with a WAV file containing some sort of compressed audio, and a WAV file that you get from somewhere else is by means guaranteed to contain raw PCM data. (I have some notes on audio file and data formats at: http://www.billposer.org/Linguistics/Computation/LectureNotes/AudioData.html Bill From nicole.rosen at ULETH.CA Mon Jul 23 02:41:30 2007 From: nicole.rosen at ULETH.CA (Rosen, Nicole) Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 20:41:30 -0600 Subject: ipod recording Message-ID: I've also recorded using the ipod voice memo feature with an external Belkin microphone adapter with microphone as well, and it was perfectly adequate and very easy, unless of course you want to do serious phonetic analysis. I'm not sure whether the new ipods allow you to do this anymore, though - the input doesn't seem to be the same. I'm no ipod expert, however - I just know it worked for me for simple recordings with my 2 year old ipod. Nicole ********************************************** Nicole Rosen Assistant Professor, Department of Modern Languages University of Lethbridge 4401 University Drive Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada T1K 3M4 Office B532, University Hall tel. 403.329.5122 nicole.rosen at uleth.ca ________________________________ From: Indigenous Languages and Technology on behalf of ILAT automatic digest system Sent: Sun 7/22/2007 1:01 AM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: ILAT Digest - 20 Jul 2007 to 21 Jul 2007 (#2007-129) There is 1 message totalling 108 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. ipod recording ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 07:05:05 -0700 From: Andre Cramblit Subject: ipod recording Does this work???? On Jul 20, 2007, at 12:42 PM, annie ross wrote: hi friends i was just in the field and used an ipod to record interviews (sound =20 only). i purchased a microphone for the ipod from ebay. the microphone is =20 called 'bilkin tune talk stereo" and cost 70.00 US $.=09 from there, i downloaded the files. actually, itunes (on the mac) automatically downloaded it to the computer as a voice memo. then it converted itself to an mp3 file. it was so quick and amazing... i don't know if this is archival enough for anyone but it worked for me. annie From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 23 04:51:14 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 21:51:14 -0700 Subject: Face to face with Stone Age man: The Hadzabe tribe of Tanzania (fwd) Message-ID: FACE TO FACE WITH STONE AGE MAN: THE HADZABE TRIBE OF TANZANIA by ANDREW MALONE - Last updated at 23:06pm on 20th July 2007 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=469847&in_page_id=1770 The rocks by the fire were still warm. Old animal bones and feathers were scattered around the clearing. The skin of a wild cat was stretched out to dry in the sun. Startled impala and dik-dik ? small deer ? darted through the undergrowth; colourful birds whirred into the sky. "They are near," whispered our tracker, Naftal Petro, as clouds of tsetse fly swarmed around us in the stifling African bush. "We must wait and see if they come. They will decide if they want us to know them." Andrew with Gonga, whose ancient tribe could soon perish After a four-day quest covering thousands of miles by light aircraft, Land Rover and, finally, on foot, we knew we were on the brink of an unforgettable experience ? the chance to reach back in time and meet our living human ancestors from countless millennia ago. We waited in silence. Suddenly, shadows of human forms started moving around the bush. The noise of sing-song voices floated towards us. Here, in one of the world's last untouched wildernesses ? the dense bush south of Africa's Rift Valley where the first humans emerged upright more than two million years ago ? a group of men from the mysterious Stone Age tribe were ready to make their introductions. Draped in animal skins and carrying arrows tipped with poison, two slim, wiry characters walked slowly towards us in the clearing. Time has stood still for these men ? two of an estimated 400 remaining survivors of the Hadzabe tribe ? whose way of life has scarcely changed since human evolution began. These nomadic hunter-gatherers live as all humans once lived: wandering the plains with the changing seasons, killing game for survival, constantly avoiding aggressive wild beasts, and, finally, dying as they were born ? under the sun and the stars. They meet other humans only a handful of times in their entire lives. This was one of those rare occasions. The men shouted greetings to us in clicks and whistles ? their sole form of language, which, although it sounds basic, is capable of expressing complete thoughts and concepts. They had been out hunting with bows, and rested them alongside their arrows against a fallen tree. I introduced myself and Naftal translated my words into clicks and whistles to an older Hadza called Gonga (Good Hunter in Swahili). He smiled warmly, revealing surprisingly well-kept teeth. But his response was startling: "You are welcome here. But please tell your people how things are for the Hadzabe. Please do not add things and please do not take things away. Please just tell the world that we are dying." More than wild animals or sleeping sickness, what Gonga fears is that rich men with guns and helicopters from the 'new world' are about to arrive on his doorstep, spelling the end for a tribe that, with the exception of headhunters in remote parts of Papua New Guinea, represent the only bridge between modern and ancient man. The Hadzabe tribe live a life unchanged for thousands of years It is the modern story ? of clashes between people from the first world eager to exploit Africa, whatever the cost to ancient customs, and the desperate battle by the world's few remaining indigenous people to survive. Once numbering more than 10,000, the Hadzabe are the last huntergatherers on the African continent, where 'homo habilis' (the forerunner of modern man) first emerged more than two million years ago. It is only in the past 12,000 years that man has managed to domesticate animals and grow crops. Before that, we all lived like the Hadza. To the dismay of anthropologists and champions of the Earth's remaining tribal people, two wealthy Arab princes, who have made billions from oil and gas in the United Arab Emirates, are negotiating with the Tanzanian government to buy the Hadzabe's ancient lands to use as their own private hunting grounds. To them, it's just another commercial deal ? and a chance to kill wild animals. But to the Stone Age tribesmen, it would spell the end. In return for the dubious pleasure of shooting lion, leopard, buffalo and elephant, Crown Prince Hamdan bin Zayed (the UAE's deputy prime minister) and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed (deputy supreme commander of the air force) want the Hadza evicted from the area to prevent them competing for game. As bait, they are offering to pay the impoverished East African country a reported ?30million, and have offered to build private homes, hospitals and schools for the displaced tribe. The Tanzanian government supports the plan and, for years, has considered the Hadzabe an embarrassment ? 'a backward people who should be living decently in proper houses'. The Dubai princes have also pledged to pay Tanzania a 'tax' of ?5,000 for each animal killed. But apart from removing one of the world's last tribes, the Arabs will likely bring their ruthless hunting habits to the bush. For example, royal big game hunters from Dubai were accused five years ago of starting fires along ancient migration routes used by animals on their way into the famous Serengeti wildlife park, in a bid to drive them onto land which they have already leased in a separate deal and where they could be shot. There have also been allegations ? never refuted ? that a private airstrip large enough for cargo planes had been carved out of the bush to let the princes and their guests airlift vast quantities of skins and trophies out of Africa to decorate their Gulf state homes. For these men, money is the main weapon. But for tribesman Gonga, hunting in an area 200 miles from the nearest village, his weapon of choice is a wooden bow with a string made from giraffe tendons, which he raises to his eye while crouched behind the twisted roots of an ancient baobab tree. Pulling back the string, he held the 100lb tension for ten seconds, making sure of his aim before firing. The arrow sped away, striking a bird (a Crested Francolin ? similar to a grouse) 30 yards away. As it twitched and fluttered, he ran to collect it and cut off its head. A small child emerged from a nearby hut, grabbed the carcass and scampered off to hand it over to be prepared for supper. Gonga sat back by the fire and told how, with the exception of elephants, he had killed every species of animal, including lions and leopards. "Only when I am sleeping, I am not a hunter. I am a hunter all the time I am awake. That is what I am and who I am. I kill animals for meat." For 24 hours, I had the privilege of being one of only a handful of westerners to have experienced how the original Hadza live, eating with them and spending the night in their camp as they spoke of the deep meaning of their lives ? one said he had heard from other tribes, whom he encountered only once a year, that the modern world was falling to pieces. Gonga lives with his family ? his two wives, his mother, an aunt, his son and his wife, and five grandchildren ? near Lake Eyasi, south of the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater parks, where western tourists pay up to $1,000 a day to view the animals. Accessible only by driving along dried out river beds and through seemingly impenetrable scrub for hours, the Yaida Valley is home to all manner of game, ranging from the smallest squirrels to herds of giraffe, elephant and armies of deadly soldier ants. The Hadza women and children had been nearby when we arrived, collecting wild vegetables and tubers from surrounding scrubland, and cautiously came up to introduce themselves. Matayo, the youngest of Gonga's five grandchildren, was particularly perplexed by my presence. Aged around three (the Hadza don't count years), he didn't understand why my skin was white. He gently took my little finger in his hand, then started rubbing it, as if trying to clean it, seemingly baffled that black skin was not underneath. "He thinks you are hurt," said Philimon, his father. "He thinks you have scraped away your own skin. He thinks that you must be in pain. He doesn't understand that you have a different colour of skin." Matayo wandered off. The children tumbled around in the dust, laughing and playing, while they waited for food the women were cooking on tree branches. The sun was slipping below the horizon; embers from the fire flickered in the dusk, turning the dancing children into tiny silhouettes. This scene must have happened unchanged, every day, for centuries. The men eat separately, after a day's hunting. Often disguised under animal skins as they wait for passing prey, they then leap out and shoot their poisoned arrows. They sometimes hide under meat, pouncing on vultures when they land. They are also expert fire-makers, taking less than 30 seconds to light some kindling by rubbing two