From miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Thu Mar 1 20:18:02 2007 From: miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2007 12:18:02 -0800 Subject: Successful defense . . . Message-ID: Hi, Everyone, I should have written sooner. . . but I have been a bit in a daze. I successfully defended my dissertation, Navajo Immersion Mathematics, last Monday, February 19th. People kept asking how it felt, and I kept saying, I don't know. Anyhow, I am now officially "Dr. Kalish". :-) Mia From miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Fri Mar 2 04:14:48 2007 From: miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2007 20:14:48 -0800 Subject: Geez Thanks :-) Message-ID: Thanks to all the wonderful people who sent congratulations. I do so appreciate it. This PhD stuff is funny; I guess it takes some of us until we get lots of wonderful notes from our friends and colleagues to really, really realize that we finally made it. The gist of my dissertation was that Navajo thought and language is very mathematical, and that not only could the mathematics be found, but that they were very sophisticated. I made two Macromedia Flash movies, one that shows the geometric concepts, and one that demonstrates the more sophisticated group theory. (I am always grateful to Depree ShadowWalker for showing me Flash all those years ago, when I was stuggling to find just the right vehicle for simulataneous presentation of language learning materials. . . ) Interestingly enough, it was the form and content of the language, rather than the semantics, from which the mathematics emerged. And, it was from the chants, myths and songs of the Oral History. Someone suggested we needed a new discussion, so I would like to offer this as a seed. I know that when I first started, I thought that the words had to exist as concepts. Probably many of them were lost, never recorded. But the concepts probably exist in different forms in the different languages and cultures. What do people think? A very happy Mia From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Mar 4 03:03:03 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 20:03:03 -0700 Subject: Saving languages is a worthy cause (fwd) Message-ID: Published on Taipei Times http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2007/03/04/2003350945 Saving languages is a worthy cause By Gary Heath Sunday, Mar 04, 2007, Page 8 Advertising Advertising In recent years, a great deal of attention and money has been focused on protecting Taiwan's endangered fauna, such as the Formosan Black Bear, the Black-faced Spoonbills and the Formosan Landlocked Salmon. What is less noticed -- but of great importance -- is the fact that all of the nation's indigenous languages are also endangered, some of them critically so and a big effort of preventive linguistics is now required to help save them. The problem of dying languages is only superficially understood and deserves more attention. Aside from the ongoing ecological crisis, the world is going through a cultural crisis, which is resulting in the rapid loss of languages. The fact that about half of the world's 6,000 known languages are likely to disappear in the next hundred years is cause for alarm. Some specialists claim that one language is destined to die every two weeks or so. When I raise the issue with friends, the typical reaction is a shrug and an apathetic comment along the lines of: "Oh, you mean those small dialects spoken by Indians in the Amazon?" But language death is not something that happens in a faraway country -- it happens all around us and has already happened to several of the nation's indigenous languages. It will now be incredibly difficult, though not impossible, to revive the Ketagalan, Taokas, Papora, Babuza, Hoanya, Siraya, Tavorlong and Makatao languages, even if these indigenous groups manage to maintain a modicum of ethnic identity without speaking their former mother tongue. It would be fair to ask if we should care about this phenomenon in the first place. After all, all things come to an end. But languages, like the air we breathe, are somewhat taken for granted. They are what makes us human and they contain within them our cultural history and collective knowledge and wisdom. When a language dies, it truly is a catastrophe. Imagine for a moment that you are the last speaker of English in the world. You have no one to talk to in English and when you die all of English culture and all of the knowledge associated with this language, dies with you. It's as if you and the language never existed. At last count, there were 28 speakers of indigenous languages in Australia, a country where the phenomenon of language death is widespread. For them, the above scenario is all too real. One misconception that needs to be addressed is the neo-colonial belief that indigenous people -- and by association their languages -- are somehow primitive, or simple and that inherently their languages are outmoded and not worth saving. This attitude ignores the complexity and subtlety of all languages and the fact that all languages hold within them special bits of knowledge not accessible to those who don't speak them. Languages are adapted to their environments and Taiwanese languages are no exception. These languages are complex and represent a whole unique perspective on the world. Who knows when we may need to tap into that unique perspective for our own survival as a species? Languages die out for all kinds of reasons, and it has to be acknowledged that in practical terms we are not going to be able to prevent the extinction of many of them. However, the case of Taiwan is most encouraging since its Aborigines have attained formal recognition and funding through the Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP). The council recently adopted a plan to promote indigenous language learning among 12 officially Aboriginal tribes. This will involve the teaching of about 43 dialects in schools across the nation. The challenges involved in the implementation of this program cannot be underestimated, however, and proper planning, along with a long-term commitment, will be required to make preventive linguistics work. At the end of the day, the whole community will need to be involved in language preservation, something that a bureaucratic quick-fix cannot achieve. In addition to providing teaching materials, the council has to put small field teams together. These teams will need to include specialists on socio-political organization and action, as well as linguists and teachers. They will also have to develop the process needed to help promote indigenous language learning in specific socio-geographical areas, a process that must include economic development. The need for a concerted community effort is crucial for the preservation of endangered languages. That is why any non-solicited effort at the local level has to be especially welcomed and supported. It is deeply regrettable that the council has been reluctant to expand official recognition to the Ping Pu plains Aborigines, more or less writing these groups off. With the scarce resources available, the council's attitude is understandable, but wrong. Writing in Taiwan News on Dec. 18, journalist and social activist Jason Pan argued that the Pazeh and Kahabu, among others, deserve official recognition and funding for participation in viable language programs. In a recent telephone conversation, Jason told me that at least 200 people in his Pazeh community meet from time to time, and perhaps 2,000 people of Pazeh ethnic origin are listed in household registration records. The Pazeh community has set up language classes for their children, but they need help. Without official recognition and funding, this community effort will flounder. I completely agree with Cheng I-jiunn (程一駿), who argued in your paper (Opinion, Dec. 25, 2006, page 8) that the building of an airport on Taiping, in the Spratly Islands chain, should be stopped. The green turtles that nest there deserve a break; the budget thus saved should be given to the Pazeh community instead, to give their language a break, too. The Aborigines of Taiwan need to know that their efforts to preserve their languages are worthy, and central and local governments need to be persuaded to allocate resources to aid these local language preservation efforts instead of wasting money on the construction of unnecessary airports, roads and museums. Gary Heath is a writer and cultural worker who lives in Taipei. Copyright © 1999-2007 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Mar 4 03:10:17 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 20:10:17 -0700 Subject: Keith Secola, Karen Drift team up on 'Anishinabemoin' (fwd) Message-ID: Keith Secola, Karen Drift team up on 'Anishinabemoin' © Indian Country Today February 28, 2007. All Rights Reserved Posted: February 28, 2007 by: Konnie LeMay / Indian Country Today http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414543 CD insert courtesy Bois Forte Band of Chippewa and Akina Records NETT LAKE, Minn. - ''Look, mom,'' said the 3-year-old boy, ''there's my boozhoo there!'' The preschooler pointed to the cover of a new compact disc and its photo of Karen Drift, the teacher who frequently visits his Head Start class at the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa in northern Minnesota and greets the children with ''Boozhoo! Hello!'' This story tickles Drift because it reveals her smallest language students' enthusiasm and shows that they remember even the little bit of Anishinabemoin, the Ojibwe language, that she gives them. The new CD by that name - ''Anishinabemoin'' - is a gift from Drift, award-winning singer/songwriter Keith Secola, and the Bois Forte Band and Akina Records. The CD combines the voices of Drift and her granddaughter, Larissa, speaking words, phrases and short stories in both the Anishinabe language and in English with the supporting music of Keith Secola, a Bois Forte member who most recently won the Best Folk/Acoustic CD award at the 2006 Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards for his latest work, ''Native Americana,'' and the Artist of the Year award in 2006 from the Native American Music Awards. When she first started recording the language, Drift used an inexpensive cassette recorder to make tapes for her nephews and kids at the Head Start. ''But [the recordings] weren't any good; there was a lot of static,'' she said. ''I [wished] I could get something bigger and better, but I just shrugged it off, saying, 'That will never happen.''' Then someone from the tribal government approached her to go to a nearby studio in Mountain Iron to do a language CD. There she and Larissa recorded words in Anishinabe, then in English, then in Anishinabe again. ''It was just flat-out talking, nothing in the background,'' recalled Drift. The result was not satisfying and seemed to be missing something. ''It sat there for a year. I said, 'Ah, I give up on it. Nothing's going to happen so just leave it.' As soon as I said that ... Rose Berens [of the Bois Forte Heritage Center] said, 'Hey, I'm going to get ahold of Keith Secola to see if he can help you.' She got ahold of him that day and he said, 'Maybe with my music, we can make something out of it.''' With Secola's music, and with his recording expertise as the owner of Akina Records, they did indeed go on to make something of it. Secola, who has performed songs in the Anishinabe language on his own CDs, urged Drift to write some stories and songs. She did that and tried some out on her Head Start children. ''I did the 'Sleeping Song' and the 'Waking Up Song,''' said Drift. ''Now them little kids up there, they're singing the 'Sleeping Song.''' Secola was glad to get the call from Berens and from Bois Forte Tribal Chairman Kevin Leecy to help. He was told it was one of the administration's priorities, which further encouraged him. Layering his music with the common Anishinabe words and phrases seems a natural way to hear and to learn the language, Secola said. ''That way you kind of use the holistic approach to learning, you use both hemispheres of the brain. In the whole process of learning, music was always part of the environment, whether the music was the song a bird was singing in the distance or the song of the wind or the song of fire. This approach seems to me pretty natural.'' At the formal release of the CD earlier this year, Leecy emphasized in his State of the Band address that retention and perhaps a rebirth of the language was a priority. ''Probably the most important investments we are making are the ones in projects that are keeping our Ojibwe language and culture alive. Because without our language and culture, we would cease to be us, the Bois Forte people,'' Leecy said. ''There is no way to overstate the importance of being able to speak in our own language about the things that matter most to us. Some of the most basic things that make us who we are - our connection to the earth and the water, to the seasons and each other - simply cannot be conveyed properly in English.'' For Secola, who hopes to make another CD with Drift and to make other language productions on his own, the special thing about ''Anishinabemoin'' is that it doesn't just preserves some of the words and phrases, to be savored daily by those learning the language; it also, through Drift's voice, preserves the dialect of the Bois Forte people and the Nett Lake area. ''It's definitely from Asabikonezaaga'igun [Nett Lake],'' he said. ''It's kind of a treasure. Certainly both Karen and I know that you're not going to become a fluent speaker by listening to the CD, but people can take that step.'' Now she is the ''boozhoo'' lady, the one who speaks Anishinabe. She speaks whenever she can with the school children; she labels items in her grandchildren's homes with the language, and she finds that encouraging. ''I notice how much and how fast they're learning, and now I'll want to teach them more.'' Many non-Indians are also learning the Indian language. A local Baptist pastor has taken lessons. ''The pastor up there came to my classes, and now he's introducing himself in Indian. All the kids just stare at him with their little mouths open.'' Drift mostly hopes, though, that her own people will embrace their language, to save it and use it. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Mar 4 03:11:42 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 20:11:42 -0700 Subject: Indigenous dictionaries keep languages alive (fwd) Message-ID: Monday, 26 February 2007, 12:28:16 AEDT Indigenous dictionaries keep languages alive http://abc.net.au/message/news/stories/ms_news_1856866.htm A language centre in South Hedland in north-west Western Australia is continuing to produce dictionaries for the Pilbara's 30-odd Indigenous languages. The federally-funded Wangka Maya Aboriginal Language Centre has just produced the three latest editions in three traditional languages spoken by the people of Bidyadanga, south of Broome. Linguist Sally Dixon says the latest releases bring the total number produced so far to 24. Ms Dixon says they are sent to local schools to help preserve languages among the younger generation. "They are a really good record for people to feel like they still have a connection with their language..." she said. "For languages that are still being spoken quite a lot, they are a really good tool for them to keep those languages strong, keep them being used and keep them valued." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Mar 4 03:19:59 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 20:19:59 -0700 Subject: Schooling, Immersion Programs Help Save Endangered Languages (fwd) Message-ID: Schooling, Immersion Programs Help Save Endangered Languages By Art Chimes San Francisco, California 28 February 2007 http://www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/2007-02-27-voa51.cfm [photo inset - Wita, a Trio shaman of Kwamalasamutu Village, Suriname with a staff and a plant in his hands] There are nearly 7,000 languages on Earth, but experts say about half of them are endangered, meaning only a small and declining number of often elderly people speak the language. Major world and national languages crowd out indigenous ones, and it's estimated that more languages became extinct in the 20th century than at any other time in history. For scientists, the loss of a language represents a very real loss of knowledge. And that knowledge could save lives at a time when drug companies search tropical forests for biologically-based medical breakthroughs, and many if not most plant and animal species remain unknown to Western science. [photo inset - Professor David Harrison of Swarthmore College decries the loss of scientific knowledge when languages die] At last week's meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, David Harrison of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania said saving endangered languages could help scientists harness knowledge that might otherwise be lost. "Vast domains of knowledge about meteorology, mathematics, weather cycles, plant and animal behavior, how to domesticate plants and animals, how to control genetic stocks exists," Harrison stressed. "It is out there, it is fragile, it is very rapidly eroding." [photo inset - Revitalizing a dying language can help heal a community according to Daryl Baldwin, an expert on the Myaamia language and culture that once thrived in the American Midwest[ When a language goes, so does culture. The Miami are a native people that once thrived in the American Midwest. Three centuries ago, their Myaamia language was widely spoken. But the language began to die out as the tribe was forced from its ancestral homeland and its members became more assimilated in mainstream America. It was essentially extinct by the 1960s. However, the language had been well documented, and Daryl Baldwin and his Myaamia Project have been working to revitalize both the language and the culture it represents. "For communities that have been socially disrupted, the language provides an avenue by which they can mend and heal," said Baldwin, "because embodied in that language is a great deal of information about how we relate to each other and how we relate to our landscape. And so language revitalization has been incredibly enriching. It's been daunting. Language loss is about social change; language reclamation is also about social change." [photo inset - Hawaiian culture thrives but the language is threatened says William Wilson of the University of Hawaii] Revitalizing an endangered language is never easy. In Hawaii, the U.S. state that was an independent monarchy until 1893, the culture is strong, but the language has faced severe challenges, such as a law that prohibited teaching it in schools until two decades ago. William Wilson of the University of Hawaii says it is important to expose young Hawaiians to the language, and the subject now is taught to school children. "So that's increasing the numbers of speakers," Wilson said. "In 1986, when we started, there were less than 50 children in all of Hawaii that could speak Hawaiian fluently. Now we have about 2,000 in our school system. More importantly, there are actually families that speak Hawaiian at home. And so we've started infant-toddler programs, where those children can come together before they go to preschool." [photo inset - Leanne Hinton of the University of California says 1:1 intensive programs are preserving native languages in her state] On the mainland, California has a tremendous heritage of language diversity, with as many as 100 native languages having been spoken there. Many are now endangered or gone entirely. Leanne Hinton of the University of California says one-on-one intensive programs are helping sustain threatened languages. "One of them is the master-apprentice language learning program, which pairs the last speakers of native languages with younger members of the tribe who want to learn it. And we teach them the fundamentals of language immersion, and they are supposed to spend 10 or 20 hours a week just living their lives together in the language and without recourse to English," Hinton explained. Despite efforts like these, indigenous and other minority languages will continue to be threatened, and many likely will die off. But aggressive programs can help ensure the survival of other languages, along with the knowledge and culture they embody. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Mar 4 03:26:30 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 20:26:30 -0700 Subject: A high-tech translator clarifies a dying tongue (fwd) Message-ID: Posted on Sat, Mar. 03, 2007 A high-tech translator clarifies a dying tongue Handheld device lets a Prairie Island elder's voice teach his Sioux dialect BY DAVID HANNERS Pioneer Press http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/16823961.htm WELCH, Minn. — With his white hair and a face as deeply lined as a contour map, 71-year-old Curtis Campbell hardly seems the picture of cutting-edge technology. But as he sits in a recliner in his living room, headset and microphone perched on his head, he is using digital recording gear to preserve an endangered language. "They don't really teach these kinds of things in college. Maybe someday they will," Campbell says as he and Wayne Wells, a Dakota language consultant, get set to record on a laptop computer. Campbell is an elder in the Mdewakanton Sioux tribe that makes up the Prairie Island Indian Community, and he is one of a small number of Minnesotans fluent in a particularly old dialect of Siouan. He is a key part of a tribal project, overseen by Wells, to record the Dakota language so it can be programmed into an instant electronic translator that seems like something out of "Star Trek." Known as the Phraselator P2, the handheld device already is being used by U.S. soldiers in Iraq to help them communicate with Iraqis. A person can speak into the Phraselator P2 — a unit just slightly bigger than a paperback book — and a pre-programmed voice repeats the phrase, translated. For example, say "What is your name?" into the Phraselator P2 that Wells uses, and it responds with the Dakota equivalent, "He toked eciyapi he?" The device can carry different chips for different languages. The military, law enforcement and medical personnel have used it for a while, but American Indian tribes recently have begun using it to preserve their native tongues. Many of those languages began dying out last century as a result of federal efforts to force Indians to speak English and a younger generation's reluctance to learn the tongue from its elders, said Don Thornton, who started Thornton Media, a California firm that produces language and translation tools. "Originally, there were about 300 languages spoken in the U.S., and now there's about 200, and in 20 years, it'll be down to 20," said Thornton, a soft-spoken Cherokee who started the company. The former Los Angeles filmmaker traveled to the Prairie Island Indian Community this week to help tribal officials with the project. "That's how quickly the language is disappearing," he said. "We're in a real race here. And it's not just a language. It's how they view the world." Preserving A Tradition / Anthropologists aren't sure when humans first developed language, but most believe it was at least 40,000 years ago. Language communicates thought, but some idioms and dialects do it better than others. That fact becomes apparent while Campbell sits in his chair and works with Wells, a 2003 graduate of the University of Minnesota who works for the Prairie Island Indian Community. On his laptop, Wells has a list of common phrases or concepts in English that Campbell will translate into his Dakota dialect to record onto the computer. Often, word-for-word translations aren't possible, Campbell explains. "Some (words) take a few words, some take a whole paragraph," he says, adding that, as a language, Dakota tends to be much more descriptive than English. For example, one of the concepts on the list to be translated is "to be strong-hearted." "It's not like English, where you can say things in one word," Campbell says. "When they come up with words like that, it needs some explanation." Thornton has helped other tribes preserve their languages. To build the Phraselator P2 database, contributors record up to 800 translated phrases a day onto the computer. He says few of them complain of overwork. "What you find is, a lot of times, elders are anxious to pass the language down," he said. "They want to preserve the language. They don't just want to have it in a museum." Thornton said that when Campbell is done — perhaps by the end of the week — the database he's helped create can be used to teach others to speak Dakota. Students will be able to use the Phraselator P2 as an around-the-clock tutor so they can become proficient enough in the language to teach others. "A lot of elders we find spend too much time teaching basics," Thornton says. © 2007 St. Paul Pioneer Press and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.twincities.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Mar 4 03:29:35 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 20:29:35 -0700 Subject: KBIC continues discussion of language (fwd) Message-ID: KBIC continues discussion of language Community gets update on progress, path ahead By Dan Schneider, DMG Writer http://www.mininggazette.com/stories/articles.asp?articleID=6027 BARAGA — The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community is moving forward with its efforts to revitalize its native language. At a community gathering held Thursday evening at the Ojibwa Casino Chippewa Rooms, members of the tribe discussed the next steps to be taken in the Anishnaabe Language Revitalization and Preservation Project. The project’s goal is to increase the number of speakers fluent in the traditional language of the Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa tribe. Carrie Ashbrook, coordinator of the project, said she had collected 317 completed written surveys, which tribe members filled out as part of an assessment of the current status of the language in the tribe. Ashbrook said 340 completed surveys are needed to apply for a second-phase grant from the Administration for Native Americans (ANA) within the United States Department of Health and Human Services. “If we can get more than 340, that’s great because it will really show our commitment,” Ashbrook said. She said oral interview surveys, another step required for the next ANA grant, will be conducted during April and May. She said 140 KBIC members, in their responses on the written surveys, expressed an interest in being interviewed. Interviews, she said, will be representative of different demographics within the tribe. “What we are going to do is work with male and female and different age groups,” Ashbrook said. Especially important is the young age demographic and the elders. “We are still in need of the youth to fill out the survey, so if you have a son or daughter, please have them do the survey and if you know an elder, please help them with the survey,” Ashbrook said. Candice Kemppainen, who teaches Ojibwe language and culture at K-8 schools in Baraga County, said she has helped her students fill out the survey. She said even young children can fill out the survey with help from an adult. “The other day I did it with a second grader and he was alright, but it’s a one-on-one thing,” Kemppainen said. Because of that, she asked for volunteers among those at Thursday’s gathering to help more young students fill out the form. Kemppainen said there is a lot of enthusiasm for the language among her students. In her classes, she teaches the native language in a manner similar to how Spanish or French is taught in schools, as a second language. She said that approach is inadequate for developing fluency, which takes a lot of work to attain. Kemppainen has spent a summer on the Fond du Lac Reservation in Minnesota learning the language from an elder, a native speaker, who spoke in no other language but Ojibwa. She has also put in 500 hours at a language immersion program in Bay Mills in the eastern Upper Peninsula. “I’m still learning myself and I’m almost to the point where I am understanding everything, but I’m not speaking fluently yet,” Kemppainen said. The tribe is considering a variety of methods for teaching the language. These include an immersion program, in which learners are put in an environment where only Ojibwa is spoken and “language nests,” which are similar to immersion but focus on pre-school age children. The second-stage grant from the ANA would fund development of the program, including establishing its curriculum. Dan Schneider can be reached at dschneider at mininggazette.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Mar 6 03:52:34 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 20:52:34 -0700 Subject: online phraselator demo... Message-ID: Hi everybody, fyi, you can access some online demo content concerning "all the rage" in Indian Country of late--the phraselator. There is other language "stuff" here as well so check it out and report back to us if you like. NDNTV.COM- Native American Language Tools and Video Production By Thornton Media Inc. http://ndntv.blogspot.com/ Too, this is not an endorsement or promotion, just an fyi. l8ter, Phil Cash Cash ilat From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Mar 7 17:05:45 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 10:05:45 -0700 Subject: Perseverance to Do 'Macbeth' in Tlingit (fwd) Message-ID: Perseverance to Do 'Macbeth' in Tlingit By STEVE QUINN, Associated Press Writer Wednesday, March 7, 2007 (03-07) 05:10 PST JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) -- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/03/07/entertainment/e051057S55.DTL Jake Waid rubbed his bloodshot eyes, blankly stared at a script for Shakespeare's "Macbeth," then resumed an unfamiliar struggle with a set of lines. "Tleil tsu tlax yei l kusheek'eiyi ye yageeyi kwasatinch, ch'a aan yak'ei," he read slowly of what would normally be, "So foul and fair a day I have not seen." Waid, a 31-year-old who has been acting since he was 15, faces his most daunting stage assignment to date: performing Shakespeare in Tlingit, an American Indian language unique to southeast Alaska and Canada, and in which fewer than 300 people are fluent. Its words are difficult to translate into English sounds. The role calls for mastering new sets of pauses, sounds and pitches — first with his ears then with his voice — in delivering the lines. That's not all. He and 11 other Perseverance Theatre actors had less than one month to learn a story many knew by heart — but that was in English. "It takes 10 times longer to learn just one line," said Waid, who plays Macbeth and has performed Shakespeare in theaters worldwide with various production groups since he was a teenager. "As far as the structure of the language and the grammar, it's still a mystery." He reprises his role as Macbeth for Perseverance, which was founded in 1979 in this capital city of 30,000. It's also where Paula Vogel's 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, "How I Learned to Drive," was written and developed. Since the early February start of rehearsals, actors, stage crew and directors have been on a harried pace to prepare for a March 8-18 engagement of "Macbeth" at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. It is part of a six-month "Shakespeare in Washington" celebration conceived by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Washington's Shakespeare Theatre Company. It wasn't just actors facing challenges. Costumes had to be redesigned and stages rebuilt to accommodate this third and final Tlingit production by the Alaskan theater group. A truck carrying the stage sets were put on a barge — no roads lead out of the Alaska state capital — then driven cross country and rebuilt in time for final rehearsals. Meanwhile, cast members were pulling all-nighters learning to speak Tlingit with integrity, honoring not only the language's heritage but the play's adaptation. Twice in 2004, Perseverance actors performed Tlingit versions of "Macbeth," but it was retold primarily in English and featured indigenous Native American dances, music and clothing. But this time the 12-member cast, whose ages range from 15 to 42, has agreed to perform most of the play in Tlingit (pronounced klink-it). "It's like running a marathon, without training for it," said actor Ishmael Hope, who plays Malcolm, the son of King Duncan who is killed by Macbeth. "But we're doing the work to make it happen. "None of us is going to sound like a fluent speaker, because no matter how meticulous we are, it's a difficult language. But we'll still be able to convey meaning." Director Anita Maynard-Losh first developed the idea of producing a Tlingit version of "Macbeth" while living in the predominantly Tlingit village of Hoonah, about 50 miles west of Juneau 25 years ago. She conducted artists workshops throughout Alaska when she began seeing connections between the Tlingit culture and "Macbeth" — the relationships with the supernatural and the history of fierce warfare found both in the Tlingit culture and in "Macbeth." The first production, performed in Juneau, was almost entirely in English as was a subsequent showing in Anchorage, both three years ago. After the Anchorage show, the Smithsonian invited Perseverance Theatre to perform its "Macbeth" version and is underwriting most of the costs for a production that exceeds $200,000. This time, Maynard-Losh wanted to illustrate how Macbeth puts individual gain ahead of the good for the whole, breaking Tlingit tenets. So when characters adhere to tribal values, cast members speak Tlingit; when they espouse individual beliefs, they speak Shakespearean English. For Waid's Macbeth, this occasionally means pursuing a seamless segue from English to Tlingit and later back to English during the same scene. "It's no judgment on English speakers; it's just the concept of the play," Waid said. "It's still one of the demands of the play. Once it's all in there, they are all just lines." Not only did actors have to learn lines in another language, but Maynard-Losh had to direct a cast without understanding what's being said. To help compensate, she concentrated on the characters' physical features — posture, proximity, facial expressions. "You've guys have got a lot going on with your face, which is terrific," Maynard-Losh told Hope and cast member Andrew Okpeaha MacLean during a recent rehearsal. "But you've got to get the bodies going." The cast features nine original members and three new actors, all of whom are of Alaska Native descent. The cast includes a mix of seasoned performers, high school students and one actor making his theater debut. As in most small productions, many cast members perform multiple roles: one actor writes Tlingit songs for the play; another doubles as choreographer; a third serves as the much-needed language coach. The cast drew former theater member MacLean, a New York filmmaker whose last play at Perseverance was "Moby-Dick" in 2001. MacLean said he had no plans to resume theater work, until Maynard-Losh decided to tweak her own incarnation of "Macbeth." "It's been one of the focuses in my adult life, to work with the languages in theater and film," said MacLean, who plays Macduff. "It bothers me that indigenous languages in general are threatened. So, I've been trying to do things to take a stand against that, by doing plays and films. Maybe this play is a small thing to do, but it's a step in the right direction." Translation began last summer when Hope, an actor who also oversees the theater's education outreach programs, sought the help of Alaska Native elders. The result was a script that initially made the actors' eyes glaze over while reading the lines, made up of underscored and accented letters and words with periods in the middle. Help always seemed within reach. The wall to the left of the stage is decorated with colored construction paper featuring single words of Tlingit translation, somewhat akin to flash cards. Sitting on the director's table are two Tlingit dictionaries, one listing nouns and the other verbs. Lance Twitchell, who plays Ross, serves as the cast's language coach and is constantly tweaking the script and assisting with pronunciation. Rehearsals lasted close to nine hours a day, six days a week. Breaks were really just another chance to review the lines. In the waning days before the cast left for Washington on Feb. 25, they were getting close, but still forgetting some lines. George Holly, who plays Lennox and wrote the play's songs, reminded the exhausted cast of the significance of their work. "Who ever hears Tlingit spoken, even for more than 30 seconds, it's just a phrase here and there, or it's from some elders," he said. "This is so much more. "This is not really a premiere of a different take on a Shakespearean play; it's a premiere of a language on the world stage." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Mar 7 17:10:11 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 10:10:11 -0700 Subject: A handheld that saves native languages? (fwd) Message-ID: A handheld that saves native languages? by Sea Stachura, Minnesota Public Radio March 6, 2007 http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/03/05/phrasalator/ ~ The Prairie Island Indian Community is using a US Defense Department tool to try to revive its Dakota language. The Phraselator is used by U.S. troops in the Middle East if they don't have an interpreter. To use it, you say a phrase into the handheld device and it translates, out loud. ~ Prairie Island Indian Community, Minn. — No one walks around Prairie Island speaking Dakota, and only a few elders even know it. Wayne Wells, a Dakota language teacher and tribal member, learned Dakota in college, but he doesn't think he's fluent. Still, it's his goal to get the tribe's children speaking Dakota everyday. "My ancestors are breathing through my lungs when I speak the language," he says. "They're breathing again, they're living again through my soul, my breath. It's precious. That's how I see it. And you start teaching kids that, your ancestors are here still." Larger view Phraselator Three years ago Wells started weekly language classes for adults and kids. The Phraselator is a new addition. Wells shows how it works. "Five," Wells says into the device. "Zapta," it responds. "So I can so like, 'How are you,'" he continues. "Duke yahoe?" "That's how the soldiers use it." The tribe bought five. Each costs $3,300. Wells wants kids to take these devices home. The hope is that a parent, who doesn't speak Dakota, could have family dinner with the Phraselator at his side. He could ask, "Please pass the rice," in the language. If a child doesn't know the response, she also could use Phraselator to figure it out. [photo inset - Curt Campbell] The device looks like a cross between a Palm Pilot and a walkie-talkie. It retrieves language from a flash card full of recorded phrases. A one gig card will store up to 85,000 items, but you have to enter them yourself. Curt Campbell is one of a few fluent elders. In Campbell's living room, with photos of elders and grandchildren everywhere, Wells and Campbell sit side by side, recording. "Where do you go to school?" Wells reads from a phrase list. "Okay," Campbell says. "Ready? One, two, three..." "Mis hed wabdawa," Campbell says into a headset microphone. Campbell and Wells then record variations of this sentence. Then Wells asks Campbell to say, "He goes to the University of Minnesota." "I don't know if there is a word for university," Campbell laughs. "I'm going to have to say a whole paragraph for this one." "Well, what would you say?" Wells asks. [photo inset - Alan Childs Jr.] Campbell starts into a long description of an institute for higher learning. He is 72 years old, and when elders like Campbell die, the tribe loses people who know enough to apply the old language to new words. Tribal member Alan Childs watches the activity. He says speaking Dakota teaches self-worth. "Other than being brown-skinned and darker features and things like that, [language] is our identity. That is our number one identity. And it's also how we keep our customs and traditions," Childs explains. Fifty-five tribes bought Phraselators in the last year. But University of Minnesota linguist Nancy Stenson says preserving language doesn't need fancy gadgets. She believes technological tools frequently become a linguistic crutch. "I think there's a danger there in that people will abdicate personal responsibility for language," she says. [photo inset - Nancy Stenson] Stenson says people may think, if it's recorded, it's safe. But she says recorded language is fossilized language. "I think the way a language is going to be preserved and brought back into common use is by speaking it to other people, and only by speaking it, even to people who maybe don't have a good command," she says. The Mohawk, for example, decided to use Mohawk in all public places, including the grocery store. Some Ojibwe bands write Ojibwe rock songs and have immersion programs. Stenson says these types of programs keep language buoyant and flexible. She says people don't learn languages in chunks but by applying rules. Without those rules, new speakers are stuck when they try to say a unrecorded phrase. Wayne Wells says the Phraselator is only a tool. In the last three years he says he's seen progress in his students. "I was discouraged for a little while, because it was like, they're never gonna get this," he says during a break from recording. "But then, all of a sudden, they started speaking. Another milestone is, the intermediate kids that have been coming for a couple years? They're teaching the beginning class now." Those intermediate kids are 11 years old. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Mar 7 17:15:56 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 10:15:56 -0700 Subject: Keweenaw community seeks to save Ojibwe language (fwd) Message-ID: Keweenaw community seeks to save Ojibwe language Posted: March 07, 2007 by: The Associated Press http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414601 BARAGA, Mich. (AP) - With few living native speakers left, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, like many American Indian groups across the country, is launching an initiative to preserve ''the first people's language.'' The reservation in Michigan's remote Upper Peninsula is one of those belonging to the Ojibwa tribe, whose native language is Ojibwe. Members say the language is an essential aspect of their culture. ''Language is communication, but also it tells who you are,'' said Earl Otchingwanigan, professor emeritus of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University in Minnesota. ''Within the language itself, there is history and culture built into it.'' ''Other cultures around the world ... have brought their languages back from the brink of extinction, such as the Maori in the South Seas,'' he said. ''The Jewish people in Israel have brought their language back, so it can be done.'' A $109,708 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is financing a study of the language's level of use. On Jan. 22, the Keweenaw community sent out 1,200 questionnaires to members, with questions including, ''Where do you use the Ojibwe language?'' ''Do you feel comfortable using the Ojibwe language?'' and ''If you had the opportunity to participate in language instruction, what fluency level would you hope to attain?'' ''Ojibwe is spoken all across the Great Lakes, but there are many different dialects,'' project director Jesse Luttenton told The Daily Mining Gazette of Houghton. ''We want to preserve and revitalize the language as it is specific to the Keweenaw Bay.'' From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Mar 7 17:23:31 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 10:23:31 -0700 Subject: Zoom H4 Handy Recorder review Message-ID: fyi, For all you language audiophiles, here is a review to consider prior to your next audio equipment purchase. Review: Zoom H4 Handy Recorder by Mark Nelson 02/01/2007 http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2007/02/01/review-zoom-h4-handy-recorder.html phil ilat mg From ryamada at UOREGON.EDU Wed Mar 7 19:29:30 2007 From: ryamada at UOREGON.EDU (Racquel) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 11:29:30 -0800 Subject: 10th Annual NILI Summer Institute Message-ID: Northwest Indian Language Institute 10th Annual SUMMER INSTITUTE JUNE 18-28, 2007 University of Oregon, Eugene Featuring two programs: Learning Environments Explore ways to make your learning and teaching environment more supportive and effective. Create materials and practice using them as a language teacher or learner. Documentation Record speakers and create CDs and DVDs based on audio or video recordings. COURSE OFFERINGS *Methods, Materials, and Technology for Language Teaching *Creating Supportive Learning Environments *Technology and Methods for Language Documentation * Linguistics for NW Indian Languages *Language Courses: Sahaptin, Chinuk Wawa (tailored to enrollment) INSTRUCTORS Virginia Beavert, Patsy Whitefoot, Tony Johnson, and NILI staff Tuition for Summer Institute: $1,150 (Includes 4 university credits, materials, T-shirt, and computer lab fee) Approximate housing fee: $620 (Includes dorm room and all meals during Institute) A non-refundable deposit of $150 is due by 25 May 2007. For more information: Email: nwili at uoregon.edu NILI Website: http://babel.uoregon.edu/nili/intro.html 1629 Moss Street Phone: (541) 346-0730 Eugene, OR 97403 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Mar 9 16:34:01 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 09:34:01 -0700 Subject: Noel Pearson: Native tongues imperilled (fwd) Message-ID: Noel Pearson: Native tongues imperilled The Australian OPINION Noel Pearson March 10, 2007 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21352767-7583,00.html IN 1973, a linguist doing field work on Aboriginal Australian languages realised he had met the last speaker of Yaygir, a language once spoken in present-day northeast NSW. The custodian of this invaluable piece of Australian culture, Sandy Cameron, was living in obscurity and had not spoken Yaygir for several years. He was, however, eager to work with his university-educated guest to record and preserve his ancestral language. The linguist decided to return to Cameron's home in a couple of months to finish the recording of this national treasure. But Cameron died before the linguist returned. A region of Australia lost a large part of its heritage. Such tragedies happened in many parts of Australia in our lifetime, and are still happening. Our nation's culture and history is needlessly impoverished. A few years ago my old friend, Urwunjin, died as the last speaker of his people's language from Barrow Point on the southeastern coast of Cape York Peninsula. Urwunjin's knowledge was at least recorded to a large extent. In the late 1960s and into the '70s an organised effort was made by many young anthropologists and linguists, urged by an indefatigable sponsor, Peter Ucko, then director of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in Canberra, to describe the country's cultures and languages before it was too late. Their salvage operation was dubbed Before It Is Too Late or BIITL. Many of today's senior ethnographers of Australia were involved in this push. The original BIITL preserved a large amount of information, now archived in Canberra. Much of this record is inaccessible to laymen, however. When I was a boy starting primary school, an American linguist, John Haviland, came to live with a local family two doors away from us, and in the following years he compiled a grammar and dictionary of Guugu Yimithirr - the language that James Cook encountered in 1770 and which gave the world the name kangaroo, after the Guugu Yimithirr word for a species of wallaby called gangurru. Haviland accomplished an astonishing feat in his mastery of classical Guugu Yimithirr. His grammar is a great work of scholarship, that is a necessary but by itself insufficient, foundation for the maintenance of our language long into the future. It is hard enough for privileged people to learn languages. It is near impossible for dysfunctional people. Few of my people can learn anything from Haviland's published grammar, though it is an invaluable resource. The social inaccessibility of the scientific work compiled through the BIITL period has not been answered with effective language transmission efforts such as has occurred in New Zealand through indigenous language nests. The multitude of Australian languages compared with New Zealand means that our challenge is so much more vast and complex, but we should learn from the strategies adopted across the Tasman. A new BIITL is urgently needed in Australia, because we risk losing our country's languages as spoken tongues. Intergenerational transmission of a large number of Australia's languages is declining or has ceased. This is not the result of Aboriginal Australian's choice to abandon our culture. As almost everything else in our communities, it is a result of our desperate disadvantage. Social dysfunction disables cultural and linguistic transmission. Our country must understand that a new BIITL effort is an indispensable part of reconciliation. It will be difficult to save our languages if the gap in transmission becomes much wider than it already is. Other than the work undertaken by AIATSIS in Canberra, the single most important (and more promising in terms of providing a solution to the challenge of inter-generational transmission) effort has been undertaken through the translations of the international subsidiary of the Wycliffe Bible Society, the Summer Institute of Linguistics. Two languages of Cape York Peninsula, Wik Mungkan and Kuku Yalanji, have been the subject of magisterial translations of the New Testament by SIL, along with a number of other languages across the country. The SIL website (www.ethnologue.com) provides an estimation of the vitality of each of Australia's remaining indigenous languages, and the number of languages that are on the brink of extinction should be the cause of national consternation and urgent response. But, notwithstanding the richness of this country's linguistic heritage, there is almost no public recognition of this national priority. To find an eloquent expression of the preciousness of this heritage you would need to go back to W.E.H. Stanner's Boyer lectures of 1967. Since Stanner there have been no prominent voices, the last being that of the American ethnographer and author, Jared Diamond, in his 2001 Centenary of Federation address. Reading Diamond's lecture I was struck by how it is that the only prominent advocate on behalf of Australia's original languages is an American. Let me make some points about language policy. A first step is that Australia must recognise its languages. It is ridiculous that Australia is behind Europe in this respect. The European states have signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The status of minority languages varies greatly, but a large number of European minority languages are now official in the provinces where they are spoken. But Australia has not even adopted an official listing of its languages. Second, the purpose of preserving and maintaining Australia's indigenous languages is not just that these languages serve a communication purpose within indigenous societies (for many communities they often do not), but because they are inherently valuable as part of the country's rich heritage. And these languages comprise the identity of their custodians and are the primary words by which the Australian land and seascape is named and described. These languages are intimately related to the nature and spirit of the country that all Australians now call home. Third, indigenous people must understand that indigenous language transmission must move decisively from orality to literacy if there is to be long-term maintenance. This means that indigenous children must be fully literate in the language of learning - English - in order to be literate in their own languages. Reliance upon oral transmission alone will not work in the long term. Fourth, there must be a separate domain within indigenous communities for cultural and linguistic education from the Western education domain. Schools are not the places for cultural and linguistic transmission, and we must stop looking to schools to save our languages. This is because the primary purpose of schools is for our children to obtain a mainstream, Western education, including full fluency in English. Schools will never be adequately equipped to solve the transmission imperative, and all we end up doing is compromising our children's mainstream education achievement. Indeed, without full English literacy our children are then illiterate in their traditional language. Fifth, language learning must start in earliest childhood, and this means both English and traditional languages. Children must have access to both domains from the start if they are going to become properly bilingual. Communities that delay the learning of English to late in primary school in favour of traditional languages in the early years, end up disabling their children because they remain far behind in the language required for them to obtain a mainstream education. Sixth, a new generation BIITL must integrate the newest technology. It is the information technologies that provide the bridge between the scientific record and its application to the transmission imperative between generations. There are many breakthrough demonstrations around the countryside of how information technology provides solutions to cultural transmission, and these need to be brought together as part of a concerted program. Finally, the basic infrastructure for this national project needs to be developed and supplied as a national responsibility. There should be room for a lot of regional and local adaptation, but there must be a range of off-the-shelf technical solutions developed by people with necessary expertise at a national government agency such as AIATSIS. There needs to be a generous government funded campaign for the maintenance of each indigenous language employing full-time linguists and other expert staff. Private, not-for-profit and public organisations should work together, but language policy and adequate funding must be provided by the national Government. Noel Pearson is director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Mar 9 16:41:30 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 09:41:30 -0700 Subject: Keeping Native tongues out of the pickling jar (fwd) Message-ID: Keeping Native tongues out of the pickling jar After decades devoted to breathing life into dying California languages, linguist Leanne Hinton views her profession's value as far more than academic [photo inset - Hinton as a Berkeley undergrad, circa 1965, with an unidentified friend and a state-of-the art Uher portable reel-to-reel tape recorder in Supai, Ariz. Because the village had no electricity at the time, she recharged the machine's batteries with the help of a generator turned on briefly each evening. (Matt Hinton photo)] By Barry Bergman, Public Affairs | 07 March 2007 http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2007/03/07_Hinton.shtml Leanne Hinton first heard the faint cry of dying languages at the bottom of Havasu Canyon, a 3,000-foot-deep cut in the Colorado Plateau beloved by backpackers for its clear, towering waterfalls. A remote branch of the Grand Canyon reachable only by foot, helicopter, or pack animal, this ancient chasm is home to the 650-member Havasupai tribe, which has inhabited the village of Supai for eight centuries. When Hinton, then a Berkeley undergrad, hiked the eight-mile trail down to the village in the summer of 1964, the Havasupais had no system of written language. Hinton was instrumental in changing that. And that summer in Supai changed her as well, planting the seeds of a career — and a calling — as a champion of vanishing Indian languages, working closely with tribal members throughout California to combat further erosion of the state's ever-dwindling language diversity. As part of Berkeley's linguistics faculty since 1978, including three years as department chair, she has made it her mission — through both her writings and her hands-on language conferences and workshops — to keep the fires of Native languages burning. "When we lose languages we're losing knowledge," says the soft-spoken Hinton, who estimates that of the more than 100 languages indigenous to what is now California, only half still have living speakers. "We're losing not just a set of words or a grammar — and of course that's very important to linguists — but, more broadly, we're losing whole philosophical