Dakota

Tue Jul 10 15:41:41 UTC 2007

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
>
>
><http://www.startribune.com/audio/rich_media/1288840.html>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 * <mailto: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
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