pieces of wood together until sparks ignite it. They come and go as they like, disappearing for days on end during hunting expeditions. Bahatia, Lea, Ngwalu and Rachu ? the four women ? do all the rest of the work: preparing the meat, looking after the children, collecting roots and berries, building the camps, cleaning the huts, skinning animals and doing the cooking. They must have sex with the men on demand; they cannot refuse. "We are happy as long as we have meat," said Bahatia, prodding the fire. "We are all equal here ? we have as much say in things as the men. They cannot do anything unless we agree. It is all fair ? they are good hunters and we look after the children." All ages contribute to Hadza life. By the time they were toddlers, Matayo and his siblings were being taken with the women to learn how to identify roots and plants. When he is ten, Matayo will have been taught how to shoot small animals such as birds, squirrels and hares. He will be given a bigger six-foot bow at a ceremony. "To become a man, he must kill a lion," said Philimon, Gonga's son. In the rainy season, the family retreat to caves in the valley, which have been used for thousands of years. In the dry season, they move camp every two or three weeks, leaving behind only animal bones and feathers. James Woodburn, the Cambridge anthropologist who published the definitive work on the Hadzabe more than 30 years ago, discovered that the men hunt as a group only in exceptional circumstances. In search of baboon meat, men from different camps join forces to hunt the fierce primates. The Hadza are opportunist hunters. Operating solo, they eat most animals, except reptiles, and they are lovers of honey, braving huge swarms of bees to steal combs from high up in baobab trees. "The bees get our blood ? we get their honey," laughed Philimon. "It is fair exchange." Gonga, whose sole contact with the 'white' world has been a handful of encounters with anthropologists, priests and explorers, looked up at the night sky. "Is it true you have lost men in the stars?" he asked. While the Hadzabe like to live alone, they periodically come across other tribes and travellers in the bush, who tell them what is happening in the world and trade tobacco in return for animal skins. Told that a craft had exploded on a space mission, Gonga was puzzled about why anyone would want to go there. "You would fall off the moon and the stars if you got there," he said. "They are too small to stand on. We have lived a pure life since creation," said Gonga. "But we hear bad things about the modern world. The people there are confused, they want more and more. But that's not happiness. We, the Hadza on this earth, believe the life we have is enough for us. We are always happy ? as long as we have meat and honey." But what of their souls? Missionaries have made attempts over the past century to bring Christianity to the Hadza. But they all failed. The tribe worship their own God ? Hine, whose skin is black and who the Hadzabe believe is responsible for all creation. "Our God is miraculous," said Philimon. "Our people don't die. They come back somewhere else ? far away in distant lands. But the Hadza must not start misbehaving, or Hine will be angry." The plan by the Arabs to buy their land is all the more ironic: the Hadza have no concept of private property, roaming unchecked for thousands of years alongside the animals they hunt. Nevertheless, the Tanzanian government has repeatedly tried to 'tame' the Hadza, building houses and trying to teach them to grow crops. One attempt to resettle them ended when a dozen perished when they were forced into modern homes. "They just rotted inside and died," said Charles Ngereza, a tribal expert. After another bid to clear them off the land, ten Hadza died in police custody. Naftal, our translator, who was educated at a church school after being 'liberated' from the bush by missionaries, is campaigning to raise awareness of the tribe's plight, but faces a five-year jail sentence for allegedly 'causing a disturbance' during one protest. "I will never stop because this is my motherland," he says. "I am the only educated person in this society. The Arabs will just come and kill all the animals. And that means the Hadza will die." The tribe is already perishing. Numbers have declined rapidly in recent years. As the new threat looms, Tatoga herders are moving in, pushing the Hadza farther back into their 4,500-square-mile - territory. Some tour companies have been criticised for offering tourist trips to visit the Hadzas, who have moved into settlements after giving up their hunting ways to live off holidaymakers' dollars. As a result, alcoholism and drug abuse has become rife among them. Such a life is not for Gonga. "Look at the happiness we have," he said after dinner, lighting the wild tobacco in his tubular stone pipe with a twig from the fire. "All we want to do is live in peace and hunt for meat. We don't want to fight anyone. We just want to be left alone on our land." While the UAE Embassy in London refused to comment on the princes' hunting plans, groups fighting for indigenous people condemned their safari scheme. "We owe the Hadzabe the chance to perpetuate their way of life,' says Oxfam. 'In their ancient simplicity, they have a huge amount to teach us in our allconsuming age." As I said farewell, I knew that the memory of my time with Gonga and his family would stay with me. Who could fail to be moved by sitting around a fire on a starlit night in the African bush, chatting to members of an ancient tribe who take us to the very roots of our past. Yet there is no place for sentiment in the natural world. As Gonga instinctively knows, the weak seldom survive in Africa. "If any one species does not become modified and improved in a corresponding degree with its competitors, it will soon be exterminated," wrote Charles Darwin in The Origin Of Species, under the heading Natural Selection. Whether they are driven off their land by the petro-dollars of Arab princes, forced into 'modern' homes by the Tanzanian government, or corrupted with cash and alcohol as a result of performing for tourists, you sense that time is running out for the Hadzabe. "Our voices will never be heard," said Gonga. "Tell the world we are dying. Tell the world we want to live." Without help, there will be no shadows in the bush for much longer. Matayo and his brother and sisters may be the last Hadza children to dance round the fire in the deep of the African night. Soon, there may be only ghosts in the Yaida Valley, and a unique way of life will be replaced for ever by the sound of guns bought with Arab gold. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 114827 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 73747 bytes Desc: not available URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 23 05:32:31 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 22:32:31 -0700 Subject: DVD to help keep Six Nations language alive (fwd) Message-ID: DVD to help keep Six Nations language alive Susan Gamble Monday, July 23, 2007 - 07:00 http://tinyurl.com/3cv93w Local News - An accomplished storyteller and poetry-reader, Six Nations? Mona Staats is clearly determined to leave behind more than just fading memories of her voice. Well-known for her public prayers in her native language, her readings of Pauline Johnson?s poems and her telling of the legends and culture of the Six Nations people, Staats -- now 79 -- has worked to create items of substance that can continue to carry her message. At age 75 she developed a book which she ensured was placed in local libraries and schools. Paying for the book herself, Staats collected chapters about the area clans, native remedies and directions on making maple syrup. Each Six Nations school got a copy of Sago 2005 and it was sold in the Chiefswood Museum. The book was updated in 2006. Now, Staats using modern techniques to capture on DVD the poetry of Pauline Johnson, the famed daughter of Chiefswood mansion -- now a museum on Highway 54. She was participating in the first taping session over the weekend, reading poems in various suitable settings such as outside the museum and in a 20-foot canoe on the Grand River, provided by the local Aka:we Canoe Club. ?This is my project. It?s important because I?m going to distribute it in the schools to help promote poetry and short-story writing.? Once that?s done, the DVD will also be for sale to the general public. Dressed in the traditional native outfit favoured by Pauline Johnson -- including a bear claw necklace -- Staats has recited poems such as The Song My Paddle Sings, Bird?s Lullaby, Workworn and Lullaby of the Iroquois for the video. ?This might complete my vision,? Staats said. Through the years she has instructed groups in native ways ranging from food and stories to games and dancing. Thousands of people have passed through her cabin and sat by her fire. She was nominated for The Expositor?s Citizen of the Year in 2002. A diabetic, Staats said she is still in good health. ?I was at the doctor the other day and he said I have a lot of years ahead of me yet,? said Staats. ?I said ?Write that down for me.?? From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Mon Jul 23 14:21:04 2007 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 07:21:04 -0700 Subject: ipod recording In-Reply-To: <202E9095E570BB429EEF852654955F919CCA2F@EXCHCL2.uleth.ca> Message-ID: Good point, This discussion raises a question worth addressing: Even if the purposes of recording an Indigenous language might not require the best quality recordings right now, it might matter later. Because of the extreme language endangerment, taking time to use the best type of recording formats is worth it ...possibly for someone in the future. The ultimate source of knowledge about some of these languages may not be from carefully archived collections, but from random material collected by individuals (as many of us now working with language documentation have learned; community folks often have a rich store of personal language tapes, etc. sitting at home because someone just wanted to record a relative or friend. As the languages become seriously endangered, these things come forth and do become part of the archival record). I recorded oral history in an Indigenous language almost forty years ago, not having much of a vision of what that work might be used for today. Because I was encouraged at the time to use the very best German made reel-to-reel recording equipment, the data (now being analyzed for linguistic purposes) is still quite good (considering ...yikes... how long ago they were done). Just a thought... Susan On 7/22/07, Rosen, Nicole wrote: > > I've also recorded using the ipod voice memo feature with an external > Belkin microphone adapter with microphone as well, and it was perfectly > adequate and very easy, unless of course you want to do serious phonetic > analysis. I'm not sure whether the new ipods allow you to do this anymore, > though - the input doesn't seem to be the same. I'm no ipod expert, however > - I just know it worked for me for simple recordings with my 2 year old > ipod. > Nicole > > ********************************************** > Nicole Rosen > Assistant Professor, Department of Modern Languages > University of Lethbridge > 4401 University Drive > Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada T1K 3M4 > Office B532, University Hall > tel. 403.329.5122 > nicole.rosen at uleth.ca > > ________________________________ > > From: Indigenous Languages and Technology on behalf of ILAT automatic > digest system > Sent: Sun 7/22/2007 1:01 AM > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > Subject: ILAT Digest - 20 Jul 2007 to 21 Jul 2007 (#2007-129) > > > > There is 1 message totalling 108 lines in this issue. > > Topics of the day: > > 1. ipod recording > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 07:05:05 -0700 > From: Andre Cramblit > Subject: ipod recording > > Does this work???? > > > On Jul 20, 2007, at 12:42 PM, annie ross wrote: > > hi friends > > i was just in the field and used an ipod to record interviews (sound =20 > only). > > i purchased a microphone for the ipod from ebay. the microphone is =20 > called > 'bilkin tune talk stereo" and cost 70.00 US $.