systems, oral-literature systems, ceremonial systems, and social systems along with the language. So language is one of an array of cultural phenomena that are going away." For Hinton, however, the wider impacts of such losses are secondary to the toll on — and the inspiration of — the people whose ancestors were fluent in Karuk, Miwok, Mutsun, and scores of languages and dialects that today have only a few, if any, remaining speakers. "I'm really involved in this because of the passion of the people in these communities who are losing languages," explains Hinton, who last year received a Cultural Freedom Award from the Lannan Foundation. "The important thing about language survival is that people see it as a part of their human rights. And it is. People have the right to retain their language, and have a right to retain their culture if that's what they want to do." An accidental linguist [photo inset - Longtime linguistics-faculty member Leanne Hinton in her Dwinelle Hall office. (Peg Skorpinski photo)] Growing up in La Jolla, Hinton never expected to make a career of preserving and resurrecting moribund languages, or even — as was customary then in linguistics — merely documenting them. "My own journey to the languages of California has been long and full of detours," she wrote in the introduction to her 1994 book Flutes of Fire. The journey began, fittingly, in Arizona, with a language, Havasupai, that is relatively robust. Hinton traveled to Supai not as a linguist but as a budding ethnomusicologist. Her father, a retired marine biologist, is the renowned folk musician Sam Hinton, and she herself studied folk and ethnic music well into grad school. Her change in direction was set when she told her academic adviser, the late Berkeley folklorist Alan Dundes, that she hoped to do field work somewhere within driving distance over the summer break. "He just said right out, 'Well, the Havasupais might be an interesting place to go, no one's really studied their music,'" she recalls. What the 22-year-old undergrad found — beyond new friends and a culture that took her in and reshaped her outlook — was that "sung and spoken language were very different from each other," a discovery that fascinated her and became the basis of a course she would later teach at Berkeley. "There were all kinds of very interesting things going on in the texts of the music," such as the use of archaic words and non-word sounds that nonetheless conveyed meaning. "I was very interested in this whole notion of meaning versus words," she says. "What really got me into linguistics was my interest in that aspect of ethnomusicology." Hinton eventually went on to earn her Ph.D. in linguistics at UC San Diego, and soon accepted a teaching job with the University of Texas. The Havasupais, meanwhile — for whom she'd been writing a monthly newspaper column on "how to write your language" since her grad-school days — asked her to head up their fledgling bilingual-education program. She accepted, making the 900-mile trip to Supai from Dallas every two weeks. The experience was an eye-opener for Hinton. Havasupai "is not what we call a moribund language, because kids are still learning it," she explains, pronouncing it "a little bit endangered." But tribal leaders, worried by the growing encroachment of English on their ancestral tongue, viewed the burgeoning bilingual-ed movement of the 1970s as a model they could apply successfully in their own schools. Many other North American tribes, says Hinton, were also creating programs to teach a range of subjects in students' Indian languages. "They saw bilingual education as a way to turn around the process of language decline they had been going through, and that had started, of course, with the schools," she says. "They had gone through this long period of boarding-school education, where the languages were absolutely not allowed in the schools and weren't allowed on the playgrounds, or in the dorms, or anywhere, as a way to try to actually kill off the languages and have everybody become monolingual English speakers. "So this was an opportunity, all of a sudden, for the languages to come back to school, and to regain some of the respect from tribal members that they had lost," she says. That, however, required a standardized writing system, something most Western tribes didn't have. Hinton worked with the tribe to develop one, and in 1984 published the first Havasupai dictionary. Yet even though children could speak Havasupai — "one of only 20 [Native] languages in North America that kids are still learning at home," Hinton says — she detected some problems. The most serious was the lack of immersion in the second language, with teachers and students alike constantly slipping back into English. "Even with Havasupais, where everyone knew the language, teachers would start out in English, saying, 'Okay, kids, today we're going to talk about the colors in Havasupai,'" she says. "Teachers would tell me, 'When I write Havasupai I think in English, and translate.' Because writing itself was sort of this English thing that you do, and it was hard to transfer." "It got me very interested in the whole idea of immersion as a language-teaching method and as a way of interacting," Hinton adds. By the early 1980s — by which time she was an assistant professor of linguistics at Berkeley, and accepting invitations from California tribes to speak on the topic of teaching language — the technique was of far more than mere academic interest. Speaking equals success In addition to leading language workshops with a focus on immersion, Hinton began writing a monthly column for News From Native California, a journal started by Berkeley publisher Malcolm Margolin. (She retired the column after 10 years, collecting some of the essays in edited form in Flutes of Fire.) In 1992 she joined Margolin and Tongva/Ajachemem artist and tribal activist L. Frank Manriquez in putting together a major conference on how to save Indian languages, an event she views as a watershed. "It was a very historic conference," she says. "Before that, everybody was doing their own separate things, and feeling pretty lonesome. And all of a sudden they were with other people who shared the same interests. It was a tremendously positive, emotional gathering." The conference gave birth to a group called Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival (AICLS), with Hinton as a founding board member. The nonprofit now runs a number of programs aimed at putting into practice an essential key to language survival, but which Hinton says came as something of a surprise: the need for new speakers of the old languages. "To a linguist this was a real learning experience, because when linguists say, 'Oh, we've got to save these languages,' they often mean 'let's document them,'" observes Hinton. And while she agrees that documentation is "exceedingly important," it's not enough to save a language. "A lot of people were saying that 'documenting the language is pickling the language — we don't want documentation, we want new speakers, and that's what we want to focus on.'" And that, in fact, is where Hinton has focused much of her own energy — that is, when she isn't teaching Berkeley students, directing the Survey for California and Other Indian Languages, curating the sound collections at the Hearst Museum and the Berkeley Language Center, conducting linguistics research, or writing books and articles. (In addition to works of scholarship, her eight published books include How to Keep Your Language Alive, a handbook for one-on-one teaching of endangered languages, and a children's book, Ishi's Tale of Lizard, a 1993 nominee for a PEN Center USA West Literary Award.) Under the auspices of AICLS, Hinton oversees weeklong "Breath of Life" workshops on campus every other summer — "I had originally called it the Lonely Hearts Language Club," she laughs, "but I was overruled" — at which tribal members gather to learn new techniques for learning, teaching, researching, and preserving languages that have no speakers. She also created the Master-Apprentice Program, which pairs an elder speaker with a younger tribal member who wishes to learn the language. And whether or not a particular language still has a living speaker, Hinton makes sure those interested in endangered languages are able to take full advantage of Berkeley's archives, which she says "represent one of the largest collection of documents on California Indian languages in the world, maybe the biggest." "One of the most important things people learn is that they can come back here anytime," she says. "A lot of people say they were terrified of Berkeley, that they would never have come on their own. That they are actually allowed to go into a library or an archive and study the materials is something they had no idea about." Such efforts, Hinton believes, are paying off. "I think what constitutes success is people using the language," she explains. "And what I see is that people are. Any word they know, they're figuring out places where they can use it every day — tribal councils saying, 'Okay, you have to vote yes or no in our language, even if those are the only two words we know.' People are developing their own archives and libraries with copies of all the materials on the language. People are developing curriculum materials, dictionaries, phrase books. And so what's happening is that the languages are coming into use again." As a preface to Flutes of Fire, Hinton offers up a Maidu tale that explains the origin of Indian languages and provides the book's title. Mouse, the story goes, was sitting atop the assembly house, "playing his flutes and dropping coals through the smokehole," when Coyote interrupted him. As a consequence, only people in the middle of the house received fire; today, when the others talk, "their teeth chatter with the cold." The reason Indians have so many different languages, the tale concludes, is that "all did not receive an equal share of fire." For many, the fire is in danger of going out. Hinton — who still, four decades after her first visit to Supai, finds it "much more satisfying to be using my linguistic knowledge for some kind of real-world benefit, rather than just writing for other linguists" — is doing her best to fan the flames. **** Hinton is scheduled to speak on "Native American Languages and Music: The Role of the Archives" on March 8, at 7 p.m. in the Hearst Museum Gallery. For details, visit the museum's website at hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu or call 642-3682. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Mar 12 01:40:22 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 18:40:22 -0700 Subject: American Indians Say English Only Policy Diminishes Tribal Languages (fwd) Message-ID: American Indians Say English Only Policy Diminishes Tribal Languages AP - 3/11/2007 12:55 PM - Updated 3/11/2007 12:56 PM http://www.kotv.com/news/local/story/?id=122166 OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ As he visits public schools and colleges where his native Choctaw Indian language is taught, Terry Ragan is as likely to greet people with ``Halito! Chim achukma?'' as he is with its English equivalent: ``Good morning! How are you?'' The state's very name is a Choctaw word meaning land of the red people, and many of Oklahoma's 37 federally recognized tribes are fighting to save native tongues from extinction years after the end of organized efforts to stamp out their languages and cultures. That's why English-only legislation pending in the Oklahoma Legislature and directed primarily at Hispanic immigrants has been so distasteful to American Indian leaders in this, Oklahoma's centennial year. The bill points up divisions that continue to exist more than a century after Indians were force-marched to the state and given land, only to see it taken away by settlers _ an event re-enacted every year by schoolchildren across the state. ``If you go to English only, what are we going to call the state of Oklahoma?'' said Ragan, a former school superintendent and director of the Choctaw Nation's language program. ``Even town names in the state will have to be named differently. ``With that type of thinking, we're going to have to change a whole lot of things.'' Supporters of English-only legislation say it could eventually end bilingual state government documents, such as driver's license tests, and force Latino and Asian immigrants to learn English and assimilate into American society. English-only legislation has been adopted in 28 states and measures are pending in 12 states, said Rob Toonkel, director of communications for U.S. English, Inc. of Washington, D.C. A similar measure has been filed in Congress. The national English only movement does not want to deprive American Indians of their native languages but is aimed at standardizing government documents into a single language as a symbol of unity for immigrant populations. ``It's very much an assimilation issue,'' Toonkel said. ``We should make sure they become part of the country.'' But assimilation is a charged word for many American Indians, whose ancestors were forced from their traditional lands and sent on the Trail of Tears in the 19th century. English-only restrictions were imposed in what was then known as Indian Territory to expunge tribal languages and culture, said Kirke Kickingbird, an Oklahoma City attorney and member of the Kiowa tribe. ``That whole era was really about assimilation,'' he said. Indian men were forced to cut their hair and change their clothes and Indian children were herded off to boarding schools away from the influence of their parents. Even the unassigned lands set aside for Indian tribes were eventually carved up for settlement in land runs beginning in 1889, events that led to Oklahoma's statehood in 1907. Every year, school children throughout the state dress up as pioneers and stage pretend land runs to learn about the state's history. Organizers of a year-long centennial celebration said it would unite Oklahomans, but some tribal leaders said they feel alienated. ``We're just not going to celebrate it in our nation,'' said A.D. Ellis, principal chief of the 55,000-thousand-member Muscogee Nation. ``I think they should respect the Indian people of Oklahoma,'' Ellis said. ``They should respect that part we played in making the state of Oklahoma. This is a native American state.'' Chad Smith, chief of the 250,000-thousand member Cherokee Nation, the largest American Indian tribe in the United States, said the state's image is harmed when cultural differences are not embraced. ``There's a message sent to those outside of Oklahoma that we're intolerant, we're colloquial and we want to isolate ourselves from the rest of the world,'' Smith said. ``To our tribes it says that if there's an official language, your language is secondary and all other languages are secondary,'' said Smith, who has also been an outspoken critic of use of Indian mascots and names by athletic teams. Bill Anoatubby, governor of the 38,000-member Chickasaw Nation, said language is a fundamental aspect of any culture. ``Oklahoma is a unique state born from and formed by a variety of cultures,'' Anoatubby said. ``The English only bill ignores the very fabric that makes up the framework of what is Oklahoma.'' Wyman Kirk, a member of the Cherokee tribe and director of a four-year degree program in the Cherokee language at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Okla., said he believes the English only proposal is a waste of politicians' time. ``We don't have to worry about people not learning English,'' Kirk said. Supporters point out that the legislation includes language to prevent it from interfering with the teaching or learning of American Indian languages. But critics said a government policy on language could impede efforts to revive tribal languages. The Intertribal Wordpath Society, a nonprofit group based in Norman, Okla., estimates that only about 9,000 people are fluent in the Cherokee language and 4,000 in the Choctaw language. Fewer than a dozen people are fluent in other American Indian languages, including those of the Osage, Pawnee and Chiricahua Apache tribes, according to the group. Kirk said that lack of understanding, or ``uhnigvga'' in Cherokee, may be at the heart of the policy. ``Anything new tends to scare people,'' Kirk said. ``If anything, I think people probably need to be exposed to more languages.'' Alice Anderton, a former linguist at the University of Oklahoma and executive director of the Intertribal Wordpath Society, said a xenophobic fear that immigrants will somehow change society may be to blame for the policy. ``We feel it's fine for everyone to speak English, but its also important for people to speak other languages,'' Anderton said. She said English only policies are divisive and exclude people from other cultures. ``This whole idea of English uniting us is bogus,'' Anderton said. ``The truth is people are divided by a thousand things _ different politics, different religions.'' ``We have absolutely nothing against English. It's great if people speak English,'' she said. ``But it's great if people speak English plus some other language of heritage.'' From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Mar 12 01:44:15 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 18:44:15 -0700 Subject: Grants aim to help preserve native languages (fwd) Message-ID: Article published Mar 11, 2007 Grants aim to help preserve native languages By KIM SKORNOGOSKI Tribune Staff Writer http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070311/NEWS01/703110309/1002 Only a handful of people still speak the Mandan language, which was critical to the success of the Lewis and Clark expedition. The National Council of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial is offering grants to fund tribal language educational programs in the community and schools with the hopes of preserving Mandan and other native languages. "American Indian languages are libraries of ancient knowledge," said Darrell Kipp, founder of the Piegan Institute in Browning, which has a mission of researching, promoting and preserving language. "When a language dies, that wisdom is lost forever." Scholars estimate that 90 percent of the world's languages are spoken by 10 percent of the population. Many Indian ancestral languages have already been lost and the majority that remain are not being taught to children. "There are currently 6,000 languages spoken in the world, and at least half are projected to disappear in this century," said Douglas Whalen, founder and president of the Endangered Language Fund. Proceeds from sales of a Lewis and Clark commemorative coin and a handmade Indian pouch set bankroll the $1.6 million Endangered Language Fund. Using interest off that money, the foundation is offering $2,500 to $25,000 grants, starting later this year. Kipp is one of three people on the inaugural advisory committee, which will guide how grants are allocated and help execute language programs. "The Native Voices Endowment gives us a chance to make a difference far beyond the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial," said Robert Archibald, president of the national bicentennial council and the Missouri Historical Society. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Mar 12 19:59:56 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 12:59:56 -0700 Subject: Call for Papers: 2007 SIL Conf Message-ID: 14th Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium Call for Papers The planning committee for the 14th Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium invites interested individuals and groups to present their work in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, on June 1-3, 2007. Application Deadline: March 14, 2007 http://linguistlist.org/sils/call.html From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Mar 13 20:20:20 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 13:20:20 -0700 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language (fwd) Message-ID: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language Submitted by sfiecke on March 12, 2007 - 12:51pm. Filed under: General News http://www.shakopeenews.com/node/1710 State Rep. David Bly, DFL-Northfield, is seeking support for a bill that would create an state office of indigenous language. The state would collaborate with Native Americans to ensure the survival of unique cultures and language. Bly's bill, House File 779, was scheduled to receive a look during a Minnesota House of Representatives E-12 Education Committee hearing last week. If the bill eventually passes into law, money would be appropriated and the office would be established. A bill would establish a Council on Indegenious Language, which would consist of tribal officials, including a representative from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community. According to the legislation, one-third of indigenous tongues have disappeared since the coming of Columbus. Of those that survive, nine out of ten are no longer spoken by children. To read the full text of the bill as it was introduced, go to http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/bldbill.php?bill=H0779.0.html&session=ls85. Bly represents House District 25B, which includes Helena Township. From rzs at TDS.NET Wed Mar 14 04:10:38 2007 From: rzs at TDS.NET (Richard Smith) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 20:10:38 -0800 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language In-Reply-To: <20070313132020.btw800ssg04gcs08@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: This is a rather basic request: Is there anyone who knows where I could get posters of N. American animals Or good clear photos of american wild animals that can be made into posters Where the native name can be printed below it? The Wyandot language classes are going great here in Wyandotte Oklahoma, and the public school has even given us our own room...but it seriously needs posters...and non-state maps Thanks Richard Zane Smith From anggarrgoon at GMAIL.COM Wed Mar 14 01:29:34 2007 From: anggarrgoon at GMAIL.COM (Claire Bowern) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 20:29:34 -0500 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language In-Reply-To: Message-ID: We got permission from a publisher to scan flora and fauna books for illustrating the Bardi dictionary (for community use). Took a bit of work but the illustrations are great. Claire Richard Smith wrote: > This is a rather basic request: > Is there anyone who knows where I could get posters of N. American animals > Or good clear photos of american wild animals that can be made into posters > Where the native name can be printed below it? > The Wyandot language classes are going great > here in Wyandotte Oklahoma, and the public school has even given us our own > room...but it seriously needs posters...and non-state maps > Thanks > Richard Zane Smith > From charles.riley at YALE.EDU Wed Mar 14 01:54:38 2007 From: charles.riley at YALE.EDU (Charles RIley) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 21:54:38 -0400 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi Richard; This would be one option: http://store.doverpublications.com/0486291022.html The books listed there aren't limited to N. America, and they're small illustrations rather than poster-sized photos, but it's royalty-free material that can be used. Charles Riley Quoting Richard Smith : > This is a rather basic request: > Is there anyone who knows where I could get posters of N. American animals > Or good clear photos of american wild animals that can be made into posters > Where the native name can be printed below it? > The Wyandot language classes are going great > here in Wyandotte Oklahoma, and the public school has even given us our own > room...but it seriously needs posters...and non-state maps > Thanks > Richard Zane Smith > From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Wed Mar 14 02:28:35 2007 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 22:28:35 -0400 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language In-Reply-To: <20070313215438.uvv7wxb65ck4sw0k@www.mail.yale.edu> Message-ID: Hi Charles, If by royalty-free you mean free to use (no license restrictions?) then I wonder if these illustrations might also be adaptable to wiki content (scan to image file). On the AfrophoneWikis list there has been discussion of use of "template" illustrations with tags that can be filled in with names à la Duden for different language editions of Wikipedia. Any potential addition to the bank of quality illustrations that could be used would be welcome. Don > -----Original Message----- > From: Indigenous Languages and Technology > [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Charles RIley > Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 9:55 PM > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > Subject: Re: [ILAT] Bly seeks state office of indigenous language > > Hi Richard; > > This would be one option: > http://store.doverpublications.com/0486291022.html > > The books listed there aren't limited to N. America, and they're small > illustrations rather than poster-sized photos, but it's royalty-free > material that can be used. > > Charles Riley > > > > Quoting Richard Smith : > > > This is a rather basic request: > > Is there anyone who knows where I could get posters of N. American > animals > > Or good clear photos of american wild animals that can be made into > posters > > Where the native name can be printed below it? > > The Wyandot language classes are going great > > here in Wyandotte Oklahoma, and the public school has even given us > our own > > room...but it seriously needs posters...and non-state maps > > Thanks > > Richard Zane Smith > > From gmccone at NAL.USDA.GOV Wed Mar 14 02:47:10 2007 From: gmccone at NAL.USDA.GOV (McCone, Gary) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 22:47:10 -0400 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language Message-ID: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a lot of public domain images of animals. Check out images.fws.gov Gary McCone ________________________________ From: Indigenous Languages and Technology on behalf of Don Osborn Sent: Tue 3/13/2007 10:28 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re: [ILAT] Bly seeks state office of indigenous language Hi Charles, If by royalty-free you mean free to use (no license restrictions?) then I wonder if these illustrations might also be adaptable to wiki content (scan to image file). On the AfrophoneWikis list there has been discussion of use of "template" illustrations with tags that can be filled in with names à la Duden for different language editions of Wikipedia. Any potential addition to the bank of quality illustrations that could be used would be welcome. Don > -----Original Message----- > From: Indigenous Languages and Technology > [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Charles RIley > Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 9:55 PM > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > Subject: Re: [ILAT] Bly seeks state office of indigenous language > > Hi Richard; > > This would be one option: > http://store.doverpublications.com/0486291022.html > > The books listed there aren't limited to N. America, and they're small > illustrations rather than poster-sized photos, but it's royalty-free > material that can be used. > > Charles Riley > > > > Quoting Richard Smith : > > > This is a rather basic request: > > Is there anyone who knows where I could get posters of N. American > animals > > Or good clear photos of american wild animals that can be made into > posters > > Where the native name can be printed below it? > > The Wyandot language classes are going great > > here in Wyandotte Oklahoma, and the public school has even given us > our own > > room...but it seriously needs posters...and non-state maps > > Thanks > > Richard Zane Smith > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From charles.riley at YALE.EDU Wed Mar 14 03:16:52 2007 From: charles.riley at YALE.EDU (Charles RIley) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 23:16:52 -0400 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language In-Reply-To: <002201c765e0$77fae700$67f0b500$@net> Message-ID: Hi Don, It might depend on the publication and the use, but my impression is that in general, most of what Dover offers is intended for use as clip art, with no restrictions as long as a purchase has been made of the book that includes the collection of source material. The individual source images tend to be in the public domain. For specifics, they can be reached at . A bigger consideration for an online application though is that the images would have been printed using a halftone screen process, so you'd get a lot of dots left in the picture. Could be resolved by adjusting resolution and display, but a digital source (from CD or online) might be better to start with. Charles Quoting Don Osborn : > Hi Charles, If by royalty-free you mean free to use (no license > restrictions?) then I wonder if these illustrations might also be adaptable > to wiki content (scan to image file). On the AfrophoneWikis list there has > been discussion of use of "template" illustrations with tags that can be > filled in with names à la Duden for different language editions of > Wikipedia. Any potential addition to the bank of quality illustrations that > could be used would be welcome. > > Don > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Indigenous Languages and Technology >> [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Charles RIley >> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 9:55 PM >> To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU >> Subject: Re: [ILAT] Bly seeks state office of indigenous language >> >> Hi Richard; >> >> This would be one option: >> http://store.doverpublications.com/0486291022.html >> >> The books listed there aren't limited to N. America, and they're small >> illustrations rather than poster-sized photos, but it's royalty-free >> material that can be used. >> >> Charles Riley >> >> >> >> Quoting Richard Smith : >> >> > This is a rather basic request: >> > Is there anyone who knows where I could get posters of N. American >> animals >> > Or good clear photos of american wild animals that can be made into >> posters >> > Where the native name can be printed below it? >> > The Wyandot language classes are going great >> > here in Wyandotte Oklahoma, and the public school has even given us >> our own >> > room...but it seriously needs posters...and non-state maps >> > Thanks >> > Richard Zane Smith >> > > From annier at SFU.CA Wed Mar 14 03:21:30 2007 From: annier at SFU.CA (annie ross) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 20:21:30 -0700 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language Message-ID: An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Wed Mar 14 03:36:03 2007 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 23:36:03 -0400 Subject: Preserving Kanien'keh:ka Culture and Language Message-ID: Saw this in a mailing just received and thought it might be of interest. (BTW, it appears that the stars have realigned and there is no longer an argument between my e-address and the Arizona.edu listserve blocking my posts. Likely has to do with my host changing servers after an umpteenth attack.) Don The Drum Beat newsletter, Issue 386 "Knowledge - Part I: Cultivating Local Content" March 12 2007 Preserving Kanien'kehà:ka Culture and Language Through Community-Based Education and Video by Elizabeth J. Saccà & Katsi'tsákwas Ellen Gabriel In response to the need for aboriginal writing and imagery spurred by what was understood to be mass media's stereotyped portrayal of aboriginal people, several artists in a rural indigenous community northwest of Montreal, Canada decided to explore video as a tool for making personal and traditional stories of members of Kanien'kehà:ka: People of the Flint (Mohawks) accessible to the community and to others. Kanehsatà:ke and non-aboriginal women formed a community-based video project, joining their efforts with fellow community members. The authors describe the Kanien'keha language videos that emerged, and explore their role in preserving Kanien'kehà:ka culture and language. http://www.comminit.com/evaluations/eval2006/evaluations-331.html From mikinakn at SHAW.CA Wed Mar 14 03:37:21 2007 From: mikinakn at SHAW.CA (Rolland Nadjiwon) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 23:37:21 -0400 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language Message-ID: I am not sure if I am double posting here or what.... That is really quite a good idea. I recall when I was teaching in an isolated fly in community and all the reading material was so totally foreign, Heidi The Little Swiss Girl, and nothing else much better, I had the children, they all spoke and wrote anishnabehmowin in both phonetic and syllabic form. We wrote our own text books and ran them off on one of those old gum rubber indelible ink copiers, many of you may not even know what I am talking about. But, we did our own books complete with poetry and stories relative to the community, surrounding familiar communities and their world and cosmology. Unfortunately, the catholic priest who did not like my methodologies came in when I was away and burned everything. We also did all our own art work. I did manage to salvage a few of the poems, about 6 or 7. I will attach some of them here for your perusal. Of course this was in 1967...a millennium ago :) Here are three of them in English only. I no longer have the original language, anishnabehmo - ojibway, which was their first language. Don't want to be too pushy so I will only say this much. ------- wahjeh rolland nadjiwon ----- Original Message ----- From: annie ross To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 11:21 PM Subject: Re: [ILAT] Bly seeks state office of indigenous language regarding use of images: this may seem a silly remark on my part....but here goes. why not ask people in your language classes, their family members, and artist friends to make original art for your language classes? and remember, everyone is an artist. that way, all the images and words will be created by the people themselves, and it may help spread the work of language learning/retention further into the community. thank you everyone for your always awesome work annie -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mikinakn at SHAW.CA Wed Mar 14 03:56:19 2007 From: mikinakn at SHAW.CA (Rolland Nadjiwon) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 23:56:19 -0400 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language Message-ID: I am not sure if I am double posting here or what...and I think I owe some attachments. I will try damage control here, now.... Hope I can still post to ILAT.... That is really quite a good idea. I recall when I was teaching in an isolated fly in community and all the reading material was so totally foreign, Heidi The Little Swiss Girl, and nothing else much better, I had the children, they all spoke and wrote anishnabehmowin in both phonetic and syllabic form. We wrote our own text books and ran them off on one of those old gum rubber indelible ink copiers, many of you may not even know what I am talking about. But, we did our own books complete with poetry and stories relative to the community, surrounding familiar communities and their world and cosmology. Unfortunately, the catholic priest who did not like my methodologies came in when I was away and burned everything. We also did all our own art work. I did manage to salvage a few of the poems, about 6 or 7. I will attach some of them here for your perusal. Of course this was in 1967...a millennium ago :) Here are three of them in English only. I no longer have the original language, anishnabehmo - ojibway, which was their first language. Don't want to be too pushy so I will only say this much. ------- wahjeh rolland nadjiwon ----- Original Message ----- From: annie ross To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 11:21 PM Subject: Re: [ILAT] Bly seeks state office of indigenous language regarding use of images: this may seem a silly remark on my part....but here goes. why not ask people in your language classes, their family members, and artist friends to make original art for your language classes? and remember, everyone is an artist. that way, all the images and words will be created by the people themselves, and it may help spread the work of language learning/retention further into the community. thank you everyone for your always awesome work annie -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: THOMAS.WPD Type: application/octet-stream Size: 2896 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jtucker at STARBAND.NET Wed Mar 14 04:04:21 2007 From: jtucker at STARBAND.NET (Jan Tucker) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 00:04:21 -0400 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Greetings Richard, I've put out a request for photographs from a list server I belong to of hunters and tanners. I've seen a lot of different great photographs shared on their discussion board. If I get some good one's I'll forward them to you. Feel free to email me at jtucker at starband.net with where you'd like me to send this photographs. I also know a pretty amazing photographer that my donate his images. I'll let you know what he says and put you in touch. I bought a beautiful photograph of a black tail buck from him. Also have a friend in Alaska who has some good photos she might share. jan tucker -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]On Behalf Of Richard Smith Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 12:11 AM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re: [ILAT] Bly seeks state office of indigenous language This is a rather basic request: Is there anyone who knows where I could get posters of N. American animals Or good clear photos of american wild animals that can be made into posters Where the native name can be printed below it? The Wyandot language classes are going great here in Wyandotte Oklahoma, and the public school has even given us our own room...but it seriously needs posters...and non-state maps Thanks Richard Zane Smith From lanz at RICE.EDU Wed Mar 14 05:53:03 2007 From: lanz at RICE.EDU (Linda Lanz) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 00:53:03 -0500 Subject: images for indigenous language materials In-Reply-To: <45F74FFE.3020403@gmail.com> Message-ID: The Alaska Native Knowledge Network has some clipart here: http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/publications/clipart/ Many of the animals and cultural items are specific to Alaska, but many are also applicable to other parts of North America. -Linda Lanz From stonefbr at GSE.HARVARD.EDU Wed Mar 14 12:51:59 2007 From: stonefbr at GSE.HARVARD.EDU (Bruce Stonefish) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 08:51:59 -0400 Subject: images for indigenous language materials In-Reply-To: <821D1842-9A3D-4B82-AB1F-678470A794BD@rice.edu> Message-ID: Are these images copyright free? Bruce Stonefis Indigenous Education Coaltion On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 00:53:03 -0500 Linda Lanz wrote: > The Alaska Native Knowledge Network has some clipart here: > > http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/publications/clipart/ > > Many of the animals and cultural items are specific to Alaska, but many are also applicable to >other parts of North America. > > > > -Linda Lanz From lanz at RICE.EDU Wed Mar 14 13:58:46 2007 From: lanz at RICE.EDU (Linda Lanz) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 08:58:46 -0500 Subject: images for indigenous language materials In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I couldn't find a copyright statement that included the entire collection, so I would suggest contacting ANKN to find out before using them. (For example, the images that came from the Alaska Native Language Center are apparently public domain, according to the introduction, but the collection doesn't specify which ones are from the ANLC.) However, even if there's copyright, it's usually quite easy to get permission to use them, as Claire Bowern mentioned in an earlier message. A simple letter usually suffices. -Linda L. On Mar 14, 2007, at 7:51 AM, Bruce Stonefish wrote: > Are these images copyright free? > Bruce Stonefis > Indigenous Education Coaltion > > On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 00:53:03 -0500 > Linda Lanz wrote: >> The Alaska Native Knowledge Network has some clipart here: >> http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/publications/clipart/ >> Many of the animals and cultural items are specific to Alaska, >> but many are also applicable to other parts of North America. >> -Linda Lanz > From Rrlapier at AOL.COM Wed Mar 14 14:24:13 2007 From: Rrlapier at AOL.COM (Rrlapier at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 10:24:13 EDT Subject: Keeping a language alive Message-ID: Keeping a language alive: Co-founder of Blackfoot immersion school in Browning visits UM this week By KIM BRIGGEMAN of the Missoulian Blackfeet linguist, poet and teacher Darrell Kipp told students at the University of Montana on Tuesday that youngsters in his Cuts Wood School in Browning learn their native language more efficiently by using a combination sign and oral language. MICHAEL GALLACHER/Missoulian Blackfeet learning Blackfoot - what a novel concept. Not long ago it was, Darrell Kipp said Tuesday. “Twenty years ago, the notion of revitalizing our language was met with hostility. That shocks people today,” said Kipp, a Blackfeet and graduate of Harvard University. Kipp is on campus at the University of Montana this week, speaking at classes and Wednesday night at the Gallagher Business Building about the Piegan Institute and the pioneer language immersion school he helped found in Browning. More than a century of assimilating America's Native people into an English-speaking society by “religious and public institutions” was highly effective, he said. “The conditioning of people to reject or replace something as close to them as their language was highly effective,” he said. So when Kipp, Dr. Dorothy Still Smoking and Edward Little Plume launched Cuts Wood School in downtown Browning in the mid-1990s, they were met with antagonism and resentment on the reservation. Kipp told of facing the wrath of Blackfeet who told him point-blank that speaking the native language was the devil's work. He was called a mercenary, bent on exploiting the language in order to sell it. It wasn't, “Hey, you shouldn't do that,” Kipp said. “It was, ‘What the hell are you doing? Who in the hell do you think you are? What are you trying to be - a big Indian and steal everything?' ” Perhaps most troubling was the notion that the Cuts Wood School, a K-8 institution at which only the Blackfoot language is spoken, was out to harm the children. “I think this really reflects the educational standards of Montana, and it's certainly an American philosophy, that the only route to success is an English-speaking trek,” he said. “Anything less, or anything different, is a serious mistake.” Some saw Cuts Wood School as promoting something bordering on child neglect. “The fact that you would risk your child's mental stability by proposing to have your child talk in an archaic language is close to pure negligence,” he said, repeating one charge he heard. But time and research have proved the language immersion school's value. Three of the school's graduates are now in college. Others have scored well in testing, including four at off-reservation high schools in Cut Bank, Valier and Billings. A master's study by a University of Montana psychology student in 2003 presented what Kipp called a “very powerful case” that Cuts Wood students actually outperform those with public school backgrounds. “These children have been schooled in a program that never gave them a formal English language, yet they go into public schools and excel as English-based students,” he said. How to explain that? “Here at the University of Montana, how many students come from other countries with limited English and max out your Ph.D. programs in science and math?” Kipp said. Cuts Wood also teaches sign language, and the multilingual approach is known to succeed in schools, be they American Indian or not. That success extends to other disciplines, Kipp maintained. In the Blackfoot language, children can count to a million much quicker than in English, for example. “It's just a shift in a suffix,” he said. “The thinking is that tribal languages, because they're archaic, are stunted in their ability to deal with sophisticated mathematics. The fact of the matter is they're able to incorporate all the attributes of modern-day mathematics, but because the language works so differently, they often can make quantum leaps, like going from 10 to a million (quickly).” The Blackfoot language also doesn't distinguish between gender. “Oftentimes you think, how does that reflect, just in world view?” Kipp said. Blackfoot and other tribal languages have a fourth and fifth person in their grammatical structure. “English-speaking people just can't go there,” and are often repulsed by the idea of learning sentence structure and diagramming, Kipp said. He said the Blackfoot language is primarily made up of “timeless verbs,” most often in the present tense that describe things in an animate state. The term for moose translates to “dark moving into the brush.” “I think that's a moose,” he said. The world isn't divided into animate and inanimate objects. In an office in the Native American Studies building on campus, he pointed to a bowl of apples, a table, a reporter's shirt. “Using English, they're all dead,” he said. “But you make the next step up to science, and you get into physics and chemistry, then you realize the table's not dead, and there are things going on in your shirt.” The Browning school, an offshoot of the Piegan Institute, and another launched by the Mohawk tribe were the nation's first American Indian language immersion schools. They've been models in recent years for the successful Nkwsum (Salish) school in Arlee and the White Clay (Gros Ventres) at Fort Belknap. In 1990, Congress passed and President George H.W. Bush signed a Native American Language bill that “at least acknowledged the legality of speaking our language,” Kipp said. “Native American languages were outlawed until 1990.” Last December, Bush's son signed into law an act providing a competitive grant system for native language immersion programs. “That's a big jump,” said Kipp. “Twenty years ago you were accosted by your own people, told to mind your own business and that Native languages were like a vase thrown on the ground - broken forever.” Living language Darrell Kipp will speak Wednesday night about the work of the Piegan Institute in Browning and the emerging national language revitalization movement in American Indian communities. The free lecture, at 7 p.m. in the University of Montana's Gallagher Business Building, Room 106, is presented by Native American Studies department and the Calvin B. Stott Scholar fund. missoulian.com ************************************** AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rrlapier at AOL.COM Wed Mar 14 14:48:20 2007 From: Rrlapier at AOL.COM (Rrlapier at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 10:48:20 EDT Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language Message-ID: Most U.S. forest service offices have free posters of every US animal, fish, flora, trees, grass, etc. ************************************** AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Wed Mar 14 16:23:37 2007 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 09:23:37 -0700 Subject: How About NDN Only Message-ID: American Indians say English-only policy diminishes their tribal languages , Associated Press OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Legislation to make English the state's official language has run into opposition from American Indians, who say their native tongues are dying fast enough without any help from lawmakers. As Oklahoma observes its centennial year, the English-only issue points up divisions that persist more than a century after Indians were forcibly marched to the region and then endured a series of land grabs. Many of Oklahoma's 37 federally recognized tribes are fighting to save their languages and cultures from extinction years after the end of organized efforts to stamp them out. Critics of the English-only Legislation point out that Oklahoma's very name is formed from two Choc! taw Indian words - "okla'' and "homma'' - that mean "red man.'' "If you go to English only, what are we going to call the state of Oklahoma?'' said Terry Ragan, director of the Choctaw Nation's language program. "Even town names in the state will have to be named differently.'' Supporters of the legislation say it could end bilingual state government documents, such as driver's license tests, and force immigrants to learn English and assimilate into American society. English-only legislation has been adopted in 28 states and measures are pending in 12 states, said Rob Toonkel, director of communications for U.S. English, Inc. of Washington, D.C., an interest-group that supports making English the nation's official language. A similar measure has been filed in Congress. The national English-only movement does not want to deprive American Indians of their native languages but is aimed at standardizing government documents into a sin! gle language as a symbol of unity for immigrant populations, T! oonkel s aid. "It's very much an assimilation issue,'' he said. "We should make sure they become part of the country.'' But assimilation is a charged word for many American Indians, whose ancestors were forced from their traditional lands and sent on the Trail of Tears in the 19th century. English-only restrictions were imposed in Indian Territory to expunge tribal languages and culture, said Kirke Kickingbird, an Oklahoma City attorney and member of the Kiowa tribe. "That whole era was really about assimilation,'' he said. Chad Smith, chief of the 250,000-member Cherokee Nation, the largest American Indian tribe in the United States, said the state's image is harmed when cultural differences are not embraced. "There's a message sent to those outside of Oklahoma that we're intolerant, we're colloquial and we want to isolate ourselves from the rest of the world,'' Smith said. "To our tribes it says that if th! ere's an official language, your language is secondary and all other languages are secondary,'' said Smith, who has also criticized athletic teams using Indian mascots and names. Supporters point out that the legislation doesn't interfere with the teaching or learning of American Indian languages. But critics said a government policy could impede efforts to revive tribal languages. The Intertribal Wordpath Society, a nonprofit group based in Norman, estimates that only about 9,000 people are fluent in the Cherokee language and 4,000 in the Choctaw language. Fewer than a dozen people are fluent in other American Indian languages, including those of the Osage, Pawnee and Chiricahua Apache tribes, according to the group. "We have absolutely nothing against English. It's great if people speak English,'' said Alice Anderton, a former linguist at the University of Oklahoma and executive director of the Intertribal Wordpath Society. "But! it's great if people speak English plus some other language o! f herita ge.'' On the Net: Intertribal Wordpath Society: http://www.ahalenia.com/iws -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mjohnson at WSTRIBES.ORG Wed Mar 14 16:40:15 2007 From: mjohnson at WSTRIBES.ORG (Myra Johnson) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 09:40:15 -0700 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language Message-ID: We have used US Parks posters, they have a varity of posters on flowers, trees, insects, animals, etc. I have also seen students do great jobs of drawing animals pertinant to local areas. Myra ----- Original Message ----- From: "annie ross" To: Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 8:21 PM Subject: Re: [ILAT] Bly seeks state office of indigenous language > regarding use of images: > > this may seem a silly remark on my part....but here goes. > > why not ask people in your language classes, their family members, and > artist friends to make original art for your language classes? and > remember, > everyone is an artist. > > that way, all the images and words will be created by the people > themselves, > and it may help spread the work of language learning/retention further > into > the community. > > thank you everyone for your always awesome work > > annie > > On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 23:16:52 -0400 ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU wrote: >> Hi Don, >> >> It might depend on the publication and the use, but my impression is >> that in >> general, most of what Dover offers is intended for use as clip art, with > no >> restrictions as long as a purchase has been made of the book that >> includes the >> collection of source material. The individual source images tend to >> be in the >> public domain. For specifics, they can be reached at >> . >> >> A bigger consideration for an online application though is that the >> images would >> have been printed using a halftone screen process, so you'd get a lot >> of dots >> left in the picture. Could be resolved by adjusting resolution and >> display, >> but a digital source (from CD or online) might be better to start with. >> >> Charles >> >> >> Quoting Don Osborn : >> >> > Hi Charles, If by royalty-free you mean free to use (no license >> > restrictions?) then I wonder if these illustrations might also be >> adaptable >> > to wiki content (scan to image file). On the AfrophoneWikis list >> there has >> > been discussion of use of "template" illustrations with tags that can >> > be >> > filled in with names à la Duden for different language editions of >> > Wikipedia. Any potential addition to the bank of quality >> illustrations that >> > could be used would be welcome. >> > >> > Don >> > >> >> -----Original Message----- >> >> From: Indigenous Languages and Technology >> >> [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Charles RIley >> >> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 9:55 PM >> >> To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU >> >> Subject: Re: [ILAT] Bly seeks state office of indigenous language >> >> >> >> Hi Richard; >> >> >> >> This would be one option: >> >> http://store.doverpublications.com/0486291022.html >> >> >> >> The books listed there aren't limited to N. America, and they're small >> >> illustrations rather than poster-sized photos, but it's royalty-free >> >> material that can be used. >> >> >> >> Charles Riley >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Quoting Richard Smith : >> >> >> >> > This is a rather basic request: >> >> > Is there anyone who knows where I could get posters of N. American >> >> animals >> >> > Or good clear photos of american wild animals that can be made into >> >> posters >> >> > Where the native name can be printed below it? >> >> > The Wyandot language classes are going great >> >> > here in Wyandotte Oklahoma, and the public school has even given us >> >> our own >> >> > room...but it seriously needs posters...and non-state maps >> >> > Thanks >> >> > Richard Zane Smith >> >> > >> > >> > > > 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 cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Mar 14 17:53:20 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 10:53:20 -0700 Subject: Ethnic languages facing extinction (fwd) Message-ID: Ethnic languages facing extinction Web posted at: 3/14/2007 3:12:53 Source ::: The Peninsula http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News&subsection=Qatar+News&month=March2007&file=Local_News2007031431253.xml [photo inset - Vigdis Finnbogadittir.] doha Nearly half of the languages in the world are facing extinction under the invasion of dominant cultures and languages, according to Vigdis Finnbogadittir, former president of Iceland, who is currently Unesco's Goodwill Ambassador for languages. Finnbogadittir is in Doha attending the Unesco regional conference on literacy being held at the Four Seasons. She took over the role of Unesco ambassador in 1998, after serving as president of Iceland for 16 years continuously for four consecutive terms. Talking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of the conference yesterday, she said globalisation, new technologies and the changing lifestyles have posed a major threat to a number of ethnic languages across the world. Many of these languages have either vanished or are on the verge of extinction. The most endangered languages are those used by indigenous communities in South America and some in Asian and African countries, she said. English and Spanish are the two dominant languages threatening the existence of several native languages in South America. Indigenous communities across the world have been deprived of their culture and languages as they are being assimilated into the dominant cultures and lifestyles. "Globalisation has accelerated this process, while poverty and illiteracy have further contributed to it," she added. "Earlier, people were living in isolated communities. Globalisation has changed the scenario and made societies vulnerable to outside pressure. The cultural and linguistic diversity of the world are at risk," said Finnbogadittir. Reviving the lost languages is nearly impossible but spreading literacy and creating awareness can help in preserving the existing languages. "We are very much worried about the loss of bio-diversity and we should now wake up to protect the cultural diversity," she stressed. In a reference to the Arabic language, she said, the language is more stable compared to many other languages. "A Moroccan or Mauritanian speaking Arabic can be understood by a Qatari, which means that the language is vibrant and stable," she said. Yesterday, she chaired a session titled `Mother-Child Literacy and Inter-generational Learning," at the conference. From manuela_noske at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Mar 14 17:59:41 2007 From: manuela_noske at HOTMAIL.COM (Manuela Noske) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 09:59:41 -0800 Subject: images for indigenous language materials Message-ID: Culturally appropriate clipart is also available from the UVic. The clipart may be used as long as the UVic Humanities Computing and Media Centre and Half-Baked Software is acknowledged. Not sure if the images can be used on large posters, but they may be useful for smaller pictures. http://web.uvic.ca/hcmc/clipart/Manuela > Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 08:58:46 -0500> From: lanz at RICE.EDU> Subject: Re: [ILAT] images for indigenous language materials> To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> > I couldn't find a copyright statement that included the entire > collection, so I would suggest contacting ANKN to find out before > using them. (For example, the images that came from the Alaska Native > Language Center are apparently public domain, according to the > introduction, but the collection doesn't specify which ones are from > the ANLC.)