=09 > > from there, i downloaded the files. actually, itunes (on the mac) > automatically downloaded it to the computer as a voice memo. > then it converted itself to an mp3 file. > > it was so quick and amazing... > > i don't know if this is archival enough for anyone but it worked for me. > > annie > -- ____________________________________________________________ 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 Acquisition & 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: From anggarrgoon at GMAIL.COM Mon Jul 23 16:33:54 2007 From: anggarrgoon at GMAIL.COM (Claire Bowern) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 11:33:54 -0500 Subject: ipod recording In-Reply-To: <202E9095E570BB429EEF852654955F919CCA2F@EXCHCL2.uleth.ca> Message-ID: A sociolinguist I know recently started work on documenting variation in a US city. She was talking to a sociologist who had demographic data on the city for the past 40 years or so, and he mentioned that he'd been doing in depth interviews with a cross-section of the population for the last few years. The interviews were all "digitally" recorded and transcribed, and there was about 150 hours of speech there. *However*, since the interviews were recorded with mp3 recorders, all those data were useless for the sociolinguistics research, and the project has to start from scratch. If the sociologists had used an uncompressed format, it wouldn't have mattered much to them, but would have made all the difference to the linguistics project, and would have saved a heap of time. This is English, so it's not hard to recreate the sample base (just time-consuming), but if it had been an endangered language, it would have severely limited the utility of the corpus in a way that we just can't afford, given how few people work on most languages. Claire From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 23 20:56:25 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 13:56:25 -0700 Subject: ipod recording In-Reply-To: <46A4D872.8030308@gmail.com> Message-ID: More on the ubiquitous iPod...here are several articles worth looking at regarding its use as a language learning tool. EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES Going to the MALL: Mobile Assisted Language Learning George M. Chinnery Language Learning & Technology Vol. 10, No. 1, January 2006, pp. 9-16 http://llt.msu.edu/vol10num1/emerging/default.html iPod in Education: The Potential for Language Acquisition Jeff McQuillan Fall 2006 http://e2t2.binghamton.edu/pdfs/iPod_Lang_Acquisition_whitepaper.pdf Just quickly sampled from a google search, thanks to annie for pointing these out. Phil UofA From nwarner at U.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 24 07:28:51 2007 From: nwarner at U.ARIZONA.EDU (Natasha L Warner) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 00:28:51 -0700 Subject: ipod recording In-Reply-To: <46A4D872.8030308@gmail.com> Message-ID: Hi, before we totally write off all compressed data that already exists, let's think twice. Sure, if you're choosing at the beginning of a project, it's probably far better to just record uncompressed in the first place. But if data exists that was recorded in a compressed format, that doesn't make it useless, it depends greatly on what you're going to be measuring. Pitch, for example, is extremely robust, even under atrocious recording conditions and with poor equipment. One of the few things that will make pitch unmeasurable is overlapping voices (or other periodic sound sources) where the one you're trying to measure is not substantially louder than the others. But considering that you can measure pitch even with shocking amounts of background noise, or an extremely clipped signal, I'd be surprised if you couldn't measure it pretty reliably on mp3 data. On the other hand, if you want to measure voice quality (creaky voice, breathy voice, etc.), then you need to know that you have a really reliable recording that didn't mess with the spectral tilt. But at that point, position of the mic relative to the mouth is also going to be pretty important. A few years ago when the compression at issue was minidiscs, I heard that a few phoneticians, including Ian Maddieson, did a test of compressed vs. uncompressed recordings and couldn't find a difference in any part of the signal they were interested in. They concluded the compression wasn't so bad. Of course, I'd rather know I have uncompressed data so I just don't have to worry about it. But given a choice of using existing compressed data or starting over, I would look at the signal and see what looked measurable and what didn't, keeping the compression in mind. Also, it's worth considering that in many field recording situations, the background noise (whether it's airplanes, construction noise, chickens, kids, crickets, refrigerator hum, a college cafeteria, or a preschool setting--I've run into all of these at least indirectly, for acoustic phonetics work) is going to contribute a whole lot more problems to the signal than the compression creates. And sometimes we do work with data collected over the phone, which limits the signal a lot more than compression does. So my personal approach would be to use a reasonably good headmounted mic, get it as close to the speaker's mouth as possible, make sure any other noise sources are far further from the mic than the speaker's mouth is, and record uncompressed if possible. It would also be nice to have a clearer understanding than I do at this point of just what we lose during the compression. Thanks for the discussion, everyone, Natasha Warner ******************************************************************************* Natasha Warner Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics University of Arizona PO Box 210028 Tucson, AZ 85721-0028 From wjposer at LDC.UPENN.EDU Tue Jul 24 08:59:00 2007 From: wjposer at LDC.UPENN.EDU (William J Poser) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 04:59:00 -0400 Subject: ipod recording In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I don't think that anyone has suggested that existing audio recorded with lossy compression be discarded. The topic has been how to make NEW recordings, and for those lossy compression methods should be avoided since they are both potentially destructive of information and unnecessary. There have been a number of studies of the effects of minidisc compression, and indeed, for most purposes, it is not a problem. However, this doesn't bear on most of the devices under discussion since the algorithm used for minidiscs, known as ATRAC, is not the same as the more common MP3 compression. Bill From rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 24 08:59:25 2007 From: rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudy Troike) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 01:59:25 -0700 Subject: Question re recording on a VCR In-Reply-To: Message-ID: For a long time I've assumed that recordings made with VCRs would provide some of the best quality, since they record in "hi-fi", so long as good microphones are used. About 20 years ago we did some recording using a VHS video camera and bought some good quality microphones (about $150 then) with the intent of being able to record a speaker at a distance. This turned out not to work well, so we wound up using small radio microphones, which gave excellent quality and allowed great flexibility. I haven't checked out Bill Poser's links yet, but he may discuss some of these issues there. I have assumed that it would be possible to attach the microphones directly to the VCR, and even take advantage of the stereo recording capability to record two speakers on separate tracks, with the added advantage that, from what I had read, the hi-fi quality of the recording remained the same at all speeds, allowing up to 8 hours of continuous recording on a single casette, certainly ideal for recording language use in natural settings. However, when I tried this week to put my assumptions to the test, I found somewhat to my surprise that there was no direct input for a microphone on the two VCRs we have, only audio inputs using RCA plugs. Neither was there on the tuner-amplifier I have with all sorts of bells and whistles on it. So I dug out an ancient 1970s-era Pioneer tuner-amplifier with a banana-plug microphone input on the front, and with an adapter, plugged in each of the microphones in turn, connected the amplifier output to the VCR audio input, and tried recording, with no audible result in either case. (I did put a new battery into each of the microphones, and found that they gave very clear recordings when using a small Radio Shack cassette recorder, but of course the audio cassettes are limited to 45 minutes per side, and the quality, while it sounds good and clear, is presumably not "hi-fi".) I am guessing that the problem in trying to use the VCR via the amplifier is that there is a mismatch in the impedence of the microphones, while the cassette recorder matches the input impedence. (Unfortunately, there is no surviving information on the impedence of the microphones themselves.) I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for how to use such microphones to record on a VCR? Thanks, Rudy Troike From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Tue Jul 24 13:40:38 2007 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 06:40:38 -0700 Subject: ipod recording In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks for this, Natasha -- point well taken. The background noise issue is certainly something that field linguists always have to deal with and consider. The bottom line, for endangered language work at least, is still that any recording is better than none. I wouldn't want anyone to wait to have the perfect equipment while letting the perfect opportunity slip away. S. On 7/24/07, Natasha L Warner wrote: > > Hi, > > before we totally write off all compressed data that already exists, let's > think twice. Sure, if you're choosing at the beginning of a project, it's > probably far better to just record uncompressed in the first place. But > if data exists that was recorded in a compressed format, that doesn't make > it useless, it depends greatly on what you're going to be measuring. > Pitch, for example, is extremely robust, even under atrocious recording > conditions and with poor equipment. One