> > However, even if there's copyright, it's usually quite easy to get > permission to use them, as Claire Bowern mentioned in an earlier > message. A simple letter usually suffices.> > -Linda L.> > > On Mar 14, 2007, at 7:51 AM, Bruce Stonefish wrote:> > > Are these images copyright free?> > Bruce Stonefis> > Indigenous Education Coaltion> >> > On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 00:53:03 -0500> > Linda Lanz wrote:> >> The Alaska Native Knowledge Network has some clipart here:> >> http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/publications/clipart/> >> Many of the animals and cultural items are specific to Alaska, > >> but many are also applicable to other parts of North America.> >> -Linda Lanz> > _________________________________________________________________ Explore the seven wonders of the world http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=7+wonders+world&mkt=en-US&form=QBRE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Mar 15 16:24:49 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 09:24:49 -0700 Subject: Qitsualik: Inukshuk for sale (fwd) Message-ID: Qitsualik: Inukshuk for sale © Indian Country Today March 02, 2007. All Rights Reserved Posted: March 02, 2007 by: Rachel Qitsualik http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414581 So if you could just write down the different types of inukshuks there are,'' the researcher said over the phone, ''that would be great.'' He was supposedly doing a book about inuksuit: those famous, man-like piles of rock found throughout the Arctic. ''Types?'' I asked, confused. ''You know, ones for casting spells, worshipping gods, marking sacred areas ...'' I wasn't sure what to feel more flabbergasted about: the fact that he had assumed I would do free research for his book, or the fact that he knew nothing about his own subject matter. ''Inuksuit,'' I said, ''not inukshuks. And they're for hunting.'' ''Huh?'' Several years ago, I had a Web site that provided free information on Inuit culture. It was fun. I got e-mails from all around the world, asking me this and that about Inuit traditions and words. But time saw an initial trickle of letters swell into a flood of many hundreds. And too many were ''profit'' driven questions. There were university students, for example, sending: ''My professor has given us the assignment of explaining how eco-feminism relates to tribal subsistence strategies, and we're to use examples from Inuit culture. So could you write up, in at least five thousand words, your reasons why you think Inuit women are eco-feminists?'' But these absurd requests were far from the most galling. The worst offenders were businesses and self-employed individuals, wanting to cash in on the then-global interest in Inuit, without having to do any of their own legwork. I received countless e-mails requesting cultural content for businesses, or snazzy Inuktitut (the Inuit language) names for companies and product lines. At first, I was as helpful as I could stand to be; but I would always receive back: ''Too long. Make it short, catchy. We need consumers to get a feel from the name.'' Was I their employee now? As these e-mail discussions went on, I became bitter, sensing that my kindness was being exploited. Sometimes, the e-mails would lead to phone consultations which were tantamount to harassment. Education was a totally different thing - I never minded explaining words to school kids (as long as I didn't have to do their papers). But were the business types making me materialistic? I decided to ask a Scottish consultant acquaintance about whether I should charge for Inuktitut research. She was scandalized. ''Absolutely not!'' she said. ''Knowledge should be free.'' ''Would you name a company, in English, for free?'' ''Well, no. That's different.'' I was disturbed by the opinion expressed by my consultant ''friend.'' ''So,'' I said carefully, ''when it's Inuktitut, 'knowledge should be free.' But knowledge isn't free in English?'' ''Well,'' she said, ''Inuit have a giving tradition. You don't want to sully the, uh, beauty of Inuit culture by involving money. That money's too dirty for you.'' ''Nobody minds if I charge for translation,'' I argued. ''But naming a company takes days. Corporate names are always word-plays that don't take well to Inuktitut. It's hard to cook up something like that. And you said you would charge for something named in English. That doesn't sully your culture? That money isn't too dirty?'' ''Oh, man, look at the time,'' she responded. ''Well, Rachel, it was great talking to you. We should do lunch. Maybe next week?'' ''Right.'' This conversation made me somewhat ill. Human beings survive by knowledge that is anything but free, often having to earn it by working or suffering greatly. There is no better way to learn about bears, for example, than by surviving a bear attack (often with scars as a reminder). But is this free knowledge? One may learn a great deal at a university, but only at the exorbitant cost of tuition: hardly free knowledge. Even in Inuit traditional culture, one never teaches another the full extent of a skill they possess; in this way, the teacher protects himself from obsolescence, while at once leaving room for the student to learn and personalize their own knowledge. Inuit have always understood that, if knowledge is power, then it is also currency - a lesson they have had to relearn in the wake of being told by industrialized peoples, whom they used to fear, that their knowledge should be free. The earliest explorers made careers (i.e., money) by exporting Inuit culture and the global demand for it quickly spawned a market. In the past, Inuit have depended upon non-Inuit businesses to connect them with the south. But the Inuit embracing of industrial culture has meant that, today, they are well-connected to global media, now able to market their own culture as they see fit. In other words, they are gradually cutting out the middleman. With this in mind, the ''knowledge should be free,'' resistance to Inuit charging money, suddenly comes to more closely resemble what it is: the old school of northern profiteers trying to limit their new competition. Ironically, this new competition is that which used to be the product itself: Inuit culture. I just didn't like the idea of people making money off of Inuit without paying anything back, so I decided that the corporate types were cut off. From now on, in answering e-mails, I would only give free words or information about Inuit culture to students (but I still wouldn't write their papers for them). The business people were pretty peevish about it, and being cut off didn't stop them from trying several times over. I started to get sneaky e-mails; like this one: ''Hi my name is Kitty. I'm a litle kidd in grade 3 and teecher says we need to name our hamster. I think it woud be so neet if you name him. Can you give us a short name that means 'market success' or 'cutting edge?''' I guess they thought that some deliberately misspelled words would make me think a kid was writing in. Too bad they forgot to check their e-mail address: It was identical to that of the company I had already refused the day before. Pijariiqpunga. (That is all I have to say). Rachel Qitsualik was born in 1953 and raised in a traditional Inuit lifestyle. She writes extensively on Inuit culture and language, and is a columnist for Indian Country Today. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sun Mar 18 00:41:19 2007 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 17:41:19 -0700 Subject: Anyone Ever Hear Of This Message-ID: Have you checked out this site before? They need "beta testers" for language documentation and analysis. http://www.indiana.edu/~aisri/software/index.shtml From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Sun Mar 18 04:30:02 2007 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 00:30:02 -0400 Subject: 2 items from OCPA News Message-ID: The following items may be of interest. (Seen in OCPA News #175 (26 Feb. 2007) http://www.ocpanet.org/activities/newsletter/2007/OCPA_News_No175_20070226.p df First Peoples: Indigenous Cultures and their Futures http://topics.developmentgateway.org/indigenous/rc/ItemDetail.do~1088831?int cmp=700 Sissons, professor of social anthropology in New Zealand, calls his book an "argument about the future of indigeneity," and in it he analyzes first peoples from the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, and Brazil. He addresses the painful nineteenth- and... *** The Inconvenient Indigenous: Remote Area Development in Botswana, Donor Assistance and the First People of the Kalahari http://topics.developmentgateway.org/indigenous/rc/ItemDetail.do~1088832?int cmp=700 The book deals with the relationship between the government of Botswana and its indigenous minority, known as Bushmen, San, Basarwa, or more recently N/oakwe, and tries to understand why the San people remain a marginalized minority in a country that since independence... *** From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Mar 18 05:09:38 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 22:09:38 -0700 Subject: A Chinese Village Struggles to Save the Dying Language of a Once Powerful Dynasty (fwd) Message-ID: March 18, 2007 A Chinese Village Struggles to Save the Dying Language of a Once Powerful Dynasty By DAVID LAGUE http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/world/asia/18manchu.html?ref=world SANJIAZI, China — Seated cross-legged in her farmhouse on the kang, a brick sleeping platform warmed by a fire below, Meng Shujing lifted her chin and sang a lullaby in Manchu, softly but clearly. After several verses, Ms. Meng, a 82-year-old widow, stopped, her eyes shining. “Baby, please fall asleep quickly,” she said, translating a few lines of the song into Chinese. “Once you fall asleep, Mama can go to work. I need to set the fire, cook and feed the pigs.” “If you sing like this, a baby gets sleepy right away,” she said. She also knows that most experts believe the day is approaching when no child will doze off to the sound of the song’s comforting words. Ms. Meng is one of 18 residents of this isolated village in northeastern China, all over 80 years old, who, according to Chinese linguists and historians, are the last native speakers of Manchu. Descendants of seminomadic tribesmen who conquered China in the 17th century, they are the last living link to a language that for more than two and a half centuries was the official voice of the Qing dynasty, the final imperial house to rule from Beijing and one of the richest and most powerful empires the world has known. With the passing of these villagers, Manchu will also die, experts say. All that will be left will be millions of documents and files — about 60 tons of Manchu-language documents are in the provincial archive in Harbin alone — along with inscriptions on monuments and important buildings in China, unintelligible to all but a handful of specialists. “I think it is inevitable,” said Zhao Jinchun, an ethnic Manchu born in Sanjiazi who taught at the village primary school for more than two decades before becoming a government official in Qiqihar, a city about 30 miles to the south. “It is just a matter of time. The Manchu language will face the same fate as some other ethnic minority languages in China and be overwhelmed by the Chinese language and culture.” (While most experts agree that Manchu is doomed, Xibo, a closely related language, is likely to survive a little longer. Xibo is spoken by about 30,000 descendants of members of an ethnic group allied to the Manchus who in the 1700s were sent to the newly conquered western region of Xinjiang. But it, too, is under relentless pressure from Chinese.) The disappearance of Manchu will be part of a mass extinction of languages that some experts forecast will lead to the loss of half of the world’s 6,800 languages by the end of the century. Few of these threatened languages have declined so rapidly, from such prominence, as Manchu. Within decades of establishing their dynasty in 1644, the Qing rulers brought all of what was then Chinese territory under control and then embarked on a campaign of expansion that roughly doubled the size of their empire to include Xinjiang, Tibet, Mongolia and Taiwan. However, the dynasty’s fall in 1911 meant that the Manchus were relegated to the ranks of the more than 50 other ethnic minorities in China, their numbers dwarfed by the dominant Han, who account for 93 percent of the country’s 1.3 billion people, according to official statistics. Indistinguishable by appearance, the Manchus have since melded into the general population. About 10 million Chinese citizens now describe themselves as ethnic Manchus. Most live in what are now the northeastern provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang, although substantial numbers also live in Beijing and other northern cities. For generations, the vast majority have spoken Chinese as their first language. Manchu survived only in small, isolated pockets like Sanjiazi, where, until a few decades ago, nearly all the residents were ethnic Manchus. Most are descended from the three main families that made up a military garrison established here in 1683 on the orders of the Qing emperor Kangxi to deter Russian territorial ambitions, Mr. Zhao said. The traditional Manchu-style wood and adobe farmhouses have largely been replaced by Chinese-style brick homes, local residents say. The village now looks like any other settlement in this region as a biting wind whips snow across the bare ground between the houses and piles of dried corn stalks, stacked high to feed cattle and pigs through the winter. Traditional shamanistic rites with ethnic dress and customs have also been mostly abandoned, although some wedding and funeral ceremonies retain elements of Manchu rituals, Mr. Zhao said. Villagers still observe one Manchu taboo that sets them apart from others in China’s far northeast. “We don’t eat dog meat,” Mr. Zhao said. “And we would never wear a hat made from dog fur.” The prohibition, tradition has it, honors a dog credited with having saved the life of Nurhachi (1559-1626), the founder of the Manchu state. Even now, about three-quarters of Sanjiazi’s 1,054 residents are ethnic Manchus but the use of Chinese has spread sharply in recent decades as roads and modern communications have increasingly exposed them to the outside world. Only villagers of Ms. Meng’s generation prefer to speak Manchu. “We are still speaking it, we are still using it,” said Ms. Meng, a cheerful woman with thick gray hair pulled back in a neat bun. “If the other person can’t speak Manchu, then I’ll speak Chinese.” But she disputes the findings of visiting linguists that 18 villagers are left who can still speak fluently. By her standards, only five or six of her neighbors fit that description. Mr. Zhao, 53, estimates that 50 people in the village have a working grasp of the language. “My generation can still communicate in Manchu,” he said, although he acknowledged that most villagers now speak Chinese almost all the time at home. Ms. Meng’s 30-year-old grandson, Shi Junguang, has studied hard to improve his Manchu and teaches speaking and writing to the 76 pupils, aged 7 to 12, at the village school. This is the only primary school in China that offers classes in Manchu, officials from the local ethnic affairs office said. These lessons, shared with one other teacher, take only a small proportion of classroom time, but are popular with students, say school staff members and other village residents. “Because they are Manchus, they are interested in these classes,” Mr. Shi said. He is also teaching basic conversation phrases to his 5-year-old son, Shi Yaobin, and encourages him to speak with his great-grandmother. “It would be a great blow for us if we lose our language,” he said. But most experts agree that attempts to preserve Manchu are futile with so few people left to speak it. “The spoken Manchu language is now a living fossil,” said Zhao Aping, an ethnic Manchu and an expert on Manchu language and history at Heilongjiang University in the provincial capital, Harbin. “Although we are expending a lot of energy on preserving the language and culture, it is very difficult. The environment is not right,” he added. Despite the predictions that it is now only a matter of time before Manchu falls silent, in Sanjiazi, Ms. Meng clings to hope. “I don’t have much time,” she said. “I don’t even know if I have tomorrow, but I will use the time to teach my grandchildren. “It is our language; how can we let it die? We are Manchu people.” Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Mar 18 05:15:09 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 22:15:09 -0700 Subject: Nanticoke try to bring tribe's ancient tongue back to life (fwd) Message-ID: Nanticoke try to bring tribe's ancient tongue back to life By RACHAEL JACKSON, The News Journal Posted Saturday, March 17, 2007 http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070317/NEWS/703170329/1006/NEWS There is no surviving word for "goodbye" in the Nanticoke language, and perhaps that is fitting. Even though it has been more than 150 years since the last conversation in Nanticoke took place, the tribe refuses to say farewell to the words of its ancestors. Joining a growing trend of American Indians reviving dormant languages, the Nanticoke recently embarked on a quest to reclaim a nearly lost part of their heritage. The Millsboro-based tribe has a list of about 300 words and the insights of a native speaker of a similar language. Right now, many of them feel pride when they construct simple sentences. But the Nanticoke, whose population is 150 to 200 locally with 1,000 active members nationwide, eventually hope to call each brother a nee-e mat and each sister a nimpz. Eventually they hope to recognize an eagle flying overhead as an ah-whap-pawn-top and refer to a river as a peemtuck. An estimated 175 Indian languages are still spoken in North America, according to Leanne Hinton, a linguistics professor at University of California, Berkeley, but few are still learned at home. Another 125 languages don't have speakers, she said, estimating that tribes are trying to revitalize about 50 of those languages. One of those groups is the Nanticoke. "I think it all shows the symbolic importance of a language as a kind of identity symbol for a group," said Hinton, who works with language revitalization. Nanticoke Chief James T. Norwood agreed. "A lot of tribes don't understand how you can survive without a language," he said. "It's a certain bond that you have. It just connects you more." Recorded in 1792 The Nanticoke's journey to the language of their ancestors started with a more than 200-year-old book. In 1792, Thomas Jefferson ordered the words of the Nanticoke language to be written. It's the only surviving record. The last fluent speaker died more than 150 years ago. To fill gaps, the tribe called upon Myrelene Ranville, a Canadian who speaks and teaches the Anishnabay language. Anishnabay and Nanticoke are part of the Algonquin language family, so Ranville was eager to help. "To work with a tribe who essentially has not heard their language and it has not been spoken in over 200 years and to work with a vocabulary that was recorded at the request of Thomas Jefferson is just incredible," she said. "It gives you shivers. This has not changed since 1792." In November, she left Manitoba for Delaware to lead classes on Nanticoke, using the old book. Financed by donations to the tribe, she applied her language's grammar and supplied words in Anishnabay when none was available in Nanticoke. It was like recreating Spanish with the help of a speaker of Italian. Sterling Street, assistant treasurer for the tribe, said he learned that the language is often literal. The word for "river," peemtuck, actually means "water by the tall trees." The word for man is wohacki, and the word for boy is wohacki-a-wauntit, which means little man. "For a fox, they might not have called it a fox, they might have called it 'four-legged red animal,'" Street said. But Ranville soon returned to her life in Canada, where she regularly converses with other tribe members in Anishnabay and has taught the language in an elementary school. The Nanticoke were left with tapes of her classes, which they play at sessions Thursday nights at the Nanticoke Indian Center in Millsboro. Street, who has a good aptitude for the language, leads the review sessions. But he does not call himself a teacher. As students reviewed words for hand, arm and eye at a recent class, he reminded them that he was still learning, too. A few hundred miles north, in Connecticut, Stephanie Fielding is on a similar mission to resurrect the Mohegan language, which also has Algonquin roots. Fielding, who recently published an 800-word dictionary, is working with the Mohegan-language diaries of Fidelia Fielding, the aunt of her great grandfather, who died in 1908 as the last fluent speaker of Mohegan. She said bits and pieces of the language are used in the present-day Mohegan community. "Even though people aren't fluent in it, we can use a word or two here and there," she said. Miami revived Scholars have differing opinions on bringing back dormant languages. Some point to the success of Hebrew, which before the establishment of Israel had long been restricted to religious uses. There's also the case of the Miami Indians in Oklahoma, who revived their language about 20 years after it fell out of use in the 1960s. Now, some Miami parents are raising their children with the language. "When it comes to reclaiming a cultural heritage, the home is really a sanctuary," said Daryl Baldwin, a member of the Miami tribe who runs the Myaamia Project at the University of Miami in Ohio. He said some of his four children's first words were in Miami. Hinton, the Berkeley scholar, who is also a co-founder of a group called Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, helps organize seminars for tribes to re-connect with their languages. She pairs young people with older tribe members and makes them commit to weekly conversation. She said the program has produced new speakers of about 30 languages. Hinton said the interest in bringing back lost Indian languages is gaining momentum. "It's been a real steady increase since the '90s," she said. "Everyone's realizing that their languages are in terrible danger." Hinton said that while the Nanticoke may not regain their language in its purest form, their efforts may not be in vain. "It's certainly feasible that they could be speaking ... fluently," she said. "The question as to whether fluent speakers could develop really depends on how much reconstitution they do and how much drive there is." She said the point may not be the language as much as rediscovering a part of the tribe's past. Right now the Nanticoke are looking for money to conduct more research and classes. Kim Robbins, 41, hopes to teach her younger brother and niece and nephews. A tribal dancer has written a song in Nanticoke. Others hope to document their legends in the revived language. They're learning their truest Indian names: Street, for example, is known as Earth Keeper in English and Ahkee Ganuhwandung in the Nanticoke-Anishnabay hybrid. And once again, tribe members can greet one another as their ancestors did. Eweenitu. Peace. Copyright ©2007, The News Journal. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Mar 18 17:58:43 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 10:58:43 -0700 Subject: Sound files for Sustainable Data from Digital Fieldwork conference (fwd link) Message-ID: Found at the "Transient Languages and Culture" blog: papers & mp3s from the Sustainable Data from Digital Fieldwork Conference. Sound files for Sustainable Data from Digital Fieldwork conference by Amanda Harris 20 February, 2007 http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/elac/2007/02/sound_files_for_sustainable_da.html#more From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Mar 19 17:14:58 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 10:14:58 -0700 Subject: N.W.T. considers teaching aboriginal languages in preschools (fwd) Message-ID: N.W.T. considers teaching aboriginal languages in preschools Last Updated: Monday, March 19, 2007 | 10:14 AM CT CBC News http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2007/03/19/nwt-language.html The Northwest Territories' education department says it wants to introduce traditional languages and culture to younger children by incorporating them in day care and preschool programs. As early childhood educators across the territory met in Yellowknife Friday to discuss how they could help stem aboriginal language and culture loss in children, the territorial government says it wants to improve training for child-care providers. It may incorporate ideas used in Margaret Kagyut's day care in Ulukhaktok, in which children learn the Inuvialuktun language through regular activities and field trips. "I've got lots of feedback from parents that children are using the language in some ways at home and that the parents are learning from their children too," Kagyut said Friday. She said she started incorporating simple things such as labeling objects around the classroom in Inuvialuktun, because she found young people in her community were losing their language. But Kagyut added that the school system must continue what work is started in preschool. "I noticed that when they go into the school system, they're losing what was taught at preschool," she said. "So I think it's very important that the school system ... keep trying to continue speaking the language." Friday's workshop, which took place during Aboriginal Languages Month in the Northwest Territories, was sponsored by the territorial government and Aurora College and featured northern experts in early childhood development as well as specialists from the University of Victoria. Adults have a role Onowa McIvor, a University of Victoria PhD student and aboriginal language researcher, told the gathering that adults have an important role to play in keeping their languages alive. "To say, 'You are the future, you are the way, you need to carry on the language,' what a tremendous responsibility to put on a three-year-old," she said. "They have the right to their language and as adults we owe them the opportunity to learn their language, but we can't come along and put that entire responsibility on that generation." McIvor, who said she is struggling to learn her own Cree language, recognized that there is no quick-fix solution to language loss, and it requires hard work and a solid commitment to learning. "People don't realize that it takes a tremendous amount of time and effort," she said. "We're all busy; we all work or go to school, or we're caring for our families or some combination thereof. But unless we actually carve out space in our lives for learning our languages, there's no other way to do it." From shenanzhu at YAHOO.COM Mon Mar 19 17:22:20 2007 From: shenanzhu at YAHOO.COM (Andrew Shimunek) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 10:22:20 -0700 Subject: digital camera Message-ID: Hi, all, I'm just wondering if anyone has had any experience using a Sony DCR-SR100 camcorder for fieldwork? I'm looking for an affordable camcorder that automatically encodes into MPEG2 format, to avoid any loss in quality of recording. Any suggestions? Thanks, Andrew Shimunek ____________________________________________________________________________________ Get your own web address. Have a HUGE year through Yahoo! Small Business. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/?p=BESTDEAL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Mar 20 17:01:22 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 10:01:22 -0700 Subject: Premier: Taiwan's mother tongues should be respected (fwd) Message-ID: Radio Tiawan International 03/20/2007 http://english.rti.org.tw/Content/GetSingleNews.aspx?ContentID=33282 Premier: Taiwan's mother tongues should be respected Premier Su Tseng-chang says that all the mother tongues of the people in Taiwan should be respected and preserved. The premier however also says that it is important to have a common language. He made the comment Tuesday regarding the draft of a national language development bill aimed at saving dying dialects. Su said the purpose of the bill is to prevent native tongues from becoming extinct because there had been inappropriate policies adopted by the government in the past. Executive secretary of the education ministry Chen Shueh-yu said that the bill will list at least 55 dialects as national languages besides Mandarin, which is the main language used in Taiwan. "We have many different ethnic groups, and therefore many different dialects like Minnan, Hakka, and aboriginal dialects. In just the aboriginal language alone, we have 13 tribes and 43 different dialects. The Hakka language has 5 different dialects. Even the Minnan language has different accents like from Chuan-chou, Chang-chou, Yilan, Tainan, and Haikou. In other words, there are many different versions of each dialect. So all these should be categorized as national languages." Once the bill is passed, all other native dialects supposedly will be history. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Mar 20 17:03:32 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 10:03:32 -0700 Subject: Taiwan To Stop Calling Mandarin Chinese Its National Language (fwd) Message-ID: Taiwan To Stop Calling Mandarin Chinese Its National Language http://www.playfuls.com/news_10_19951-Taiwan-To-Stop-Calling-Mandarin-Chinese-Its-National-Language.html Taiwan took another step towards proclaiming its sovereignty Tuesday by announcing that the government will stop referring to Mandarin Chinese as Taiwan's national language. Under the revised Language Development Bill, Taiwan will stop defining Mandarin Chinese, the lingua franca of China, as the "national language." Instead, it will list Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, Hakka and Taiwan's aboriginal tongues as its national languages, Chiu Chuang-liang, director of the cabinet's council for Cultural Planning and Development, said. Taiwanese, also called Fukienese, is the dialect spoken by Taiwan natives and by people in China's Fujian (Fukien) Province. Hakka is the dialect spoken by Taiwan's 2 million Hakka people. Taiwan has about a dozen aboriginal tribes, but their languages are extinct or near extinction. Mandarin Chinese has been Taiwan's official language since 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Government lost the Chinese Civil War and fled to Taiwan to set up its government-in-exile. Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, Chiu denied that scrapping Chinese as the national language is part of Taipei's policy of disowning Chinese influence, but to protect endangered languages. "UNESCO has listed Taiwan's aboriginal languages as facing extinction. So the amendment is to protect different languages and to make them equal," he said, referring to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The Chinese Nationalists ruled Taiwan, formally called the Republic of China, until 2000 when the Democratic Progressive Party won the presidential election and DPP leader Chen Shui-bian became president. Chen has been promoting Taiwan as a sovereign state, not part of China. In October last year, Chen launched the name-change campaign to remove "China" and "Chinese" as well as the name of the Chinese Nationalist president Chiang Kia-shek from enterprise names. So far Chen has renamed the Chiang Kai-shek International Airport as Taoyuan International Airport, Chinese Petroleum Corp as Taiwan Chinese Petroleum Corp, China Shipbuilding Corp as Taiwan International Shipbuilding Corp, Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall as Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall, Chunghwa Post Co Ltd as Taiwan Post Co Ltd. "Chunghwa" means "Chinese." China, which sees Taiwan as its breakaway province, has warned that it will use force to recover Taiwan if Taipei declares independence or seeks formal separation from China by changing Taiwan's name "Republic of China" or amending Taiwan's constitution. © 2007 DPA From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Mar 20 17:14:20 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 10:14:20 -0700 Subject: Lakota Educator brings Traditions to the Classroom (fwd) Message-ID: Lakota Educator brings Traditions to the Classroom By Tara W. Pretends Eagle 3/20/2007 http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=8649 Sunday mornings on KILI Radio, which is located on the Pine Ridge Reservation, the quick-witted Blues Disc Jockey, Bryant High Horse spins Blues tunes that are heard through out Lakota Country. His good sense of humor ironically goes well with his Blues tunes radio show. He is always good for an on-air joke or two that usually ends with a long, winded, Eh. The boisterous Disc Jockey, also the great-grandson of High Horse, is also a teacher and guidance counselor for the Indian Education Department in the Rapid City School District in South Dakota. During the school week, High Horse, a member of the Rosebud Tribe [Sicangu, Lakota], can also be heard cracking humorous one-liners in the hallways at North Middle School. His students think he is funny and enjoy being in his relaxed classroom atmosphere. Just three weeks ago, High Horse implemented a Lakota Culture and Language Class for sixth grade students. The class is a pilot program where all the students, both Native and non-Native signed up on their own to be in his class. Initially, there was suppose to be only one class but so many students signed up that a second class was added. High Horse was excited to teach this new class and feels his students are starting to understand the accurate history of the Lakota people. He sees they are eager to learn because they are asking a lot of questions. He tries to encourage them to help each other learn as a group. Together, they will learn about the traditional ways of the Lakota people and understand their virtues of bravery, wisdom, generosity and respect. As well as learn about the traditional roles, historical timelines and the medicine wheel. He spoke in detail about what his role as a Lakota man is, I feel my responsibility as a Lakota man is to teach our kids to respect each other. And teach our boys and men to respect the women. I teach the boys that they need to respect all women and they all have a mom, sister or grandmother in their lives who deserves that same respect. Lakota men need to learn how to respect Lakota women. He also teaches the same traditions to his students at Oglala Lakota College where he is an Adjunct Professor of Native Psychology and Lakota Studies. Native American Psychology is an entirely new field [in academia] and includes the study of the Lakota people both past and present. It is the study of how Natives infuse their language, cultural and traditional philosophy into todays world. We always had Native Psychology, but our ancestors did not record or write about it. They just lived it. We as Lakota people, have gone through so many tragedies that we are still on a healing journey. If we can let that pain go, I think we can succeed, High Horse explained. Alot of what he was taught by his grandparents, while growing up on the Rosebud Reservation are the teachings he passes on to his students. He was taught the ways of his ancestors and how to speak and write fluently in both English and Lakota. He grew up hearing that a good education was very important. Having a mentor and role model, who also was his uncle was a big factor in helping High Horse believe in himself. His uncle was also his teacher, principal, basketball coach and also stressed the importance of education High Horse is one of a group of educators that presently are working toward the preservation of the Lakota Language. Everyone in the group can speak and write fluently in Lakota and they are developing strategies to preserve the language. He spoke proudly of the group, All these great people with such knowledge, are all working hard to preserve the Lakota language. I am honored to be a part of this group. Oyate Nawicajin is High Horses Lakota name, which means, Stands For His People. He stands for his people through his work with the Lakota youth and has changed lives by teaching through music, humor and education. But it is all in a days work for this briefcase warrior. Not bad, for the self-proclaimed, Rez boy from Rosebud, Eh? Professor High Horse has a Bachelors Degree in Human Services/Social Work from Oglala Lakota College and Masters of Science Degree in Counseling/Psychology from South Dakota State University. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Mar 20 17:16:12 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 10:16:12 -0700 Subject: Recognizing Tribally Centered Cultures (fwd) Message-ID: >From Diverse Online Noteworthy News Recognizing Tribally Centered Cultures By Mark Anthony Rolo Mar 22, 2007, 14:10 When Native students transfer to mainstream institutions, the biggest obstaclesto overcome often involve the admissions office. By Mark Anthony Rolo http://www.diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_7135.shtml MADISON, Wis. - The drive from the Menominee Indian reservation to the University of Wisconsin-Madison may only be three and a half hours, but for American Indian students like Fawn Youngbear-Tibbitts, the journey towards completing a college degree cant be measured in mere miles. Youngbear-Tibbitts is one of a growing number of tribal college graduates pursuing a four-year degree. After earning her associate degree from the College of Menominee Nation, Youngbear-Tibbitts who is a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe set her sights on UW-Madison. Transferring from a two-year institution to a four-year one can be stressful under the best of circumstances, but for Youngbear-Tibbitts and three other Menominee students, the road to UW came with its share of challenges. Fortunately for Youngbear-Tibbitts, adjusting to a more diverse cultural community was not one of the obstacles. Its pretty hard for me to get culture shock, she says. Ive lived in New Zealand and other places. I didnt have the problems that many Native students experience when they move away from home. Youngbear-Tibbitts says she knew going to UW-Madison full time would create more financial hardships for her family. But the single mother of two-year-old twin boys says the most challenging aspect of her transfer was convincing UW that the coursework she completed at Menominee was rigorous enough to prepare her for the four-year institution. I knew I was academically prepared. I know how to write a research paper, she says. But I still had to take some courses over. Fawn Youngbear-Tibbitts now has her hands full with classes and twins Jessie James and William Alexander. Youngbear-Tibbitts chose not to argue with the university over those few base-level science courses, especially since she believes she would never have been accepted at all if it werent for a unique transfer agreement between Menominee and UW. In an effort to recruit Menominee students, UW-Madison now recognizes courses based on indigenous knowledge. Youngbear-Tibbitts academic focus sustainable development was one of the disciplines specifically targeted by UW. Like all of the nations 34 tribal colleges, the College of Menominee Nation promotes broad higher education within the context of a tribal culture. Language, history and ceremony are among the foundations on which the colleges education programs are built. Menominees articulation agreement with UW-Madison has been four years in the making. Though the college has transfer agreements with other UW campuses in the areas of education, nursing and social work, many thought the sustainable development program couldnt co-exist with UW-Madisons natural resources program. We had to have a meeting of the minds that was based on respect, says Dr. Kevin McSweeney, a professor of soil science and director of UWs arboretum. McSweeney was instrumental in helping negotiate the articulation agreement. He says the idea to explore an agreement between the two institutions first came up four years ago, when he was working with the tribal college on natural resource management issues. But before any agreement could be seriously discussed, McSweeney says Menominee and UW-Madison had to come to terms with some basic cultural differences. This relationship required a fair amount of getting to understand each other, developing an appreciation of different worldviews, he says.  But finding common ground between the institutions wouldnt be enough, he says. Menominee students would also need help adjusting to a non-reservation environment, especially on a campus of more than 30,000 students. Youngbear-Tibbitts says the head of the life sciences communication department played a significant role in her transition from the reservation to UW-Madison. Dr. Jacqueline Hitchon McSweeney, Kevin McSweeneys wife, helped Youngbear-Tibbitts locate an apartment in Madison and advocated for her to receive course credit for speaking her native language of Ojibwe. Youngbear-Tibbitts, who grew up around Ojibwe speakers and took formal classes, says she was surprised to discover that UW didnt accept Ojibwe as a valid non-English language. But with Hitchon McSweeneys help, she managed to convince admissions officials to change their requirement. Instead of sitting down to take a written exam, Youngbear-Tibbitts tested out of her language requirement via a phone conversation with a UW faculty member who spoke Ojibwe. It made perfect sense to test over the phone, she says. Ojibwe is an oral language. © Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Mar 21 16:51:34 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 09:51:34 -0700 Subject: CFP: International Journal of Electronic Democracy (fwd link) Message-ID: fyi, International Journal of Electronic Democracy  (IJED) Call For papers Special Issue on: "Democratic Internet - Foundations, Ideas, Approaches, and New Perspectives" http://www.inderscience.com/browse/callpaper.php?callID=641 ~~~ ILAT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Mar 21 17:12:57 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 10:12:57 -0700 Subject: A Culture Put to the Test (fwd link) Message-ID: fyi, Education Week Published: March 21, 2007 A Culture Put to the Test For Navajo children, a rigorous program draws on tradition to spur achievement. By Mary Ann Zehr http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/03/21/28navajo.h26.html ~~~ ILAT From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Mar 22 17:36:08 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 10:36:08 -0700 Subject: Children's program aims to preserve Maliseet (fwd) Message-ID: Children's program aims to preserve Maliseet Last Updated: Thursday, March 22, 2007 | 1:52 PM AT CBC News http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2007/03/22/nb-maliseet.html The First Nations community in Fredericton is hoping a new immersion program for aboriginal children and their parents will help preserve its language. [photo inset - A child helps celebrate the grand opening of the Under One Sky Maliseet language headstart program in Fredericton. (CBC)] Imelda Perley has devoted her life to connecting Maliseet people to their culture. A university and high school teacher, Perley says the language and customs of the Maliseet people are vanishing as aboriginal people lose their connections with elders. "I spent a lot of time, most of my childhood, with elders," Perley said Wednesday. "Once they started to die, I started to realize that I'm not going to have anyone to speak to, so I'm going to have to recruit and make sure we have new speakers." That's where the new off-reserve Under One Sky Head Start program, for children ages two to five, comes in. The program, which saw its grand opening Wednesday, teaches the children Maliseet culture and language, helps them prepare for school and provides parenting workshops on family health. Continue Article The program is overseen by a coalition devoted to meeting the spiritual, emotional, mental and physical needs of aboriginal children. [photo inset - Maliseet teacher Imelda Perley says the centre will help preserve the dying language.(CBC)] Members of the coalition include the Fredericton Native Friendship Centre, the Mawiw Tribal Council, the Union of New Brunswick Indians Training Institute, the Aboriginal Women’s Council and the New Brunswick People’s Council. Under One Sky Head Start is a total immersion experience held in a building in the heart of the Fredericton's downtown. Children are taught entirely in Maliseet. All the signs in the building are in Maliseet, as well as all the posters and teaching tools. It's all a dream come true for Perley, who works in the centre, teaching the children of her former students. Those former students include Alaina Paul, who learned Maliseet in kindergarten. Now Perley is teaching her daughter. 'She loves it' "She knows how to smudge, the names of the month, colours, everything in Maliseet and she loves it," Paul said of her daughter. "She thinks it's great she can talk to her grandfather. I look at them and I think, 'I don't know what you're saying.' " Despite her years in the classroom, Perley still gets a kick out of seeing the excitement in her students' eyes. "In my language, to teach and to learn are the same word, so as I'm teaching them, I'm learning," Perley said. "I tell them: 'Thank you for teaching me how to teach you. Thank you for teaching me how to help you remember that word.' " For now, the centre's classes are small, limited to six students. Perley hopes more funding from the provincial government will help make the expansion a reality sooner than later. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Mar 22 17:43:58 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 10:43:58 -0700 Subject: One voter's deeper purpose keeps history alive (fwd) Message-ID: One voter's deeper purpose keeps history alive The Sydney Morning Herald Malcolm Brown March 23, 2007 http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/one-voters-deeper-purpose-keeps-history-alive/2007/03/22/1174153258373.html# BERYL CARMICHAEL, the legendary elder of the Ngiyaampaa people of far western NSW, will vote in the state and federal elections - but Aunty Beryl will probably regard the results as transitory. But Aunty Beryl is locked in a deeper, more fundamental campaign. She is seeking to preserve the culture of her people that has prevailed over 40,000 years, despite being threatened with extinction and - despite national awareness in recent decades - still threatened. Linda Burney (ALP, Canterbury), the first Aboriginal woman in the NSW Legislative Assemby, was in no doubt about the threat when she spoke at this week's presentation of the Rona Tranby Award to Aunty Beryl for her contribution to the preservation of Aboriginal legend, culture and language. "Probably one of the greatest tragedies this country is witnessing at the moment is the loss of our languages at the rate of two a year," she said. "There are only 60 left that are spoken conversationally, out of 500 or 600, and there is nothing being done to protect them except endeavours like this." Aunty Beryl received the award, administered by a trust in collaboration with Tranby Aboriginal College of Sydney and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies. It was presented at the Sydney Jewish Museum. The last fluent speaker of her language, Aunty Beryl was born on a mission station at Menindee and learnt the legends of her people around the campfire, listening to her father, who ensured that his children knew the ancient arts of making weapons and gathering food. She knew tough times. As a child she had little food. The children would go out hunting for a rabbit for their one substantial meal for the day before going to school. "Coming home for lunch, there was no food in the house," she said. Nearly a quarter-century ago, Aunty Beryl started education classes to bring Aboriginal children back to the bush. "It is a very long journey and we still have a long, long way to go before we can say 'Well done' to our people," she said. "We are trying to bring the children with us, our young people to get out there to witness the big picture. Without connections, language and heritage, we will … remain lost in our culture." The mother of 10, grandmother of 18 and great-grandmother to 14, Aunty Beryl has helped establish Aboriginal pre-school kindergartens in Broken Hill and Menindee and has helped set up a pioneer NSW Meals on Wheels bush tucker project at Menindee. One night she woke trembling, as spiritual forces inspired her to write a prayer. "Father of us all and Great Spirit of Our Ancestors …", she began, and thanked the Great Spirit for guiding her and creating the land that had served her people. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Mar 22 17:46:42 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 10:46:42 -0700 Subject: Linguistics professor’s new book laments dying languages (fwd) Message-ID: March 22, 2007 Linguistics professor’s new book laments dying languages BY CLAUDIA SEIXAS http://phoenix.swarthmore.edu/2007-03-22/news/17033 Assistant Professor of Linguistics K. David Harrison’s new book “When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World’s Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge” looks at what is lost from scientific, linguistic and humanistic vantage points when a language dies by examining field studies of endangered languages in Siberia, Mongolia, the Himalayas, North America and elsewhere. Harrison’s book is more commercially viable than many professors’ published works, and is accessible to a popular as well as an academic audience. On March 1, it ranked #128,642 in Amazon.com book sales. Because it tackles many humanistic concerns with an interdisciplinary approach, many reviewers recommend “When Languages Die” not only to linguists but to anthropologists and general readers. Linguistics major Nathaniel Peters ’07 explained that a particular strength of Harrison’s is the multimedia approach he took to his research. “It’s pretty darn cool data,” Peters said. “Because of the nature of the research, Harrison could have come up with a lot of diagrams, but anyone who’s interested in singing songs can look at a video David has made and enjoy that.” Harrison’s new book is relevant because it discusses the task of recording the unique perspectives on the world that disappear when a language dies, Peters said. “It’s very good that a book like this is being written because it’s simply true that when languages die, cultural repositories of knowledge about ‘being a human being’ will be lost, and languages are also just inherently beautiful,” he said. “When Languages Die” covers the concept of language extinction and sheds light on its relevance to human society and the human knowledge base. The book draws on Harrison’s own research and case studies that put him in contact with speakers of endangered languages — in some cases, the last known speakers of a language. As a linguist, Harrison encourages his students to “discover” languages, many of which are undocumented and known only to its native speakers. “Eighty percent of the world’s languages are undocumented by science,” Harrison said. “There’s at least minimal documentation of only 15 to 20 percent of the world’s languages.” “It’s amazing to be at a place like Swarthmore,” Harrison said. “The students are so global in their thinking. I like the activist climate here. When I say there is a language extinction crisis, I don’t have to start [explaining why it’s important] from scratch because people here understand that culture is something to be valued,” he said. “The book is not only an appeal to linguists but it’s also trying to give an unsentimental answer to [the question]: Why should we care that languages are going extinct?” Harrison said. “Languages encode crucial knowledge about species and ecosystems about which Western science is still unaware of. We should try to do what we can to appreciate them.” According to Harrison, 87 percent of the world’s living plant and animal species — excluding microbes — have yet to be identified, documented or classified by modern science. Indigenous cultures have very sophisticated knowledge systems appropriate to their particular niche in the world. Many of these peoples harbor vital knowledge about the environment, animals and plants. Harrison presents a case study of reindeer herders in South Siberia who say “dongur” to indicate in one word “male domesticated reindeer in its third year and first mating season, but not ready for mating.” Such knowledge has been gathered over countless generations and passed on through oral tradition. “It’s arrogant and colonial of us to toss that knowledge on the scrapheap of history,” Harrison said. “There’s a knowledge gap between western science and culture and indigenous cultures,” Harrison said. With environmentalism gathering attention throughout the world, Harrison argues that citizens of developed countries should be more attentive to the valuable resources that exist in these unique cultural depositories, resources that are in danger of dying out along with languages that transmit indigenous knowledge. At last count, there are about 7,000 living languages, about half of which are projected to become extinct by the end of the 21st century. Harrison does not use the term “extinction” in the conventional literary sense. Rather, the term denotes the process by which globalization and urbanization allow dominant languages to overcrowd small and less spoken languages, prompting new generations of speakers to assimilate the prevailing language. Shoydak-ool Khovalyg, an epic Tuvan storyteller, is one of the rare speakers Harrison highlights. Khovalyg told Harrison the tale of Bora, a woman on a quest to resurrect her dead brother who uses her magical powers and the help of a clever horse to change into a transgender disguise, complete with a goose-head as a fake penis. Language extinction destroys cultural heritage, since stories like those told by the Tuvan storyteller are only transmitted orally. According to Harrison, this results in the deterioration of the human knowledge base. “Unique language systems give human insights into how the world works. Since we don’t know everything about the universe, it’s foolish to squander this information,” Harrison said. Sentimentality can often disrupt the process of aiding endangered languages by shifting the focus to preservation, when the goals of linguists like Harrison are to document, maintain and revitalize the endangered languages. Living Tongues (http://www.livingtongues.org) is a non-profit organization Harrison helped found to address exactly those issues. “I’m trying to do both science and activism,” Harrison said. It’s up to the community to decide whether they will submit to globalization or attempt to pass down their language to future generations, Harrison said. Harrison and Living Tongues’ mission is to give back to the community, whether in the form of providing them with a storybook in their language (sometimes the first book to be published), documentation or sound recordings. Harrison has co-authored a Tuvan grammar dictionary and is currently working with the National Geographic Institute to travel, research, visit and map out hot spots of language endangerment and diversity. Recently, Harrison has moved beyond what he covered in his book to develop an idea he described as “the triple threat.” “What I’m trying to show in my work is how the biosphere is linked to the ethnosphere, and the relationship between language extinction and knowledge systems and extinction of species,” Harrison said. Harrison has taught linguistics courses at Swarthmore including phonetics, phonology, the structure of Tuvan and a seminar on endangered languages, the latter two of which are based largely on Harrison’s research. Harrison Magee ’09, who works with Harrison, agreed about the importance of studying languages that are in danger of disappearing. “Learning about an endangered language is such a beneficial thing to study on many levels, not only to learn about linguistics, but also human knowledge, how we talk, people and culture and ethnicity,” he said. The Endangered Languages Lab works to create online talking dictionaries and other resources for endangered languages. According to Harrison, “we’re really in desperate need of linguists. Linguists get to meet people in amazing places and learn knowledge systems that have never been described. The feeling of really truly communicating with someone in their native language when only 50 other people speak it is very rewarding.” “Studying an endangered language will tell you things you’ll otherwise never know,” Magee said.Students reciprocate Harrison’s enthusiasm for the field. “The greatest strength that David has is that he does very interesting, very relevant research and integrates that into what he does in the classroom,” Peters said. “I think he’s absolutely a wonderful professor.” “When Languages Die” is available in McCabe Library on the new book shelf. Disclosure note: Nathaniel Peters is a columnist for The Phoenix and had no role in the production of this article. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Mar 22 22:40:42 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 15:40:42 -0700 Subject: digital camera In-Reply-To: <633609.88404.qm@web60412.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Andrew, I hope you received some off-line feedback.  There are a number of expert reviews on this camera so it should be no problem to one find online.   Recording to a hardrive, MPEG-2 format, and the widescreen ratio 16:9 is definitely a plus.  My camera a Panasonic AG-DVX100B uses mini-DV so I have no experience with the above at least as a recording option.  l8ter, Phil Quoting Andrew Shimunek : > Hi, all, > > I'm just wondering if anyone has had any experience using a Sony > DCR-SR100 camcorder for fieldwork? I'm looking for an affordable > camcorder that automatically encodes into MPEG2 format, to avoid any > loss in quality of recording. Any suggestions? > > Thanks, > Andrew Shimunek > > > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Get your own web address. > Have a HUGE year through Yahoo! Small Business. > http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/?p=BESTDEAL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Mar 23 17:07:33 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 10:07:33 -0700 Subject: Reviving a Native Tongue (fwd) Message-ID: Reviving a Native Tongue Can a UBC program bring back to life the Musqueam dialect? View full article and comments here http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/03/23/RevivingANativeTongue/ By Bryan Zandberg Published: March 23, 2007 The Ubyssey Adeline Point died in 2002 at the remarkable age of 92 years old. She was the last person on earth whose mother tongue was Musqueam -- a Salish dialect that was once the dominant language of much of the Lower Mainland. During the last years of her life, when Adeline got too weak to get around her house, a small scrum of linguists hurriedly made recordings at her bedside. When she passed on, they had to set their recorders aside because there was no one left to tell the story of the Musqueam people in their own language. Now, five years down the road, one of those linguists, Patricia Shaw, finds herself in a pitched battle to revitalize the language. As the current director of the First Nations language program at the University of British Columbia, she's chock full of questions about the Musqueam's countless forgotten nuances. Did women speak it differently than men? How did a mother scold a child? Was a specific term used in another context a sexual innuendo? How do you tell a joke? Between rebuilding the language and finding people committed to learning it, Shaw works tirelessly to teach and reconstitute the language based on a single book of grammar, a dictionary and field recordings of Adeline and earlier speakers -- the price of failure, she says, is its death. "How will you know that you have enough?" Language of love One certainty is that almost everyone who comes into contact with Musqueam is very quickly enchanted by it. At least Shaw's students seem to think so. One evening, I went down to the Musqueam Indian Reserve on the banks of the Fraser river to take in a introductory level course Shaw and Musqueam Elder-in-residence Larry Grant were teaching there on behalf of the university. They were trying to instill an important aspect of Musqueam verb structure. Whereas in English we simply walk, come or go, the vast majority of Musqueam verbs take their cue from the subject's orientation to the water. "You can't just say, 'She went home,'" explains Shaw. "You have to [ask yourself], 'Was she farther away from the water and going home, or was she coming home in the direction away from the water? Was she walking parallel to the flow of the water downstream? Was she walking parallel upstream?'" After an hour and a half of mortal mouth-combat with sounds that can only be described by way of adjectives like "swirly," "whooshy," "guttural" and "plunky," the dozen or so students (half Native and half non-Native) were, to my surprise, still smiling. Ericka Forssman, a UBC Fine Arts student, was one of them. She isn't First Nations herself, but her boyfriend is, and she wants to be able to speak to him in Musqueam. "Watching him go through it and learn was really interesting because it's a language that's so connected to the area," she explains. Like Shaw, Forssman loves the little things tucked inside the language. Things like the fact that in Musqueam seasons hinge on the life cycle of salmon and the migrations of local animal populations. Not sure if she'll tough out all four years of the program, Forssman is taking it step be step -- and signing up for year two after the summer break. "I'm taking it more as a personal challenge than anything." Playing catch up Terri-Anne Sam, another student in the course, is a Songhees woman and mother of two, from Esquimalt. "I'm not Musqueam, but my children are," she explains, pointing to two little kids outside the building. One of them, her daughter, is wobbling around on her tiny bike in a bright pink jacket. "I wanted to learn so that I could teach them the language." Sam eventually plans to become an elementary school teacher capable of instructing the local kids in Musqueam. She's taking night classes to get her teacher certification at UBC. Does she like the language? "Yeah, yeah," she says. "It's fun, but I missed last week so it's very hard trying to catch up right now." Passing the torch Seeing students like Sam ready to commit themselves to the work is a welcome sight for Victor Guerin. Guerin is a K-12 language co-ordinator and adult education teacher on the reserve, and he says there is a serious demand for people who can speak the language -- to some degree -- to be teaching it at all levels: preschool and day care, in the various elementary and secondary schools, and to the adult education classes that are held on the reserve for high school upgrading. Seen one way, the direst need lies in teaching impressionable elementary students; there's nothing in place and no one who can teach right now. "[We] can't answer all that demand," he says. It's something he and the B.C. College of Teachers are trying to remedy by allowing adult speakers like Sam to begin teaching even before they finish their certification. Incentives such as these are important in B.C. -- Canada's most linguistically diverse province -- where a number of First Nations languages are poised on the brink of extinction. 'Thumbscrews' and unions As a recruiter, Guerin finds himself in a place similar to that of the Musqueam elders who recruited him; that is to say, looking for people willing to collaborate in the beleaguered renaissance of his native tongue. Guerin was working as a longshoreman in the '80s when he landed a job on a project at the Museum of Anthropology. Impressionable and in his early twenties, he was deeply inspired working alongside ethnobotanist and anthropologist David Rosen, a white man and a fluent speaker of Musqueam. "Seeing that sort of lit a fire under me and I started to think, 'If this non-aboriginal can learn to speak our language fluently, then why can't I?'" Wherever he could find time, Guerin renewed his studies under the guidance of older relatives and elders during the following 16 years. When UBC's Faculty of Arts began offering courses in 1997, he studied Musqueam for the full four years, cementing what he'd already picked up. By the time he finished, the makings of a mission were falling into place all around him: people who cared about the fate of Musqueam had it in for Guerin to pass on what he'd learned. "They put the thumb-screws to me," he recalls thoughtfully in an interview at his weathered desk at the band office. "I was actually almost ready to go into the longshoreman's union." Cheaper in English Douglas Whalen, a Yale-educated linguist, says that given the trend of minority languages in the world, the prognosis for Musqueam and numerous other tongues isn't good. "A greater percentage of languages is projected to die off in the next hundred years than for bird, plants or mammals," wrote the founder and president of The Endangered Language Fund by e-mail. Put another way, 50 to 90 per cent of the world's estimated 6,000 to 7,000 languages are predicted to disappear in the next century, many with little or no significant records. As dismal as it sounds, in the Information Age there are ways to document them before they vanish. "We are at a stage where we can at least preserve some of the spoken form -- which was not possible in earlier times," says Whalen. A number of First Nations languages of Canada have already disappeared, including Beothuk (Newfoundland), Nicola (B.C.), Huron-Wendat (Quebec) and Pentlatch (B.C.). Epidemics were a devastating factor, reducing pre-contact First Nations populations from over five million to less than half a million at the beginning of the 20th century. The residential school experiment served only to further cripple the linguistic heritage of many groups. Since UBC is built on Musqueam land, it's a safe bet there will always be a program acting as a life-preserver for their language -- a bittersweet situation, considering there are numerous distinct groups in Canada and elsewhere for whom this isn't the case. Tacitly, however, some believe the death of minority languages is a natural, and economical, phenomenon -- though it's next to impossible to find someone who will espouse this unpopular view on the record. "Fewer languages means better and clearer communications among the majority of speakers," reads an anonymous entry on the topic in Wikipedia. "The economic cost of maintaining a myriad of separate languages, and their translator caretakers, is enormous." But Whalen begs to differ with the assertion languages go extinct the way animals and plants do, via natural selection. "Yes, languages have died out over time," he wrote, "but killing them off is a different story. Many languages have been under active assault, in Canada as well as the U.S. and other places. Many still are [dying], though there are some efforts (in Canada and the U.S.) to begin supporting them." It seems counterintuitive, but Whalen looks favourably at the rise of dominant languages such as English in the world, provided they cater to diversity over uniformity. "Bilingualism is essential," he argues, "and allows us to have the global language along with the minority language. Those who insist that only the majority language should be used are usually also intent on stamping out any cultural differences." On a side note, the value in retaining as many as possible is clear to researchers, who continue to find important clues about human history in the study of language. For example, Nuxalk, or what has in the past been called the Bella Coola language, is internationally renowned for long words and even sentences that don't include a single vowel. Oddly, one of the only other places this rare trait is found is in Morocco. To explain the link, linguists are working furiously to document and decipher languages before they disappear. But that's not easy in B.C., explains Shaw. Linguistic differences from one valley to the next are so diverse that thus far linguists can find no common ground between language families in the province. Gitksan Tsimshian and Chilcotin Athabaskan are "as different as any of the Indo-European languages are from any of the Chinese languages," says Shaw. Rooted renaissance Back at Musqueam, Guerin says that for renaissance to take hold, it has to re-enter day-to-day life. "If the learning of a language is confined to a classroom, it will never survive," he says. The hurdles are looming. Residential schools have left a deep scar, and Larry Grant, co-instructor of the university course, adds his own society now considers Musqueam "a ceremonial language" more than a conversational one. For Grant, the resurrection of the language is tied to healing and self-identity in the larger context of postcolonial Western society. Things like hereditary laws and kinship ties simply can't be expressed the same way in English. "I think [our language] is important for us to understand and appreciate who we are." says Grant. "And not only that, but for us to accept who we are. Because of legislation that denied [us of] a lot of stuff, denied who we are." And yet talking to Guerin in his cubicle, you got a sense of how hemmed in the project is. Walking out of class, there are no TV shows, magazines or summer camps for Musqueam students. Just English or Mandarin or some other tongue seen or heard in the city. Nor is academic scrutiny always popular with the Musqueam people. Grant says parsing the language down into its grammatical components is met with a wary eye by some, who don't relish the idea of academics swooping in and dismantling what they see as a vibrant whole, and a sacred aspect of ceremonial meetings. "It's a difficult part to sell to the community," he sighs. "They don't really appreciate why you need to break the language down to rebuild it." Sitting in with his students that evening, I was struck by what a slow, minute process the work is. Following hard on its heels of that thought was the realization I was sitting with a significant slice of the people who hold some living knowledge of Musqueam. Grant says that in the underlying minutiae of the science behind the work, it can be hard for some to see the big picture. Grammatically correct For the moment, the only certainty for Guerin and company is lots of hard work. "I'll be long gone and there'll still be lots left to do," he says. By that he means building the limited body of knowledge the world has of the Musqueam language -- a relatively miniscule corpus comprising a single book of grammar, a dictionary, various recordings and documentation and what remains in living memory among community members and elders. Nevertheless, Guerin, for one, is banking on the fact that students like Forssman and Sam share his obsession with a sleeping language, one that invites a seeker to always venture further in. He remembers being out in the field near the reserve one time with a research assistant, working on one project or another. As he was walking he wondered aloud one too many times what the Musqueam name was for certain things he was seeing in nature. "Do you think about the language all the time?" Guerin recalls the research assistant asking him. "Yeah, pretty much," he remembers answering. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Mar 23 17:51:47 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 10:51:47 -0700 Subject: New Language Policy to Preserve Aboriginal Culture (fwd) Message-ID: NEW LANGUAGE POLICY TO PRESERVE ABORIGINAL CULTURE http://media-newswire.com/release_1046321.html The Bracks Government today invested $10,000 in a new strategy to revive Victorias Indigenous languages, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Gavin Jennings announced today. Mr Jennings said the new approach would help revitalise Victorias traditional languages, which was a significant aspect of preserving Indigenous culture. (Media-Newswire.com) - The Bracks Government today invested $10,000 in a new strategy to revive Victorias Indigenous languages, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Gavin Jennings announced today. Mr Jennings said the new approach would help revitalise Victorias traditional languages, which was a significant aspect of preserving Indigenous culture. Aboriginal cultural heritage is about language, stories and traditions as well as land and objects, Mr Jennings said. There used to be 40 separate Indigenous languages and many Aboriginal people spoke four or five different languages. These languages are not spoken anywhere else in the world, making them a unique part of our cultural heritage and we should not let them die out. Mr Jennings said Victorian Aboriginal Corporations for Languages ( VACL ) and the Federation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages ( FATSIL ) will now develop a new policy on Indigenous Languages. The Bracks Government has provided $10,000 to help VACL run a two-day workshop, bringing together experts in this area, he said. This workshop will produce recommendations for a draft policy to be prepared for consultation with the community and State Government. This important area of work will help Indigenous Victorians reconnect to their past and celebrate their culture. Chairperson of VACL, John Atkinson, said the policy would aim to make Indigenous language education more accessible to the Aboriginal community. Language contributes to the wellbeing of Aboriginal communities, strengthens ties between elders and young people and improves education in general for Indigenous people of all ages, Mr Atkinson said. Representatives from VACL, FATSIL, the Aboriginal community, State Government and the New Zealand Maori Language Commission attended the workshop. Mr Jennings congratulated FATSIL for contributing $34,000 to the project. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Mar 24 17:53:34 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 10:53:34 -0700 Subject: Tribe works to ensure language's future (fwd) Message-ID: Tribe works to ensure language's future [photo inset - Isabella Gallardo, 5, (left) and Shylee Worthington, 4, play the drums and sing songs in the Anishinaabemowin language during a cultural program at the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians Head Start program in Pellston. The tribe’s language department is creating programs to pass the language on to children. (Kristina Hughes/News-Review)] Video Stories By Kristina Hughes News-Review Staff Writer http://www.petoskeynews.com/articles/2007/03/24/news/more_local/news02.txt HARBOR SPRINGS — Howard Kimewon was punished for speaking Anishinaabemowin when he was a child in school. “We had to speak English. You would get a strapping for speaking the language, that was the golden rule,” Kimewon said. Nearly 50 years later, Kimewon remembers his grammar school experience on Manitou Island. But today he feels welcome at Harbor Springs High School where he informally teaches the Anishinaabemowin language during lunch hours at the school. “I feel good about being here and bringing the language back to the kids. I don’t have paper, pencils or lesson plans, everything I say I speak from the heart,” he said. Kimewon smiles as students count or understand a word or two during the language lunch table. Megan Keller, a Harbor Springs sophomore stumbles over the words, but she is encouraged when she understands the meaning. “I want to learn how my ancestors talked,” Keller said. Keller will have that opportunity. The Harbor Springs High School and the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians are collaboratively working to create a formal Anishinaabemowin language program at the school. The class is part of a movement to revitalize the region’s first spoken language as its number of speakers dwindle. The effort is being made through a multigenerational approach in area homes, schools, classes and at community events. The recent interest encourages fluent speakers like Ray Kiogima. Kiogima, 77, grew up in what he calls “Indian town,” a place where several Native American families resided in Harbor Springs. Growing up in the 1930s, the language was spoken in the homes, on the streets and at gatherings. “This used to be known as the Odawa capital,” he said. Kiogima learned to fluently speak Anishinaabemowin from his grandmother Mary Anne. “My grandmother couldn’t hardly talk in English ... When I slipped in an English word she reminded me if I lived with her I had to speak the Odawa language,” he said. Nearly 60 years later, Kiogima is inspired to teach the language. Last year, Kiogima finished his 20 year quest to co-author the book “Odawa Language and Legends.” “When I heard the two words, ‘dying language,’ it gave me the inspiration to write the dictionary. I heard these words and it hit me like a light bulb going off in my head.” Kiogima is currently writing a second book teaching the language. He hopes these books will rekindle a spirit to learn. “The people have to have the desire to pass it on. We are counting on them,” Kiogima said. The story of the language is tied with the history and cultural traditions of the tribe. When the Europeans settled, the Anglo Saxon education system forbid Native Americans to speak their native languages. In some cases Native Americans were physically abused for speaking. This lead to a breakdown in the language in some tribes, since parents wished to protect their children from ridicule or punishment. For years many tribe members attended boarding schools, like Holy Childhood School in Harbor Springs, where the language was forbidden. The nuns believed students must speak English and assimilate in order to succeed. As more tribal members moved, or entered the job force and schools in the predominant culture, English became the primary language for many families. Some families passed on a few words or did not speak the language, while a few speakers remained fluent. In time as the fluent speakers began to walk on, the language was dying with them. Some tribal members worried about the future of the language. In the last few decades there was a resurgence movement focusing on the cultural traditions and the language. Recently the education community has begun to embrace the language in the classroom. Helen Roy, is a first language speaker who kept her traditional language when many speakers conversed in English. Roy, a linguist professor at Michigan State University, fills a duty to teach. “It’s important because when we speak we have our whole history of why the words are spoken a certain way,” Roy said. “It’s our cultural identity, people talk about tradition and you hear that in the language.” “But, there are still people who are reluctant to learn the language because of past experiences ... But we should look at tomorrow and what we can do to revitalize it.” Anishinaabemowin first Joe Kishego spoke fluent Anishinaabemowin. But that changed when he attended school. The lessons, recitations and books were all in English. “We were asked to bring all our prayer books, hymnals in Odawa, these books were burned,” he said, with a sadness in his eyes, during an elder’s luncheon. But he didn’t follow the rule. He hid his books, now worn with time. “For a while nobody spoke,” Kishego, of Harbor Sprigs said. “If we speak it our language will carry on.” Kishego is proud to speak. When Veronica Medicine, 69, listens she vividly remembers her cousin who shared stories in an animated fashion. “When (fluent speakers) speak, it’s like music,” Medicine said. Growing up, no one taught her the language. As she learns the words, Medicine hopes she will someday be able to pray in her native language. In the past, she participated in Ray Kiogima’s classes and courses with Kenny Pheasant. She also participates in activities held by the Odawa Institute, a nonprofit formed to preserve the language and culture. The group continues to promote cultural events and a weekly language class. In the last five years the tribe has made the language a priority, Carla McFall, the tribe’s language program coordinator said. McFall met with interested community members and tribal leaders, nearly five years ago to establish a proposal for the new language program. The tribal council approved the program housed in the Archives and Records Department in Harbor Springs. The proposal included a narrative of the history of the language, the need for fluent speakers and the importance of revitalizing the language. The program was established in 2004. The tribe’s Archives and Records Department received a $450,000 grant from the Administration for Native Americans in 2006 for language revitalization efforts. The funds were used to hire a curriculum specialist and are being used to develop the high school course and create communitywide Anishinaabemowin programs. “Our primary goal is revitalization so it doesn’t seem archaic,” McFall said. “We’re not doing it for a hobby or solely for fun. We’re doing it to teach a living, breathing language.” Passing it on McFall passes on the words to her children and grandchildren. Cody Bigjohn, 30, did not have much interest in the Anishinaabemowin language as a teen. He remembers his mother Carla McFall who shared greetings at family and tribal functions. But when he had his own children, Aanzhenii (angel), 10 and Waabzii (Swan), 3, the desire to learn the language took hold. As he passed on his genes, he hopes to pass the language on. “It gives me a sense of pride to hear them say words,” Bigjohn said. “When I hear them I know our culture will stay alive.” As generations past spoke Anishinaabemowin in the home, some community members are bringing the language back to the home. When Kathy Shomin, decided to attend language classes it became a family affair. On a recent evening, Shomin and her children Sampson Shomin,19, Kyle Shomin, 17, and Mehmay Guaz (butterfly) Shomin, 14, play Anishinaabemowin Yatzhee during a language pizza party. Kathy’s children learned words from their grand parents. Kathy takes the advice from an elder to heart, who shared, “Language is your culture and when your language is gone your culture is gone.” “You need as much exposure as you can get. It’s one thing to go to school and learn the language, but to live it and speak it will save it,” Kathy said. Melissa Wiatrolik, 28, can remember growing up in a household where her mother and grandmother often conversed in the native language. Wiatrolik participates in the immersion class experience as a way to teach her children. “It’s important for our generation to carry it on to our children,” Wiatrolik said. “... Listening, it brings back memories and a feeling inside that one can not explain.” Crystal Greensky, 24, grew up speaking and listening to the Ojibwe language on the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indian Reservation near Duluth, Minnesota. Greensky, whose father was an Ojibwe instructor hopes to follow in his footsteps by becoming an Anishinaabemowin teacher. “You don’t think about it as culture,” Greensky said. “Growing up, it’s the way you lived.” After moving to the area she enrolled in immersion courses and a teaching program at Bay Mills Community College. She currently works as a language assistant with the tribe. By teaching she hopes to raise awareness about the language. “There are so many people who don’t know we have a language,” Greensky said. “We need to create awareness and speakers.” Through her work she connects with the elders and fluent speakers, who hold the key to the history of the language. “I can’t even imagine what our community of elders went through,” Greensky said. “Can you imagine for example, if you went to a Chinese speaking school and could not speak your language? I feel so fortunate to be around (the elders), to hear their stories.” Crystal and Harriet Kishigo Booth, recently conversed in Anishinaabemowin during a game night. Kishigo Booth, who lived through the times when the language was stigmatized, is watching it emerge as a point of pride. Looking at the young people, like Greensky, she is hopeful. “I’m encouraged that we are going to keep the language,” Kishigo Booth said. “They are going to be our source to pass it on.” Additional stories: Video features Multi-generational approach used to teach language Language brought into classroom Learning the Anishinaabemowin language The Odawa Institute a non-profit organization formed by people committed to revitalizing the use of the Anishinaabemowin and Anishinaabe culture. http://www.institute.odawa.info. Kenny Pheasant’s Learn the Anishinaabemowin language: www.anishinaabemdaa.com and www.anisninaabemowin.org. Language Immersion courses accredited by the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians through Bay Mills Community College. For more information call (888) 309-5822. The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians archives and record department’s language program. For more information call (231) 242-1452 or go to http://www.ltbbodawa-nsn.gov/. North Central Michigan College offers a language class by Fred Harrington Jr. For more information call 348-6600. Helen Roy’s Pop Songs “Anishnaabe’amaadeg” and “Miinwaa Aanind Anishnaabe Nagamowinan” Call (517) 282-2337 to purchase a copy. Kristina Hughes can be reached at 439-9348, or khughes at petoskeynews.com. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Mar 28 16:55:26 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 09:55:26 -0700 Subject: Language, Silence, and Voice in Native Studies (fwd) Message-ID: fyi, Language, Silence, and Voice in Native Studies An International Conference hosted by the Native Studies Research Network, UK, at the University of Geneva, Switzerland Sponsored by the Swiss Association for North American Studies, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), and the University of Geneva July 16-17, 2007 Call For Papers The Native Studies Research Network, UK, invites proposals for papers for its inaugural European conference. Established in April 2006, the NSRN has 70 members at 30 UK institutions working in 8 academic disciplines. Having held its first British colloquium in September 2006, the NSRN will now host a topic-led, full-scale conference inviting the participation of international scholars to foster scholarly debate in the field. It is hoped that the geographic centrality of Switzerland as a location will encourage scholars from across Europe to attend. This nation’s tri-lingual status has encouraged a focus on the issue of language. Keynote speaker: Robert Allen Warrior, University of Oklahoma (Other keynote speakers to be confirmed) Featured speakers: Simon J. Ortiz, Gabriela Schwab, Hartwig Iserhagen Panels will include but are not restricted to: 1. “Speaking with single and forked tongues”: Monoglots and Bilinguals 2. “We must teach the Bible in their own dialects”: Missionaries and Indian Languages 3. Orality and Literacy 4. Silencing Native Voices: the impact of white settlement 5. Recovering Native Voices 6. Cultural ‘Contact Zones’ 7. The Language of Native Politics 8. Native Languages in the 21st Century This is not an exhaustive list and individual papers and/or panels on topics outside these remits are warmly welcomed. Individual paper proposals should include a title and precis of no more than 250 words. Panel proposals should include a title and brief description of the panel and a title and précis for each paper. Proposals should be sent electronically to: J.Fear-Segal at uea.ac.uk or R.Tillett at uea.ac.uk or Deborah.Madsen at lettres.unige.ch and preferably copied to all three addresses. Review of proposals will begin 16 March, 2007, and proposals will be accepted until 16 April, 2007. http://home.adm.unige.ch/%7Emadsen/NSC_CFP.htm From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Wed Mar 28 21:02:05 2007 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 14:02:05 -0700 Subject: Quote Message-ID: I once heard a quote that went something like this.... " If you do not speak your language you are no longer a member of your tribe but a descendant of Tribal members." Does anyone know the origin of this quote, or the accurate phrase??? From nwarner at U.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Mar 28 21:06:57 2007 From: nwarner at U.ARIZONA.EDU (Natasha L Warner) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 14:06:57 -0700 Subject: Quote In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi, I don't know the quote, although I'd be very interested in hearing about it if you turn it up. As someone who works on revitalization of a dormant language, I can't refrain from commenting: who gets the right to decide this (what the criteria for some status are) for someone else? And why? Thanks, Natasha Warner On Wed, 28 Mar 2007, Andre Cramblit wrote: > I once heard a quote that went something like this.... > " If you do not speak your language you are no longer a member of > your tribe but a descendant of Tribal members." > > Does anyone know the origin of this quote, or the accurate phrase??? > ******************************************************************************* Natasha Warner Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics University of Arizona PO Box 210028 Tucson, AZ 85721-0028 From jenn2b4 at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Mar 28 21:25:56 2007 From: jenn2b4 at HOTMAIL.COM (Jennifer Henderson) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 15:25:56 -0600 Subject: Quote Message-ID: Attached are some reference about language loss. 1. Quote from an author's book. 2. Someone referencing a Souix chief regarding language loss. 3. Dr. Minesuah's journal article. 4. Dr. Reyner's language loss symposium. _________________________________________________________________ Watch free concerts with Pink, Rod Stewart, Oasis and more. Visit MSN Presents today. http://music.msn.com/presents?icid=ncmsnpresentstagline&ocid=T002MSN03A07001 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: language loss attachment.doc Type: application/msword Size: 54272 bytes Desc: not available URL: From annier at SFU.CA Wed Mar 28 22:16:57 2007 From: annier at SFU.CA (annie ross) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 15:16:57 -0700 Subject: Quote Message-ID: An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From lachler at UNM.EDU Wed Mar 28 22:33:05 2007 From: lachler at UNM.EDU (Jordan Lachler) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 14:33:05 -0800 Subject: Quote In-Reply-To: <200703282216.l2SMGv59019545@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> Message-ID: Howdy, >" If you do not speak your language you are a white person with brown skin" In my experience, this is not an uncommon sentiment. There is an elderly, highly-respected chief among the Haida who I've heard say, on several occasions, in large gatherings, and with great seriousness: "If you don't speak your language, how can you call yourself a Haida?" Fortunately, he works (along with a dozen or so other elders) four to five hours a day on documenting and recording his language, so there's hope that other Haida people will in fact be able to learn to speak the language again. I'm not personally aware of anyone who has taken up studying the language just from hearing him say those words. However, among our students that are already learning the language, those words really do resonate, and many of them take it in a positive sense -- not as a threat to their identity, but as an encouragement for their efforts to bring the language back, both for themselves and the Haida Nation as a whole. Jordan From pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET Thu Mar 29 00:21:53 2007 From: pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 17:21:53 -0700 Subject: Quote In-Reply-To: B71EADE7-9020-41C1-B03E-E72F5CE49C43@ncidc.org Message-ID: Andre, these might match your quote. Eli Taylor, Sioux Nation... "Without language we will cease to be a people." Assembly of First Nations. (1993). Declaration on Aboriginal Languages. Pamphlet. Robert Bunge, Lakota Sioux... "A people who lose their language and the view of the universe expressed by that language, can no longer survive as a people, although they can survive as rootless individuals" (1989:19). Bunge, R. (1989). Language: the psyche of a people. In Our Languages, Our Survival, p. 13-20. University of South Dakota. Also, to echo Jordan's statement, I have been told this sentiment directly by some well-respected elders in my community, "The Cayuse lost their language and so they are no longer Cayuse." It is certainly true that the Cayuse lost their language due to a 19th century language shift to Nez Perce, a neighboring language (a hundred years before today's contemporary language shift to English!). However, their adoption of the Nez Perce language remains a mystery and is probably due to a number of interrelated factors (disease coupled with population decline, the horse, intermarriage, secrecy, etc). Nevertheless, the statement is/was by no means uncommon since the fluent speakers who often issue such statements are also responsible for strongly advocating against pan-Indian beliefs and acculturation/assimilation. So in this sense, the identity=language link, when used in this manner, tends to act as a resistive barrier to these forces. This is especially so given that these same elders also survived the abusive boarding school system despite the odds against them. When I was told this, I was taken aback as they were certainly harsh words. But I persisted in my learning with these same elders. Days later, they indicated to me (teasing/laughing), "a weaker person would have stormed off and never returned, but here you are!" A moment of recognition in this bigger struggle we all share I suppose. ;-) Phil Cash Cash (cayuse/nez perce) UofA On Mar 28, 2007, at 2:02 PM, Andre Cramblit wrote: > I once heard a quote that went something like this.... > " If you do not speak your language you are no longer a member of your > tribe but a descendant of Tribal members." > > Does anyone know the origin of this quote, or the accurate phrase??? > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 2377 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rzs at TDS.NET Thu Mar 29 03:35:09 2007 From: rzs at TDS.NET (Richard Smith) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 20:35:09 -0700 Subject: Quote In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.1.20070328142027.0226dba8@unm.edu> Message-ID: Kweh ömaterü (greetings friends) I understand and identify with these elders who will often make strong statements as these at times. But it should be heard not as criticism as much as a painful lament. These elders often feel disconnected not only with the outside world but even with many of their own tribal youth today. They think so differently, and have such different interests. I'm also involved in reviving the Wyandot language left in a coma And I feel deep urgency ...but this isn't often shared By those of our own who are losing it and drifting far from center. So there is a time to lament...a sadness to express...to vent... Language,ceremonies and the stories are the fibers that hold us unique And keep us from drifting into a generic ndnism Often seen now in the pow-wow circuits. Richard Wyandotte Oklahoma On 3/28/07 3:33 PM, "Jordan Lachler" wrote: > Howdy, > >> " If you do not speak your language you are a white person with brown skin" > > In my experience, this is not an uncommon sentiment. There is an > elderly, highly-respected chief among the Haida who I've heard say, > on several occasions, in large gatherings, and with great seriousness: > > "If you don't speak your language, how can you call yourself a Haida?" > > Fortunately, he works (along with a dozen or so other elders) four to > five hours a day on documenting and recording his language, so > there's hope that other Haida people will in fact be able to learn to > speak the language again. > > I'm not personally aware of anyone who has taken up studying the > language just from hearing him say those words. However, among our > students that are already learning the language, those words really > do resonate, and many of them take it in a positive sense -- not as a > threat to their identity, but as an encouragement for their efforts > to bring the language back, both for themselves and the Haida Nation > as a whole. > > Jordan From AEROWE at AOL.COM Thu Mar 29 01:58:33 2007 From: AEROWE at AOL.COM (Ann Rowe) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 21:58:33 EDT Subject: Quote Message-ID: In a message dated 3/28/2007 7:49:56 PM Mountain Daylight Time, rzs at TDS.NET writes: > I understand and identify with these elders who will > often make strong statements as these at times. > But it should be heard not as criticism > as much as a painful lament. Our identity as human beings is encoded in our DNA. Our cultural identities are encoded in our languages. Ann ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Mar 29 08:56:48 2007 From: rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudy Troike) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 01:56:48 -0700 Subject: Quote In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I've read similar sentiments from a Puerto Rican and someone from Africa, but in the form of a question. "Can one not know Spanish and still be a Puerto Rican?" The African was speaking of some distinct tribal language, and said "Can one not speak [language X] and still be a [member of a tribe]?" I was struck at the time by the parallelism of the sentiment. Rudy Troike From greg.dickson at KATHLANGCENTRE.ORG.AU Thu Mar 29 22:53:46 2007 From: greg.dickson at KATHLANGCENTRE.ORG.AU (Greg Dickson) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 08:23:46 +0930 Subject: Quote In-Reply-To: <20070329015648.0iwplsko8k88kk0g@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Note that if you apply the sentiment to a dominant language/culture, it becomes highly offensive to most of us... e.g. you have to speak English to be Australian... only the most rightwing people could tolerate this sentiment. Greg Dickson Linguist Ngukurr Language Centre CMB 6 via Katherine NT 0852 Ph/Fax: 08 8975 4362 Email: greg.dickson at kathlangcentre.org.au On 29/03/2007, at 6:26 PM, Rudy Troike wrote: I've read similar sentiments from a Puerto Rican and someone from Africa, but in the form of a question. "Can one not know Spanish and still be a Puerto Rican?" The African was speaking of some distinct tribal language, and said "Can one not speak [language X] and still be a [member of a tribe]?" I was struck at the time by the parallelism of the sentiment. Rudy Troike From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu Mar 29 22:53:45 2007 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:53:45 -0700 Subject: Quote In-Reply-To: <895eab304ac520793cdefef2515d9c36@kathlangcentre.org.au> Message-ID: other than the fact that english is a universal language and not that of a particular ethnic group Now it said you have to speak english to be a true Australian descendant or criminals deported from England then maybe you have something On Mar 29, 2007, at 3:53 PM, Greg Dickson wrote: Note that if you apply the sentiment to a dominant language/culture, it becomes highly offensive to most of us... e.g. you have to speak English to be Australian... only the most rightwing people could tolerate this sentiment. Greg Dickson Linguist Ngukurr Language Centre CMB 6 via Katherine NT 0852 Ph/Fax: 08 8975 4362 Email: greg.dickson at kathlangcentre.org.au On 29/03/2007, at 6:26 PM, Rudy Troike wrote: I've read similar sentiments from a Puerto Rican and someone from Africa, but in the form of a question. "Can one not know Spanish and still be a Puerto Rican?" The African was speaking of some distinct tribal language, and said "Can one not speak [language X] and still be a [member of a tribe]?" I was struck at the time by the parallelism of the sentiment. Rudy Troike From wayneleman at VFEMAIL.NET Thu Mar 29 23:02:31 2007 From: wayneleman at VFEMAIL.NET (Wayne Leman) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:02:31 -0700 Subject: Quote Message-ID: Ah, maybe not in Australia, but here in the U.S. we have many who say this. We even have an English Only movement trying to legislate the idea that to be American means that you must speak English. No other languages, not even the First Nations, or Native American, languages will qualify a person to be truly American. Just English, the language of the colonizers. Wayne ----- Wayne Leman Cheyenne website: http://www.geocities.com/cheyenne_language > Note that if you apply the sentiment to a dominant language/culture, it > becomes highly offensive to most of us... e.g. you have to speak English > to be Australian... only the most rightwing people could tolerate this > sentiment. > > Greg Dickson From greg.dickson at KATHLANGCENTRE.ORG.AU Thu Mar 29 23:07:41 2007 From: greg.dickson at KATHLANGCENTRE.ORG.AU (Greg Dickson) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 08:37:41 +0930 Subject: Quote + tangent In-Reply-To: <79AA11BB-3096-4738-AF9B-054FD285C454@ncidc.org> Message-ID: you just made my brain go on an interesting tangent... Does anyone know of any example of people (I'm thinking a very small group, like a family) from an anglo ethnicity abandoning English for another language?? I know the converse is happening all over the world all the time... it would be heartening to know that *someone* is bucking the trend... Greg On 30/03/2007, at 8:23 AM, Andre Cramblit wrote: other than the fact that english is a universal language and not that of a particular ethnic group Now it said you have to speak english to be a true Australian descendant or criminals deported from England then maybe you have something On Mar 29, 2007, at 3:53 PM, Greg Dickson wrote: Note that if you apply the sentiment to a dominant language/culture, it becomes highly offensive to most of us... e.g. you have to speak English to be Australian... only the most rightwing people could tolerate this sentiment. Greg Dickson Linguist Ngukurr Language Centre CMB 6 via Katherine NT 0852 Ph/Fax: 08 8975 4362 Email: greg.dickson at kathlangcentre.org.au On 29/03/2007, at 6:26 PM, Rudy Troike wrote: I've read similar sentiments from a Puerto Rican and someone from Africa, but in the form of a question. "Can one not know Spanish and still be a Puerto Rican?" The African was speaking of some distinct tribal language, and said "Can one not speak [language X] and still be a [member of a tribe]?" I was struck at the time by the parallelism of the sentiment. Rudy Troike From AEROWE at AOL.COM Thu Mar 29 23:28:53 2007 From: AEROWE at AOL.COM (Ann Rowe) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 19:28:53 EDT Subject: Quote + tangent Message-ID: In a message dated 3/29/2007 5:06:20 PM Mountain Daylight Time, greg.dickson at KATHLANGCENTRE.ORG.AU writes: > you just made my brain go on an interesting tangent... > > Does anyone know of any example of people (I'm thinking a very small > group, like a family) from an anglo ethnicity abandoning English for > another language?? I know the converse is happening all over the world > all the time... it would be heartening to know that *someone* is > bucking the trend... > > Greg Some of the Irish, Scottish, and Welsh nationalists ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Mar 30 17:32:58 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 10:32:58 -0700 Subject: Nunavut legislation enforces use of Inuktitut in schools, businesses, offices (fwd) Message-ID: Friday, March 30th, 2007 Nunavut legislation enforces use of Inuktitut in schools, businesses, offices Canadian Press http://www.brandonsun.com/story.php?story_id=48245 (CP) - In move reminiscent of laws that changed Quebec forever, the government of Nunavut has introduced language legislation that would enforce the use of Inuktitut in public places from restaurants to schools to offices. "What we'd like to do here is protect the Inuit language for the future," said Louis Tapardjuk, minister of Culture, Language, Education and Youth. "It will have an impact on all our children, families, communities, businesses, schools and governments." Tapardjuk has introduced two language bills into the territorial legislature. The Officials Languages Act declares French, English and Inuktitut to be Nunavut's official languages. The Inuit Language Protection Bill is intended to ensure the three languages remain on an equal footing by mandating the use of Inuktitut for signs and services. The proposed law says organizations providing "essential services" would have to use Inuktitut signage "at least equally prominent with any other signage used." However, essential services would include emergency services, health care, restaurants, hotels, utilities, telecommunications and other services deemed to be "essential as a result of their nature or consequences." Tapardjuk acknowledges that covers almost everything in Nunavut. "When we talk in terms of essential services it pretty well covers any hospitality industry as well as the retail sector. Any public or private institution will have to provide service to the public in Inuktitut as well as English or French." The bill also maintains Inuit children have a right to be educated in Inuktitut, despite the shortage of curriculum materials in that language. It also provides for an office to determine official usages and coinages of new words. Quebec's Bill 101, designed to govern the use of French in that province, was one of the inspirations for Nunavut's bill, said Tapardjuk. "That was the direction Nunavut wanted to take," he said. As in Quebec, Inuktitut is in danger of being swamped by English. "If you go to a restaurant, you don't see a menu in Inuktitut. Everything's in English," Tapardjuk said. "In the regional stores the majority of the customers are Inuk, but the majority of the signs are English. It makes you wonder who they're really serving." If it becomes law, the act will be enforced by an arms-length language commissioner reporting directly to the legislature. The act would be enforced on a complaints basis. Tapardjuk said penalties for breaking the act haven't yet been set. A Statistics Canada study released last week found that Inuktitut is one of the healthiest aboriginal languages in the country. More than half of Canada's 30,000 Inuit still consider it their mother tongue and it's the language spoken most often at home for 43 per cent of them. Still, those figures are declining and the young are least likely to be fluent. Tapardjuk expects to hear concerns from the private sector. "There are cost factors the private sector is quite concerned about." However, he said, the Inuit Language Protection Bill is the result of two years of work and consultations, and more are scheduled. Public meetings on the bill are to be held over the next weeks in five regions across Nunavut, but Tapardjuk expects the final legislation to return to the territorial legislature before the end of the current session. Although the Northwest Territories recognizes 11 different aboriginal languages, nothing like Nunavut's proposed protections exist there. Tapardjuk says Nunavut's proposals may be unique in the world. "We're not aware of any legislation like the Language Protection Act," he said. "The closest one we were able to see is Bill 101." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Mar 30 17:38:15 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 10:38:15 -0700 Subject: 'We Weren't Supposed to Survive' (fwd link) Message-ID: 'We Weren't Supposed to Survive' Seeking reconciliation with BC's First Nations. First in a series. By Sandra Shields Published: March 30, 2007 http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/03/30/Stolo/ ~~~ fyi, this an impressive article. philcc From nflrc at HAWAII.EDU Fri Mar 30 21:22:45 2007 From: nflrc at HAWAII.EDU (National Foreign Language Resource Center) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 11:22:45 -1000 Subject: Job positions at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Message-ID: Our apologies for any cross-postings . . . University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Second Language Studies Assistant or Associate Professors (2) The Department of Second Language Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa, seeks to fill two tenure-track vacancies, both full time 9-month positions, pending position availability and funding, to begin August 1, 2008. The Department offers a Master of Arts in Second Language Studies, and administers a PhD program in Second Language Acquisition and an Advanced Graduate Certificate in Second Language Studies. A BA with an ESL specialization is available through the University's Interdisciplinary Program. Faculty have interests in a wide range of domains in second and foreign language research. For more information, visit our website: http://www.hawaii.edu/sls POSITION #82454. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR Applicants should have major research interests and instructional competence in technology and language learning & teaching (e.g., computer-assisted language learning; computer-mediated communication; electronic and multimodal literacies; distance learning; emerging technologies; and language courseware design and evaluation). Minimum qualifications: Doctorate in second language acquisition, applied linguistics or closely related field by August, 2008; demonstrated ability to carry out research; second or foreign language teaching experience; and evidence of excellent teaching ability at the university level. Desirable qualifications: Publication in journals and books; teaching experience in a second language studies or equivalent graduate program; ability to win competitive research funding; interest in the Asia-Pacific region, including Asian and Pacific languages; and teacher education experience. POSITION #84105. ASSISTANT OR ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR Applicants should have major research expertise and instructional competence in psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology as they relate to second language learning, processing, and instruction. Minimum qualifications: For Assistant Professor, a doctorate in second language acquisition, applied linguistics or closely related field by August, 2008; demonstrated relevant research ability as evidenced by publications; and evidence of teaching excellence. For Associate Professor, in addition to these requirements, current appointment at that rank. Desirable qualifications: Evidence of research productivity commensurate with rank; prior teaching experience in a second language studies or equivalent graduate program; second or foreign language teaching experience; demonstrated ability to win competitive research funding; interest in the Asia-Pacific region, including Asian and Pacific languages. Duties for both positions: Teach courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the area of specialization in the Department of Second Language Studies; conduct and publish research; participate fully in supporting activities for academic programs, departmental governance, and service to the University and community. Annual 9-month Salary Range, both positions: commensurate with experience E-mail inquiries: Position #82454: Dr. Lourdes Ortega, Chair of Search Committee lortega at hawaii.edu Position #84105: Dr. Richard Schmidt, Chair of Search Committee schmidt.dick at gmail.com To apply: Applicants should submit letter of application, curriculum vitae, list of courses taught, and sample publications. In addition, letters of reference should be submitted directly by three recommenders. All application materials should be sent by September 15, 2007 to: Chair Department of Second Language Studies 570 Moore Hall 1890 East-West Road University of Hawaii Honolulu, Hawaii 96822 USA Closing date for both positions: September 15, 2007. The University of Hawaii is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. ************************************************************************* N National Foreign Language Resource Center F University of Hawai'i L 1859 East-West Road, #106 R Honolulu HI 96822 C voice: (808) 956-9424, fax: (808) 956-5983 email: nflrc at hawaii.edu VISIT OUR WEBSITE! http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu ************************************************************************* From miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Thu Mar 1 20:18:02 2007 From: miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2007 12:18:02 -0800 Subject: Successful defense . . . Message-ID: Hi, Everyone, I should have written sooner. . . but I have been a bit in a daze. I successfully defended my dissertation, Navajo Immersion Mathematics, last Monday, February 19th. People kept asking how it felt, and I kept saying, I don't know. Anyhow, I am now officially "Dr. Kalish". :-) Mia From miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US Fri Mar 2 04:14:48 2007 From: miakalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US (Mia Kalish) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2007 20:14:48 -0800 Subject: Geez Thanks :-) Message-ID: Thanks to all the wonderful people who sent congratulations. I do so appreciate it. This PhD stuff is funny; I guess it takes some of us until we get lots of wonderful notes from our friends and colleagues to really, really realize that we finally made it. The gist of my dissertation was that Navajo thought and language is very mathematical, and that not only could the mathematics be found, but that they were very sophisticated. I made two Macromedia Flash movies, one that shows the geometric concepts, and one that demonstrates the more sophisticated group theory. (I am always grateful to Depree ShadowWalker for showing me Flash all those years ago, when I was stuggling to find just the right vehicle for simulataneous presentation of language learning materials. . . ) Interestingly enough, it was the form and content of the language, rather than the semantics, from which the mathematics emerged. And, it was from the chants, myths and songs of the Oral History. Someone suggested we needed a new discussion, so I would like to offer this as a seed. I know that when I first started, I thought that the words had to exist as concepts. Probably many of them were lost, never recorded. But the concepts probably exist in different forms in the different languages and cultures. What do people think? A very happy Mia From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Mar 4 03:03:03 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 20:03:03 -0700 Subject: Saving languages is a worthy cause (fwd) Message-ID: Published on Taipei Times http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2007/03/04/2003350945 Saving languages is a worthy cause By Gary Heath Sunday, Mar 04, 2007, Page 8 Advertising Advertising In recent years, a great deal of attention and money has been focused on protecting Taiwan's endangered fauna, such as the Formosan Black Bear, the Black-faced Spoonbills and the Formosan Landlocked Salmon. What is less noticed -- but of great importance -- is the fact that all of the nation's indigenous languages are also endangered, some of them critically so and a big effort of preventive linguistics is now required to help save them. The problem of dying languages is only superficially understood and deserves more attention. Aside from the ongoing ecological crisis, the world is going through a cultural crisis, which is resulting in the rapid loss of languages. The fact that about half of the world's 6,000 known languages are likely to disappear in the next hundred years is cause for alarm. Some specialists claim that one language is destined to die every two weeks or so. When I raise the issue with friends, the typical reaction is a shrug and an apathetic comment along the lines of: "Oh, you mean those small dialects spoken by Indians in the Amazon?" But language death is not something that happens in a faraway country -- it happens all around us and has already happened to several of the nation's indigenous languages. It will now be incredibly difficult, though not impossible, to revive the Ketagalan, Taokas, Papora, Babuza, Hoanya, Siraya, Tavorlong and Makatao languages, even if these indigenous groups manage to maintain a modicum of ethnic identity without speaking their former mother tongue. It would be fair to ask if we should care about this phenomenon in the first place. After all, all things come to an end. But languages, like the air we breathe, are somewhat taken for granted. They are what makes us human and they contain within them our cultural history and collective knowledge and wisdom. When a language dies, it truly is a catastrophe. Imagine for a moment that you are the last speaker of English in the world. You have no one to talk to in English and when you die all of English culture and all of the knowledge associated with this language, dies with you. It's as if you and the language never existed. At last count, there were 28 speakers of indigenous languages in Australia, a country where the phenomenon of language death is widespread. For them, the above scenario is all too real. One misconception that needs to be addressed is the neo-colonial belief that indigenous people -- and by association their languages -- are somehow primitive, or simple and that inherently their languages are outmoded and not worth saving. This attitude ignores the complexity and subtlety of all languages and the fact that all languages hold within them special bits of knowledge not accessible to those who don't speak them. Languages are adapted to their environments and Taiwanese languages are no exception. These languages are complex and represent a whole unique perspective on the world. Who knows when we may need to tap into that unique perspective for our own survival as a species? Languages die out for all kinds of reasons, and it has to be acknowledged that in practical terms we are not going to be able to prevent the extinction of many of them. However, the case of Taiwan is most encouraging since its Aborigines have attained formal recognition and funding through the Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP). The council recently adopted a plan to promote indigenous language learning among 12 officially Aboriginal tribes. This will involve the teaching of about 43 dialects in schools across the nation. The challenges involved in the implementation of this program cannot be underestimated, however, and proper planning, along with a long-term commitment, will be required to make preventive linguistics work. At the end of the day, the whole community will need to be involved in language preservation, something that a bureaucratic quick-fix cannot achieve. In addition to providing teaching materials, the council has to put small field teams together. These teams will need to include specialists on socio-political organization and action, as well as linguists and teachers. They will also have to develop the process needed to help promote indigenous language learning in specific socio-geographical areas, a process that must include economic development. The need for a concerted community effort is crucial for the preservation of endangered languages. That is why any non-solicited effort at the local level has to be especially welcomed and supported. It is deeply regrettable that the council has been reluctant to expand official recognition to the Ping Pu plains Aborigines, more or less writing these groups off. With the scarce resources available, the council's attitude is understandable, but wrong. Writing in Taiwan News on Dec. 18, journalist and social activist Jason Pan argued that the Pazeh and Kahabu, among others, deserve official recognition and funding for participation in viable language programs. In a recent telephone conversation, Jason told me that at least 200 people in his Pazeh community meet from time to time, and perhaps 2,000 people of Pazeh ethnic origin are listed in household registration records. The Pazeh community has set up language classes for their children, but they need help. Without official recognition and funding, this community effort will flounder. I completely agree with Cheng I-jiunn (程一駿), who argued in your paper (Opinion, Dec. 25, 2006, page 8) that the building of an airport on Taiping, in the Spratly Islands chain, should be stopped. The green turtles that nest there deserve a break; the budget thus saved should be given to the Pazeh community instead, to give their language a break, too. The Aborigines of Taiwan need to know that their efforts to preserve their languages are worthy, and central and local governments need to be persuaded to allocate resources to aid these local language preservation efforts instead of wasting money on the construction of unnecessary airports, roads and museums. Gary Heath is a writer and cultural worker who lives in Taipei. Copyright ? 1999-2007 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Mar 4 03:10:17 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 20:10:17 -0700 Subject: Keith Secola, Karen Drift team up on 'Anishinabemoin' (fwd) Message-ID: Keith Secola, Karen Drift team up on 'Anishinabemoin' ? Indian Country Today February 28, 2007. All Rights Reserved Posted: February 28, 2007 by: Konnie LeMay / Indian Country Today http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414543 CD insert courtesy Bois Forte Band of Chippewa and Akina Records NETT LAKE, Minn. - ''Look, mom,'' said the 3-year-old boy, ''there's my boozhoo there!'' The preschooler pointed to the cover of a new compact disc and its photo of Karen Drift, the teacher who frequently visits his Head Start class at the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa in northern Minnesota and greets the children with ''Boozhoo! Hello!'' This story tickles Drift because it reveals her smallest language students' enthusiasm and shows that they remember even the little bit of Anishinabemoin, the Ojibwe language, that she gives them. The new CD by that name - ''Anishinabemoin'' - is a gift from Drift, award-winning singer/songwriter Keith Secola, and the Bois Forte Band and Akina Records. The CD combines the voices of Drift and her granddaughter, Larissa, speaking words, phrases and short stories in both the Anishinabe language and in English with the supporting music of Keith Secola, a Bois Forte member who most recently won the Best Folk/Acoustic CD award at the 2006 Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards for his latest work, ''Native Americana,'' and the Artist of the Year award in 2006 from the Native American Music Awards. When she first started recording the language, Drift used an inexpensive cassette recorder to make tapes for her nephews and kids at the Head Start. ''But [the recordings] weren't any good; there was a lot of static,'' she said. ''I [wished] I could get something bigger and better, but I just shrugged it off, saying, 'That will never happen.''' Then someone from the tribal government approached her to go to a nearby studio in Mountain Iron to do a language CD. There she and Larissa recorded words in Anishinabe, then in English, then in Anishinabe again. ''It was just flat-out talking, nothing in the background,'' recalled Drift. The result was not satisfying and seemed to be missing something. ''It sat there for a year. I said, 'Ah, I give up on it. Nothing's going to happen so just leave it.' As soon as I said that ... Rose Berens [of the Bois Forte Heritage Center] said, 'Hey, I'm going to get ahold of Keith Secola to see if he can help you.' She got ahold of him that day and he said, 'Maybe with my music, we can make something out of it.''' With Secola's music, and with his recording expertise as the owner of Akina Records, they did indeed go on to make something of it. Secola, who has performed songs in the Anishinabe language on his own CDs, urged Drift to write some stories and songs. She did that and tried some out on her Head Start children. ''I did the 'Sleeping Song' and the 'Waking Up Song,''' said Drift. ''Now them little kids up there, they're singing the 'Sleeping Song.''' Secola was glad to get the call from Berens and from Bois Forte Tribal Chairman Kevin Leecy to help. He was told it was one of the administration's priorities, which further encouraged him. Layering his music with the common Anishinabe words and phrases seems a natural way to hear and to learn the language, Secola said. ''That way you kind of use the holistic approach to learning, you use both hemispheres of the brain. In the whole process of learning, music was always part of the environment, whether the music was the song a bird was singing in the distance or the song of the wind or the song of fire. This approach seems to me pretty natural.'' At the formal release of the CD earlier this year, Leecy emphasized in his State of the Band address that retention and perhaps a rebirth of the language was a priority. ''Probably the most important investments we are making are the ones in projects that are keeping our Ojibwe language and culture alive. Because without our language and culture, we would cease to be us, the Bois Forte people,'' Leecy said. ''There is no way to overstate the importance of being able to speak in our own language about the things that matter most to us. Some of the most basic things that make us who we are - our connection to the earth and the water, to the seasons and each other - simply cannot be conveyed properly in English.'' For Secola, who hopes to make another CD with Drift and to make other language productions on his own, the special thing about ''Anishinabemoin'' is that it doesn't just preserves some of the words and phrases, to be savored daily by those learning the language; it also, through Drift's voice, preserves the dialect of the Bois Forte people and the Nett Lake area. ''It's definitely from Asabikonezaaga'igun [Nett Lake],'' he said. ''It's kind of a treasure. Certainly both Karen and I know that you're not going to become a fluent speaker by listening to the CD, but people can take that step.'' Now she is the ''boozhoo'' lady, the one who speaks Anishinabe. She speaks whenever she can with the school children; she labels items in her grandchildren's homes with the language, and she finds that encouraging. ''I notice how much and how fast they're learning, and now I'll want to teach them more.'' Many non-Indians are also learning the Indian language. A local Baptist pastor has taken lessons. ''The pastor up there came to my classes, and now he's introducing himself in Indian. All the kids just stare at him with their little mouths open.'' Drift mostly hopes, though, that her own people will embrace their language, to save it and use it. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Mar 4 03:11:42 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 20:11:42 -0700 Subject: Indigenous dictionaries keep languages alive (fwd) Message-ID: Monday, 26 February 2007, 12:28:16 AEDT Indigenous dictionaries keep languages alive http://abc.net.au/message/news/stories/ms_news_1856866.htm A language centre in South Hedland in north-west Western Australia is continuing to produce dictionaries for the Pilbara's 30-odd Indigenous languages. The federally-funded Wangka Maya Aboriginal Language Centre has just produced the three latest editions in three traditional languages spoken by the people of Bidyadanga, south of Broome. Linguist Sally Dixon says the latest releases bring the total number produced so far to 24. Ms Dixon says they are sent to local schools to help preserve languages among the younger generation. "They are a really good record for people to feel like they still have a connection with their language..." she said. "For languages that are still being spoken quite a lot, they are a really good tool for them to keep those languages strong, keep them being used and keep them valued." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Mar 4 03:19:59 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 20:19:59 -0700 Subject: Schooling, Immersion Programs Help Save Endangered Languages (fwd) Message-ID: Schooling, Immersion Programs Help Save Endangered Languages By Art Chimes San Francisco, California 28 February 2007 http://www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/2007-02-27-voa51.cfm [photo inset - Wita, a Trio shaman of Kwamalasamutu Village, Suriname with a staff and a plant in his hands] There are nearly 7,000 languages on Earth, but experts say about half of them are endangered, meaning only a small and declining number of often elderly people speak the language. Major world and national languages crowd out indigenous ones, and it's estimated that more languages became extinct in the 20th century than at any other time in history. For scientists, the loss of a language represents a very real loss of knowledge. And that knowledge could save lives at a time when drug companies search tropical forests for biologically-based medical breakthroughs, and many if not most plant and animal species remain unknown to Western science. [photo inset - Professor David Harrison of Swarthmore College decries the loss of scientific knowledge when languages die] At last week's meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, David Harrison of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania said saving endangered languages could help scientists harness knowledge that might otherwise be lost. "Vast domains of knowledge about meteorology, mathematics, weather cycles, plant and animal behavior, how to domesticate plants and animals, how to control genetic stocks exists," Harrison stressed. "It is out there, it is fragile, it is very rapidly eroding." [photo inset - Revitalizing a dying language can help heal a community according to Daryl Baldwin, an expert on the Myaamia language and culture that once thrived in the American Midwest[ When a language goes, so does culture. The Miami are a native people that once thrived in the American Midwest. Three centuries ago, their Myaamia language was widely spoken. But the language began to die out as the tribe was forced from its ancestral homeland and its members became more assimilated in mainstream America. It was essentially extinct by the 1960s. However, the language had been well documented, and Daryl Baldwin and his Myaamia Project have been working to revitalize both the language and the culture it represents. "For communities that have been socially disrupted, the language provides an avenue by which they can mend and heal," said Baldwin, "because embodied in that language is a great deal of information about how we relate to each other and how we relate to our landscape. And so language revitalization has been incredibly enriching. It's been daunting. Language loss is about social change; language reclamation is also about social change." [photo inset - Hawaiian culture thrives but the language is threatened says William Wilson of the University of Hawaii] Revitalizing an endangered language is never easy. In Hawaii, the U.S. state that was an independent monarchy until 1893, the culture is strong, but the language has faced severe challenges, such as a law that prohibited teaching it in schools until two decades ago. William Wilson of the University of Hawaii says it is important to expose young Hawaiians to the language, and the subject now is taught to school children. "So that's increasing the numbers of speakers," Wilson said. "In 1986, when we started, there were less than 50 children in all of Hawaii that could speak Hawaiian fluently. Now we have about 2,000 in our school system. More importantly, there are actually families that speak Hawaiian at home. And so we've started infant-toddler programs, where those children can come together before they go to preschool." [photo inset - Leanne Hinton of the University of California says 1:1 intensive programs are preserving native languages in her state] On the mainland, California has a tremendous heritage of language diversity, with as many as 100 native languages having been spoken there. Many are now endangered or gone entirely. Leanne Hinton of the University of California says one-on-one intensive programs are helping sustain threatened languages. "One of them is the master-apprentice language learning program, which pairs the last speakers of native languages with younger members of the tribe who want to learn it. And we teach them the fundamentals of language immersion, and they are supposed to spend 10 or 20 hours a week just living their lives together in the language and without recourse to English," Hinton explained. Despite efforts like these, indigenous and other minority languages will continue to be threatened, and many likely will die off. But aggressive programs can help ensure the survival of other languages, along with the knowledge and culture they embody. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Mar 4 03:26:30 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 20:26:30 -0700 Subject: A high-tech translator clarifies a dying tongue (fwd) Message-ID: Posted on Sat, Mar. 03, 2007 A high-tech translator clarifies a dying tongue Handheld device lets a Prairie Island elder's voice teach his Sioux dialect BY DAVID HANNERS Pioneer Press http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/16823961.htm WELCH, Minn. ? With his white hair and a face as deeply lined as a contour map, 71-year-old Curtis Campbell hardly seems the picture of cutting-edge technology. But as he sits in a recliner in his living room, headset and microphone perched on his head, he is using digital recording gear to preserve an endangered language. "They don't really teach these kinds of things in college. Maybe someday they will," Campbell says as he and Wayne Wells, a Dakota language consultant, get set to record on a laptop computer. Campbell is an elder in the Mdewakanton Sioux tribe that makes up the Prairie Island Indian Community, and he is one of a small number of Minnesotans fluent in a particularly old dialect of Siouan. He is a key part of a tribal project, overseen by Wells, to record the Dakota language so it can be programmed into an instant electronic translator that seems like something out of "Star Trek." Known as the Phraselator P2, the handheld device already is being used by U.S. soldiers in Iraq to help them communicate with Iraqis. A person can speak into the Phraselator P2 ? a unit just slightly bigger than a paperback book ? and a pre-programmed voice repeats the phrase, translated. For example, say "What is your name?" into the Phraselator P2 that Wells uses, and it responds with the Dakota equivalent, "He toked eciyapi he?" The device can carry different chips for different languages. The military, law enforcement and medical personnel have used it for a while, but American Indian tribes recently have begun using it to preserve their native tongues. Many of those languages began dying out last century as a result of federal efforts to force Indians to speak English and a younger generation's reluctance to learn the tongue from its elders, said Don Thornton, who started Thornton Media, a California firm that produces language and translation tools. "Originally, there were about 300 languages spoken in the U.S., and now there's about 200, and in 20 years, it'll be down to 20," said Thornton, a soft-spoken Cherokee who started the company. The former Los Angeles filmmaker traveled to the Prairie Island Indian Community this week to help tribal officials with the project. "That's how quickly the language is disappearing," he said. "We're in a real race here. And it's not just a language. It's how they view the world." Preserving A Tradition / Anthropologists aren't sure when humans first developed language, but most believe it was at least 40,000 years ago. Language communicates thought, but some idioms and dialects do it better than others. That fact becomes apparent while Campbell sits in his chair and works with Wells, a 2003 graduate of the University of Minnesota who works for the Prairie Island Indian Community. On his laptop, Wells has a list of common phrases or concepts in English that Campbell will translate into his Dakota dialect to record onto the computer. Often, word-for-word translations aren't possible, Campbell explains. "Some (words) take a few words, some take a whole paragraph," he says, adding that, as a language, Dakota tends to be much more descriptive than English. For example, one of the concepts on the list to be translated is "to be strong-hearted." "It's not like English, where you can say things in one word," Campbell says. "When they come up with words like that, it needs some explanation." Thornton has helped other tribes preserve their languages. To build the Phraselator P2 database, contributors record up to 800 translated phrases a day onto the computer. He says few of them complain of overwork. "What you find is, a lot of times, elders are anxious to pass the language down," he said. "They want to preserve the language. They don't just want to have it in a museum." Thornton said that when Campbell is done ? perhaps by the end of the week ? the database he's helped create can be used to teach others to speak Dakota. Students will be able to use the Phraselator P2 as an around-the-clock tutor so they can become proficient enough in the language to teach others. "A lot of elders we find spend too much time teaching basics," Thornton says. ? 2007 St. Paul Pioneer Press and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.twincities.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Mar 4 03:29:35 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 20:29:35 -0700 Subject: KBIC continues discussion of language (fwd) Message-ID: KBIC continues discussion of language Community gets update on progress, path ahead By Dan Schneider, DMG Writer http://www.mininggazette.com/stories/articles.asp?articleID=6027 BARAGA ? The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community is moving forward with its efforts to revitalize its native language. At a community gathering held Thursday evening at the Ojibwa Casino Chippewa Rooms, members of the tribe discussed the next steps to be taken in the Anishnaabe Language Revitalization and Preservation Project. The project?s goal is to increase the number of speakers fluent in the traditional language of the Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa tribe. Carrie Ashbrook, coordinator of the project, said she had collected 317 completed written surveys, which tribe members filled out as part of an assessment of the current status of the language in the tribe. Ashbrook said 340 completed surveys are needed to apply for a second-phase grant from the Administration for Native Americans (ANA) within the United States Department of Health and Human Services. ?If we can get more than 340, that?s great because it will really show our commitment,? Ashbrook said. She said oral interview surveys, another step required for the next ANA grant, will be conducted during April and May. She said 140 KBIC members, in their responses on the written surveys, expressed an interest in being interviewed. Interviews, she said, will be representative of different demographics within the tribe. ?What we are going to do is work with male and female and different age groups,? Ashbrook said. Especially important is the young age demographic and the elders. ?We are still in need of the youth to fill out the survey, so if you have a son or daughter, please have them do the survey and if you know an elder, please help them with the survey,? Ashbrook said. Candice Kemppainen, who teaches Ojibwe language and culture at K-8 schools in Baraga County, said she has helped her students fill out the survey. She said even young children can fill out the survey with help from an adult. ?The other day I did it with a second grader and he was alright, but it?s a one-on-one thing,? Kemppainen said. Because of that, she asked for volunteers among those at Thursday?s gathering to help more young students fill out the form. Kemppainen said there is a lot of enthusiasm for the language among her students. In her classes, she teaches the native language in a manner similar to how Spanish or French is taught in schools, as a second language. She said that approach is inadequate for developing fluency, which takes a lot of work to attain. Kemppainen has spent a summer on the Fond du Lac Reservation in Minnesota learning the language from an elder, a native speaker, who spoke in no other language but Ojibwa. She has also put in 500 hours at a language immersion program in Bay Mills in the eastern Upper Peninsula. ?I?m still learning myself and I?m almost to the point where I am understanding everything, but I?m not speaking fluently yet,? Kemppainen said. The tribe is considering a variety of methods for teaching the language. These include an immersion program, in which learners are put in an environment where only Ojibwa is spoken and ?language nests,? which are similar to immersion but focus on pre-school age children. The second-stage grant from the ANA would fund development of the program, including establishing its curriculum. Dan Schneider can be reached at dschneider at mininggazette.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Mar 6 03:52:34 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 20:52:34 -0700 Subject: online phraselator demo... Message-ID: Hi everybody, fyi, you can access some online demo content concerning "all the rage" in Indian Country of late--the phraselator. There is other language "stuff" here as well so check it out and report back to us if you like. NDNTV.COM- Native American Language Tools and Video Production By Thornton Media Inc. http://ndntv.blogspot.com/ Too, this is not an endorsement or promotion, just an fyi. l8ter, Phil Cash Cash ilat From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Mar 7 17:05:45 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 10:05:45 -0700 Subject: Perseverance to Do 'Macbeth' in Tlingit (fwd) Message-ID: Perseverance to Do 'Macbeth' in Tlingit By STEVE QUINN, Associated Press Writer Wednesday, March 7, 2007 (03-07) 05:10 PST JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) -- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/03/07/entertainment/e051057S55.DTL Jake Waid rubbed his bloodshot eyes, blankly stared at a script for Shakespeare's "Macbeth," then resumed an unfamiliar struggle with a set of lines. "Tleil tsu tlax yei l kusheek'eiyi ye yageeyi kwasatinch, ch'a aan yak'ei," he read slowly of what would normally be, "So foul and fair a day I have not seen." Waid, a 31-year-old who has been acting since he was 15, faces his most daunting stage assignment to date: performing Shakespeare in Tlingit, an American Indian language unique to southeast Alaska and Canada, and in which fewer than 300 people are fluent. Its words are difficult to translate into English sounds. The role calls for mastering new sets of pauses, sounds and pitches ? first with his ears then with his voice ? in delivering the lines. That's not all. He and 11 other Perseverance Theatre actors had less than one month to learn a story many knew by heart ? but that was in English. "It takes 10 times longer to learn just one line," said Waid, who plays Macbeth and has performed Shakespeare in theaters worldwide with various production groups since he was a teenager. "As far as the structure of the language and the grammar, it's still a mystery." He reprises his role as Macbeth for Perseverance, which was founded in 1979 in this capital city of 30,000. It's also where Paula Vogel's 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, "How I Learned to Drive," was written and developed. Since the early February start of rehearsals, actors, stage crew and directors have been on a harried pace to prepare for a March 8-18 engagement of "Macbeth" at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. It is part of a six-month "Shakespeare in Washington" celebration conceived by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Washington's Shakespeare Theatre Company. It wasn't just actors facing challenges. Costumes had to be redesigned and stages rebuilt to accommodate this third and final Tlingit production by the Alaskan theater group. A truck carrying the stage sets were put on a barge ? no roads lead out of the Alaska state capital ? then driven cross country and rebuilt in time for final rehearsals. Meanwhile, cast members were pulling all-nighters learning to speak Tlingit with integrity, honoring not only the language's heritage but the play's adaptation. Twice in 2004, Perseverance actors performed Tlingit versions of "Macbeth," but it was retold primarily in English and featured indigenous Native American dances, music and clothing. But this time the 12-member cast, whose ages range from 15 to 42, has agreed to perform most of the play in Tlingit (pronounced klink-it). "It's like running a marathon, without training for it," said actor Ishmael Hope, who plays Malcolm, the son of King Duncan who is killed by Macbeth. "But we're doing the work to make it happen. "None of us is going to sound like a fluent speaker, because no matter how meticulous we are, it's a difficult language. But we'll still be able to convey meaning." Director Anita Maynard-Losh first developed the idea of producing a Tlingit version of "Macbeth" while living in the predominantly Tlingit village of Hoonah, about 50 miles west of Juneau 25 years ago. She conducted artists workshops throughout Alaska when she began seeing connections between the Tlingit culture and "Macbeth" ? the relationships with the supernatural and the history of fierce warfare found both in the Tlingit culture and in "Macbeth." The first production, performed in Juneau, was almost entirely in English as was a subsequent showing in Anchorage, both three years ago. After the Anchorage show, the Smithsonian invited Perseverance Theatre to perform its "Macbeth" version and is underwriting most of the costs for a production that exceeds $200,000. This time, Maynard-Losh wanted to illustrate how Macbeth puts individual gain ahead of the good for the whole, breaking Tlingit tenets. So when characters adhere to tribal values, cast members speak Tlingit; when they espouse individual beliefs, they speak Shakespearean English. For Waid's Macbeth, this occasionally means pursuing a seamless segue from English to Tlingit and later back to English during the same scene. "It's no judgment on English speakers; it's just the concept of the play," Waid said. "It's still one of the demands of the play. Once it's all in there, they are all just lines." Not only did actors have to learn lines in another language, but Maynard-Losh had to direct a cast without understanding what's being said. To help compensate, she concentrated on the characters' physical features ? posture, proximity, facial expressions. "You've guys have got a lot going on with your face, which is terrific," Maynard-Losh told Hope and cast member Andrew Okpeaha MacLean during a recent rehearsal. "But you've got to get the bodies going." The cast features nine original members and three new actors, all of whom are of Alaska Native descent. The cast includes a mix of seasoned performers, high school students and one actor making his theater debut. As in most small productions, many cast members perform multiple roles: one actor writes Tlingit songs for the play; another doubles as choreographer; a third serves as the much-needed language coach. The cast drew former theater member MacLean, a New York filmmaker whose last play at Perseverance was "Moby-Dick" in 2001. MacLean said he had no plans to resume theater work, until Maynard-Losh decided to tweak her own incarnation of "Macbeth." "It's been one of the focuses in my adult life, to work with the languages in theater and film," said MacLean, who plays Macduff. "It bothers me that indigenous languages in general are threatened. So, I've been trying to do things to take a stand against that, by doing plays and films. Maybe this play is a small thing to do, but it's a step in the right direction." Translation began last summer when Hope, an actor who also oversees the theater's education outreach programs, sought the help of Alaska Native elders. The result was a script that initially made the actors' eyes glaze over while reading the lines, made up of underscored and accented letters and words with periods in the middle. Help always seemed within reach. The wall to the left of the stage is decorated with colored construction paper featuring single words of Tlingit translation, somewhat akin to flash cards. Sitting on the director's table are two Tlingit dictionaries, one listing nouns and the other verbs. Lance Twitchell, who plays Ross, serves as the cast's language coach and is constantly tweaking the script and assisting with pronunciation. Rehearsals lasted close to nine hours a day, six days a week. Breaks were really just another chance to review the lines. In the waning days before the cast left for Washington on Feb. 25, they were getting close, but still forgetting some lines. George Holly, who plays Lennox and wrote the play's songs, reminded the exhausted cast of the significance of their work. "Who ever hears Tlingit spoken, even for more than 30 seconds, it's just a phrase here and there, or it's from some elders," he said. "This is so much more. "This is not really a premiere of a different take on a Shakespearean play; it's a premiere of a language on the world stage." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Mar 7 17:10:11 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 10:10:11 -0700 Subject: A handheld that saves native languages? (fwd) Message-ID: A handheld that saves native languages? by Sea Stachura, Minnesota Public Radio March 6, 2007 http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/03/05/phrasalator/ ~ The Prairie Island Indian Community is using a US Defense Department tool to try to revive its Dakota language. The Phraselator is used by U.S. troops in the Middle East if they don't have an interpreter. To use it, you say a phrase into the handheld device and it translates, out loud. ~ Prairie Island Indian Community, Minn. ? No one walks around Prairie Island speaking Dakota, and only a few elders even know it. Wayne Wells, a Dakota language teacher and tribal member, learned Dakota in college, but he doesn't think he's fluent. Still, it's his goal to get the tribe's children speaking Dakota everyday. "My ancestors are breathing through my lungs when I speak the language," he says. "They're breathing again, they're living again through my soul, my breath. It's precious. That's how I see it. And you start teaching kids that, your ancestors are here still." Larger view Phraselator Three years ago Wells started weekly language classes for adults and kids. The Phraselator is a new addition. Wells shows how it works. "Five," Wells says into the device. "Zapta," it responds. "So I can so like, 'How are you,'" he continues. "Duke yahoe?" "That's how the soldiers use it." The tribe bought five. Each costs $3,300. Wells wants kids to take these devices home. The hope is that a parent, who doesn't speak Dakota, could have family dinner with the Phraselator at his side. He could ask, "Please pass the rice," in the language. If a child doesn't know the response, she also could use Phraselator to figure it out. [photo inset - Curt Campbell] The device looks like a cross between a Palm Pilot and a walkie-talkie. It retrieves language from a flash card full of recorded phrases. A one gig card will store up to 85,000 items, but you have to enter them yourself. Curt Campbell is one of a few fluent elders. In Campbell's living room, with photos of elders and grandchildren everywhere, Wells and Campbell sit side by side, recording. "Where do you go to school?" Wells reads from a phrase list. "Okay," Campbell says. "Ready? One, two, three..." "Mis hed wabdawa," Campbell says into a headset microphone. Campbell and Wells then record variations of this sentence. Then Wells asks Campbell to say, "He goes to the University of Minnesota." "I don't know if there is a word for university," Campbell laughs. "I'm going to have to say a whole paragraph for this one." "Well, what would you say?" Wells asks. [photo inset - Alan Childs Jr.] Campbell starts into a long description of an institute for higher learning. He is 72 years old, and when elders like Campbell die, the tribe loses people who know enough to apply the old language to new words. Tribal member Alan Childs watches the activity. He says speaking Dakota teaches self-worth. "Other than being brown-skinned and darker features and things like that, [language] is our identity. That is our number one identity. And it's also how we keep our customs and traditions," Childs explains. Fifty-five tribes bought Phraselators in the last year. But University of Minnesota linguist Nancy Stenson says preserving language doesn't need fancy gadgets. She believes technological tools frequently become a linguistic crutch. "I think there's a danger there in that people will abdicate personal responsibility for language," she says. [photo inset - Nancy Stenson] Stenson says people may think, if it's recorded, it's safe. But she says recorded language is fossilized language. "I think the way a language is going to be preserved and brought back into common use is by speaking it to other people, and only by speaking it, even to people who maybe don't have a good command," she says. The Mohawk, for example, decided to use Mohawk in all public places, including the grocery store. Some Ojibwe bands write Ojibwe rock songs and have immersion programs. Stenson says these types of programs keep language buoyant and flexible. She says people don't learn languages in chunks but by applying rules. Without those rules, new speakers are stuck when they try to say a unrecorded phrase. Wayne Wells says the Phraselator is only a tool. In the last three years he says he's seen progress in his students. "I was discouraged for a little while, because it was like, they're never gonna get this," he says during a break from recording. "But then, all of a sudden, they started speaking. Another milestone is, the intermediate kids that have been coming for a couple years? They're teaching the beginning class now." Those intermediate kids are 11 years old. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Mar 7 17:15:56 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 10:15:56 -0700 Subject: Keweenaw community seeks to save Ojibwe language (fwd) Message-ID: Keweenaw community seeks to save Ojibwe language Posted: March 07, 2007 by: The Associated Press http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414601 BARAGA, Mich. (AP) - With few living native speakers left, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, like many American Indian groups across the country, is launching an initiative to preserve ''the first people's language.'' The reservation in Michigan's remote Upper Peninsula is one of those belonging to the Ojibwa tribe, whose native language is Ojibwe. Members say the language is an essential aspect of their culture. ''Language is communication, but also it tells who you are,'' said Earl Otchingwanigan, professor emeritus of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University in Minnesota. ''Within the language itself, there is history and culture built into it.'' ''Other cultures around the world ... have brought their languages back from the brink of extinction, such as the Maori in the South Seas,'' he said. ''The Jewish people in Israel have brought their language back, so it can be done.'' A $109,708 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is financing a study of the language's level of use. On Jan. 22, the Keweenaw community sent out 1,200 questionnaires to members, with questions including, ''Where do you use the Ojibwe language?'' ''Do you feel comfortable using the Ojibwe language?'' and ''If you had the opportunity to participate in language instruction, what fluency level would you hope to attain?'' ''Ojibwe is spoken all across the Great Lakes, but there are many different dialects,'' project director Jesse Luttenton told The Daily Mining Gazette of Houghton. ''We want to preserve and revitalize the language as it is specific to the Keweenaw Bay.'' From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Mar 7 17:23:31 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 10:23:31 -0700 Subject: Zoom H4 Handy Recorder review Message-ID: fyi, For all you language audiophiles, here is a review to consider prior to your next audio equipment purchase. Review: Zoom H4 Handy Recorder by Mark Nelson 02/01/2007 http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2007/02/01/review-zoom-h4-handy-recorder.html phil ilat mg From ryamada at UOREGON.EDU Wed Mar 7 19:29:30 2007 From: ryamada at UOREGON.EDU (Racquel) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 11:29:30 -0800 Subject: 10th Annual NILI Summer Institute Message-ID: Northwest Indian Language Institute 10th Annual SUMMER INSTITUTE JUNE 18-28, 2007 University of Oregon, Eugene Featuring two programs: Learning Environments Explore ways to make your learning and teaching environment more supportive and effective. Create materials and practice using them as a language teacher or learner. Documentation Record speakers and create CDs and DVDs based on audio or video recordings. COURSE OFFERINGS *Methods, Materials, and Technology for Language Teaching *Creating Supportive Learning Environments *Technology and Methods for Language Documentation * Linguistics for NW Indian Languages *Language Courses: Sahaptin, Chinuk Wawa (tailored to enrollment) INSTRUCTORS Virginia Beavert, Patsy Whitefoot, Tony Johnson, and NILI staff Tuition for Summer Institute: $1,150 (Includes 4 university credits, materials, T-shirt, and computer lab fee) Approximate housing fee: $620 (Includes dorm room and all meals during Institute) A non-refundable deposit of $150 is due by 25 May 2007. For more information: Email: nwili at uoregon.edu NILI Website: http://babel.uoregon.edu/nili/intro.html 1629 Moss Street Phone: (541) 346-0730 Eugene, OR 97403 From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Mar 9 16:34:01 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 09:34:01 -0700 Subject: Noel Pearson: Native tongues imperilled (fwd) Message-ID: Noel Pearson: Native tongues imperilled The Australian OPINION Noel Pearson March 10, 2007 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21352767-7583,00.html IN 1973, a linguist doing field work on Aboriginal Australian languages realised he had met the last speaker of Yaygir, a language once spoken in present-day northeast NSW. The custodian of this invaluable piece of Australian culture, Sandy Cameron, was living in obscurity and had not spoken Yaygir for several years. He was, however, eager to work with his university-educated guest to record and preserve his ancestral language. The linguist decided to return to Cameron's home in a couple of months to finish the recording of this national treasure. But Cameron died before the linguist returned. A region of Australia lost a large part of its heritage. Such tragedies happened in many parts of Australia in our lifetime, and are still happening. Our nation's culture and history is needlessly impoverished. A few years ago my old friend, Urwunjin, died as the last speaker of his people's language from Barrow Point on the southeastern coast of Cape York Peninsula. Urwunjin's knowledge was at least recorded to a large extent. In the late 1960s and into the '70s an organised effort was made by many young anthropologists and linguists, urged by an indefatigable sponsor, Peter Ucko, then director of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in Canberra, to describe the country's cultures and languages before it was too late. Their salvage operation was dubbed Before It Is Too Late or BIITL. Many of today's senior ethnographers of Australia were involved in this push. The original BIITL preserved a large amount of information, now archived in Canberra. Much of this record is inaccessible to laymen, however. When I was a boy starting primary school, an American linguist, John Haviland, came to live with a local family two doors away from us, and in the following years he compiled a grammar and dictionary of Guugu Yimithirr - the language that James Cook encountered in 1770 and which gave the world the name kangaroo, after the Guugu Yimithirr word for a species of wallaby called gangurru. Haviland accomplished an astonishing feat in his mastery of classical Guugu Yimithirr. His grammar is a great work of scholarship, that is a necessary but by itself insufficient, foundation for the maintenance of our language long into the future. It is hard enough for privileged people to learn languages. It is near impossible for dysfunctional people. Few of my people can learn anything from Haviland's published grammar, though it is an invaluable resource. The social inaccessibility of the scientific work compiled through the BIITL period has not been answered with effective language transmission efforts such as has occurred in New Zealand through indigenous language nests. The multitude of Australian languages compared with New Zealand means that our challenge is so much more vast and complex, but we should learn from the strategies adopted across the Tasman. A new BIITL is urgently needed in Australia, because we risk losing our country's languages as spoken tongues. Intergenerational transmission of a large number of Australia's languages is declining or has ceased. This is not the result of Aboriginal Australian's choice to abandon our culture. As almost everything else in our communities, it is a result of our desperate disadvantage. Social dysfunction disables cultural and linguistic transmission. Our country must understand that a new BIITL effort is an indispensable part of reconciliation. It will be difficult to save our languages if the gap in transmission becomes much wider than it already is. Other than the work undertaken by AIATSIS in Canberra, the single most important (and more promising in terms of providing a solution to the challenge of inter-generational transmission) effort has been undertaken through the translations of the international subsidiary of the Wycliffe Bible Society, the Summer Institute of Linguistics. Two languages of Cape York Peninsula, Wik Mungkan and Kuku Yalanji, have been the subject of magisterial translations of the New Testament by SIL, along with a number of other languages across the country. The SIL website (www.ethnologue.com) provides an estimation of the vitality of each of Australia's remaining indigenous languages, and the number of languages that are on the brink of extinction should be the cause of national consternation and urgent response. But, notwithstanding the richness of this country's linguistic heritage, there is almost no public recognition of this national priority. To find an eloquent expression of the preciousness of this heritage you would need to go back to W.E.H. Stanner's Boyer lectures of 1967. Since Stanner there have been no prominent voices, the last being that of the American ethnographer and author, Jared Diamond, in his 2001 Centenary of Federation address. Reading Diamond's lecture I was struck by how it is that the only prominent advocate on behalf of Australia's original languages is an American. Let me make some points about language policy. A first step is that Australia must recognise its languages. It is ridiculous that Australia is behind Europe in this respect. The European states have signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The status of minority languages varies greatly, but a large number of European minority languages are now official in the provinces where they are spoken. But Australia has not even adopted an official listing of its languages. Second, the purpose of preserving and maintaining Australia's indigenous languages is not just that these languages serve a communication purpose within indigenous societies (for many communities they often do not), but because they are inherently valuable as part of the country's rich heritage. And these languages comprise the identity of their custodians and are the primary words by which the Australian land and seascape is named and described. These languages are intimately related to the nature and spirit of the country that all Australians now call home. Third, indigenous people must understand that indigenous language transmission must move decisively from orality to literacy if there is to be long-term maintenance. This means that indigenous children must be fully literate in the language of learning - English - in order to be literate in their own languages. Reliance upon oral transmission alone will not work in the long term. Fourth, there must be a separate domain within indigenous communities for cultural and linguistic education from the Western education domain. Schools are not the places for cultural and linguistic transmission, and we must stop looking to schools to save our languages. This is because the primary purpose of schools is for our children to obtain a mainstream, Western education, including full fluency in English. Schools will never be adequately equipped to solve the transmission imperative, and all we end up doing is compromising our children's mainstream education achievement. Indeed, without full English literacy our children are then illiterate in their traditional language. Fifth, language learning must start in earliest childhood, and this means both English and traditional languages. Children must have access to both domains from the start if they are going to become properly bilingual. Communities that delay the learning of English to late in primary school in favour of traditional languages in the early years, end up disabling their children because they remain far behind in the language required for them to obtain a mainstream education. Sixth, a new generation BIITL must integrate the newest technology. It is the information technologies that provide the bridge between the scientific record and its application to the transmission imperative between generations. There are many breakthrough demonstrations around the countryside of how information technology provides solutions to cultural transmission, and these need to be brought together as part of a concerted program. Finally, the basic infrastructure for this national project needs to be developed and supplied as a national responsibility. There should be room for a lot of regional and local adaptation, but there must be a range of off-the-shelf technical solutions developed by people with necessary expertise at a national government agency such as AIATSIS. There needs to be a generous government funded campaign for the maintenance of each indigenous language employing full-time linguists and other expert staff. Private, not-for-profit and public organisations should work together, but language policy and adequate funding must be provided by the national Government. Noel Pearson is director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Mar 9 16:41:30 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 09:41:30 -0700 Subject: Keeping Native tongues out of the pickling jar (fwd) Message-ID: Keeping Native tongues out of the pickling jar After decades devoted to breathing life into dying California languages, linguist Leanne Hinton views her profession's value as far more than academic [photo inset - Hinton as a Berkeley undergrad, circa 1965, with an unidentified friend and a state-of-the art Uher portable reel-to-reel tape recorder in Supai, Ariz. Because the village had no electricity at the time, she recharged the machine's batteries with the help of a generator turned on briefly each evening. (Matt Hinton photo)] By Barry Bergman, Public Affairs | 07 March 2007 http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2007/03/07_Hinton.shtml Leanne Hinton