of the few things that will make > pitch unmeasurable is overlapping voices (or other periodic sound sources) > where the one you're trying to measure is not substantially louder than > the others. But considering that you can measure pitch even with shocking > amounts of background noise, or an extremely clipped signal, I'd be > surprised if you couldn't measure it pretty reliably on mp3 data. On the > other hand, if you want to measure voice quality (creaky voice, breathy > voice, etc.), then you need to know that you have a really reliable > recording that didn't mess with the spectral tilt. But at that point, > position of the mic relative to the mouth is also going to be pretty > important. > > A few years ago when the compression at issue was minidiscs, I > heard that a few phoneticians, including Ian Maddieson, did a test of > compressed vs. uncompressed recordings and couldn't find a difference in > any part of the signal they were interested in. They concluded the > compression wasn't so bad. Of course, I'd rather know I have uncompressed > data so I just don't have to worry about it. But given a choice of using > existing compressed data or starting over, I would look at the signal and > see what looked measurable and what didn't, keeping the compression in > mind. > > Also, it's worth considering that in many field recording situations, the > background noise (whether it's airplanes, construction noise, chickens, > kids, crickets, refrigerator hum, a college cafeteria, or a preschool > setting--I've run into all of these at least indirectly, for acoustic > phonetics work) is going to contribute a whole lot more problems to the > signal than the compression creates. And sometimes we do work with data > collected over the phone, which limits the signal a lot more than > compression does. So my personal approach would be to use a reasonably > good headmounted mic, get it as close to the speaker's mouth as possible, > make sure any other noise sources are far further from the mic than the > speaker's mouth is, and record uncompressed if possible. It would also be > nice to have a clearer understanding than I do at this point of just what > we lose during the compression. > > Thanks for the discussion, everyone, > > Natasha Warner > > > ******************************************************************************* > Natasha Warner > Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics > University of Arizona > PO Box 210028 > Tucson, AZ 85721-0028 > -- ____________________________________________________________ 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 Acquisition & 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: From dpwiese at AOL.COM Tue Jul 24 16:19:16 2007 From: dpwiese at AOL.COM (Dr. Dorene Wiese) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:19:16 -0400 Subject: Cassette Tape Transfeer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: What programs do researchers recommend for transferring cassette tapes to cds and other formats? Dorene -----Original Message----- From: Natasha L Warner To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Sent: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 2:28 am Subject: Re: [ILAT] ipod recording Hi, before we totally write off all compressed data that already exists, let's think twice. Sure, if you're choosing at the beginning of a project, it's probably far better to just record uncompressed in the first place. But if data exists that was recorded in a compressed format, that doesn't make it useless, it depends greatly on what you're going to be measuring. Pitch, for example, is extremely robust, even under atrocious recording conditions and with poor equipment. One of the few things that will make pitch unmeasurable is overlapping voices (or other periodic sound sources) where the one you're trying to measure is not substantially louder than the others. But considering that you can measure pitch even with shocking amounts of background noise, or an extremely clipped signal, I'd be surprised if you couldn't measure it pretty reliably on mp3 data. On the other hand, if you want to measure voice quality (creaky voice, breathy voice, etc.), then you need to know that you have a really reliable recording that didn't mess with the spectral tilt. But at that point, position of the mic relative to the mouth is also going to be pretty important. A few years ago when the compression at issue was minidiscs, I heard that a few phoneticians, including Ian Maddieson, did a test of compressed vs. uncompressed recordings and couldn't find a difference in any part of the signal they were interested in. They concluded the compression wasn't so bad. Of course, I'd rather know I have uncompressed data so I just don't have to worry about it. But given a choice of using existing compressed data or starting over, I would look at the signal and see what looked measurable and what didn't, keeping the compression in mind. Also, it's worth considering that in many field recording situations, the background noise (whether it's airplanes, construction noise, chickens, kids, crickets, refrigerator hum, a college cafeteria, or a preschool setting--I've run into all of these at least indirectly, for acoustic phonetics work) is going to contribute a whole lot more problems to the signal than the compression creates. And sometimes we do work with data collected over the phone, which limits the signal a lot more than compression does. So my personal approach would be to use a reasonably good headmounted mic, get it as close to the speaker's mouth as possible, make sure any other noise sources are far further from the mic than the speaker's mouth is, and record uncompressed if possible. It would also be nice to have a clearer understanding than I do at this point of just what we lose during the compression. Thanks for the discussion, everyone, Natasha Warner ******************************************************************************* Natasha Warner Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics University of Arizona PO Box 210028 Tucson, AZ 85721-0028 ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From MBuckner at MISSOURISTATE.EDU Tue Jul 24 19:31:27 2007 From: MBuckner at MISSOURISTATE.EDU (Buckner, Margaret L) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:31:27 -0500 Subject: Cassette Tape Transfeer Message-ID: I've had really good luck with the iMic, which imports sound very easily onto a Mac, using the (free) sound-editiing software program, Audacity. I've imported from reels recorded in 1960s on a Uher, and also from cassette tapes. (It took a while to find the right connecting cable for the Uher, but once I found one, it worked great.) The iMic costs about $30. For PCs, others will have to answer... Margie Buckner -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology on behalf of Dr. Dorene Wiese Sent: Tue 7/24/2007 11:19 To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: [ILAT] Cassette Tape Transfeer What programs do researchers recommend for transferring cassette tapes to cds and other formats? Dorene -----Original Message----- From: Natasha L Warner To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Sent: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 2:28 am Subject: Re: [ILAT] ipod recording Hi, before we totally write off all compressed data that already exists, let's think twice. Sure, if you're choosing at the beginning of a project, it's probably far better to just record uncompressed in the first place. But if data exists that was recorded in a compressed format, that doesn't make it useless, it depends greatly on what you're going to be measuring. Pitch, for example, is extremely robust, even under atrocious recording conditions and with poor equipment. One of the few things that will make pitch unmeasurable is overlapping voices (or other periodic sound sources) where the one you're trying to measure is not substantially louder than the others. But considering that you can measure pitch even with shocking amounts of background noise, or an extremely clipped signal, I'd be surprised if you couldn't measure it pretty reliably on mp3 data. On the other hand, if you want to measure voice quality (creaky voice, breathy voice, etc.), then you need to know that you have a really reliable recording that didn't mess with the spectral tilt. But at that point, position of the mic relative to the mouth is also going to be pretty important. A few years ago when the compression at issue was minidiscs, I heard that a few phoneticians, including Ian Maddieson, did a test of compressed vs. uncompressed recordings and couldn't find a difference in any part of the signal they were interested in. They concluded the compression wasn't so bad. Of course, I'd rather know I have uncompressed data so I just don't have to worry about it. But given a choice of using existing compressed data or starting over, I would look at the signal and see what looked measurable and what didn't, keeping the compression in mind. Also, it's worth considering that in many field recording situations, the background noise (whether it's airplanes, construction noise, chickens, kids, crickets, refrigerator hum, a college cafeteria, or a preschool setting--I've run into all of these at least indirectly, for acoustic phonetics work) is going to contribute a whole lot more problems to the signal than the compression creates. And sometimes we do work with data collected over the phone, which limits the signal a lot more than compression does. So my personal approach would be to use a reasonably good headmounted mic, get it as close to the speaker's mouth as possible, make sure any other noise sources are far further from the mic than the speaker's mouth is, and record uncompressed if possible. It would also be nice to have a clearer understanding than I do at this point of just what we lose during the compression. Thanks for the discussion, everyone, Natasha Warner ******************************************************************************* Natasha Warner Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics University of Arizona PO Box 210028 Tucson, AZ 85721-0028 ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Jul 24 20:03:37 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 13:03:37 -0700 Subject: Conference on Call for papers: Conference on Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory (fwd link) Message-ID: Conference on Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory: 75 years of Linguistics at SOAS, 5 years of the Endangered Languages Project 7-8th December 2007 School of Oriental and African Studies, London Call for Papers http://www.hrelp.org/events/conference2007/index.html The deadline for abstract submissions is 17th August 2007. From thien at UNIMELB.EDU.AU Tue Jul 24 21:06:13 2007 From: thien at UNIMELB.EDU.AU (Nicholas Thieberger) Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 07:06:13 +1000 Subject: Cassette Tape Transfeer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: For what it's worth, my experience of digitizing files by myself may be useful. I just connected the computer and the tape recorder and did the work that way, but the files produced by doing this were not great. This is because the analog to digital converter in computers is not very good. But I used Transcriber to link to those files, and then later I had an archive digitize them at the sort of quality they needed, using thebest equipment. So then my Transcriber files didn't link to the better quality files. And since I want my transcriptions to relate to the files that will be around in the long term, I then had to realign my transcripts and audio. The lesson for me is that I should have made the best possible digital version of the cassette to begin with, before I put all the time into transcribing it. And that file has to go into an archive so that it is available for the speakers of the language in future. Nick >I've had really good luck with the iMic, which imports sound very >easily onto a Mac, using the (free) sound-editiing software program, >Audacity. I've imported from reels recorded in 1960s on a Uher, and >also from cassette tapes. (It took a while to find the right >connecting cable for the Uher, but once I found one, it worked >great.) The iMic costs about $30. >For PCs, others will have to answer... > >Margie Buckner -- Project Manager PARADISEC Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics University of Melbourne, Vic 3010 Australia nicholas.thieberger at paradisec.org.au Ph 61 (0)3 8344 5185 PARADISEC Pacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures http://paradisec.org.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From donaghy at HAWAII.EDU Tue Jul 24 21:19:15 2007 From: donaghy at HAWAII.EDU (Keola Donaghy) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 11:19:15 -1000 Subject: Cassette Tape Transfeer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Aloha kakou. One thing to be careful of in converting from cassette and even reel-to-reel is to know what kind of noise reduction, if any, was used during the recording process. Dobly B, Dolby C, and DBX were all popular in their days. It is sometimes best to make sure that you have same NR selected in the digitization process, though I've generally been happier with the results when I have no NR selected on the playback machine. If the tapes aren't marked you may have to make a few digital samples with each type of NR. I've found it fairly easy to recognize when the NR formats are not in alignment by just listening to playback. Keola On 24 Iul. 2007, at 11:06 AM, Nicholas Thieberger wrote: > For what it's worth, my experience of digitizing files by myself > may be useful. I just connected the computer and the tape recorder > and did the work that way, but the files produced by doing this > were not great. This is because the analog to digital converter in > computers is not very good. > > But I used Transcriber to link to those files, and then later I had > an archive digitize them at the sort of quality they needed, using > thebest equipment. So then my Transcriber files didn't link to the > better quality files. And since I want my transcriptions to relate > to the files that will be around in the long term, I then had to > realign my transcripts and audio. > > The lesson for me is that I should have made the best possible > digital version of the cassette to begin with, before I put all the > time into transcribing it. And that file has to go into an archive > so that it is available for the speakers of the language in future. > ======================================================================== Keola Donaghy Assistant Professor of Hawaiian Studies Ka Haka 'Ula O Ke'elikolani keola at leoki.uhh.hawaii.edu University of Hawai'i at Hilo http://www2.hawaii.edu/~donaghy/ "T?r gan teanga, t?r gan anam." (Irish Gaelic saying) A country without its language is a country without its soul. ======================================================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM Tue Jul 24 21:34:28 2007 From: susan.penfield at GMAIL.COM (Susan Penfield) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:34:28 -0700 Subject: Cassette Tape Transfeer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I also like Audacity -- a free download -- and use it with a PC , just running cassette tapes into it. This is a very straight forward way to do it... Ah yes, Margaret -- I remember those Uher recorders (though I think mine was a Wallensach)... S. yes On 7/24/07, Buckner, Margaret L wrote: > > I've had really good luck with the iMic, which imports sound very easily > onto a Mac, using the (free) sound-editiing software program, > Audacity. I've imported from reels recorded in 1960s on a Uher, and also > from cassette tapes. (It took a while to find the right connecting cable > for the Uher, but once I found one, it worked great.) The iMic costs about > $30. > For PCs, others will have to answer... > > Margie Buckner > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Indigenous Languages and Technology on behalf of Dr. Dorene Wiese > Sent: Tue 7/24/2007 11:19 > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > Subject: [ILAT] Cassette Tape Transfeer > > What programs do researchers recommend for transferring cassette tapes to > cds and other formats? > Dorene > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Natasha L Warner > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > Sent: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 2:28 am > Subject: Re: [ILAT] ipod recording > > > > Hi, > > before we totally write off all compressed data that already exists, let's > think twice. Sure, if you're choosing at the beginning of a project, it's > probably far better to just record uncompressed in the first place. But > if data exists that was recorded in a compressed format, that doesn't make > it useless, it depends greatly on what you're going to be measuring. > Pitch, for example, is extremely robust, even under atrocious recording > conditions and with poor equipment. One of the few things that will make > pitch unmeasurable is overlapping voices (or other periodic sound sources) > where the one you're trying to measure is not substantially louder than > the others. But considering that you can measure pitch even with shocking > amounts of background noise, or an extremely clipped signal, I'd be > surprised if you couldn't measure it pretty reliably on mp3 data. On the > other hand, if you want to measure voice quality (creaky voice, breathy > voice, etc.), then you need to know that you have a really reliable > recording that didn't mess with the spectral tilt. But at that point, > position of the mic relative to the mouth is also going to be pretty > important. > > A few years ago when the compression at issue was minidiscs, I > heard that a few phoneticians, including Ian Maddieson, did a test of > compressed vs. uncompressed recordings and couldn't find a difference in > any part of the signal they were interested in. They concluded the > compression wasn't so bad. Of course, I'd rather know I have uncompressed > data so I just don't have to worry about it. But given a choice of using > existing compressed data or starting over, I would look at the signal and > see what looked measurable and what didn't, keeping the compression in > mind. > > Also, it's worth considering that in many field recording situations, the > background noise (whether it's airplanes, construction noise, chickens, > kids, crickets, refrigerator hum, a college cafeteria, or a preschool > setting--I've run into all of these at least indirectly, for acoustic > phonetics work) is going to contribute a whole lot more problems to the > signal than the compression creates. And sometimes we do work with data > collected over the phone, which limits the signal a lot more than > compression does. So my personal approach would be to use a reasonably > good headmounted mic, get it as close to the speaker's mouth as possible, > make sure any other noise sources are far further from the mic than the > speaker's mouth is, and record uncompressed if possible. It would also be > nice to have a clearer understanding than I do at this point of just what > we lose during the compression. > > Thanks for the discussion, everyone, > > Natasha Warner > > > ******************************************************************************* > Natasha Warner > Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics > University of Arizona > PO Box 210028 > Tucson, AZ 85721-0028 > > > ________________________________________________________________________ > AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free > from AOL at AOL.com. > -- ____________________________________________________________ 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 Acquisition & 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: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Jul 25 19:25:16 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 12:25:16 -0700 Subject: LANGUAGE COMMISSION CEO: WE CAN HELP (fwd) Message-ID: LANGUAGE COMMISSION CEO: WE CAN HELP Date: 24 July 2007 http://www.niufm.com/?t=3&View=FullStory&newsID=2226 Auckland 9am: The CEO of Te Taura Whiri says Pacific communities can look to Maori for support in the battle to save indigenous languages. Huhana Rokx says the models they've used to promote te reo in New Zealand are working and that they'd like to share this with communities like Niuean, Tokelauns and the Cook Islands, the three nations most at risk of losing their language. A new survey out yesterday shows more Maori are now able to speak te reo. Rokx says they've already started working with the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs on ways to preserve Pacific languages under threat. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 26 22:15:29 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:15:29 -0700 Subject: Maori TV to set up a 100% Te Reo digital channel (fwd) Message-ID: Maori TV to set up a 100% Te Reo digital channel Posted at 4:17pm on 26 Jul 2007 http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/latest/200707261617/maori_tv_to_set_up_a_100_te_reo_digital_channel Maori Television has announced it is setting up a 100% Te Reo digital channel. The second channel will transmit via the Freeview digital platform and broadcast each day during the prime time hours of 7.30pm to 10.30pm. It will be free of advertising. Maori Television chief executive Jim Mather says the channel will meet the needs of older and more fluent Maori speakers and will ensure the native language survives. The channel is expected to be launched at the beginning of next year. Copyright ? 