first heard the faint cry of dying languages at the bottom of Havasu Canyon, a 3,000-foot-deep cut in the Colorado Plateau beloved by backpackers for its clear, towering waterfalls. A remote branch of the Grand Canyon reachable only by foot, helicopter, or pack animal, this ancient chasm is home to the 650-member Havasupai tribe, which has inhabited the village of Supai for eight centuries. When Hinton, then a Berkeley undergrad, hiked the eight-mile trail down to the village in the summer of 1964, the Havasupais had no system of written language. Hinton was instrumental in changing that. And that summer in Supai changed her as well, planting the seeds of a career ? and a calling ? as a champion of vanishing Indian languages, working closely with tribal members throughout California to combat further erosion of the state's ever-dwindling language diversity. As part of Berkeley's linguistics faculty since 1978, including three years as department chair, she has made it her mission ? through both her writings and her hands-on language conferences and workshops ? to keep the fires of Native languages burning. "When we lose languages we're losing knowledge," says the soft-spoken Hinton, who estimates that of the more than 100 languages indigenous to what is now California, only half still have living speakers. "We're losing not just a set of words or a grammar ? and of course that's very important to linguists ? but, more broadly, we're losing whole philosophical systems, oral-literature systems, ceremonial systems, and social systems along with the language. So language is one of an array of cultural phenomena that are going away." For Hinton, however, the wider impacts of such losses are secondary to the toll on ? and the inspiration of ? the people whose ancestors were fluent in Karuk, Miwok, Mutsun, and scores of languages and dialects that today have only a few, if any, remaining speakers. "I'm really involved in this because of the passion of the people in these communities who are losing languages," explains Hinton, who last year received a Cultural Freedom Award from the Lannan Foundation. "The important thing about language survival is that people see it as a part of their human rights. And it is. People have the right to retain their language, and have a right to retain their culture if that's what they want to do." An accidental linguist [photo inset - Longtime linguistics-faculty member Leanne Hinton in her Dwinelle Hall office. (Peg Skorpinski photo)] Growing up in La Jolla, Hinton never expected to make a career of preserving and resurrecting moribund languages, or even ? as was customary then in linguistics ? merely documenting them. "My own journey to the languages of California has been long and full of detours," she wrote in the introduction to her 1994 book Flutes of Fire. The journey began, fittingly, in Arizona, with a language, Havasupai, that is relatively robust. Hinton traveled to Supai not as a linguist but as a budding ethnomusicologist. Her father, a retired marine biologist, is the renowned folk musician Sam Hinton, and she herself studied folk and ethnic music well into grad school. Her change in direction was set when she told her academic adviser, the late Berkeley folklorist Alan Dundes, that she hoped to do field work somewhere within driving distance over the summer break. "He just said right out, 'Well, the Havasupais might be an interesting place to go, no one's really studied their music,'" she recalls. What the 22-year-old undergrad found ? beyond new friends and a culture that took her in and reshaped her outlook ? was that "sung and spoken language were very different from each other," a discovery that fascinated her and became the basis of a course she would later teach at Berkeley. "There were all kinds of very interesting things going on in the texts of the music," such as the use of archaic words and non-word sounds that nonetheless conveyed meaning. "I was very interested in this whole notion of meaning versus words," she says. "What really got me into linguistics was my interest in that aspect of ethnomusicology." Hinton eventually went on to earn her Ph.D. in linguistics at UC San Diego, and soon accepted a teaching job with the University of Texas. The Havasupais, meanwhile ? for whom she'd been writing a monthly newspaper column on "how to write your language" since her grad-school days ? asked her to head up their fledgling bilingual-education program. She accepted, making the 900-mile trip to Supai from Dallas every two weeks. The experience was an eye-opener for Hinton. Havasupai "is not what we call a moribund language, because kids are still learning it," she explains, pronouncing it "a little bit endangered." But tribal leaders, worried by the growing encroachment of English on their ancestral tongue, viewed the burgeoning bilingual-ed movement of the 1970s as a model they could apply successfully in their own schools. Many other North American tribes, says Hinton, were also creating programs to teach a range of subjects in students' Indian languages. "They saw bilingual education as a way to turn around the process of language decline they had been going through, and that had started, of course, with the schools," she says. "They had gone through this long period of boarding-school education, where the languages were absolutely not allowed in the schools and weren't allowed on the playgrounds, or in the dorms, or anywhere, as a way to try to actually kill off the languages and have everybody become monolingual English speakers. "So this was an opportunity, all of a sudden, for the languages to come back to school, and to regain some of the respect from tribal members that they had lost," she says. That, however, required a standardized writing system, something most Western tribes didn't have. Hinton worked with the tribe to develop one, and in 1984 published the first Havasupai dictionary. Yet even though children could speak Havasupai ? "one of only 20 [Native] languages in North America that kids are still learning at home," Hinton says ? she detected some problems. The most serious was the lack of immersion in the second language, with teachers and students alike constantly slipping back into English. "Even with Havasupais, where everyone knew the language, teachers would start out in English, saying, 'Okay, kids, today we're going to talk about the colors in Havasupai,'" she says. "Teachers would tell me, 'When I write Havasupai I think in English, and translate.' Because writing itself was sort of this English thing that you do, and it was hard to transfer." "It got me very interested in the whole idea of immersion as a language-teaching method and as a way of interacting," Hinton adds. By the early 1980s ? by which time she was an assistant professor of linguistics at Berkeley, and accepting invitations from California tribes to speak on the topic of teaching language ? the technique was of far more than mere academic interest. Speaking equals success In addition to leading language workshops with a focus on immersion, Hinton began writing a monthly column for News From Native California, a journal started by Berkeley publisher Malcolm Margolin. (She retired the column after 10 years, collecting some of the essays in edited form in Flutes of Fire.) In 1992 she joined Margolin and Tongva/Ajachemem artist and tribal activist L. Frank Manriquez in putting together a major conference on how to save Indian languages, an event she views as a watershed. "It was a very historic conference," she says. "Before that, everybody was doing their own separate things, and feeling pretty lonesome. And all of a sudden they were with other people who shared the same interests. It was a tremendously positive, emotional gathering." The conference gave birth to a group called Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival (AICLS), with Hinton as a founding board member. The nonprofit now runs a number of programs aimed at putting into practice an essential key to language survival, but which Hinton says came as something of a surprise: the need for new speakers of the old languages. "To a linguist this was a real learning experience, because when linguists say, 'Oh, we've got to save these languages,' they often mean 'let's document them,'" observes Hinton. And while she agrees that documentation is "exceedingly important," it's not enough to save a language. "A lot of people were saying that 'documenting the language is pickling the language ? we don't want documentation, we want new speakers, and that's what we want to focus on.'" And that, in fact, is where Hinton has focused much of her own energy ? that is, when she isn't teaching Berkeley students, directing the Survey for California and Other Indian Languages, curating the sound collections at the Hearst Museum and the Berkeley Language Center, conducting linguistics research, or writing books and articles. (In addition to works of scholarship, her eight published books include How to Keep Your Language Alive, a handbook for one-on-one teaching of endangered languages, and a children's book, Ishi's Tale of Lizard, a 1993 nominee for a PEN Center USA West Literary Award.) Under the auspices of AICLS, Hinton oversees weeklong "Breath of Life" workshops on campus every other summer ? "I had originally called it the Lonely Hearts Language Club," she laughs, "but I was overruled" ? at which tribal members gather to learn new techniques for learning, teaching, researching, and preserving languages that have no speakers. She also created the Master-Apprentice Program, which pairs an elder speaker with a younger tribal member who wishes to learn the language. And whether or not a particular language still has a living speaker, Hinton makes sure those interested in endangered languages are able to take full advantage of Berkeley's archives, which she says "represent one of the largest collection of documents on California Indian languages in the world, maybe the biggest." "One of the most important things people learn is that they can come back here anytime," she says. "A lot of people say they were terrified of Berkeley, that they would never have come on their own. That they are actually allowed to go into a library or an archive and study the materials is something they had no idea about." Such efforts, Hinton believes, are paying off. "I think what constitutes success is people using the language," she explains. "And what I see is that people are. Any word they know, they're figuring out places where they can use it every day ? tribal councils saying, 'Okay, you have to vote yes or no in our language, even if those are the only two words we know.' People are developing their own archives and libraries with copies of all the materials on the language. People are developing curriculum materials, dictionaries, phrase books. And so what's happening is that the languages are coming into use again." As a preface to Flutes of Fire, Hinton offers up a Maidu tale that explains the origin of Indian languages and provides the book's title. Mouse, the story goes, was sitting atop the assembly house, "playing his flutes and dropping coals through the smokehole," when Coyote interrupted him. As a consequence, only people in the middle of the house received fire; today, when the others talk, "their teeth chatter with the cold." The reason Indians have so many different languages, the tale concludes, is that "all did not receive an equal share of fire." For many, the fire is in danger of going out. Hinton ? who still, four decades after her first visit to Supai, finds it "much more satisfying to be using my linguistic knowledge for some kind of real-world benefit, rather than just writing for other linguists" ? is doing her best to fan the flames. **** Hinton is scheduled to speak on "Native American Languages and Music: The Role of the Archives" on March 8, at 7 p.m. in the Hearst Museum Gallery. For details, visit the museum's website at hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu or call 642-3682. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Mar 12 01:40:22 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 18:40:22 -0700 Subject: American Indians Say English Only Policy Diminishes Tribal Languages (fwd) Message-ID: American Indians Say English Only Policy Diminishes Tribal Languages AP - 3/11/2007 12:55 PM - Updated 3/11/2007 12:56 PM http://www.kotv.com/news/local/story/?id=122166 OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ As he visits public schools and colleges where his native Choctaw Indian language is taught, Terry Ragan is as likely to greet people with ``Halito! Chim achukma?'' as he is with its English equivalent: ``Good morning! How are you?'' The state's very name is a Choctaw word meaning land of the red people, and many of Oklahoma's 37 federally recognized tribes are fighting to save native tongues from extinction years after the end of organized efforts to stamp out their languages and cultures. That's why English-only legislation pending in the Oklahoma Legislature and directed primarily at Hispanic immigrants has been so distasteful to American Indian leaders in this, Oklahoma's centennial year. The bill points up divisions that continue to exist more than a century after Indians were force-marched to the state and given land, only to see it taken away by settlers _ an event re-enacted every year by schoolchildren across the state. ``If you go to English only, what are we going to call the state of Oklahoma?'' said Ragan, a former school superintendent and director of the Choctaw Nation's language program. ``Even town names in the state will have to be named differently. ``With that type of thinking, we're going to have to change a whole lot of things.'' Supporters of English-only legislation say it could eventually end bilingual state government documents, such as driver's license tests, and force Latino and Asian immigrants to learn English and assimilate into American society. English-only legislation has been adopted in 28 states and measures are pending in 12 states, said Rob Toonkel, director of communications for U.S. English, Inc. of Washington, D.C. A similar measure has been filed in Congress. The national English only movement does not want to deprive American Indians of their native languages but is aimed at standardizing government documents into a single language as a symbol of unity for immigrant populations. ``It's very much an assimilation issue,'' Toonkel said. ``We should make sure they become part of the country.'' But assimilation is a charged word for many American Indians, whose ancestors were forced from their traditional lands and sent on the Trail of Tears in the 19th century. English-only restrictions were imposed in what was then known as Indian Territory to expunge tribal languages and culture, said Kirke Kickingbird, an Oklahoma City attorney and member of the Kiowa tribe. ``That whole era was really about assimilation,'' he said. Indian men were forced to cut their hair and change their clothes and Indian children were herded off to boarding schools away from the influence of their parents. Even the unassigned lands set aside for Indian tribes were eventually carved up for settlement in land runs beginning in 1889, events that led to Oklahoma's statehood in 1907. Every year, school children throughout the state dress up as pioneers and stage pretend land runs to learn about the state's history. Organizers of a year-long centennial celebration said it would unite Oklahomans, but some tribal leaders said they feel alienated. ``We're just not going to celebrate it in our nation,'' said A.D. Ellis, principal chief of the 55,000-thousand-member Muscogee Nation. ``I think they should respect the Indian people of Oklahoma,'' Ellis said. ``They should respect that part we played in making the state of Oklahoma. This is a native American state.'' Chad Smith, chief of the 250,000-thousand member Cherokee Nation, the largest American Indian tribe in the United States, said the state's image is harmed when cultural differences are not embraced. ``There's a message sent to those outside of Oklahoma that we're intolerant, we're colloquial and we want to isolate ourselves from the rest of the world,'' Smith said. ``To our tribes it says that if there's an official language, your language is secondary and all other languages are secondary,'' said Smith, who has also been an outspoken critic of use of Indian mascots and names by athletic teams. Bill Anoatubby, governor of the 38,000-member Chickasaw Nation, said language is a fundamental aspect of any culture. ``Oklahoma is a unique state born from and formed by a variety of cultures,'' Anoatubby said. ``The English only bill ignores the very fabric that makes up the framework of what is Oklahoma.'' Wyman Kirk, a member of the Cherokee tribe and director of a four-year degree program in the Cherokee language at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Okla., said he believes the English only proposal is a waste of politicians' time. ``We don't have to worry about people not learning English,'' Kirk said. Supporters point out that the legislation includes language to prevent it from interfering with the teaching or learning of American Indian languages. But critics said a government policy on language could impede efforts to revive tribal languages. The Intertribal Wordpath Society, a nonprofit group based in Norman, Okla., estimates that only about 9,000 people are fluent in the Cherokee language and 4,000 in the Choctaw language. Fewer than a dozen people are fluent in other American Indian languages, including those of the Osage, Pawnee and Chiricahua Apache tribes, according to the group. Kirk said that lack of understanding, or ``uhnigvga'' in Cherokee, may be at the heart of the policy. ``Anything new tends to scare people,'' Kirk said. ``If anything, I think people probably need to be exposed to more languages.'' Alice Anderton, a former linguist at the University of Oklahoma and executive director of the Intertribal Wordpath Society, said a xenophobic fear that immigrants will somehow change society may be to blame for the policy. ``We feel it's fine for everyone to speak English, but its also important for people to speak other languages,'' Anderton said. She said English only policies are divisive and exclude people from other cultures. ``This whole idea of English uniting us is bogus,'' Anderton said. ``The truth is people are divided by a thousand things _ different politics, different religions.'' ``We have absolutely nothing against English. It's great if people speak English,'' she said. ``But it's great if people speak English plus some other language of heritage.'' From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Mar 12 01:44:15 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 18:44:15 -0700 Subject: Grants aim to help preserve native languages (fwd) Message-ID: Article published Mar 11, 2007 Grants aim to help preserve native languages By KIM SKORNOGOSKI Tribune Staff Writer http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070311/NEWS01/703110309/1002 Only a handful of people still speak the Mandan language, which was critical to the success of the Lewis and Clark expedition. The National Council of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial is offering grants to fund tribal language educational programs in the community and schools with the hopes of preserving Mandan and other native languages. "American Indian languages are libraries of ancient knowledge," said Darrell Kipp, founder of the Piegan Institute in Browning, which has a mission of researching, promoting and preserving language. "When a language dies, that wisdom is lost forever." Scholars estimate that 90 percent of the world's languages are spoken by 10 percent of the population. Many Indian ancestral languages have already been lost and the majority that remain are not being taught to children. "There are currently 6,000 languages spoken in the world, and at least half are projected to disappear in this century," said Douglas Whalen, founder and president of the Endangered Language Fund. Proceeds from sales of a Lewis and Clark commemorative coin and a handmade Indian pouch set bankroll the $1.6 million Endangered Language Fund. Using interest off that money, the foundation is offering $2,500 to $25,000 grants, starting later this year. Kipp is one of three people on the inaugural advisory committee, which will guide how grants are allocated and help execute language programs. "The Native Voices Endowment gives us a chance to make a difference far beyond the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial," said Robert Archibald, president of the national bicentennial council and the Missouri Historical Society. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Mar 12 19:59:56 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 12:59:56 -0700 Subject: Call for Papers: 2007 SIL Conf Message-ID: 14th Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium Call for Papers The planning committee for the 14th Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium invites interested individuals and groups to present their work in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, on June 1-3, 2007. Application Deadline: March 14, 2007 http://linguistlist.org/sils/call.html From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Mar 13 20:20:20 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 13:20:20 -0700 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language (fwd) Message-ID: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language Submitted by sfiecke on March 12, 2007 - 12:51pm. Filed under: General News http://www.shakopeenews.com/node/1710 State Rep. David Bly, DFL-Northfield, is seeking support for a bill that would create an state office of indigenous language. The state would collaborate with Native Americans to ensure the survival of unique cultures and language. Bly's bill, House File 779, was scheduled to receive a look during a Minnesota House of Representatives E-12 Education Committee hearing last week. If the bill eventually passes into law, money would be appropriated and the office would be established. A bill would establish a Council on Indegenious Language, which would consist of tribal officials, including a representative from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community. According to the legislation, one-third of indigenous tongues have disappeared since the coming of Columbus. Of those that survive, nine out of ten are no longer spoken by children. To read the full text of the bill as it was introduced, go to http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/bldbill.php?bill=H0779.0.html&session=ls85. Bly represents House District 25B, which includes Helena Township. From rzs at TDS.NET Wed Mar 14 04:10:38 2007 From: rzs at TDS.NET (Richard Smith) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 20:10:38 -0800 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language In-Reply-To: <20070313132020.btw800ssg04gcs08@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: This is a rather basic request: Is there anyone who knows where I could get posters of N. American animals Or good clear photos of american wild animals that can be made into posters Where the native name can be printed below it? The Wyandot language classes are going great here in Wyandotte Oklahoma, and the public school has even given us our own room...but it seriously needs posters...and non-state maps Thanks Richard Zane Smith From anggarrgoon at GMAIL.COM Wed Mar 14 01:29:34 2007 From: anggarrgoon at GMAIL.COM (Claire Bowern) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 20:29:34 -0500 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language In-Reply-To: Message-ID: We got permission from a publisher to scan flora and fauna books for illustrating the Bardi dictionary (for community use). Took a bit of work but the illustrations are great. Claire Richard Smith wrote: > This is a rather basic request: > Is there anyone who knows where I could get posters of N. American animals > Or good clear photos of american wild animals that can be made into posters > Where the native name can be printed below it? > The Wyandot language classes are going great > here in Wyandotte Oklahoma, and the public school has even given us our own > room...but it seriously needs posters...and non-state maps > Thanks > Richard Zane Smith > From charles.riley at YALE.EDU Wed Mar 14 01:54:38 2007 From: charles.riley at YALE.EDU (Charles RIley) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 21:54:38 -0400 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi Richard; This would be one option: http://store.doverpublications.com/0486291022.html The books listed there aren't limited to N. America, and they're small illustrations rather than poster-sized photos, but it's royalty-free material that can be used. Charles Riley Quoting Richard Smith : > This is a rather basic request: > Is there anyone who knows where I could get posters of N. American animals > Or good clear photos of american wild animals that can be made into posters > Where the native name can be printed below it? > The Wyandot language classes are going great > here in Wyandotte Oklahoma, and the public school has even given us our own > room...but it seriously needs posters...and non-state maps > Thanks > Richard Zane Smith > From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Wed Mar 14 02:28:35 2007 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 22:28:35 -0400 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language In-Reply-To: <20070313215438.uvv7wxb65ck4sw0k@www.mail.yale.edu> Message-ID: Hi Charles, If by royalty-free you mean free to use (no license restrictions?) then I wonder if these illustrations might also be adaptable to wiki content (scan to image file). On the AfrophoneWikis list there has been discussion of use of "template" illustrations with tags that can be filled in with names ? la Duden for different language editions of Wikipedia. Any potential addition to the bank of quality illustrations that could be used would be welcome. Don > -----Original Message----- > From: Indigenous Languages and Technology > [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Charles RIley > Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 9:55 PM > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > Subject: Re: [ILAT] Bly seeks state office of indigenous language > > Hi Richard; > > This would be one option: > http://store.doverpublications.com/0486291022.html > > The books listed there aren't limited to N. America, and they're small > illustrations rather than poster-sized photos, but it's royalty-free > material that can be used. > > Charles Riley > > > > Quoting Richard Smith : > > > This is a rather basic request: > > Is there anyone who knows where I could get posters of N. American > animals > > Or good clear photos of american wild animals that can be made into > posters > > Where the native name can be printed below it? > > The Wyandot language classes are going great > > here in Wyandotte Oklahoma, and the public school has even given us > our own > > room...but it seriously needs posters...and non-state maps > > Thanks > > Richard Zane Smith > > From gmccone at NAL.USDA.GOV Wed Mar 14 02:47:10 2007 From: gmccone at NAL.USDA.GOV (McCone, Gary) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 22:47:10 -0400 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language Message-ID: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a lot of public domain images of animals. Check out images.fws.gov Gary McCone ________________________________ From: Indigenous Languages and Technology on behalf of Don Osborn Sent: Tue 3/13/2007 10:28 PM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re: [ILAT] Bly seeks state office of indigenous language Hi Charles, If by royalty-free you mean free to use (no license restrictions?) then I wonder if these illustrations might also be adaptable to wiki content (scan to image file). On the AfrophoneWikis list there has been discussion of use of "template" illustrations with tags that can be filled in with names ? la Duden for different language editions of Wikipedia. Any potential addition to the bank of quality illustrations that could be used would be welcome. Don > -----Original Message----- > From: Indigenous Languages and Technology > [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Charles RIley > Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 9:55 PM > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU > Subject: Re: [ILAT] Bly seeks state office of indigenous language > > Hi Richard; > > This would be one option: > http://store.doverpublications.com/0486291022.html > > The books listed there aren't limited to N. America, and they're small > illustrations rather than poster-sized photos, but it's royalty-free > material that can be used. > > Charles Riley > > > > Quoting Richard Smith : > > > This is a rather basic request: > > Is there anyone who knows where I could get posters of N. American > animals > > Or good clear photos of american wild animals that can be made into > posters > > Where the native name can be printed below it? > > The Wyandot language classes are going great > > here in Wyandotte Oklahoma, and the public school has even given us > our own > > room...but it seriously needs posters...and non-state maps > > Thanks > > Richard Zane Smith > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From charles.riley at YALE.EDU Wed Mar 14 03:16:52 2007 From: charles.riley at YALE.EDU (Charles RIley) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 23:16:52 -0400 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language In-Reply-To: <002201c765e0$77fae700$67f0b500$@net> Message-ID: Hi Don, It might depend on the publication and the use, but my impression is that in general, most of what Dover offers is intended for use as clip art, with no restrictions as long as a purchase has been made of the book that includes the collection of source material. The individual source images tend to be in the public domain. For specifics, they can be reached at . A bigger consideration for an online application though is that the images would have been printed using a halftone screen process, so you'd get a lot of dots left in the picture. Could be resolved by adjusting resolution and display, but a digital source (from CD or online) might be better to start with. Charles Quoting Don Osborn : > Hi Charles, If by royalty-free you mean free to use (no license > restrictions?) then I wonder if these illustrations might also be adaptable > to wiki content (scan to image file). On the AfrophoneWikis list there has > been discussion of use of "template" illustrations with tags that can be > filled in with names ? la Duden for different language editions of > Wikipedia. Any potential addition to the bank of quality illustrations that > could be used would be welcome. > > Don > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Indigenous Languages and Technology >> [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Charles RIley >> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 9:55 PM >> To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU >> Subject: Re: [ILAT] Bly seeks state office of indigenous language >> >> Hi Richard; >> >> This would be one option: >> http://store.doverpublications.com/0486291022.html >> >> The books listed there aren't limited to N. America, and they're small >> illustrations rather than poster-sized photos, but it's royalty-free >> material that can be used. >> >> Charles Riley >> >> >> >> Quoting Richard Smith : >> >> > This is a rather basic request: >> > Is there anyone who knows where I could get posters of N. American >> animals >> > Or good clear photos of american wild animals that can be made into >> posters >> > Where the native name can be printed below it? >> > The Wyandot language classes are going great >> > here in Wyandotte Oklahoma, and the public school has even given us >> our own >> > room...but it seriously needs posters...and non-state maps >> > Thanks >> > Richard Zane Smith >> > > From annier at SFU.CA Wed Mar 14 03:21:30 2007 From: annier at SFU.CA (annie ross) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 20:21:30 -0700 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language Message-ID: An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Wed Mar 14 03:36:03 2007 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 23:36:03 -0400 Subject: Preserving Kanien'keh:ka Culture and Language Message-ID: Saw this in a mailing just received and thought it might be of interest. (BTW, it appears that the stars have realigned and there is no longer an argument between my e-address and the Arizona.edu listserve blocking my posts. Likely has to do with my host changing servers after an umpteenth attack.) Don The Drum Beat newsletter, Issue 386 "Knowledge - Part I: Cultivating Local Content" March 12 2007 Preserving Kanien'keh?:ka Culture and Language Through Community-Based Education and Video by Elizabeth J. Sacc? & Katsi'ts?kwas Ellen Gabriel In response to the need for aboriginal writing and imagery spurred by what was understood to be mass media's stereotyped portrayal of aboriginal people, several artists in a rural indigenous community northwest of Montreal, Canada decided to explore video as a tool for making personal and traditional stories of members of Kanien'keh?:ka: People of the Flint (Mohawks) accessible to the community and to others. Kanehsat?:ke and non-aboriginal women formed a community-based video project, joining their efforts with fellow community members. The authors describe the Kanien'keha language videos that emerged, and explore their role in preserving Kanien'keh?:ka culture and language. http://www.comminit.com/evaluations/eval2006/evaluations-331.html From mikinakn at SHAW.CA Wed Mar 14 03:37:21 2007 From: mikinakn at SHAW.CA (Rolland Nadjiwon) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 23:37:21 -0400 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language Message-ID: I am not sure if I am double posting here or what.... That is really quite a good idea. I recall when I was teaching in an isolated fly in community and all the reading material was so totally foreign, Heidi The Little Swiss Girl, and nothing else much better, I had the children, they all spoke and wrote anishnabehmowin in both phonetic and syllabic form. We wrote our own text books and ran them off on one of those old gum rubber indelible ink copiers, many of you may not even know what I am talking about. But, we did our own books complete with poetry and stories relative to the community, surrounding familiar communities and their world and cosmology. Unfortunately, the catholic priest who did not like my methodologies came in when I was away and burned everything. We also did all our own art work. I did manage to salvage a few of the poems, about 6 or 7. I will attach some of them here for your perusal. Of course this was in 1967...a millennium ago :) Here are three of them in English only. I no longer have the original language, anishnabehmo - ojibway, which was their first language. Don't want to be too pushy so I will only say this much. ------- wahjeh rolland nadjiwon ----- Original Message ----- From: annie ross To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 11:21 PM Subject: Re: [ILAT] Bly seeks state office of indigenous language regarding use of images: this may seem a silly remark on my part....but here goes. why not ask people in your language classes, their family members, and artist friends to make original art for your language classes? and remember, everyone is an artist. that way, all the images and words will be created by the people themselves, and it may help spread the work of language learning/retention further into the community. thank you everyone for your always awesome work annie -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mikinakn at SHAW.CA Wed Mar 14 03:56:19 2007 From: mikinakn at SHAW.CA (Rolland Nadjiwon) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 23:56:19 -0400 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language Message-ID: I am not sure if I am double posting here or what...and I think I owe some attachments. I will try damage control here, now.... Hope I can still post to ILAT.... That is really quite a good idea. I recall when I was teaching in an isolated fly in community and all the reading material was so totally foreign, Heidi The Little Swiss Girl, and nothing else much better, I had the children, they all spoke and wrote anishnabehmowin in both phonetic and syllabic form. We wrote our own text books and ran them off on one of those old gum rubber indelible ink copiers, many of you may not even know what I am talking about. But, we did our own books complete with poetry and stories relative to the community, surrounding familiar communities and their world and cosmology. Unfortunately, the catholic priest who did not like my methodologies came in when I was away and burned everything. We also did all our own art work. I did manage to salvage a few of the poems, about 6 or 7. I will attach some of them here for your perusal. Of course this was in 1967...a millennium ago :) Here are three of them in English only. I no longer have the original language, anishnabehmo - ojibway, which was their first language. Don't want to be too pushy so I will only say this much. ------- wahjeh rolland nadjiwon ----- Original Message ----- From: annie ross To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 11:21 PM Subject: Re: [ILAT] Bly seeks state office of indigenous language regarding use of images: this may seem a silly remark on my part....but here goes. why not ask people in your language classes, their family members, and artist friends to make original art for your language classes? and remember, everyone is an artist. that way, all the images and words will be created by the people themselves, and it may help spread the work of language learning/retention further into the community. thank you everyone for your always awesome work annie -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: THOMAS.WPD Type: application/octet-stream Size: 2896 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jtucker at STARBAND.NET Wed Mar 14 04:04:21 2007 From: jtucker at STARBAND.NET (Jan Tucker) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 00:04:21 -0400 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Greetings Richard, I've put out a request for photographs from a list server I belong to of hunters and tanners. I've seen a lot of different great photographs shared on their discussion board. If I get some good one's I'll forward them to you. Feel free to email me at jtucker at starband.net with where you'd like me to send this photographs. I also know a pretty amazing photographer that my donate his images. I'll let you know what he says and put you in touch. I bought a beautiful photograph of a black tail buck from him. Also have a friend in Alaska who has some good photos she might share. jan tucker -----Original Message----- From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]On Behalf Of Richard Smith Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 12:11 AM To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re: [ILAT] Bly seeks state office of indigenous language This is a rather basic request: Is there anyone who knows where I could get posters of N. American animals Or good clear photos of american wild animals that can be made into posters Where the native name can be printed below it? The Wyandot language classes are going great here in Wyandotte Oklahoma, and the public school has even given us our own room...but it seriously needs posters...and non-state maps Thanks Richard Zane Smith From lanz at RICE.EDU Wed Mar 14 05:53:03 2007 From: lanz at RICE.EDU (Linda Lanz) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 00:53:03 -0500 Subject: images for indigenous language materials In-Reply-To: <45F74FFE.3020403@gmail.com> Message-ID: The Alaska Native Knowledge Network has some clipart here: http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/publications/clipart/ Many of the animals and cultural items are specific to Alaska, but many are also applicable to other parts of North America. -Linda Lanz From stonefbr at GSE.HARVARD.EDU Wed Mar 14 12:51:59 2007 From: stonefbr at GSE.HARVARD.EDU (Bruce Stonefish) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 08:51:59 -0400 Subject: images for indigenous language materials In-Reply-To: <821D1842-9A3D-4B82-AB1F-678470A794BD@rice.edu> Message-ID: Are these images copyright free? Bruce Stonefis Indigenous Education Coaltion On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 00:53:03 -0500 Linda Lanz wrote: > The Alaska Native Knowledge Network has some clipart here: > > http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/publications/clipart/ > > Many of the animals and cultural items are specific to Alaska, but many are also applicable to >other parts of North America. > > > > -Linda Lanz From lanz at RICE.EDU Wed Mar 14 13:58:46 2007 From: lanz at RICE.EDU (Linda Lanz) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 08:58:46 -0500 Subject: images for indigenous language materials In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I couldn't find a copyright statement that included the entire collection, so I would suggest contacting ANKN to find out before using them. (For example, the images that came from the Alaska Native Language Center are apparently public domain, according to the introduction, but the collection doesn't specify which ones are from the ANLC.) However, even if there's copyright, it's usually quite easy to get permission to use them, as Claire Bowern mentioned in an earlier message. A simple letter usually suffices. -Linda L. On Mar 14, 2007, at 7:51 AM, Bruce Stonefish wrote: > Are these images copyright free? > Bruce Stonefis > Indigenous Education Coaltion > > On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 00:53:03 -0500 > Linda Lanz wrote: >> The Alaska Native Knowledge Network has some clipart here: >> http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/publications/clipart/ >> Many of the animals and cultural items are specific to Alaska, >> but many are also applicable to other parts of North America. >> -Linda Lanz > From Rrlapier at AOL.COM Wed Mar 14 14:24:13 2007 From: Rrlapier at AOL.COM (Rrlapier at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 10:24:13 EDT Subject: Keeping a language alive Message-ID: Keeping a language alive: Co-founder of Blackfoot immersion school in Browning visits UM this week By KIM BRIGGEMAN of the Missoulian Blackfeet linguist, poet and teacher Darrell Kipp told students at the University of Montana on Tuesday that youngsters in his Cuts Wood School in Browning learn their native language more efficiently by using a combination sign and oral language. MICHAEL GALLACHER/Missoulian Blackfeet learning Blackfoot - what a novel concept. Not long ago it was, Darrell Kipp said Tuesday. ?Twenty years ago, the notion of revitalizing our language was met with hostility. That shocks people today,? said Kipp, a Blackfeet and graduate of Harvard University. Kipp is on campus at the University of Montana this week, speaking at classes and Wednesday night at the Gallagher Business Building about the Piegan Institute and the pioneer language immersion school he helped found in Browning. More than a century of assimilating America's Native people into an English-speaking society by ?religious and public institutions? was highly effective, he said. ?The conditioning of people to reject or replace something as close to them as their language was highly effective,? he said. So when Kipp, Dr. Dorothy Still Smoking and Edward Little Plume launched Cuts Wood School in downtown Browning in the mid-1990s, they were met with antagonism and resentment on the reservation. Kipp told of facing the wrath of Blackfeet who told him point-blank that speaking the native language was the devil's work. He was called a mercenary, bent on exploiting the language in order to sell it. It wasn't, ?Hey, you shouldn't do that,? Kipp said. ?It was, ?What the hell are you doing? Who in the hell do you think you are? What are you trying to be - a big Indian and steal everything?' ? Perhaps most troubling was the notion that the Cuts Wood School, a K-8 institution at which only the Blackfoot language is spoken, was out to harm the children. ?I think this really reflects the educational standards of Montana, and it's certainly an American philosophy, that the only route to success is an English-speaking trek,? he said. ?Anything less, or anything different, is a serious mistake.? Some saw Cuts Wood School as promoting something bordering on child neglect. ?The fact that you would risk your child's mental stability by proposing to have your child talk in an archaic language is close to pure negligence,? he said, repeating one charge he heard. But time and research have proved the language immersion school's value. Three of the school's graduates are now in college. Others have scored well in testing, including four at off-reservation high schools in Cut Bank, Valier and Billings. A master's study by a University of Montana psychology student in 2003 presented what Kipp called a ?very powerful case? that Cuts Wood students actually outperform those with public school backgrounds. ?These children have been schooled in a program that never gave them a formal English language, yet they go into public schools and excel as English-based students,? he said. How to explain that? ?Here at the University of Montana, how many students come from other countries with limited English and max out your Ph.D. programs in science and math?? Kipp said. Cuts Wood also teaches sign language, and the multilingual approach is known to succeed in schools, be they American Indian or not. That success extends to other disciplines, Kipp maintained. In the Blackfoot language, children can count to a million much quicker than in English, for example. ?It's just a shift in a suffix,? he said. ?The thinking is that tribal languages, because they're archaic, are stunted in their ability to deal with sophisticated mathematics. The fact of the matter is they're able to incorporate all the attributes of modern-day mathematics, but because the language works so differently, they often can make quantum leaps, like going from 10 to a million (quickly).? The Blackfoot language also doesn't distinguish between gender. ?Oftentimes you think, how does that reflect, just in world view?? Kipp said. Blackfoot and other tribal languages have a fourth and fifth person in their grammatical structure. ?English-speaking people just can't go there,? and are often repulsed by the idea of learning sentence structure and diagramming, Kipp said. He said the Blackfoot language is primarily made up of ?timeless verbs,? most often in the present tense that describe things in an animate state. The term for moose translates to ?dark moving into the brush.? ?I think that's a moose,? he said. The world isn't divided into animate and inanimate objects. In an office in the Native American Studies building on campus, he pointed to a bowl of apples, a table, a reporter's shirt. ?Using English, they're all dead,? he said. ?But you make the next step up to science, and you get into physics and chemistry, then you realize the table's not dead, and there are things going on in your shirt.? The Browning school, an offshoot of the Piegan Institute, and another launched by the Mohawk tribe were the nation's first American Indian language immersion schools. They've been models in recent years for the successful Nkwsum (Salish) school in Arlee and the White Clay (Gros Ventres) at Fort Belknap. In 1990, Congress passed and President George H.W. Bush signed a Native American Language bill that ?at least acknowledged the legality of speaking our language,? Kipp said. ?Native American languages were outlawed until 1990.? Last December, Bush's son signed into law an act providing a competitive grant system for native language immersion programs. ?That's a big jump,? said Kipp. ?Twenty years ago you were accosted by your own people, told to mind your own business and that Native languages were like a vase thrown on the ground - broken forever.? Living language Darrell Kipp will speak Wednesday night about the work of the Piegan Institute in Browning and the emerging national language revitalization movement in American Indian communities. The free lecture, at 7 p.m. in the University of Montana's Gallagher Business Building, Room 106, is presented by Native American Studies department and the Calvin B. Stott Scholar fund. missoulian.com ************************************** AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rrlapier at AOL.COM Wed Mar 14 14:48:20 2007 From: Rrlapier at AOL.COM (Rrlapier at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 10:48:20 EDT Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language Message-ID: Most U.S. forest service offices have free posters of every US animal, fish, flora, trees, grass, etc. ************************************** AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Wed Mar 14 16:23:37 2007 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 09:23:37 -0700 Subject: How About NDN Only Message-ID: American Indians say English-only policy diminishes their tribal languages , Associated Press OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Legislation to make English the state's official language has run into opposition from American Indians, who say their native tongues are dying fast enough without any help from lawmakers. As Oklahoma observes its centennial year, the English-only issue points up divisions that persist more than a century after Indians were forcibly marched to the region and then endured a series of land grabs. Many of Oklahoma's 37 federally recognized tribes are fighting to save their languages and cultures from extinction years after the end of organized efforts to stamp them out. Critics of the English-only Legislation point out that Oklahoma's very name is formed from two Choc! taw Indian words - "okla'' and "homma'' - that mean "red man.'' "If you go to English only, what are we going to call the state of Oklahoma?'' said Terry Ragan, director of the Choctaw Nation's language program. "Even town names in the state will have to be named differently.'' Supporters of the legislation say it could end bilingual state government documents, such as driver's license tests, and force immigrants to learn English and assimilate into American society. English-only legislation has been adopted in 28 states and measures are pending in 12 states, said Rob Toonkel, director of communications for U.S. English, Inc. of Washington, D.C., an interest-group that supports making English the nation's official language. A similar measure has been filed in Congress. The national English-only movement does not want to deprive American Indians of their native languages but is aimed at standardizing government documents into a sin! gle language as a symbol of unity for immigrant populations, T! oonkel s aid. "It's very much an assimilation issue,'' he said. "We should make sure they become part of the country.'' But assimilation is a charged word for many American Indians, whose ancestors were forced from their traditional lands and sent on the Trail of Tears in the 19th century. English-only restrictions were imposed in Indian Territory to expunge tribal languages and culture, said Kirke Kickingbird, an Oklahoma City attorney and member of the Kiowa tribe. "That whole era was really about assimilation,'' he said. Chad Smith, chief of the 250,000-member Cherokee Nation, the largest American Indian tribe in the United States, said the state's image is harmed when cultural differences are not embraced. "There's a message sent to those outside of Oklahoma that we're intolerant, we're colloquial and we want to isolate ourselves from the rest of the world,'' Smith said. "To our tribes it says that if th! ere's an official language, your language is secondary and all other languages are secondary,'' said Smith, who has also criticized athletic teams using Indian mascots and names. Supporters point out that the legislation doesn't interfere with the teaching or learning of American Indian languages. But critics said a government policy could impede efforts to revive tribal languages. The Intertribal Wordpath Society, a nonprofit group based in Norman, estimates that only about 9,000 people are fluent in the Cherokee language and 4,000 in the Choctaw language. Fewer than a dozen people are fluent in other American Indian languages, including those of the Osage, Pawnee and Chiricahua Apache tribes, according to the group. "We have absolutely nothing against English. It's great if people speak English,'' said Alice Anderton, a former linguist at the University of Oklahoma and executive director of the Intertribal Wordpath Society. "But! it's great if people speak English plus some other language o! f herita ge.'' On the Net: Intertribal Wordpath Society: http://www.ahalenia.com/iws -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mjohnson at WSTRIBES.ORG Wed Mar 14 16:40:15 2007 From: mjohnson at WSTRIBES.ORG (Myra Johnson) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 09:40:15 -0700 Subject: Bly seeks state office of indigenous language Message-ID: We have used US Parks posters, they have a varity of posters on flowers, trees, insects, animals, etc. I have also seen students do great jobs of drawing animals pertinant to local areas. Myra ----- Original Message ----- From: "annie ross" To: Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 8:21 PM Subject: Re: [ILAT] Bly seeks state office of indigenous language > regarding use of images: > > this may seem a silly remark on my part....but here goes. > > why not ask people in your language classes, their family members, and > artist friends to make original art for your language classes? and > remember, > everyone is an artist. > > that way, all the images and words will be created by the people > themselves, > and it may help spread the work of language learning/retention further > into > the community. > > thank you everyone for your always awesome work > > annie > > On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 23:16:52 -0400 ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU wrote: >> Hi Don, >> >> It might depend on the publication and the use, but my impression is >> that in >> general, most of what Dover offers is intended for use as clip art, with > no >> restrictions as long as a purchase has been made of the book that >> includes the >> collection of source material. The individual source images tend to >> be in the >> public domain. For specifics, they can be reached at >> . >> >> A bigger consideration for an online application though is that the >> images would >> have been printed using a halftone screen process, so you'd get a lot >> of dots >> left in the picture. Could be resolved by adjusting resolution and >> display, >> but a digital source (from CD or online) might be better to start with. >> >> Charles >> >> >> Quoting Don Osborn : >> >> > Hi Charles, If by royalty-free you mean free to use (no license >> > restrictions?) then I wonder if these illustrations might also be >> adaptable >> > to wiki content (scan to image file). On the AfrophoneWikis list >> there has >> > been discussion of use of "template" illustrations with tags that can >> > be >> > filled in with names ? la Duden for different language editions of >> > Wikipedia. Any potential addition to the bank of quality >> illustrations that >> > could be used would be welcome. >> > >> > Don >> > >> >> -----Original Message----- >> >> From: Indigenous Languages and Technology >> >> [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Charles RIley >> >> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 9:55 PM >> >> To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU >> >> Subject: Re: [ILAT] Bly seeks state office of indigenous language >> >> >> >> Hi Richard; >> >> >> >> This would be one option: >> >> http://store.doverpublications.com/0486291022.html >> >> >> >> The books listed there aren't limited to N. America, and they're small >> >> illustrations rather than poster-sized photos, but it's royalty-free >> >> material that can be used. >> >> >> >> Charles Riley >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Quoting Richard Smith : >> >> >> >> > This is a rather basic request: >> >> > Is there anyone who knows where I could get posters of N. American >> >> animals >> >> > Or good clear photos of american wild animals that can be made into >> >> posters >> >> > Where the native name can be printed below it? >> >> > The Wyandot language classes are going great >> >> > here in Wyandotte Oklahoma, and the public school has even given us >> >> our own >> >> > room...but it seriously needs posters...and non-state maps >> >> > Thanks >> >> > Richard Zane Smith >> >> > >> > >> > > > 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 cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Mar 14 17:53:20 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 10:53:20 -0700 Subject: Ethnic languages facing extinction (fwd) Message-ID: Ethnic languages facing extinction Web posted at: 3/14/2007 3:12:53 Source ::: The Peninsula http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News&subsection=Qatar+News&month=March2007&file=Local_News2007031431253.xml [photo inset - Vigdis Finnbogadittir.] doha Nearly half of the languages in the world are facing extinction under the invasion of dominant cultures and languages, according to Vigdis Finnbogadittir, former president of Iceland, who is currently Unesco's Goodwill Ambassador for languages. Finnbogadittir is in Doha attending the Unesco regional conference on literacy being held at the Four Seasons. She took over the role of Unesco ambassador in 1998, after serving as president of Iceland for 16 years continuously for four consecutive terms. Talking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of the conference yesterday, she said globalisation, new technologies and the changing lifestyles have posed a major threat to a number of ethnic languages across the world. Many of these languages have either vanished or are on the verge of extinction. The most endangered languages are those used by indigenous communities in South America and some in Asian and African countries, she said. English and Spanish are the two dominant languages threatening the existence of several native languages in South America. Indigenous communities across the world have been deprived of their culture and languages as they are being assimilated into the dominant cultures and lifestyles. "Globalisation has accelerated this process, while poverty and illiteracy have further contributed to it," she added. "Earlier, people were living in isolated communities. Globalisation has changed the scenario and made societies vulnerable to outside pressure. The cultural and linguistic diversity of the world are at risk," said Finnbogadittir. Reviving the lost languages is nearly impossible but spreading literacy and creating awareness can help in preserving the existing languages. "We are very much worried about the loss of bio-diversity and we should now wake up to protect the cultural diversity," she stressed. In a reference to the Arabic language, she said, the language is more stable compared to many other languages. "A Moroccan or Mauritanian speaking Arabic can be understood by a Qatari, which means that the language is vibrant and stable," she said. Yesterday, she chaired a session titled `Mother-Child Literacy and Inter-generational Learning," at the conference. From manuela_noske at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Mar 14 17:59:41 2007 From: manuela_noske at HOTMAIL.COM (Manuela Noske) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 09:59:41 -0800 Subject: images for indigenous language materials Message-ID: Culturally appropriate clipart is also available from the UVic. The clipart may be used as long as the UVic Humanities Computing and Media Centre and Half-Baked Software is acknowledged. Not sure if the images can be used on large posters, but they may be useful for smaller pictures. http://web.uvic.ca/hcmc/clipart/Manuela > Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 08:58:46 -0500> From: lanz at RICE.EDU> Subject: Re: [ILAT] images for indigenous language materials> To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU> > I couldn't find a copyright statement that included the entire > collection, so I would suggest contacting ANKN to find out before > using them. (For example, the images that came from the Alaska Native > Language Center are apparently public domain, according to the > introduction, but the collection doesn't specify which ones are from > the ANLC.)