2007 Radio New Zealand From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 26 22:17:28 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:17:28 -0700 Subject: Google Looks At Maori Language (fwd) Message-ID: Google Looks At Maori Language Submitted by Doug Caverly on Wed, 07/25/2007 - 14:00. http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/07/25/google-looks-at-maori-language Google?s Australian branch is quite proud of the country?s culture and origins. As word spreads about a new project, it seems that Google?s taking a strong interest in New Zealand, as well; the search engine should soon be available in Maori, a language native to the area. Of course, New Zealand?s only about 1,200 miles off Australia?s coast (?only? in the sense there?s not much nearer), so the project sort of makes sense. And as Potaua Biasiny-Tule told Yvonne Tahana for an article in The New Zealand Herald, ?They had Klingon and the Muppets, even Elmer Fudd. We asked ourselves, ?Where was Maori??? You?ll note that Mr. Biasiny-Tule referred to Google as ?they? - he and his wife, who are developing the Maori version of Google, don?t actually work for the company. Tahana reports, ?Google had provided a template but making sure translations lined up with technology-based Maori words, agreeing on common words across different dialects and relying on a team of volunteers? is all up to the Biasiny-Tules. Sounds like a quite an undertaking, eh? There?s no mention of how many volunteers are a part of the team, or when, exactly, a ?final result? can be expected. Tahana does mention, ?The project started about five weeks ago and the first of eight pages will be submitted to Google . . . to coincide with the launch of Maori Language Week.? At this point in time, adjust ?will be? to ?have been.? And keep an eye on Google?s language interface options; you never know when Maori could appear between Maltese and Marathi. Tags: Google, New Zealand, Maori About the Author Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 26 22:20:34 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:20:34 -0700 Subject: Hualapai youth learn language and customs of their culture (fwd) Message-ID: Hualapai youth learn language and customs of their culture Thursday, July 26, 2007 http://www.kingmandailyminer.com/main.asp?SectionID=13&SubSectionID=18&ArticleID=12725&TM=54429.34 KINGMAN - The Haulapai Nation preserve their culture and traditions by passing them on to their children. The 7th Annual Pai Language Immersion Camp being held this week at the Hualapai Mountain Park is designed to accomplish this daunting task. According to Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Loretta Jackson, the camp teaches the youth of the tribe the language, traditional arts and crafts, as well as the cultural background of their tribe. The children wake up at 5:30 a.m. each day to greet the morning. They hike to the highest point of camp to greet the sun and say the morning prayers. Adults of the group teach them a morning girls' song and a morning boys' song. After their hike back to camp and breakfast, the tribal children are divided into groups to learn the Hualapai language. The groups are divided by age and skill level to allow for more effective instruction. During the afternoon, the children are taught traditional arts and crafts. These lessons are always interspersed with language lessons. Lucille Watahomigie, one of several certified teachers leading the camp, taught a group of children how to play Wisdo. Wisdo is a stick game that helps the children learn how to count from one to 10. The game is sort of like "Sorry" and is a good way for them to practice their vocabulary, she said. Beading lessons teach the words for the primary colors. The seed beads, with the assistance of veteran teacher Jorigine Bender, are used to make doll capes for cornhusk dolls the children will make by the end of the week. Bender said they are making smaller versions of ceremonial capes made for the dancers who perform during rituals. Throughout the lessons, language and history are stressed. Jackson said it is important to pass down the lessons history has taught the Hualapai tribe, as well as to pass down the culture. As the modern age continues to plow ahead, culture can get lost very quickly. Survival in the wilderness is taught at the camp as Drake Havatone, Leroy Kopelra and Travis Majenta help the boys make bows and arrows out of tree branches, homemade string and reed arrows. It teaches the children about native plants and their uses. When they grow older, Havatone said, these lessons will help them make a real bow out of oak or hickory for hunting. Cheryle Beecher taught children about the native plants and their traditional uses. Her hope is that they walk away being able to recognize and use at least six plants. Holding this year's immersion camp in the Hualapai Mountains is poignant for the tribe, because it is sacred ground. Elder Delores Honga said their ancestors grew up and lived off this land. Before the Calvary came and killed so many and forced the Hualapai tribe off of their land, the Hualapai Mountains were their home. When the Calvary came, many ancestors were buried in the earth of the mountains. Artifacts and history cover this area, and teaching the youth of today the proper respect is paramount. The camp continues through Friday. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Jul 26 22:28:47 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:28:47 -0700 Subject: Northern Natives Tenacious in Preserving Cultures (fwd) Message-ID: Friday, July 27, 2007. Issue 3708. Page 4. Northern Natives Tenacious in Preserving Cultures By Olesya Dmitracova Reuters http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/07/27/015.html [photo inset - Olesya Dmitracova / Reuters Koryaks performing a traditional song in June in Pimchakh, Kamchatka.] PIMCHAKH, Kamchatka Region -- Listening to enigmatic Koryak-language songs and eating traditional salmon soup and cutlets in this village, it is easy to imagine indigenous cultures still thrive on the Kamchatka Peninsula. In fact, it is only the sheer tenacity of local Koryaks, Itelmens, Evens and other aborigines that keeps centuries-old customs and languages from dying out in the wild Far East after much was eroded by Soviet rule. "Native people must live on. Without them this land will be poor and it will be impossible to bring any meaning to this land," said Vera Koveinik who heads the ethnic community of Pimchakh, 40 kilometers from the regional capital, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. When Russians began settling in Kamchatka in the second half of the 17th century, up to 11,000 Koryaks lived here fishing, herding deer and hunting whale and walrus. Three centuries of pervasive Russian and Soviet influence and intermarriage have left an indelible mark on Kamchatka's Koryaks, who now number around 7,300 -- by far the largest indigenous group on the peninsula. "Everyone of my generation speaks the Koryak language, knows the customs, dances, dishes like in the ancient times. But some of our children don't know anything at all," said folk performer Lidia Chechulina, slightly breathless after dancing to the beat of a deer-skin drum and the music of her own voice. Her songs, sung in a guttural language reminiscent of Chinese, describe the beauty of the tundra, volcanoes and the sea, she explained. She said that songs, one for each person, accompany Koryaks all their lives and act as a charm. "Our parents preserved everything as it was before the [1917] Revolution," said Chechulina, a small, bubbly woman in her 50s. Probably the most effective Soviet assimilation policy was that of forcibly putting Koryak children in state-run boarding schools to teach them the Russian language and customs. "The Soviet culture was imposed on them," said Andrei Samar, a researcher at the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the People of the Far East. Since the children came back home only once or twice a year, he said, they knew very little about their native culture let alone traditional skills such as the difficult and dangerous trade of hunting at sea. Some of those children, now adults, and their parents are actively working to revive indigenous cultures. A large number of schools offer classes in the Koryak and other aboriginal languages as an extracurricular activity, and families observe ancient holidays. There are also efforts to expand deer herding in regions where it is dwindling rapidly. The Pimchakh community organizes summer camps in the village where children learn about ancient traditions and do crafts. The regional government says it runs cultural programs and also provides financial aid for ethnic communities. But Koveinik said there were no signs in Kamchatka in any of the indigenous languages and no monuments to celebrate the aboriginal culture and history. "The government probably helps somehow. I don't know, I wouldn't say so," said Chechulina, wearing a traditional suede-and-fur overcoat, a headdress made of beads and soft leather boots meant to protect from moss and mosquitoes in the tundra. Hardly any aborigines wear such costumes every day and many are university-educated, but the way they talk retains traces of their ancient spirituality rooted in the shamanism that is still practiced. Pimchakh leader Koveinik, an Itelmen, told the audience after the community ensemble's performance that they were privileged. "You are today the richest people, you've received so much power and energy," she said. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sun Jul 29 16:36:10 2007 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 09:36:10 -0700 Subject: Online Karuk Language Class - Registration Now Open Message-ID: Reply-To: sgehr at karuk.us ayuk?i! I am pleased to announce that we are now taking registrations for the first ever online Karuk language class. Some of you have expressed interest in signing up for the class in the past. Please confirm that you will be participating in the class by returning the requested information below as soon as possible. The class will start on Monday, August 13th and run until Saturday, September 29th. Every week there will be a lesson with written, audio and video lessons. There will also be several telephone conference calls for students to participate in. This first session is limited to 25 students. If you end up on the waiting list for this class, don?t worry. We will be running the class at least two more times over the following year. The class is free, but you must register for the class by sending me the following information. Return the registration information to me at sgehr at karuk.us ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------- Karuk Online Language Class Registration Form Name: Mailing Address: City: State: Zip: Day Phone: Evening Phone: Email: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------- y?otva, -- Susan Gehr Karuk Language Program Director Karuk Tribe of California PO Box 1016, Happy Camp, CA 96039 (800) 505-2785 x2205 NEW FAX # (530) 493-1658 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jul 29 17:06:55 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 10:06:55 -0700 Subject: Tlingit curriculum employs technology in classroom (fwd) Message-ID: Tlingit curriculum employs technology in classroom (Published: July 29, 2007) http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/9173974p-9090480c.html Every public school district in Southeast Alaska has been provided with a new tool to teach the Tlingit language at a time when the number of fluent speakers is dwindling. The first broad Tlingit language and culture curriculum was co-produced by Sealaska Heritage Institute and the Juneau School District. "It's designed to put resources in the hands of teachers who aren't necessarily cultural experts or language teachers so they can learn along with their students," said Yarrow Vaara, Tlingit language specialist for the institute. The curriculum uses technology to help engage the students in learning, Vaara said. Along with binders of text covering the 18 units, audio components and interactive vocabulary games are included. "This curriculum has a particular language focus that is unique that is also addressing the academic standards," she said. "We're merging technology with the different focuses, too." The curriculum is the result of a three-year project funded by two grants from the U.S. Department of Education. The lessons were field-tested by several Juneau teachers in 2005 and 2006 prior to being sent to other school districts. Vaara said the district's Tlingit immersion program spawned the project. "We quickly realized that in order for that to be a successful program, they needed the resources and materials to use in the classroom," she said. "Just because someone can speak Tlingit doesn't mean they can teach it." The curriculum is designed for beginning speakers and aimed at kindergarten to second grade but can be used as a tool to teach any age. -- The Associated Press From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Jul 29 16:57:14 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 09:57:14 -0700 Subject: Keeping tribal languages alive (fwd) Message-ID: Keeping tribal languages alive Saturday, July 28, 2007 10:02 PM PDT By DOMINIKA MASLIKOWSKI The Daily News http://www.mohavedailynews.com/articles/2007/07/29/news/top_story/top1.txt [photo inset - JEFF MANGUM/The Daily News LANGUAGE LESSON: Joe Scerato teaches a class about the Mojave language in Needles.] NEEDLES - In a small modular home surrounded by a dirt parking lot, Joe Scerato works to preserve an endangered language spoken for centuries by the Mojave Indians. His crowded office at Aha Macav Cultural Preservation is filled with pottery wheels, beads and fabric used to sew ribbon dresses. Currently, he's the department's director and its sole Mojave language instructor. When he was growing up, Scerato's foster parents spoke Mojave exclusively in their home. It was all he heard on the reservation - the language was a part of the tribe's culture, something that preserved their identity and made them unique. But now - over the course of Scerato's lifetime - Mojave has gone from a familiar sound that was often heard to a dying language spoken mostly by a few tribal elders. It's rarely taught to children. And as the years pass and more elders die off, the language risks being wiped out completely. ?Now you can go to a person's house and you don't even hear one word, unless it's an elder,? Scerato said. ?Things became more accessible and there's people moving away and coming back (who) are not being a part of the language.? Scerato estimates up to 60 members of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe understand Mojave fluently and about 20 percent of the Tribe speak it at some level, but the fluent speakers don't always practice the language and sometimes reply in English when they're addressed in Mojave. ?I would hope that some of the older people that understand it would start speaking it because a lot of those people are grandparents,? Scerato said. ?We're getting further and further away from the language itself.? The cultural preservation department offers three classes a day in basic Mojave for children age 5-16 during its summer program. But although language classes have been offered for the past five years, there are fewer available now than before. Since instructor Betty Barrackman's recent death there are no more evening classes and classroom space in the modular home is limited. In his language classes for children, Scerato has students working out of coloring books with the Mojave word and its English translation written below pictures of foods or animals. He listens to their pronunciation and, once the students learn enough words, he uses their vocabulary to build sentences. They take the copied booklets home to practice. ?We try to help them with some of the history of the tribe so when they go somewhere they have a knowledge of their culture and the reservation so they know who they are,? he said. ?It's our identity.? He says younger children grasp the language much faster, while teens or adults are often embarrassed when they can't say a word. The biggest challenge is the rolling Spanish R sound that's hard to pronounce for someone who hasn't taken Spanish in school or grown up speaking Mojave. Because the language is passed down orally and has no alphabet, Mojave words are written phonetically using the English alphabet. Some words for items the Mojave people didn't have, like apples, are based on how elders pronounced the English word (appuleh), while others, like orange, are named after how the fruit sounds when it's eaten (scho 'cow.) It's not known how old the language is or how many words it contains, Scerato said, because it once had three different dialects when the Mojave Indians lived scattered along the Colorado River in the 1920s and '30s. The dialects merged when the Mojave people began living in one concentrated area on the reservation. Now, Scerato says he can go to Peach Springs, Yuma or different rancheros in California, and the dialects are similar enough to Mojave for him to understand. A linguist once developed a dictionary of the language in the 1990s, but Scerato said the book is questionable because some dialects have different versions of the same word. But the dictionary does have merits, Scerato said, because it lists words for things like wood chips or insect types that were common in older times but have passed out of modern vocabulary. It's reading the forgotten words of his ancestors that gives Scerato a sense of the past and connection with history. ?You get almost a feel of what it was like,? he said. Preserving the language hasn't been easy for the tribe. Other tribes like the Hualapais, who live north of Kingman near the Grand Canyon National Park, have preserved their language because they've had the advantage of being isolated. There are no nearby towns and there's little need for interaction with those outside the tribe. But the Mojave Indians live near Bullhead City, Laughlin and in Needles. Scerato said their daily needs don't center around tribal lands and the language is slowly disappearing. ?It's like we're losing a part of our history and our tradition,? he said. ?Once you lose the language, you're assimilated into the general population. You don't have uniqueness anymore and you're speaking English or Spanish like everybody else.? Yet Scerato remains hopeful. He's encouraged by compliments he's received from parents who send their children to his language classes. One said their child carries his coloring book with Mojave words everywhere and practices them all the time. ?(Parents) are glad their kids are coming,? he said. ?They wish they had those classes growing up because their parents didn't speak Mojave in their home.? KEEPING LANGUAGES ALIVE Scerato isn't alone in his efforts to preserve an American Indian language - he's joined by grass-roots organizations, university departments and language institutes who also fight to keep indigenous languages alive and protect cultural identity. The Yuman Language Family Summit is an annual gathering that brings representatives together from Colorado River Indian Tribes to discuss ways of preserving their languages. There are discussions on programs that pair Mojave children with tribal teachers and ways to create an environment for language immersion. ?We have to have the language used every day and spoken so people can pick it up,? said Lucille Watahomigie, summit participant and director of education for the Hualapai Tribe. ?It doesn't have to be taught. It can be acquired just by being in the environment where the language is used.? At the University of Arizona, the American Indian Language Development Institute works to train language teachers on how to use immersion and modern technology to encourage younger people to learn their language. This year, the institute hopes to focus on grant-writing for indigenous populations and skills in documenting languages for preservation. The university and the Colorado River Indian Tribe have a collaborative grant to document both Mojave and Chemehuevi, both considered extremely endangered, and to train tribal members in linguistics, data collection and archiving. Susan Penfield, the principal investigator on the grant, says dying American Indian languages are part of a larger world language crisis where by best estimates the planet loses one language every two weeks. And when a language is lost, she said, so are the warehouses of knowledge that are carried in its expressions, words and phrases. Linguists estimate there were once between 750 to 1,000 indigenous languages spoken in what's now the United States, says Philip Klasky, professor of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State University. Today, about 50 of those languages remain and 80 percent are no longer taught. ?We all, as human beings, interpret the world around us through language and each language does this in a unique way. Losing even one language does not just impact the speakers of that language but hurts all of us and destroys - particularly in the case of native languages where there is no written record - huge volumes of knowledge and systems of cognition,? Penfield said. ?Imagine how much information is included in a set of encyclopedias and realize that every language holds at least 10 times that much knowledge.? Klasky said Native American languages are a rich library of information on stewardship of the environment, animals and the medicinal purposes of plants. They're also carriers of a tribe's identity that hold untranslatable concepts and words with no equivalents in the English language. ?When you lose a language you lose all this incredible knowledge,? Klasky said. ?Who knows how many medicines exist in these languages that we may lose?? Klasky has been working with the Mojave Indians for the past 17 years and continues to aid the tribe in preserving their sacred songs, which he says are essential in passing down language. As director of the Storyscape Project, Klasky aims to protect ancestral lands and preserve and revitalize endangered stories and songs. In 2000, Klasky helped Llewellyn and Betty Barrackman, late elders of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, to transfer reel-to-reel tapes made in the 1970s to digital format. Now the stories, songs and languages of the tribe are preserved in University of California archives at Berkeley and Davis. A year later Klasky recorded Llewellyn Barrackman as he translated Mojave creation songs into English. The creation songs - a 525-song cycle - include practical maps used by the Mojaves to cross the desert, stories of the death of God Mutavilya and journeys of legendary figures. In the recordings, Barrackman first describes the song in Mojave, sings it in proto-Mojave (a language older than the spoken version) and then it is translated into English. ?You can make that comparison, you can see the roots of words and understand the words being spoken,? Klasky said. ?For many indigenous languages, where there are fewer and fewer speakers left, these tapes are invaluable.? THE NEXT GENERATION Watahomigie says out of 2,000 Hualapai tribal members, about 60 percent understand the Hualapai language and 30 percent speak it fluently. But younger members hardly speak it anymore, and they're the ones Watahomigie targets to keep the language alive. The Hualapais, along with two other tribes who speak similar languages, recently offered a five-day language camp in the Hualapai mountains attended by nearly 80 children from beginners to fluent speakers. There was no English spoken - or at least as little as possible - in an attempt to immerse the students in the language and get them to pick it up through listening to their elders and teachers. ?The language is a gift that was given to us. We feel that when you have a gift you don't disrespect it and leave it laying around. You take care of it,? Watahomigie said. ?A lot of our youth who don't have their culture are lost. They don't know who they are, they don't know their past or their history or their lineage. We feel the most important aspect of a person is their identity because when they have that they have the self-respect.? The camp offers crafts in the afternoons and evening activities like pow wows and traditional dances. Tribal elders stay in cabins while children camp out in traditional tents. There are daily language lessons before lunch and talking circles where each person says what they're thankful for. In the mornings, the children are woken up before dawn and follow their elders along dirt trails to greet the sunrise from the mountain tops. ?(Our tribal council is) looking for healing, looking for ways to combat our drugs and alcoholism,? Watahomigie said. ?This is one of the most important things that they want us to preserve - the language and culture.? From hsouter at GMAIL.COM Sun Jul 29 21:11:02 2007 From: hsouter at GMAIL.COM (Heather Souter) Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 16:11:02 -0500 Subject: Online Karuk Language Class - Registration Now Open In-Reply-To: <74C7E1DB-F0F1-4714-A713-B6B552B7DB5E@ncidc.org> Message-ID: Ayuk?i, Taanshi, Susan, How are you doing? It looks like you are really moving forward with your Karuk langauge learning resources! That's great! If you have time, II would love to hear more about your on-line course. It sounds VERY exciting! Y?otva, Kihchi-marsii, thanks! Heather On 7/29/07, Andre Cramblit wrote: > > > Reply-To: sgehr at karuk.us > > ayuk?i! > > I am pleased to announce that we are now taking registrations for > the first ever online Karuk language class. > > Some of you have expressed interest in signing up for the class in > the past. Please confirm that you will be participating in the class > by returning the requested information below as soon as possible. > > The class will start on Monday, August 13th and run until Saturday, > September 29th. Every week there will be a lesson with written, > audio and video lessons. There will also be several telephone > conference calls for students to participate in. > > This first session is limited to 25 students. If you end up on the > waiting list for this class, don't worry. We will be running the > class at least two more times over the following year. > > The class is free, but you must register for the class by sending me > the following information. Return the registration information to me > at sgehr at karuk.us > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > ------- > Karuk Online Language Class > > Registration Form > > > > Name: > > > > Mailing Address: > > City: > > State: > > Zip: > > > > Day Phone: > > Evening Phone: > > > > Email: > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > ------- > > > > > > y?otva, > > -- > > Susan Gehr > > Karuk Language Program Director > > Karuk Tribe of California > > PO Box 1016, Happy Camp, CA 96039 > > (800) 505-2785 x2205 NEW FAX # (530) 493-1658 > > > > From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 30 17:31:26 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:31:26 -0700 Subject: Cocopah language class seeks to keep ancient tongue from dying out (fwd) Message-ID: Cocopah language class seeks to keep ancient tongue from dying out BY DARIN FENGER, SUN STAFF WRITER July 29, 2007 - 8:51PM http://www.yumasun.com/articles/language_35558___article_news.html/cocopah_tribe.html [photo inset - JOE RODRIQUEZ teaches the proper way to pronounce a series of Cocopah words during a recent language class at the Cocopah West Reservation.] JOE RODRIQUEZ teaches the proper way to pronounce a series of Cocopah words during a recent language class at the Cocopah West Reservation. Bingo may help rescue an ancient language from the brink of extinction. Cocopah Indian Tribe elders, educators and cultural authorities are struggling to preserve the tribe's dying language. "We don't want to be like those tribes you hear about where they have no language speakers or recordings," said Felicia Gutierrez, a language preservation specialist for the tribe. "Today we don't know our language as much. It could be extinct pretty soon, so we just want to revive it." The Cocopah Museum, which develops cultural programming for the tribe, began offering language classes to children nine years ago. Classes this summer mark the first time the opportunity has been extended to adult tribal members, as well as nonnatives who work for the tribe. Playing a language-version of bingo during those classes seems to be slowly breathing life into words that could have been silenced forever. Students use specially-made bingo cards designed with rows of simple, but useful, Cocopah words. Players listen carefully as the teacher calls out word after word, crossing out each lucky word with bright-colored markers. Skits are also used to teach the language. To recover the language, Cocopah leaders are essentially relying on the same setting that started its deterioration: the classroom. Leaders explain that mainstream society's battle to wipe out the Cocopah language began in the mid-1900s, when school teachers would strike children, like Gutierrez, for speaking their native tongue. She grew up speaking only Cocopah in her family's home and she learned English in school in nearby Somerton. "They would hit my hands in school every time I spoke my language," Gutierrez said. "But I didn't understand (why), not as a child ..." Gutierrez and Lisa Wanstall, director of the Cocopah Museum, explained that widespread knowledge of the language began to fade in the 1950s and started to disappear in earnest by the 1960s. Wanstall stressed that boarding schools, missionaries and public schools all pushed local natives to abandon their languages and adopt English. "They pushed the tribal community to be involved with town people, and our clothing and food we ate changed," Wanstall said. "Then in the last two decades, we have seen a lot more television and movies come into play. You have all these distractions taking them away from their culture, so we have to fight really hard." The number of fully fluent speakers of Cocopah dipped down to "just a handful" in recent years. But the tribe's classes and overall rededication to the language seem to be working when the spoken language can be heard among tribal friends when they chat. "A lot of elders speak the language," Wanstall said. "People in their 30s and 40s do understand and usually speak the language, but the younger ones are where we are losing it ... You hear the language on a daily basis. There is a native speaker in almost every home ... Some tribal members do their prayers in Cocopah." Teaching the language presents an impressive challenge, according to tribal officials. The Cocopah language traditionally was never a written language. A university student created the first written form in the 1970s for a dissertation but unfortunately for the tribe, the words presented tended to be too academic and not very applicable to everyday life. "There was some communication with tribal leaders when it was developed, but not much. It's there, but it's really not useful," Wanstall said. "We came in and we changed a lot of it. We had to develop a new alphabet about four years ago." Another challenge for leaders has been designing words to describe modern objects and notions. "For us to create new words for 'microwave' or 'refrigerator' we have to ask the elders," Wanstall said. "Every word, everything we are teaching has to go through the elders. We ask them 'How can we say this? Is this the most appropriate way?'" If the leaders' recent efforts do fail, they have a safety net to help ensure that their language isn't lost forever. The museum staff has recorded countless examples of the language being spoken. The recordings are archived within the safety of the museum repository. Student Miguel Herrera, 25, said the class has revived the language that he used to speak as a child. "I used to know it when my grandparents were around because that's all they spoke," Herrera said. "I have a son that's 5 who probably knows more than me! His grandma speaks to him, and he's around a lot of the elders more than I am. He'll correct me, too, 'No daddy, it goes like this.'" But for Wanstall, the preservation goes beyond childhood memories. "Our language is so important to us because it was given to us by our creator," she said. "This is an ancient language. It belongs to us and it's special and sacred. It's part of our identity as a culture and the various traditions we do to maintain who we are as Cocopahs." ---- Darin Fenger can be reached at dfenger at yumasun.com or 539-6860. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Jul 30 17:35:37 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:35:37 -0700 Subject: Maori TV to host world-first conference (fwd) Message-ID: Maori TV to host world-first conference By MERVYN DYKES - Manawatu Standard | Monday, 30 July 2007 http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4146353a8153.html Maori Television will host the first World Indigenous Television Broadcasting Conference in Auckland on March 26-28 next year. The conference is expected to bring together about 300 of the world's top indigenous broadcasters from countries such as Ireland, Canada, Wales, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand. It will also see the presentation of an inaugural lifetime achievement award and the launch of the World Indigenous Television Broadcasters' Network. "The purpose of the network will be to promote indigenous broadcasting at the highest level internationally and to foster closer relationships between broadcasters," said Maori TV general manager of sales and marketing Sonya Haggie yesterday. "It will encourage joint venture productions, programme sharing and resource development. The conference will be a significant milestone in the development of indigenous television broadcasting and language and culture revitalisation." She said Maori TV wanted to establish the conference as a prestigious and permanent international event. The conference patron will be Huirangi Waikerepuru, a leading Maori academic and an original supporter of the establishment of a Maori television channel. Its ambassador will be former Governor-General Sir Paul Reeves, whom Ms Haggie described as being "notable for his services to our country and his tireless work in indigenous communities around the world." The conference theme would be "reclaiming the future of indigenous languages, cultures and identities". "For the first time ever, the world's leading indigenous broadcasters will gather in one place to share, discuss, debate, challenge, inspire and motivate."