> > However, even if there's copyright, it's usually quite easy to get > permission to use them, as Claire Bowern mentioned in an earlier > message. A simple letter usually suffices.> > -Linda L.> > > On Mar 14, 2007, at 7:51 AM, Bruce Stonefish wrote:> > > Are these images copyright free?> > Bruce Stonefis> > Indigenous Education Coaltion> >> > On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 00:53:03 -0500> > Linda Lanz wrote:> >> The Alaska Native Knowledge Network has some clipart here:> >> http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/publications/clipart/> >> Many of the animals and cultural items are specific to Alaska, > >> but many are also applicable to other parts of North America.> >> -Linda Lanz> > _________________________________________________________________ Explore the seven wonders of the world http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=7+wonders+world&mkt=en-US&form=QBRE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Mar 15 16:24:49 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 09:24:49 -0700 Subject: Qitsualik: Inukshuk for sale (fwd) Message-ID: Qitsualik: Inukshuk for sale ? Indian Country Today March 02, 2007. All Rights Reserved Posted: March 02, 2007 by: Rachel Qitsualik http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414581 So if you could just write down the different types of inukshuks there are,'' the researcher said over the phone, ''that would be great.'' He was supposedly doing a book about inuksuit: those famous, man-like piles of rock found throughout the Arctic. ''Types?'' I asked, confused. ''You know, ones for casting spells, worshipping gods, marking sacred areas ...'' I wasn't sure what to feel more flabbergasted about: the fact that he had assumed I would do free research for his book, or the fact that he knew nothing about his own subject matter. ''Inuksuit,'' I said, ''not inukshuks. And they're for hunting.'' ''Huh?'' Several years ago, I had a Web site that provided free information on Inuit culture. It was fun. I got e-mails from all around the world, asking me this and that about Inuit traditions and words. But time saw an initial trickle of letters swell into a flood of many hundreds. And too many were ''profit'' driven questions. There were university students, for example, sending: ''My professor has given us the assignment of explaining how eco-feminism relates to tribal subsistence strategies, and we're to use examples from Inuit culture. So could you write up, in at least five thousand words, your reasons why you think Inuit women are eco-feminists?'' But these absurd requests were far from the most galling. The worst offenders were businesses and self-employed individuals, wanting to cash in on the then-global interest in Inuit, without having to do any of their own legwork. I received countless e-mails requesting cultural content for businesses, or snazzy Inuktitut (the Inuit language) names for companies and product lines. At first, I was as helpful as I could stand to be; but I would always receive back: ''Too long. Make it short, catchy. We need consumers to get a feel from the name.'' Was I their employee now? As these e-mail discussions went on, I became bitter, sensing that my kindness was being exploited. Sometimes, the e-mails would lead to phone consultations which were tantamount to harassment. Education was a totally different thing - I never minded explaining words to school kids (as long as I didn't have to do their papers). But were the business types making me materialistic? I decided to ask a Scottish consultant acquaintance about whether I should charge for Inuktitut research. She was scandalized. ''Absolutely not!'' she said. ''Knowledge should be free.'' ''Would you name a company, in English, for free?'' ''Well, no. That's different.'' I was disturbed by the opinion expressed by my consultant ''friend.'' ''So,'' I said carefully, ''when it's Inuktitut, 'knowledge should be free.' But knowledge isn't free in English?'' ''Well,'' she said, ''Inuit have a giving tradition. You don't want to sully the, uh, beauty of Inuit culture by involving money. That money's too dirty for you.'' ''Nobody minds if I charge for translation,'' I argued. ''But naming a company takes days. Corporate names are always word-plays that don't take well to Inuktitut. It's hard to cook up something like that. And you said you would charge for something named in English. That doesn't sully your culture? That money isn't too dirty?'' ''Oh, man, look at the time,'' she responded. ''Well, Rachel, it was great talking to you. We should do lunch. Maybe next week?'' ''Right.'' This conversation made me somewhat ill. Human beings survive by knowledge that is anything but free, often having to earn it by working or suffering greatly. There is no better way to learn about bears, for example, than by surviving a bear attack (often with scars as a reminder). But is this free knowledge? One may learn a great deal at a university, but only at the exorbitant cost of tuition: hardly free knowledge. Even in Inuit traditional culture, one never teaches another the full extent of a skill they possess; in this way, the teacher protects himself from obsolescence, while at once leaving room for the student to learn and personalize their own knowledge. Inuit have always understood that, if knowledge is power, then it is also currency - a lesson they have had to relearn in the wake of being told by industrialized peoples, whom they used to fear, that their knowledge should be free. The earliest explorers made careers (i.e., money) by exporting Inuit culture and the global demand for it quickly spawned a market. In the past, Inuit have depended upon non-Inuit businesses to connect them with the south. But the Inuit embracing of industrial culture has meant that, today, they are well-connected to global media, now able to market their own culture as they see fit. In other words, they are gradually cutting out the middleman. With this in mind, the ''knowledge should be free,'' resistance to Inuit charging money, suddenly comes to more closely resemble what it is: the old school of northern profiteers trying to limit their new competition. Ironically, this new competition is that which used to be the product itself: Inuit culture. I just didn't like the idea of people making money off of Inuit without paying anything back, so I decided that the corporate types were cut off. From now on, in answering e-mails, I would only give free words or information about Inuit culture to students (but I still wouldn't write their papers for them). The business people were pretty peevish about it, and being cut off didn't stop them from trying several times over. I started to get sneaky e-mails; like this one: ''Hi my name is Kitty. I'm a litle kidd in grade 3 and teecher says we need to name our hamster. I think it woud be so neet if you name him. Can you give us a short name that means 'market success' or 'cutting edge?''' I guess they thought that some deliberately misspelled words would make me think a kid was writing in. Too bad they forgot to check their e-mail address: It was identical to that of the company I had already refused the day before. Pijariiqpunga. (That is all I have to say). Rachel Qitsualik was born in 1953 and raised in a traditional Inuit lifestyle. She writes extensively on Inuit culture and language, and is a columnist for Indian Country Today. From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Sun Mar 18 00:41:19 2007 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 17:41:19 -0700 Subject: Anyone Ever Hear Of This Message-ID: Have you checked out this site before? They need "beta testers" for language documentation and analysis. http://www.indiana.edu/~aisri/software/index.shtml From dzo at BISHARAT.NET Sun Mar 18 04:30:02 2007 From: dzo at BISHARAT.NET (Don Osborn) Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 00:30:02 -0400 Subject: 2 items from OCPA News Message-ID: The following items may be of interest. (Seen in OCPA News #175 (26 Feb. 2007) http://www.ocpanet.org/activities/newsletter/2007/OCPA_News_No175_20070226.p df First Peoples: Indigenous Cultures and their Futures http://topics.developmentgateway.org/indigenous/rc/ItemDetail.do~1088831?int cmp=700 Sissons, professor of social anthropology in New Zealand, calls his book an "argument about the future of indigeneity," and in it he analyzes first peoples from the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, and Brazil. He addresses the painful nineteenth- and... *** The Inconvenient Indigenous: Remote Area Development in Botswana, Donor Assistance and the First People of the Kalahari http://topics.developmentgateway.org/indigenous/rc/ItemDetail.do~1088832?int cmp=700 The book deals with the relationship between the government of Botswana and its indigenous minority, known as Bushmen, San, Basarwa, or more recently N/oakwe, and tries to understand why the San people remain a marginalized minority in a country that since independence... *** From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Mar 18 05:09:38 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 22:09:38 -0700 Subject: A Chinese Village Struggles to Save the Dying Language of a Once Powerful Dynasty (fwd) Message-ID: March 18, 2007 A Chinese Village Struggles to Save the Dying Language of a Once Powerful Dynasty By DAVID LAGUE http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/world/asia/18manchu.html?ref=world SANJIAZI, China ? Seated cross-legged in her farmhouse on the kang, a brick sleeping platform warmed by a fire below, Meng Shujing lifted her chin and sang a lullaby in Manchu, softly but clearly. After several verses, Ms. Meng, a 82-year-old widow, stopped, her eyes shining. ?Baby, please fall asleep quickly,? she said, translating a few lines of the song into Chinese. ?Once you fall asleep, Mama can go to work. I need to set the fire, cook and feed the pigs.? ?If you sing like this, a baby gets sleepy right away,? she said. She also knows that most experts believe the day is approaching when no child will doze off to the sound of the song?s comforting words. Ms. Meng is one of 18 residents of this isolated village in northeastern China, all over 80 years old, who, according to Chinese linguists and historians, are the last native speakers of Manchu. Descendants of seminomadic tribesmen who conquered China in the 17th century, they are the last living link to a language that for more than two and a half centuries was the official voice of the Qing dynasty, the final imperial house to rule from Beijing and one of the richest and most powerful empires the world has known. With the passing of these villagers, Manchu will also die, experts say. All that will be left will be millions of documents and files ? about 60 tons of Manchu-language documents are in the provincial archive in Harbin alone ? along with inscriptions on monuments and important buildings in China, unintelligible to all but a handful of specialists. ?I think it is inevitable,? said Zhao Jinchun, an ethnic Manchu born in Sanjiazi who taught at the village primary school for more than two decades before becoming a government official in Qiqihar, a city about 30 miles to the south. ?It is just a matter of time. The Manchu language will face the same fate as some other ethnic minority languages in China and be overwhelmed by the Chinese language and culture.? (While most experts agree that Manchu is doomed, Xibo, a closely related language, is likely to survive a little longer. Xibo is spoken by about 30,000 descendants of members of an ethnic group allied to the Manchus who in the 1700s were sent to the newly conquered western region of Xinjiang. But it, too, is under relentless pressure from Chinese.) The disappearance of Manchu will be part of a mass extinction of languages that some experts forecast will lead to the loss of half of the world?s 6,800 languages by the end of the century. Few of these threatened languages have declined so rapidly, from such prominence, as Manchu. Within decades of establishing their dynasty in 1644, the Qing rulers brought all of what was then Chinese territory under control and then embarked on a campaign of expansion that roughly doubled the size of their empire to include Xinjiang, Tibet, Mongolia and Taiwan. However, the dynasty?s fall in 1911 meant that the Manchus were relegated to the ranks of the more than 50 other ethnic minorities in China, their numbers dwarfed by the dominant Han, who account for 93 percent of the country?s 1.3 billion people, according to official statistics. Indistinguishable by appearance, the Manchus have since melded into the general population. About 10 million Chinese citizens now describe themselves as ethnic Manchus. Most live in what are now the northeastern provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang, although substantial numbers also live in Beijing and other northern cities. For generations, the vast majority have spoken Chinese as their first language. Manchu survived only in small, isolated pockets like Sanjiazi, where, until a few decades ago, nearly all the residents were ethnic Manchus. Most are descended from the three main families that made up a military garrison established here in 1683 on the orders of the Qing emperor Kangxi to deter Russian territorial ambitions, Mr. Zhao said. The traditional Manchu-style wood and adobe farmhouses have largely been replaced by Chinese-style brick homes, local residents say. The village now looks like any other settlement in this region as a biting wind whips snow across the bare ground between the houses and piles of dried corn stalks, stacked high to feed cattle and pigs through the winter. Traditional shamanistic rites with ethnic dress and customs have also been mostly abandoned, although some wedding and funeral ceremonies retain elements of Manchu rituals, Mr. Zhao said. Villagers still observe one Manchu taboo that sets them apart from others in China?s far northeast. ?We don?t eat dog meat,? Mr. Zhao said. ?And we would never wear a hat made from dog fur.? The prohibition, tradition has it, honors a dog credited with having saved the life of Nurhachi (1559-1626), the founder of the Manchu state. Even now, about three-quarters of Sanjiazi?s 1,054 residents are ethnic Manchus but the use of Chinese has spread sharply in recent decades as roads and modern communications have increasingly exposed them to the outside world. Only villagers of Ms. Meng?s generation prefer to speak Manchu. ?We are still speaking it, we are still using it,? said Ms. Meng, a cheerful woman with thick gray hair pulled back in a neat bun. ?If the other person can?t speak Manchu, then I?ll speak Chinese.? But she disputes the findings of visiting linguists that 18 villagers are left who can still speak fluently. By her standards, only five or six of her neighbors fit that description. Mr. Zhao, 53, estimates that 50 people in the village have a working grasp of the language. ?My generation can still communicate in Manchu,? he said, although he acknowledged that most villagers now speak Chinese almost all the time at home. Ms. Meng?s 30-year-old grandson, Shi Junguang, has studied hard to improve his Manchu and teaches speaking and writing to the 76 pupils, aged 7 to 12, at the village school. This is the only primary school in China that offers classes in Manchu, officials from the local ethnic affairs office said. These lessons, shared with one other teacher, take only a small proportion of classroom time, but are popular with students, say school staff members and other village residents. ?Because they are Manchus, they are interested in these classes,? Mr. Shi said. He is also teaching basic conversation phrases to his 5-year-old son, Shi Yaobin, and encourages him to speak with his great-grandmother. ?It would be a great blow for us if we lose our language,? he said. But most experts agree that attempts to preserve Manchu are futile with so few people left to speak it. ?The spoken Manchu language is now a living fossil,? said Zhao Aping, an ethnic Manchu and an expert on Manchu language and history at Heilongjiang University in the provincial capital, Harbin. ?Although we are expending a lot of energy on preserving the language and culture, it is very difficult. The environment is not right,? he added. Despite the predictions that it is now only a matter of time before Manchu falls silent, in Sanjiazi, Ms. Meng clings to hope. ?I don?t have much time,? she said. ?I don?t even know if I have tomorrow, but I will use the time to teach my grandchildren. ?It is our language; how can we let it die? We are Manchu people.? Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Mar 18 05:15:09 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 22:15:09 -0700 Subject: Nanticoke try to bring tribe's ancient tongue back to life (fwd) Message-ID: Nanticoke try to bring tribe's ancient tongue back to life By RACHAEL JACKSON, The News Journal Posted Saturday, March 17, 2007 http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070317/NEWS/703170329/1006/NEWS There is no surviving word for "goodbye" in the Nanticoke language, and perhaps that is fitting. Even though it has been more than 150 years since the last conversation in Nanticoke took place, the tribe refuses to say farewell to the words of its ancestors. Joining a growing trend of American Indians reviving dormant languages, the Nanticoke recently embarked on a quest to reclaim a nearly lost part of their heritage. The Millsboro-based tribe has a list of about 300 words and the insights of a native speaker of a similar language. Right now, many of them feel pride when they construct simple sentences. But the Nanticoke, whose population is 150 to 200 locally with 1,000 active members nationwide, eventually hope to call each brother a nee-e mat and each sister a nimpz. Eventually they hope to recognize an eagle flying overhead as an ah-whap-pawn-top and refer to a river as a peemtuck. An estimated 175 Indian languages are still spoken in North America, according to Leanne Hinton, a linguistics professor at University of California, Berkeley, but few are still learned at home. Another 125 languages don't have speakers, she said, estimating that tribes are trying to revitalize about 50 of those languages. One of those groups is the Nanticoke. "I think it all shows the symbolic importance of a language as a kind of identity symbol for a group," said Hinton, who works with language revitalization. Nanticoke Chief James T. Norwood agreed. "A lot of tribes don't understand how you can survive without a language," he said. "It's a certain bond that you have. It just connects you more." Recorded in 1792 The Nanticoke's journey to the language of their ancestors started with a more than 200-year-old book. In 1792, Thomas Jefferson ordered the words of the Nanticoke language to be written. It's the only surviving record. The last fluent speaker died more than 150 years ago. To fill gaps, the tribe called upon Myrelene Ranville, a Canadian who speaks and teaches the Anishnabay language. Anishnabay and Nanticoke are part of the Algonquin language family, so Ranville was eager to help. "To work with a tribe who essentially has not heard their language and it has not been spoken in over 200 years and to work with a vocabulary that was recorded at the request of Thomas Jefferson is just incredible," she said. "It gives you shivers. This has not changed since 1792." In November, she left Manitoba for Delaware to lead classes on Nanticoke, using the old book. Financed by donations to the tribe, she applied her language's grammar and supplied words in Anishnabay when none was available in Nanticoke. It was like recreating Spanish with the help of a speaker of Italian. Sterling Street, assistant treasurer for the tribe, said he learned that the language is often literal. The word for "river," peemtuck, actually means "water by the tall trees." The word for man is wohacki, and the word for boy is wohacki-a-wauntit, which means little man. "For a fox, they might not have called it a fox, they might have called it 'four-legged red animal,'" Street said. But Ranville soon returned to her life in Canada, where she regularly converses with other tribe members in Anishnabay and has taught the language in an elementary school. The Nanticoke were left with tapes of her classes, which they play at sessions Thursday nights at the Nanticoke Indian Center in Millsboro. Street, who has a good aptitude for the language, leads the review sessions. But he does not call himself a teacher. As students reviewed words for hand, arm and eye at a recent class, he reminded them that he was still learning, too. A few hundred miles north, in Connecticut, Stephanie Fielding is on a similar mission to resurrect the Mohegan language, which also has Algonquin roots. Fielding, who recently published an 800-word dictionary, is working with the Mohegan-language diaries of Fidelia Fielding, the aunt of her great grandfather, who died in 1908 as the last fluent speaker of Mohegan. She said bits and pieces of the language are used in the present-day Mohegan community. "Even though people aren't fluent in it, we can use a word or two here and there," she said. Miami revived Scholars have differing opinions on bringing back dormant languages. Some point to the success of Hebrew, which before the establishment of Israel had long been restricted to religious uses. There's also the case of the Miami Indians in Oklahoma, who revived their language about 20 years after it fell out of use in the 1960s. Now, some Miami parents are raising their children with the language. "When it comes to reclaiming a cultural heritage, the home is really a sanctuary," said Daryl Baldwin, a member of the Miami tribe who runs the Myaamia Project at the University of Miami in Ohio. He said some of his four children's first words were in Miami. Hinton, the Berkeley scholar, who is also a co-founder of a group called Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, helps organize seminars for tribes to re-connect with their languages. She pairs young people with older tribe members and makes them commit to weekly conversation. She said the program has produced new speakers of about 30 languages. Hinton said the interest in bringing back lost Indian languages is gaining momentum. "It's been a real steady increase since the '90s," she said. "Everyone's realizing that their languages are in terrible danger." Hinton said that while the Nanticoke may not regain their language in its purest form, their efforts may not be in vain. "It's certainly feasible that they could be speaking ... fluently," she said. "The question as to whether fluent speakers could develop really depends on how much reconstitution they do and how much drive there is." She said the point may not be the language as much as rediscovering a part of the tribe's past. Right now the Nanticoke are looking for money to conduct more research and classes. Kim Robbins, 41, hopes to teach her younger brother and niece and nephews. A tribal dancer has written a song in Nanticoke. Others hope to document their legends in the revived language. They're learning their truest Indian names: Street, for example, is known as Earth Keeper in English and Ahkee Ganuhwandung in the Nanticoke-Anishnabay hybrid. And once again, tribe members can greet one another as their ancestors did. Eweenitu. Peace. Copyright ?2007, The News Journal. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sun Mar 18 17:58:43 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 10:58:43 -0700 Subject: Sound files for Sustainable Data from Digital Fieldwork conference (fwd link) Message-ID: Found at the "Transient Languages and Culture" blog: papers & mp3s from the Sustainable Data from Digital Fieldwork Conference. Sound files for Sustainable Data from Digital Fieldwork conference by Amanda Harris 20 February, 2007 http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/elac/2007/02/sound_files_for_sustainable_da.html#more From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Mar 19 17:14:58 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 10:14:58 -0700 Subject: N.W.T. considers teaching aboriginal languages in preschools (fwd) Message-ID: N.W.T. considers teaching aboriginal languages in preschools Last Updated: Monday, March 19, 2007 | 10:14 AM CT CBC News http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2007/03/19/nwt-language.html The Northwest Territories' education department says it wants to introduce traditional languages and culture to younger children by incorporating them in day care and preschool programs. As early childhood educators across the territory met in Yellowknife Friday to discuss how they could help stem aboriginal language and culture loss in children, the territorial government says it wants to improve training for child-care providers. It may incorporate ideas used in Margaret Kagyut's day care in Ulukhaktok, in which children learn the Inuvialuktun language through regular activities and field trips. "I've got lots of feedback from parents that children are using the language in some ways at home and that the parents are learning from their children too," Kagyut said Friday. She said she started incorporating simple things such as labeling objects around the classroom in Inuvialuktun, because she found young people in her community were losing their language. But Kagyut added that the school system must continue what work is started in preschool. "I noticed that when they go into the school system, they're losing what was taught at preschool," she said. "So I think it's very important that the school system ... keep trying to continue speaking the language." Friday's workshop, which took place during Aboriginal Languages Month in the Northwest Territories, was sponsored by the territorial government and Aurora College and featured northern experts in early childhood development as well as specialists from the University of Victoria. Adults have a role Onowa McIvor, a University of Victoria PhD student and aboriginal language researcher, told the gathering that adults have an important role to play in keeping their languages alive. "To say, 'You are the future, you are the way, you need to carry on the language,' what a tremendous responsibility to put on a three-year-old," she said. "They have the right to their language and as adults we owe them the opportunity to learn their language, but we can't come along and put that entire responsibility on that generation." McIvor, who said she is struggling to learn her own Cree language, recognized that there is no quick-fix solution to language loss, and it requires hard work and a solid commitment to learning. "People don't realize that it takes a tremendous amount of time and effort," she said. "We're all busy; we all work or go to school, or we're caring for our families or some combination thereof. But unless we actually carve out space in our lives for learning our languages, there's no other way to do it." From shenanzhu at YAHOO.COM Mon Mar 19 17:22:20 2007 From: shenanzhu at YAHOO.COM (Andrew Shimunek) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 10:22:20 -0700 Subject: digital camera Message-ID: Hi, all, I'm just wondering if anyone has had any experience using a Sony DCR-SR100 camcorder for fieldwork? I'm looking for an affordable camcorder that automatically encodes into MPEG2 format, to avoid any loss in quality of recording. Any suggestions? Thanks, Andrew Shimunek ____________________________________________________________________________________ Get your own web address. Have a HUGE year through Yahoo! Small Business. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/?p=BESTDEAL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Mar 20 17:01:22 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 10:01:22 -0700 Subject: Premier: Taiwan's mother tongues should be respected (fwd) Message-ID: Radio Tiawan International 03/20/2007 http://english.rti.org.tw/Content/GetSingleNews.aspx?ContentID=33282 Premier: Taiwan's mother tongues should be respected Premier Su Tseng-chang says that all the mother tongues of the people in Taiwan should be respected and preserved. The premier however also says that it is important to have a common language. He made the comment Tuesday regarding the draft of a national language development bill aimed at saving dying dialects. Su said the purpose of the bill is to prevent native tongues from becoming extinct because there had been inappropriate policies adopted by the government in the past. Executive secretary of the education ministry Chen Shueh-yu said that the bill will list at least 55 dialects as national languages besides Mandarin, which is the main language used in Taiwan. "We have many different ethnic groups, and therefore many different dialects like Minnan, Hakka, and aboriginal dialects. In just the aboriginal language alone, we have 13 tribes and 43 different dialects. The Hakka language has 5 different dialects. Even the Minnan language has different accents like from Chuan-chou, Chang-chou, Yilan, Tainan, and Haikou. In other words, there are many different versions of each dialect. So all these should be categorized as national languages." Once the bill is passed, all other native dialects supposedly will be history. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Mar 20 17:03:32 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 10:03:32 -0700 Subject: Taiwan To Stop Calling Mandarin Chinese Its National Language (fwd) Message-ID: Taiwan To Stop Calling Mandarin Chinese Its National Language http://www.playfuls.com/news_10_19951-Taiwan-To-Stop-Calling-Mandarin-Chinese-Its-National-Language.html Taiwan took another step towards proclaiming its sovereignty Tuesday by announcing that the government will stop referring to Mandarin Chinese as Taiwan's national language. Under the revised Language Development Bill, Taiwan will stop defining Mandarin Chinese, the lingua franca of China, as the "national language." Instead, it will list Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, Hakka and Taiwan's aboriginal tongues as its national languages, Chiu Chuang-liang, director of the cabinet's council for Cultural Planning and Development, said. Taiwanese, also called Fukienese, is the dialect spoken by Taiwan natives and by people in China's Fujian (Fukien) Province. Hakka is the dialect spoken by Taiwan's 2 million Hakka people. Taiwan has about a dozen aboriginal tribes, but their languages are extinct or near extinction. Mandarin Chinese has been Taiwan's official language since 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Government lost the Chinese Civil War and fled to Taiwan to set up its government-in-exile. Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, Chiu denied that scrapping Chinese as the national language is part of Taipei's policy of disowning Chinese influence, but to protect endangered languages. "UNESCO has listed Taiwan's aboriginal languages as facing extinction. So the amendment is to protect different languages and to make them equal," he said, referring to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The Chinese Nationalists ruled Taiwan, formally called the Republic of China, until 2000 when the Democratic Progressive Party won the presidential election and DPP leader Chen Shui-bian became president. Chen has been promoting Taiwan as a sovereign state, not part of China. In October last year, Chen launched the name-change campaign to remove "China" and "Chinese" as well as the name of the Chinese Nationalist president Chiang Kia-shek from enterprise names. So far Chen has renamed the Chiang Kai-shek International Airport as Taoyuan International Airport, Chinese Petroleum Corp as Taiwan Chinese Petroleum Corp, China Shipbuilding Corp as Taiwan International Shipbuilding Corp, Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall as Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall, Chunghwa Post Co Ltd as Taiwan Post Co Ltd. "Chunghwa" means "Chinese." China, which sees Taiwan as its breakaway province, has warned that it will use force to recover Taiwan if Taipei declares independence or seeks formal separation from China by changing Taiwan's name "Republic of China" or amending Taiwan's constitution. ? 2007 DPA From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Mar 20 17:14:20 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 10:14:20 -0700 Subject: Lakota Educator brings Traditions to the Classroom (fwd) Message-ID: Lakota Educator brings Traditions to the Classroom By Tara W. Pretends Eagle 3/20/2007 http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=8649 Sunday mornings on KILI Radio, which is located on the Pine Ridge Reservation, the quick-witted Blues Disc Jockey, Bryant High Horse spins Blues tunes that are heard through out Lakota Country. His good sense of humor ironically goes well with his Blues tunes radio show. He is always good for an on-air joke or two that usually ends with a long, winded, Eh. The boisterous Disc Jockey, also the great-grandson of High Horse, is also a teacher and guidance counselor for the Indian Education Department in the Rapid City School District in South Dakota. During the school week, High Horse, a member of the Rosebud Tribe [Sicangu, Lakota], can also be heard cracking humorous one-liners in the hallways at North Middle School. His students think he is funny and enjoy being in his relaxed classroom atmosphere. Just three weeks ago, High Horse implemented a Lakota Culture and Language Class for sixth grade students. The class is a pilot program where all the students, both Native and non-Native signed up on their own to be in his class. Initially, there was suppose to be only one class but so many students signed up that a second class was added. High Horse was excited to teach this new class and feels his students are starting to understand the accurate history of the Lakota people. He sees they are eager to learn because they are asking a lot of questions. He tries to encourage them to help each other learn as a group. Together, they will learn about the traditional ways of the Lakota people and understand their virtues of bravery, wisdom, generosity and respect. As well as learn about the traditional roles, historical timelines and the medicine wheel. He spoke in detail about what his role as a Lakota man is, I feel my responsibility as a Lakota man is to teach our kids to respect each other. And teach our boys and men to respect the women. I teach the boys that they need to respect all women and they all have a mom, sister or grandmother in their lives who deserves that same respect. Lakota men need to learn how to respect Lakota women. He also teaches the same traditions to his students at Oglala Lakota College where he is an Adjunct Professor of Native Psychology and Lakota Studies. Native American Psychology is an entirely new field [in academia] and includes the study of the Lakota people both past and present. It is the study of how Natives infuse their language, cultural and traditional philosophy into todays world. We always had Native Psychology, but our ancestors did not record or write about it. They just lived it. We as Lakota people, have gone through so many tragedies that we are still on a healing journey. If we can let that pain go, I think we can succeed, High Horse explained. Alot of what he was taught by his grandparents, while growing up on the Rosebud Reservation are the teachings he passes on to his students. He was taught the ways of his ancestors and how to speak and write fluently in both English and Lakota. He grew up hearing that a good education was very important. Having a mentor and role model, who also was his uncle was a big factor in helping High Horse believe in himself. His uncle was also his teacher, principal, basketball coach and also stressed the importance of education High Horse is one of a group of educators that presently are working toward the preservation of the Lakota Language. Everyone in the group can speak and write fluently in Lakota and they are developing strategies to preserve the language. He spoke proudly of the group, All these great people with such knowledge, are all working hard to preserve the Lakota language. I am honored to be a part of this group. Oyate Nawicajin is High Horses Lakota name, which means, Stands For His People. He stands for his people through his work with the Lakota youth and has changed lives by teaching through music, humor and education. But it is all in a days work for this briefcase warrior. Not bad, for the self-proclaimed, Rez boy from Rosebud, Eh? Professor High Horse has a Bachelors Degree in Human Services/Social Work from Oglala Lakota College and Masters of Science Degree in Counseling/Psychology from South Dakota State University. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Tue Mar 20 17:16:12 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 10:16:12 -0700 Subject: Recognizing Tribally Centered Cultures (fwd) Message-ID: >From Diverse Online Noteworthy News Recognizing Tribally Centered Cultures By Mark Anthony Rolo Mar 22, 2007, 14:10 When Native students transfer to mainstream institutions, the biggest obstaclesto overcome often involve the admissions office. By Mark Anthony Rolo http://www.diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_7135.shtml MADISON, Wis. - The drive from the Menominee Indian reservation to the University of Wisconsin-Madison may only be three and a half hours, but for American Indian students like Fawn Youngbear-Tibbitts, the journey towards completing a college degree cant be measured in mere miles. Youngbear-Tibbitts is one of a growing number of tribal college graduates pursuing a four-year degree. After earning her associate degree from the College of Menominee Nation, Youngbear-Tibbitts who is a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe set her sights on UW-Madison. Transferring from a two-year institution to a four-year one can be stressful under the best of circumstances, but for Youngbear-Tibbitts and three other Menominee students, the road to UW came with its share of challenges. Fortunately for Youngbear-Tibbitts, adjusting to a more diverse cultural community was not one of the obstacles. Its pretty hard for me to get culture shock, she says. Ive lived in New Zealand and other places. I didnt have the problems that many Native students experience when they move away from home. Youngbear-Tibbitts says she knew going to UW-Madison full time would create more financial hardships for her family. But the single mother of two-year-old twin boys says the most challenging aspect of her transfer was convincing UW that the coursework she completed at Menominee was rigorous enough to prepare her for the four-year institution. I knew I was academically prepared. I know how to write a research paper, she says. But I still had to take some courses over. Fawn Youngbear-Tibbitts now has her hands full with classes and twins Jessie James and William Alexander. Youngbear-Tibbitts chose not to argue with the university over those few base-level science courses, especially since she believes she would never have been accepted at all if it werent for a unique transfer agreement between Menominee and UW. In an effort to recruit Menominee students, UW-Madison now recognizes courses based on indigenous knowledge. Youngbear-Tibbitts academic focus sustainable development was one of the disciplines specifically targeted by UW. Like all of the nations 34 tribal colleges, the College of Menominee Nation promotes broad higher education within the context of a tribal culture. Language, history and ceremony are among the foundations on which the colleges education programs are built. Menominees articulation agreement with UW-Madison has been four years in the making. Though the college has transfer agreements with other UW campuses in the areas of education, nursing and social work, many thought the sustainable development program couldnt co-exist with UW-Madisons natural resources program. We had to have a meeting of the minds that was based on respect, says Dr. Kevin McSweeney, a professor of soil science and director of UWs arboretum. McSweeney was instrumental in helping negotiate the articulation agreement. He says the idea to explore an agreement between the two institutions first came up four years ago, when he was working with the tribal college on natural resource management issues. But before any agreement could be seriously discussed, McSweeney says Menominee and UW-Madison had to come to terms with some basic cultural differences. This relationship required a fair amount of getting to understand each other, developing an appreciation of different worldviews, he says.? But finding common ground between the institutions wouldnt be enough, he says. Menominee students would also need help adjusting to a non-reservation environment, especially on a campus of more than 30,000 students. Youngbear-Tibbitts says the head of the life sciences communication department played a significant role in her transition from the reservation to UW-Madison. Dr. Jacqueline Hitchon McSweeney, Kevin McSweeneys wife, helped Youngbear-Tibbitts locate an apartment in Madison and advocated for her to receive course credit for speaking her native language of Ojibwe. Youngbear-Tibbitts, who grew up around Ojibwe speakers and took formal classes, says she was surprised to discover that UW didnt accept Ojibwe as a valid non-English language. But with Hitchon McSweeneys help, she managed to convince admissions officials to change their requirement. Instead of sitting down to take a written exam, Youngbear-Tibbitts tested out of her language requirement via a phone conversation with a UW faculty member who spoke Ojibwe. It made perfect sense to test over the phone, she says. Ojibwe is an oral language. ? Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Mar 21 16:51:34 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 09:51:34 -0700 Subject: CFP: International Journal of Electronic Democracy (fwd link) Message-ID: fyi, International Journal of Electronic Democracy? (IJED) Call For papers Special Issue on: "Democratic Internet - Foundations, Ideas, Approaches, and New Perspectives" http://www.inderscience.com/browse/callpaper.php?callID=641 ~~~ ILAT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Mar 21 17:12:57 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 10:12:57 -0700 Subject: A Culture Put to the Test (fwd link) Message-ID: fyi, Education Week Published: March 21, 2007 A Culture Put to the Test For Navajo children, a rigorous program draws on tradition to spur achievement. By Mary Ann Zehr http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/03/21/28navajo.h26.html ~~~ ILAT From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Mar 22 17:36:08 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 10:36:08 -0700 Subject: Children's program aims to preserve Maliseet (fwd) Message-ID: Children's program aims to preserve Maliseet Last Updated: Thursday, March 22, 2007 | 1:52 PM AT CBC News http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2007/03/22/nb-maliseet.html The First Nations community in Fredericton is hoping a new immersion program for aboriginal children and their parents will help preserve its language. [photo inset - A child helps celebrate the grand opening of the Under One Sky Maliseet language headstart program in Fredericton. (CBC)] Imelda Perley has devoted her life to connecting Maliseet people to their culture. A university and high school teacher, Perley says the language and customs of the Maliseet people are vanishing as aboriginal people lose their connections with elders. "I spent a lot of time, most of my childhood, with elders," Perley said Wednesday. "Once they started to die, I started to realize that I'm not going to have anyone to speak to, so I'm going to have to recruit and make sure we have new speakers." That's where the new off-reserve Under One Sky Head Start program, for children ages two to five, comes in. The program, which saw its grand opening Wednesday, teaches the children Maliseet culture and language, helps them prepare for school and provides parenting workshops on family health. Continue Article The program is overseen by a coalition devoted to meeting the spiritual, emotional, mental and physical needs of aboriginal children. [photo inset - Maliseet teacher Imelda Perley says the centre will help preserve the dying language.(CBC)] Members of the coalition include the Fredericton Native Friendship Centre, the Mawiw Tribal Council, the Union of New Brunswick Indians Training Institute, the Aboriginal Women?s Council and the New Brunswick People?s Council. Under One Sky Head Start is a total immersion experience held in a building in the heart of the Fredericton's downtown. Children are taught entirely in Maliseet. All the signs in the building are in Maliseet, as well as all the posters and teaching tools. It's all a dream come true for Perley, who works in the centre, teaching the children of her former students. Those former students include Alaina Paul, who learned Maliseet in kindergarten. Now Perley is teaching her daughter. 'She loves it' "She knows how to smudge, the names of the month, colours, everything in Maliseet and she loves it," Paul said of her daughter. "She thinks it's great she can talk to her grandfather. I look at them and I think, 'I don't know what you're saying.' " Despite her years in the classroom, Perley still gets a kick out of seeing the excitement in her students' eyes. "In my language, to teach and to learn are the same word, so as I'm teaching them, I'm learning," Perley said. "I tell them: 'Thank you for teaching me how to teach you. Thank you for teaching me how to help you remember that word.' " For now, the centre's classes are small, limited to six students. Perley hopes more funding from the provincial government will help make the expansion a reality sooner than later. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Mar 22 17:43:58 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 10:43:58 -0700 Subject: One voter's deeper purpose keeps history alive (fwd) Message-ID: One voter's deeper purpose keeps history alive The Sydney Morning Herald Malcolm Brown March 23, 2007 http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/one-voters-deeper-purpose-keeps-history-alive/2007/03/22/1174153258373.html# BERYL CARMICHAEL, the legendary elder of the Ngiyaampaa people of far western NSW, will vote in the state and federal elections - but Aunty Beryl will probably regard the results as transitory. But Aunty Beryl is locked in a deeper, more fundamental campaign. She is seeking to preserve the culture of her people that has prevailed over 40,000 years, despite being threatened with extinction and - despite national awareness in recent decades - still threatened. Linda Burney (ALP, Canterbury), the first Aboriginal woman in the NSW Legislative Assemby, was in no doubt about the threat when she spoke at this week's presentation of the Rona Tranby Award to Aunty Beryl for her contribution to the preservation of Aboriginal legend, culture and language. "Probably one of the greatest tragedies this country is witnessing at the moment is the loss of our languages at the rate of two a year," she said. "There are only 60 left that are spoken conversationally, out of 500 or 600, and there is nothing being done to protect them except endeavours like this." Aunty Beryl received the award, administered by a trust in collaboration with Tranby Aboriginal College of Sydney and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies. It was presented at the Sydney Jewish Museum. The last fluent speaker of her language, Aunty Beryl was born on a mission station at Menindee and learnt the legends of her people around the campfire, listening to her father, who ensured that his children knew the ancient arts of making weapons and gathering food. She knew tough times. As a child she had little food. The children would go out hunting for a rabbit for their one substantial meal for the day before going to school. "Coming home for lunch, there was no food in the house," she said. Nearly a quarter-century ago, Aunty Beryl started education classes to bring Aboriginal children back to the bush. "It is a very long journey and we still have a long, long way to go before we can say 'Well done' to our people," she said. "We are trying to bring the children with us, our young people to get out there to witness the big picture. Without connections, language and heritage, we will remain lost in our culture." The mother of 10, grandmother of 18 and great-grandmother to 14, Aunty Beryl has helped establish Aboriginal pre-school kindergartens in Broken Hill and Menindee and has helped set up a pioneer NSW Meals on Wheels bush tucker project at Menindee. One night she woke trembling, as spiritual forces inspired her to write a prayer. "Father of us all and Great Spirit of Our Ancestors ", she began, and thanked the Great Spirit for guiding her and creating the land that had served her people. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Mar 22 17:46:42 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 10:46:42 -0700 Subject: Linguistics professor’s new book laments dying languages (fwd) Message-ID: March 22, 2007 Linguistics professor?s new book laments dying languages BY CLAUDIA SEIXAS http://phoenix.swarthmore.edu/2007-03-22/news/17033 Assistant Professor of Linguistics K. David Harrison?s new book ?When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World?s Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge? looks at what is lost from scientific, linguistic and humanistic vantage points when a language dies by examining field studies of endangered languages in Siberia, Mongolia, the Himalayas, North America and elsewhere. Harrison?s book is more commercially viable than many professors? published works, and is accessible to a popular as well as an academic audience. On March 1, it ranked #128,642 in Amazon.com book sales. Because it tackles many humanistic concerns with an interdisciplinary approach, many reviewers recommend ?When Languages Die? not only to linguists but to anthropologists and general readers. Linguistics major Nathaniel Peters ?07 explained that a particular strength of Harrison?s is the multimedia approach he took to his research. ?It?s pretty darn cool data,? Peters said. ?Because of the nature of the research, Harrison could have come up with a lot of diagrams, but anyone who?s interested in singing songs can look at a video David has made and enjoy that.? Harrison?s new book is relevant because it discusses the task of recording the unique perspectives on the world that disappear when a language dies, Peters said. ?It?s very good that a book like this is being written because it?s simply true that when languages die, cultural repositories of knowledge about ?being a human being? will be lost, and languages are also just inherently beautiful,? he said. ?When Languages Die? covers the concept of language extinction and sheds light on its relevance to human society and the human knowledge base. The book draws on Harrison?s own research and case studies that put him in contact with speakers of endangered languages ? in some cases, the last known speakers of a language. As a linguist, Harrison encourages his students to ?discover? languages, many of which are undocumented and known only to its native speakers. ?Eighty percent of the world?s languages are undocumented by science,? Harrison said. ?There?s at least minimal documentation of only 15 to 20 percent of the world?s languages.? ?It?s amazing to be at a place like Swarthmore,? Harrison said. ?The students are so global in their thinking. I like the activist climate here. When I say there is a language extinction crisis, I don?t have to start [explaining why it?s important] from scratch because people here understand that culture is something to be valued,? he said. ?The book is not only an appeal to linguists but it?s also trying to give an unsentimental answer to [the question]: Why should we care that languages are going extinct?? Harrison said. ?Languages encode crucial knowledge about species and ecosystems about which Western science is still unaware of. We should try to do what we can to appreciate them.? According to Harrison, 87 percent of the world?s living plant and animal species ? excluding microbes ? have yet to be identified, documented or classified by modern science. Indigenous cultures have very sophisticated knowledge systems appropriate to their particular niche in the world. Many of these peoples harbor vital knowledge about the environment, animals and plants. Harrison presents a case study of reindeer herders in South Siberia who say ?dongur? to indicate in one word ?male domesticated reindeer in its third year and first mating season, but not ready for mating.? Such knowledge has been gathered over countless generations and passed on through oral tradition. ?It?s arrogant and colonial of us to toss that knowledge on the scrapheap of history,? Harrison said. ?There?s a knowledge gap between western science and culture and indigenous cultures,? Harrison said. With environmentalism gathering attention throughout the world, Harrison argues that citizens of developed countries should be more attentive to the valuable resources that exist in these unique cultural depositories, resources that are in danger of dying out along with languages that transmit indigenous knowledge. At last count, there are about 7,000 living languages, about half of which are projected to become extinct by the end of the 21st century. Harrison does not use the term ?extinction? in the conventional literary sense. Rather, the term denotes the process by which globalization and urbanization allow dominant languages to overcrowd small and less spoken languages, prompting new generations of speakers to assimilate the prevailing language. Shoydak-ool Khovalyg, an epic Tuvan storyteller, is one of the rare speakers Harrison highlights. Khovalyg told Harrison the tale of Bora, a woman on a quest to resurrect her dead brother who uses her magical powers and the help of a clever horse to change into a transgender disguise, complete with a goose-head as a fake penis. Language extinction destroys cultural heritage, since stories like those told by the Tuvan storyteller are only transmitted orally. According to Harrison, this results in the deterioration of the human knowledge base. ?Unique language systems give human insights into how the world works. Since we don?t know everything about the universe, it?s foolish to squander this information,? Harrison said. Sentimentality can often disrupt the process of aiding endangered languages by shifting the focus to preservation, when the goals of linguists like Harrison are to document, maintain and revitalize the endangered languages. Living Tongues (http://www.livingtongues.org) is a non-profit organization Harrison helped found to address exactly those issues. ?I?m trying to do both science and activism,? Harrison said. It?s up to the community to decide whether they will submit to globalization or attempt to pass down their language to future generations, Harrison said. Harrison and Living Tongues? mission is to give back to the community, whether in the form of providing them with a storybook in their language (sometimes the first book to be published), documentation or sound recordings. Harrison has co-authored a Tuvan grammar dictionary and is currently working with the National Geographic Institute to travel, research, visit and map out hot spots of language endangerment and diversity. Recently, Harrison has moved beyond what he covered in his book to develop an idea he described as ?the triple threat.? ?What I?m trying to show in my work is how the biosphere is linked to the ethnosphere, and the relationship between language extinction and knowledge systems and extinction of species,? Harrison said. Harrison has taught linguistics courses at Swarthmore including phonetics, phonology, the structure of Tuvan and a seminar on endangered languages, the latter two of which are based largely on Harrison?s research. Harrison Magee ?09, who works with Harrison, agreed about the importance of studying languages that are in danger of disappearing. ?Learning about an endangered language is such a beneficial thing to study on many levels, not only to learn about linguistics, but also human knowledge, how we talk, people and culture and ethnicity,? he said. The Endangered Languages Lab works to create online talking dictionaries and other resources for endangered languages. According to Harrison, ?we?re really in desperate need of linguists. Linguists get to meet people in amazing places and learn knowledge systems that have never been described. The feeling of really truly communicating with someone in their native language when only 50 other people speak it is very rewarding.? ?Studying an endangered language will tell you things you?ll otherwise never know,? Magee said.Students reciprocate Harrison?s enthusiasm for the field. ?The greatest strength that David has is that he does very interesting, very relevant research and integrates that into what he does in the classroom,? Peters said. ?I think he?s absolutely a wonderful professor.? ?When Languages Die? is available in McCabe Library on the new book shelf. Disclosure note: Nathaniel Peters is a columnist for The Phoenix and had no role in the production of this article. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Mar 22 22:40:42 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 15:40:42 -0700 Subject: digital camera In-Reply-To: <633609.88404.qm@web60412.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Andrew, I hope you received some off-line feedback.? There are a number of expert reviews on this camera so it should be no problem to one find online. ? Recording to a hardrive, MPEG-2 format, and the widescreen ratio 16:9 is definitely a plus.? My camera a Panasonic AG-DVX100B uses mini-DV so I have no experience with the above at least as a recording option.? l8ter, Phil Quoting Andrew Shimunek : > Hi, all, > > I'm just wondering if anyone has had any experience using a Sony > DCR-SR100 camcorder for fieldwork? I'm looking for an affordable > camcorder that automatically encodes into MPEG2 format, to avoid any > loss in quality of recording. Any suggestions? > > Thanks, > Andrew Shimunek > > > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Get your own web address. > Have a HUGE year through Yahoo! Small Business. > http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/?p=BESTDEAL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Mar 23 17:07:33 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 10:07:33 -0700 Subject: Reviving a Native Tongue (fwd) Message-ID: Reviving a Native Tongue Can a UBC program bring back to life the Musqueam dialect? View full article and comments here http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/03/23/RevivingANativeTongue/ By Bryan Zandberg Published: March 23, 2007 The Ubyssey Adeline Point died in 2002 at the remarkable age of 92 years old. She was the last person on earth whose mother tongue was Musqueam -- a Salish dialect that was once the dominant language of much of the Lower Mainland. During the last years of her life, when Adeline got too weak to get around her house, a small scrum of linguists hurriedly made recordings at her bedside. When she passed on, they had to set their recorders aside because there was no one left to tell the story of the Musqueam people in their own language. Now, five years down the road, one of those linguists, Patricia Shaw, finds herself in a pitched battle to revitalize the language. As the current director of the First Nations language program at the University of British Columbia, she's chock full of questions about the Musqueam's countless forgotten nuances. Did women speak it differently than men? How did a mother scold a child? Was a specific term used in another context a sexual innuendo? How do you tell a joke? Between rebuilding the language and finding people committed to learning it, Shaw works tirelessly to teach and reconstitute the language based on a single book of grammar, a dictionary and field recordings of Adeline and earlier speakers -- the price of failure, she says, is its death. "How will you know that you have enough?" Language of love One certainty is that almost everyone who comes into contact with Musqueam is very quickly enchanted by it. At least Shaw's students seem to think so. One evening, I went down to the Musqueam Indian Reserve on the banks of the Fraser river to take in a introductory level course Shaw and Musqueam Elder-in-residence Larry Grant were teaching there on behalf of the university. They were trying to instill an important aspect of Musqueam verb structure. Whereas in English we simply walk, come or go, the vast majority of Musqueam verbs take their cue from the subject's orientation to the water. "You can't just say, 'She went home,'" explains Shaw. "You have to [ask yourself], 'Was she farther away from the water and going home, or was she coming home in the direction away from the water? Was she walking parallel to the flow of the water downstream? Was she walking parallel upstream?'" After an hour and a half of mortal mouth-combat with sounds that can only be described by way of adjectives like "swirly," "whooshy," "guttural" and "plunky," the dozen or so students (half Native and half non-Native) were, to my surprise, still smiling. Ericka Forssman, a UBC Fine Arts student, was one of them. She isn't First Nations herself, but her boyfriend is, and she wants to be able to speak to him in Musqueam. "Watching him go through it and learn was really interesting because it's a language that's so connected to the area," she explains. Like Shaw, Forssman loves the little things tucked inside the language. Things like the fact that in Musqueam seasons hinge on the life cycle of salmon and the migrations of local animal populations. Not sure if she'll tough out all four years of the program, Forssman is taking it step be step -- and signing up for year two after the summer break. "I'm taking it more as a personal challenge than anything." Playing catch up Terri-Anne Sam, another student in the course, is a Songhees woman and mother of two, from Esquimalt. "I'm not Musqueam, but my children are," she explains, pointing to two little kids outside the building. One of them, her daughter, is wobbling around on her tiny bike in a bright pink jacket. "I wanted to learn so that I could teach them the language." Sam eventually plans to become an elementary school teacher capable of instructing the local kids in Musqueam. She's taking night classes to get her teacher certification at UBC. Does she like the language? "Yeah, yeah," she says. "It's fun, but I missed last week so it's very hard trying to catch up right now." Passing the torch Seeing students like Sam ready to commit themselves to the work is a welcome sight for Victor Guerin. Guerin is a K-12 language co-ordinator and adult education teacher on the reserve, and he says there is a serious demand for people who can speak the language -- to some degree -- to be teaching it at all levels: preschool and day care, in the various elementary and secondary schools, and to the adult education classes that are held on the reserve for high school upgrading. Seen one way, the direst need lies in teaching impressionable elementary students; there's nothing in place and no one who can teach right now. "[We] can't answer all that demand," he says. It's something he and the B.C. College of Teachers are trying to remedy by allowing adult speakers like Sam to begin teaching even before they finish their certification. Incentives such as these are important in B.C. -- Canada's most linguistically diverse province -- where a number of First Nations languages are poised on the brink of extinction. 'Thumbscrews' and unions As a recruiter, Guerin finds himself in a place similar to that of the Musqueam elders who recruited him; that is to say, looking for people willing to collaborate in the beleaguered renaissance of his native tongue. Guerin was working as a longshoreman in the '80s when he landed a job on a project at the Museum of Anthropology. Impressionable and in his early twenties, he was deeply inspired working alongside ethnobotanist and anthropologist David Rosen, a white man and a fluent speaker of Musqueam. "Seeing that sort of lit a fire under me and I started to think, 'If this non-aboriginal can learn to speak our language fluently, then why can't I?'" Wherever he could find time, Guerin renewed his studies under the guidance of older relatives and elders during the following 16 years. When UBC's Faculty of Arts began offering courses in 1997, he studied Musqueam for the full four years, cementing what he'd already picked up. By the time he finished, the makings of a mission were falling into place all around him: people who cared about the fate of Musqueam had it in for Guerin to pass on what he'd learned. "They put the thumb-screws to me," he recalls thoughtfully in an interview at his weathered desk at the band office. "I was actually almost ready to go into the longshoreman's union." Cheaper in English Douglas Whalen, a Yale-educated linguist, says that given the trend of minority languages in the world, the prognosis for Musqueam and numerous other tongues isn't good. "A greater percentage of languages is projected to die off in the next hundred years than for bird, plants or mammals," wrote the founder and president of The Endangered Language Fund by e-mail. Put another way, 50 to 90 per cent of the world's estimated 6,000 to 7,000 languages are predicted to disappear in the next century, many with little or no significant records. As dismal as it sounds, in the Information Age there are ways to document them before they vanish. "We are at a stage where we can at least preserve some of the spoken form -- which was not possible in earlier times," says Whalen. A number of First Nations languages of Canada have already disappeared, including Beothuk (Newfoundland), Nicola (B.C.), Huron-Wendat (Quebec) and Pentlatch (B.C.). Epidemics were a devastating factor, reducing pre-contact First Nations populations from over five million to less than half a million at the beginning of the 20th century. The residential school experiment served only to further cripple the linguistic heritage of many groups. Since UBC is built on Musqueam land, it's a safe bet there will always be a program acting as a life-preserver for their language -- a bittersweet situation, considering there are numerous distinct groups in Canada and elsewhere for whom this isn't the case. Tacitly, however, some believe the death of minority languages is a natural, and economical, phenomenon -- though it's next to impossible to find someone who will espouse this unpopular view on the record. "Fewer languages means better and clearer communications among the majority of speakers," reads an anonymous entry on the topic in Wikipedia. "The economic cost of maintaining a myriad of separate languages, and their translator caretakers, is enormous." But Whalen begs to differ with the assertion languages go extinct the way animals and plants do, via natural selection. "Yes, languages have died out over time," he wrote, "but killing them off is a different story. Many languages have been under active assault, in Canada as well as the U.S. and other places. Many still are [dying], though there are some efforts (in Canada and the U.S.) to begin supporting them." It seems counterintuitive, but Whalen looks favourably at the rise of dominant languages such as English in the world, provided they cater to diversity over uniformity. "Bilingualism is essential," he argues, "and allows us to have the global language along with the minority language. Those who insist that only the majority language should be used are usually also intent on stamping out any cultural differences." On a side note, the value in retaining as many as possible is clear to researchers, who continue to find important clues about human history in the study of language. For example, Nuxalk, or what has in the past been called the Bella Coola language, is internationally renowned for long words and even sentences that don't include a single vowel. Oddly, one of the only other places this rare trait is found is in Morocco. To explain the link, linguists are working furiously to document and decipher languages before they disappear. But that's not easy in B.C., explains Shaw. Linguistic differences from one valley to the next are so diverse that thus far linguists can find no common ground between language families in the province. Gitksan Tsimshian and Chilcotin Athabaskan are "as different as any of the Indo-European languages are from any of the Chinese languages," says Shaw. Rooted renaissance Back at Musqueam, Guerin says that for renaissance to take hold, it has to re-enter day-to-day life. "If the learning of a language is confined to a classroom, it will never survive," he says. The hurdles are looming. Residential schools have left a deep scar, and Larry Grant, co-instructor of the university course, adds his own society now considers Musqueam "a ceremonial language" more than a conversational one. For Grant, the resurrection of the language is tied to healing and self-identity in the larger context of postcolonial Western society. Things like hereditary laws and kinship ties simply can't be expressed the same way in English. "I think [our language] is important for us to understand and appreciate who we are." says Grant. "And not only that, but for us to accept who we are. Because of legislation that denied [us of] a lot of stuff, denied who we are." And yet talking to Guerin in his cubicle, you got a sense of how hemmed in the project is. Walking out of class, there are no TV shows, magazines or summer camps for Musqueam students. Just English or Mandarin or some other tongue seen or heard in the city. Nor is academic scrutiny always popular with the Musqueam people. Grant says parsing the language down into its grammatical components is met with a wary eye by some, who don't relish the idea of academics swooping in and dismantling what they see as a vibrant whole, and a sacred aspect of ceremonial meetings. "It's a difficult part to sell to the community," he sighs. "They don't really appreciate why you need to break the language down to rebuild it." Sitting in with his students that evening, I was struck by what a slow, minute process the work is. Following hard on its heels of that thought was the realization I was sitting with a significant slice of the people who hold some living knowledge of Musqueam. Grant says that in the underlying minutiae of the science behind the work, it can be hard for some to see the big picture. Grammatically correct For the moment, the only certainty for Guerin and company is lots of hard work. "I'll be long gone and there'll still be lots left to do," he says. By that he means building the limited body of knowledge the world has of the Musqueam language -- a relatively miniscule corpus comprising a single book of grammar, a dictionary, various recordings and documentation and what remains in living memory among community members and elders. Nevertheless, Guerin, for one, is banking on the fact that students like Forssman and Sam share his obsession with a sleeping language, one that invites a seeker to always venture further in. He remembers being out in the field near the reserve one time with a research assistant, working on one project or another. As he was walking he wondered aloud one too many times what the Musqueam name was for certain things he was seeing in nature. "Do you think about the language all the time?" Guerin recalls the research assistant asking him. "Yeah, pretty much," he remembers answering. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Mar 23 17:51:47 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 10:51:47 -0700 Subject: New Language Policy to Preserve Aboriginal Culture (fwd) Message-ID: NEW LANGUAGE POLICY TO PRESERVE ABORIGINAL CULTURE http://media-newswire.com/release_1046321.html The Bracks Government today invested $10,000 in a new strategy to revive Victorias Indigenous languages, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Gavin Jennings announced today. Mr Jennings said the new approach would help revitalise Victorias traditional languages, which was a significant aspect of preserving Indigenous culture. (Media-Newswire.com) - The Bracks Government today invested $10,000 in a new strategy to revive Victorias Indigenous languages, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Gavin Jennings announced today. Mr Jennings said the new approach would help revitalise Victorias traditional languages, which was a significant aspect of preserving Indigenous culture. Aboriginal cultural heritage is about language, stories and traditions as well as land and objects, Mr Jennings said. There used to be 40 separate Indigenous languages and many Aboriginal people spoke four or five different languages. These languages are not spoken anywhere else in the world, making them a unique part of our cultural heritage and we should not let them die out. Mr Jennings said Victorian Aboriginal Corporations for Languages ( VACL ) and the Federation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages ( FATSIL ) will now develop a new policy on Indigenous Languages. The Bracks Government has provided $10,000 to help VACL run a two-day workshop, bringing together experts in this area, he said. This workshop will produce recommendations for a draft policy to be prepared for consultation with the community and State Government. This important area of work will help Indigenous Victorians reconnect to their past and celebrate their culture. Chairperson of VACL, John Atkinson, said the policy would aim to make Indigenous language education more accessible to the Aboriginal community. Language contributes to the wellbeing of Aboriginal communities, strengthens ties between elders and young people and improves education in general for Indigenous people of all ages, Mr Atkinson said. Representatives from VACL, FATSIL, the Aboriginal community, State Government and the New Zealand Maori Language Commission attended the workshop. Mr Jennings congratulated FATSIL for contributing $34,000 to the project. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Sat Mar 24 17:53:34 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 10:53:34 -0700 Subject: Tribe works to ensure language's future (fwd) Message-ID: Tribe works to ensure language's future [photo inset - Isabella Gallardo, 5, (left) and Shylee Worthington, 4, play the drums and sing songs in the Anishinaabemowin language during a cultural program at the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians Head Start program in Pellston. The tribe?s language department is creating programs to pass the language on to children. (Kristina Hughes/News-Review)] Video Stories By Kristina Hughes News-Review Staff Writer http://www.petoskeynews.com/articles/2007/03/24/news/more_local/news02.txt HARBOR SPRINGS ? Howard Kimewon was punished for speaking Anishinaabemowin when he was a child in school. ?We had to speak English. You would get a strapping for speaking the language, that was the golden rule,? Kimewon said. Nearly 50 years later, Kimewon remembers his grammar school experience on Manitou Island. But today he feels welcome at Harbor Springs High School where he informally teaches the Anishinaabemowin language during lunch hours at the school. ?I feel good about being here and bringing the language back to the kids. I don?t have paper, pencils or lesson plans, everything I say I speak from the heart,? he said. Kimewon smiles as students count or understand a word or two during the language lunch table. Megan Keller, a Harbor Springs sophomore stumbles over the words, but she is encouraged when she understands the meaning. ?I want to learn how my ancestors talked,? Keller said. Keller will have that opportunity. The Harbor Springs High School and the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians are collaboratively working to create a formal Anishinaabemowin language program at the school. The class is part of a movement to revitalize the region?s first spoken language as its number of speakers dwindle. The effort is being made through a multigenerational approach in area homes, schools, classes and at community events. The recent interest encourages fluent speakers like Ray Kiogima. Kiogima, 77, grew up in what he calls ?Indian town,? a place where several Native American families resided in Harbor Springs. Growing up in the 1930s, the language was spoken in the homes, on the streets and at gatherings. ?This used to be known as the Odawa capital,? he said. Kiogima learned to fluently speak Anishinaabemowin from his grandmother Mary Anne. ?My grandmother couldn?t hardly talk in English ... When I slipped in an English word she reminded me if I lived with her I had to speak the Odawa language,? he said. Nearly 60 years later, Kiogima is inspired to teach the language. Last year, Kiogima finished his 20 year quest to co-author the book ?Odawa Language and Legends.? ?When I heard the two words, ?dying language,? it gave me the inspiration to write the dictionary. I heard these words and it hit me like a light bulb going off in my head.? Kiogima is currently writing a second book teaching the language. He hopes these books will rekindle a spirit to learn. ?The people have to have the desire to pass it on. We are counting on them,? Kiogima said. The story of the language is tied with the history and cultural traditions of the tribe. When the Europeans settled, the Anglo Saxon education system forbid Native Americans to speak their native languages. In some cases Native Americans were physically abused for speaking. This lead to a breakdown in the language in some tribes, since parents wished to protect their children from ridicule or punishment. For years many tribe members attended boarding schools, like Holy Childhood School in Harbor Springs, where the language was forbidden. The nuns believed students must speak English and assimilate in order to succeed. As more tribal members moved, or entered the job force and schools in the predominant culture, English became the primary language for many families. Some families passed on a few words or did not speak the language, while a few speakers remained fluent. In time as the fluent speakers began to walk on, the language was dying with them. Some tribal members worried about the future of the language. In the last few decades there was a resurgence movement focusing on the cultural traditions and the language. Recently the education community has begun to embrace the language in the classroom. Helen Roy, is a first language speaker who kept her traditional language when many speakers conversed in English. Roy, a linguist professor at Michigan State University, fills a duty to teach. ?It?s important because when we speak we have our whole history of why the words are spoken a certain way,? Roy said. ?It?s our cultural identity, people talk about tradition and you hear that in the language.? ?But, there are still people who are reluctant to learn the language because of past experiences ... But we should look at tomorrow and what we can do to revitalize it.? Anishinaabemowin first Joe Kishego spoke fluent Anishinaabemowin. But that changed when he attended school. The lessons, recitations and books were all in English. ?We were asked to bring all our prayer books, hymnals in Odawa, these books were burned,? he said, with a sadness in his eyes, during an elder?s luncheon. But he didn?t follow the rule. He hid his books, now worn with time. ?For a while nobody spoke,? Kishego, of Harbor Sprigs said. ?If we speak it our language will carry on.? Kishego is proud to speak. When Veronica Medicine, 69, listens she vividly remembers her cousin who shared stories in an animated fashion. ?When (fluent speakers) speak, it?s like music,? Medicine said. Growing up, no one taught her the language. As she learns the words, Medicine hopes she will someday be able to pray in her native language. In the past, she participated in Ray Kiogima?s classes and courses with Kenny Pheasant. She also participates in activities held by the Odawa Institute, a nonprofit formed to preserve the language and culture. The group continues to promote cultural events and a weekly language class. In the last five years the tribe has made the language a priority, Carla McFall, the tribe?s language program coordinator said. McFall met with interested community members and tribal leaders, nearly five years ago to establish a proposal for the new language program. The tribal council approved the program housed in the Archives and Records Department in Harbor Springs. The proposal included a narrative of the history of the language, the need for fluent speakers and the importance of revitalizing the language. The program was established in 2004. The tribe?s Archives and Records Department received a $450,000 grant from the Administration for Native Americans in 2006 for language revitalization efforts. The funds were used to hire a curriculum specialist and are being used to develop the high school course and create communitywide Anishinaabemowin programs. ?Our primary goal is revitalization so it doesn?t seem archaic,? McFall said. ?We?re not doing it for a hobby or solely for fun. We?re doing it to teach a living, breathing language.? Passing it on McFall passes on the words to her children and grandchildren. Cody Bigjohn, 30, did not have much interest in the Anishinaabemowin language as a teen. He remembers his mother Carla McFall who shared greetings at family and tribal functions. But when he had his own children, Aanzhenii (angel), 10 and Waabzii (Swan), 3, the desire to learn the language took hold. As he passed on his genes, he hopes to pass the language on. ?It gives me a sense of pride to hear them say words,? Bigjohn said. ?When I hear them I know our culture will stay alive.? As generations past spoke Anishinaabemowin in the home, some community members are bringing the language back to the home. When Kathy Shomin, decided to attend language classes it became a family affair. On a recent evening, Shomin and her children Sampson Shomin,19, Kyle Shomin, 17, and Mehmay Guaz (butterfly) Shomin, 14, play Anishinaabemowin Yatzhee during a language pizza party. Kathy?s children learned words from their grand parents. Kathy takes the advice from an elder to heart, who shared, ?Language is your culture and when your language is gone your culture is gone.? ?You need as much exposure as you can get. It?s one thing to go to school and learn the language, but to live it and speak it will save it,? Kathy said. Melissa Wiatrolik, 28, can remember growing up in a household where her mother and grandmother often conversed in the native language. Wiatrolik participates in the immersion class experience as a way to teach her children. ?It?s important for our generation to carry it on to our children,? Wiatrolik said. ?... Listening, it brings back memories and a feeling inside that one can not explain.? Crystal Greensky, 24, grew up speaking and listening to the Ojibwe language on the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indian Reservation near Duluth, Minnesota. Greensky, whose father was an Ojibwe instructor hopes to follow in his footsteps by becoming an Anishinaabemowin teacher. ?You don?t think about it as culture,? Greensky said. ?Growing up, it?s the way you lived.? After moving to the area she enrolled in immersion courses and a teaching program at Bay Mills Community College. She currently works as a language assistant with the tribe. By teaching she hopes to raise awareness about the language. ?There are so many people who don?t know we have a language,? Greensky said. ?We need to create awareness and speakers.? Through her work she connects with the elders and fluent speakers, who hold the key to the history of the language. ?I can?t even imagine what our community of elders went through,? Greensky said. ?Can you imagine for example, if you went to a Chinese speaking school and could not speak your language? I feel so fortunate to be around (the elders), to hear their stories.? Crystal and Harriet Kishigo Booth, recently conversed in Anishinaabemowin during a game night. Kishigo Booth, who lived through the times when the language was stigmatized, is watching it emerge as a point of pride. Looking at the young people, like Greensky, she is hopeful. ?I?m encouraged that we are going to keep the language,? Kishigo Booth said. ?They are going to be our source to pass it on.? Additional stories: Video features Multi-generational approach used to teach language Language brought into classroom Learning the Anishinaabemowin language The Odawa Institute a non-profit organization formed by people committed to revitalizing the use of the Anishinaabemowin and Anishinaabe culture. http://www.institute.odawa.info. Kenny Pheasant?s Learn the Anishinaabemowin language: www.anishinaabemdaa.com and www.anisninaabemowin.org. Language Immersion courses accredited by the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians through Bay Mills Community College. For more information call (888) 309-5822. The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians archives and record department?s language program. For more information call (231) 242-1452 or go to http://www.ltbbodawa-nsn.gov/. North Central Michigan College offers a language class by Fred Harrington Jr. For more information call 348-6600. Helen Roy?s Pop Songs ?Anishnaabe?amaadeg? and ?Miinwaa Aanind Anishnaabe Nagamowinan? Call (517) 282-2337 to purchase a copy. Kristina Hughes can be reached at 439-9348, or khughes at petoskeynews.com. From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Mar 28 16:55:26 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 09:55:26 -0700 Subject: Language, Silence, and Voice in Native Studies (fwd) Message-ID: fyi, Language, Silence, and Voice in Native Studies An International Conference hosted by the Native Studies Research Network, UK, at the University of Geneva, Switzerland Sponsored by the Swiss Association for North American Studies, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), and the University of Geneva July 16-17, 2007 Call For Papers The Native Studies Research Network, UK, invites proposals for papers for its inaugural European conference. Established in April 2006, the NSRN has 70 members at 30 UK institutions working in 8 academic disciplines. Having held its first British colloquium in September 2006, the NSRN will now host a topic-led, full-scale conference inviting the participation of international scholars to foster scholarly debate in the field. It is hoped that the geographic centrality of Switzerland as a location will encourage scholars from across Europe to attend. This nation?s tri-lingual status has encouraged a focus on the issue of language. Keynote speaker: Robert Allen Warrior, University of Oklahoma (Other keynote speakers to be confirmed) Featured speakers: Simon J. Ortiz, Gabriela Schwab, Hartwig Iserhagen Panels will include but are not restricted to: 1. ?Speaking with single and forked tongues?: Monoglots and Bilinguals 2. ?We must teach the Bible in their own dialects?: Missionaries and Indian Languages 3. Orality and Literacy 4. Silencing Native Voices: the impact of white settlement 5. Recovering Native Voices 6. Cultural ?Contact Zones? 7. The Language of Native Politics 8. Native Languages in the 21st Century This is not an exhaustive list and individual papers and/or panels on topics outside these remits are warmly welcomed. Individual paper proposals should include a title and precis of no more than 250 words. Panel proposals should include a title and brief description of the panel and a title and pr?cis for each paper. Proposals should be sent electronically to: J.Fear-Segal at uea.ac.uk or R.Tillett at uea.ac.uk or Deborah.Madsen at lettres.unige.ch and preferably copied to all three addresses. Review of proposals will begin 16 March, 2007, and proposals will be accepted until 16 April, 2007. http://home.adm.unige.ch/%7Emadsen/NSC_CFP.htm From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Wed Mar 28 21:02:05 2007 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 14:02:05 -0700 Subject: Quote Message-ID: I once heard a quote that went something like this.... " If you do not speak your language you are no longer a member of your tribe but a descendant of Tribal members." Does anyone know the origin of this quote, or the accurate phrase??? From nwarner at U.ARIZONA.EDU Wed Mar 28 21:06:57 2007 From: nwarner at U.ARIZONA.EDU (Natasha L Warner) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 14:06:57 -0700 Subject: Quote In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi, I don't know the quote, although I'd be very interested in hearing about it if you turn it up. As someone who works on revitalization of a dormant language, I can't refrain from commenting: who gets the right to decide this (what the criteria for some status are) for someone else? And why? Thanks, Natasha Warner On Wed, 28 Mar 2007, Andre Cramblit wrote: > I once heard a quote that went something like this.... > " If you do not speak your language you are no longer a member of > your tribe but a descendant of Tribal members." > > Does anyone know the origin of this quote, or the accurate phrase??? > ******************************************************************************* Natasha Warner Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics University of Arizona PO Box 210028 Tucson, AZ 85721-0028 From jenn2b4 at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Mar 28 21:25:56 2007 From: jenn2b4 at HOTMAIL.COM (Jennifer Henderson) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 15:25:56 -0600 Subject: Quote Message-ID: Attached are some reference about language loss. 1. Quote from an author's book. 2. Someone referencing a Souix chief regarding language loss. 3. Dr. Minesuah's journal article. 4. Dr. Reyner's language loss symposium. _________________________________________________________________ Watch free concerts with Pink, Rod Stewart, Oasis and more. Visit MSN Presents today. http://music.msn.com/presents?icid=ncmsnpresentstagline&ocid=T002MSN03A07001 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: language loss attachment.doc Type: application/msword Size: 54272 bytes Desc: not available URL: From annier at SFU.CA Wed Mar 28 22:16:57 2007 From: annier at SFU.CA (annie ross) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 15:16:57 -0700 Subject: Quote Message-ID: An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From lachler at UNM.EDU Wed Mar 28 22:33:05 2007 From: lachler at UNM.EDU (Jordan Lachler) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 14:33:05 -0800 Subject: Quote In-Reply-To: <200703282216.l2SMGv59019545@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> Message-ID: Howdy, >" If you do not speak your language you are a white person with brown skin" In my experience, this is not an uncommon sentiment. There is an elderly, highly-respected chief among the Haida who I've heard say, on several occasions, in large gatherings, and with great seriousness: "If you don't speak your language, how can you call yourself a Haida?" Fortunately, he works (along with a dozen or so other elders) four to five hours a day on documenting and recording his language, so there's hope that other Haida people will in fact be able to learn to speak the language again. I'm not personally aware of anyone who has taken up studying the language just from hearing him say those words. However, among our students that are already learning the language, those words really do resonate, and many of them take it in a positive sense -- not as a threat to their identity, but as an encouragement for their efforts to bring the language back, both for themselves and the Haida Nation as a whole. Jordan From pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET Thu Mar 29 00:21:53 2007 From: pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET (phil cash cash) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 17:21:53 -0700 Subject: Quote In-Reply-To: B71EADE7-9020-41C1-B03E-E72F5CE49C43@ncidc.org Message-ID: Andre, these might match your quote. Eli Taylor, Sioux Nation... "Without language we will cease to be a people." Assembly of First Nations. (1993). Declaration on Aboriginal Languages. Pamphlet. Robert Bunge, Lakota Sioux... "A people who lose their language and the view of the universe expressed by that language, can no longer survive as a people, although they can survive as rootless individuals" (1989:19). Bunge, R. (1989). Language: the psyche of a people. In Our Languages, Our Survival, p. 13-20. University of South Dakota. Also, to echo Jordan's statement, I have been told this sentiment directly by some well-respected elders in my community, "The Cayuse lost their language and so they are no longer Cayuse." It is certainly true that the Cayuse lost their language due to a 19th century language shift to Nez Perce, a neighboring language (a hundred years before today's contemporary language shift to English!). However, their adoption of the Nez Perce language remains a mystery and is probably due to a number of interrelated factors (disease coupled with population decline, the horse, intermarriage, secrecy, etc). Nevertheless, the statement is/was by no means uncommon since the fluent speakers who often issue such statements are also responsible for strongly advocating against pan-Indian beliefs and acculturation/assimilation. So in this sense, the identity=language link, when used in this manner, tends to act as a resistive barrier to these forces. This is especially so given that these same elders also survived the abusive boarding school system despite the odds against them. When I was told this, I was taken aback as they were certainly harsh words. But I persisted in my learning with these same elders. Days later, they indicated to me (teasing/laughing), "a weaker person would have stormed off and never returned, but here you are!" A moment of recognition in this bigger struggle we all share I suppose. ;-) Phil Cash Cash (cayuse/nez perce) UofA On Mar 28, 2007, at 2:02 PM, Andre Cramblit wrote: > I once heard a quote that went something like this.... > " If you do not speak your language you are no longer a member of your > tribe but a descendant of Tribal members." > > Does anyone know the origin of this quote, or the accurate phrase??? > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 2377 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rzs at TDS.NET Thu Mar 29 03:35:09 2007 From: rzs at TDS.NET (Richard Smith) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 20:35:09 -0700 Subject: Quote In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.1.20070328142027.0226dba8@unm.edu> Message-ID: Kweh ?mater? (greetings friends) I understand and identify with these elders who will often make strong statements as these at times. But it should be heard not as criticism as much as a painful lament. These elders often feel disconnected not only with the outside world but even with many of their own tribal youth today. They think so differently, and have such different interests. I'm also involved in reviving the Wyandot language left in a coma And I feel deep urgency ...but this isn't often shared By those of our own who are losing it and drifting far from center. So there is a time to lament...a sadness to express...to vent... Language,ceremonies and the stories are the fibers that hold us unique And keep us from drifting into a generic ndnism Often seen now in the pow-wow circuits. Richard Wyandotte Oklahoma On 3/28/07 3:33 PM, "Jordan Lachler" wrote: > Howdy, > >> " If you do not speak your language you are a white person with brown skin" > > In my experience, this is not an uncommon sentiment. There is an > elderly, highly-respected chief among the Haida who I've heard say, > on several occasions, in large gatherings, and with great seriousness: > > "If you don't speak your language, how can you call yourself a Haida?" > > Fortunately, he works (along with a dozen or so other elders) four to > five hours a day on documenting and recording his language, so > there's hope that other Haida people will in fact be able to learn to > speak the language again. > > I'm not personally aware of anyone who has taken up studying the > language just from hearing him say those words. However, among our > students that are already learning the language, those words really > do resonate, and many of them take it in a positive sense -- not as a > threat to their identity, but as an encouragement for their efforts > to bring the language back, both for themselves and the Haida Nation > as a whole. > > Jordan From AEROWE at AOL.COM Thu Mar 29 01:58:33 2007 From: AEROWE at AOL.COM (Ann Rowe) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 21:58:33 EDT Subject: Quote Message-ID: In a message dated 3/28/2007 7:49:56 PM Mountain Daylight Time, rzs at TDS.NET writes: > I understand and identify with these elders who will > often make strong statements as these at times. > But it should be heard not as criticism > as much as a painful lament. Our identity as human beings is encoded in our DNA. Our cultural identities are encoded in our languages. Ann ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Thu Mar 29 08:56:48 2007 From: rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (Rudy Troike) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 01:56:48 -0700 Subject: Quote In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I've read similar sentiments from a Puerto Rican and someone from Africa, but in the form of a question. "Can one not know Spanish and still be a Puerto Rican?" The African was speaking of some distinct tribal language, and said "Can one not speak [language X] and still be a [member of a tribe]?" I was struck at the time by the parallelism of the sentiment. Rudy Troike From greg.dickson at KATHLANGCENTRE.ORG.AU Thu Mar 29 22:53:46 2007 From: greg.dickson at KATHLANGCENTRE.ORG.AU (Greg Dickson) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 08:23:46 +0930 Subject: Quote In-Reply-To: <20070329015648.0iwplsko8k88kk0g@www.email.arizona.edu> Message-ID: Note that if you apply the sentiment to a dominant language/culture, it becomes highly offensive to most of us... e.g. you have to speak English to be Australian... only the most rightwing people could tolerate this sentiment. Greg Dickson Linguist Ngukurr Language Centre CMB 6 via Katherine NT 0852 Ph/Fax: 08 8975 4362 Email: greg.dickson at kathlangcentre.org.au On 29/03/2007, at 6:26 PM, Rudy Troike wrote: I've read similar sentiments from a Puerto Rican and someone from Africa, but in the form of a question. "Can one not know Spanish and still be a Puerto Rican?" The African was speaking of some distinct tribal language, and said "Can one not speak [language X] and still be a [member of a tribe]?" I was struck at the time by the parallelism of the sentiment. Rudy Troike From andrekar at NCIDC.ORG Thu Mar 29 22:53:45 2007 From: andrekar at NCIDC.ORG (Andre Cramblit) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:53:45 -0700 Subject: Quote In-Reply-To: <895eab304ac520793cdefef2515d9c36@kathlangcentre.org.au> Message-ID: other than the fact that english is a universal language and not that of a particular ethnic group Now it said you have to speak english to be a true Australian descendant or criminals deported from England then maybe you have something On Mar 29, 2007, at 3:53 PM, Greg Dickson wrote: Note that if you apply the sentiment to a dominant language/culture, it becomes highly offensive to most of us... e.g. you have to speak English to be Australian... only the most rightwing people could tolerate this sentiment. Greg Dickson Linguist Ngukurr Language Centre CMB 6 via Katherine NT 0852 Ph/Fax: 08 8975 4362 Email: greg.dickson at kathlangcentre.org.au On 29/03/2007, at 6:26 PM, Rudy Troike wrote: I've read similar sentiments from a Puerto Rican and someone from Africa, but in the form of a question. "Can one not know Spanish and still be a Puerto Rican?" The African was speaking of some distinct tribal language, and said "Can one not speak [language X] and still be a [member of a tribe]?" I was struck at the time by the parallelism of the sentiment. Rudy Troike From wayneleman at VFEMAIL.NET Thu Mar 29 23:02:31 2007 From: wayneleman at VFEMAIL.NET (Wayne Leman) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:02:31 -0700 Subject: Quote Message-ID: Ah, maybe not in Australia, but here in the U.S. we have many who say this. We even have an English Only movement trying to legislate the idea that to be American means that you must speak English. No other languages, not even the First Nations, or Native American, languages will qualify a person to be truly American. Just English, the language of the colonizers. Wayne ----- Wayne Leman Cheyenne website: http://www.geocities.com/cheyenne_language > Note that if you apply the sentiment to a dominant language/culture, it > becomes highly offensive to most of us... e.g. you have to speak English > to be Australian... only the most rightwing people could tolerate this > sentiment. > > Greg Dickson From greg.dickson at KATHLANGCENTRE.ORG.AU Thu Mar 29 23:07:41 2007 From: greg.dickson at KATHLANGCENTRE.ORG.AU (Greg Dickson) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 08:37:41 +0930 Subject: Quote + tangent In-Reply-To: <79AA11BB-3096-4738-AF9B-054FD285C454@ncidc.org> Message-ID: you just made my brain go on an interesting tangent... Does anyone know of any example of people (I'm thinking a very small group, like a family) from an anglo ethnicity abandoning English for another language?? I know the converse is happening all over the world all the time... it would be heartening to know that *someone* is bucking the trend... Greg On 30/03/2007, at 8:23 AM, Andre Cramblit wrote: other than the fact that english is a universal language and not that of a particular ethnic group Now it said you have to speak english to be a true Australian descendant or criminals deported from England then maybe you have something On Mar 29, 2007, at 3:53 PM, Greg Dickson wrote: Note that if you apply the sentiment to a dominant language/culture, it becomes highly offensive to most of us... e.g. you have to speak English to be Australian... only the most rightwing people could tolerate this sentiment. Greg Dickson Linguist Ngukurr Language Centre CMB 6 via Katherine NT 0852 Ph/Fax: 08 8975 4362 Email: greg.dickson at kathlangcentre.org.au On 29/03/2007, at 6:26 PM, Rudy Troike wrote: I've read similar sentiments from a Puerto Rican and someone from Africa, but in the form of a question. "Can one not know Spanish and still be a Puerto Rican?" The African was speaking of some distinct tribal language, and said "Can one not speak [language X] and still be a [member of a tribe]?" I was struck at the time by the parallelism of the sentiment. Rudy Troike From AEROWE at AOL.COM Thu Mar 29 23:28:53 2007 From: AEROWE at AOL.COM (Ann Rowe) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 19:28:53 EDT Subject: Quote + tangent Message-ID: In a message dated 3/29/2007 5:06:20 PM Mountain Daylight Time, greg.dickson at KATHLANGCENTRE.ORG.AU writes: > you just made my brain go on an interesting tangent... > > Does anyone know of any example of people (I'm thinking a very small > group, like a family) from an anglo ethnicity abandoning English for > another language?? I know the converse is happening all over the world > all the time... it would be heartening to know that *someone* is > bucking the trend... > > Greg Some of the Irish, Scottish, and Welsh nationalists ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Mar 30 17:32:58 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 10:32:58 -0700 Subject: Nunavut legislation enforces use of Inuktitut in schools, businesses, offices (fwd) Message-ID: Friday, March 30th, 2007 Nunavut legislation enforces use of Inuktitut in schools, businesses, offices Canadian Press http://www.brandonsun.com/story.php?story_id=48245 (CP) - In move reminiscent of laws that changed Quebec forever, the government of Nunavut has introduced language legislation that would enforce the use of Inuktitut in public places from restaurants to schools to offices. "What we'd like to do here is protect the Inuit language for the future," said Louis Tapardjuk, minister of Culture, Language, Education and Youth. "It will have an impact on all our children, families, communities, businesses, schools and governments." Tapardjuk has introduced two language bills into the territorial legislature. The Officials Languages Act declares French, English and Inuktitut to be Nunavut's official languages. The Inuit Language Protection Bill is intended to ensure the three languages remain on an equal footing by mandating the use of Inuktitut for signs and services. The proposed law says organizations providing "essential services" would have to use Inuktitut signage "at least equally prominent with any other signage used." However, essential services would include emergency services, health care, restaurants, hotels, utilities, telecommunications and other services deemed to be "essential as a result of their nature or consequences." Tapardjuk acknowledges that covers almost everything in Nunavut. "When we talk in terms of essential services it pretty well covers any hospitality industry as well as the retail sector. Any public or private institution will have to provide service to the public in Inuktitut as well as English or French." The bill also maintains Inuit children have a right to be educated in Inuktitut, despite the shortage of curriculum materials in that language. It also provides for an office to determine official usages and coinages of new words. Quebec's Bill 101, designed to govern the use of French in that province, was one of the inspirations for Nunavut's bill, said Tapardjuk. "That was the direction Nunavut wanted to take," he said. As in Quebec, Inuktitut is in danger of being swamped by English. "If you go to a restaurant, you don't see a menu in Inuktitut. Everything's in English," Tapardjuk said. "In the regional stores the majority of the customers are Inuk, but the majority of the signs are English. It makes you wonder who they're really serving." If it becomes law, the act will be enforced by an arms-length language commissioner reporting directly to the legislature. The act would be enforced on a complaints basis. Tapardjuk said penalties for breaking the act haven't yet been set. A Statistics Canada study released last week found that Inuktitut is one of the healthiest aboriginal languages in the country. More than half of Canada's 30,000 Inuit still consider it their mother tongue and it's the language spoken most often at home for 43 per cent of them. Still, those figures are declining and the young are least likely to be fluent. Tapardjuk expects to hear concerns from the private sector. "There are cost factors the private sector is quite concerned about." However, he said, the Inuit Language Protection Bill is the result of two years of work and consultations, and more are scheduled. Public meetings on the bill are to be held over the next weeks in five regions across Nunavut, but Tapardjuk expects the final legislation to return to the territorial legislature before the end of the current session. Although the Northwest Territories recognizes 11 different aboriginal languages, nothing like Nunavut's proposed protections exist there. Tapardjuk says Nunavut's proposals may be unique in the world. "We're not aware of any legislation like the Language Protection Act," he said. "The closest one we were able to see is Bill 101." From cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU Fri Mar 30 17:38:15 2007 From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU (phil cash cash) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 10:38:15 -0700 Subject: 'We Weren't Supposed to Survive' (fwd link) Message-ID: 'We Weren't Supposed to Survive' Seeking reconciliation with BC's First Nations. First in a series. By Sandra Shields Published: March 30, 2007 http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/03/30/Stolo/ ~~~ fyi, this an impressive article. philcc From nflrc at HAWAII.EDU Fri Mar 30 21:22:45 2007 From: nflrc at HAWAII.EDU (National Foreign Language Resource Center) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 11:22:45 -1000 Subject: Job positions at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Message-ID: Our apologies for any cross-postings . . . University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Second Language Studies Assistant or Associate Professors (2) The Department of Second Language Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa, seeks to fill two tenure-track vacancies, both full time 9-month positions, pending position availability and funding, to begin August 1, 2008. The Department offers a Master of Arts in Second Language Studies, and administers a PhD program in Second Language Acquisition and an Advanced Graduate Certificate in Second Language Studies. A BA with an ESL specialization is available through the University's Interdisciplinary Program. Faculty have interests in a wide range of domains in second and foreign language research. For more information, visit our website: http://www.hawaii.edu/sls POSITION #82454. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR Applicants should have major research interests and instructional competence in technology and language learning & teaching (e.g., computer-assisted language learning; computer-mediated communication; electronic and multimodal literacies; distance learning; emerging technologies; and language courseware design and evaluation). Minimum qualifications: Doctorate in second language acquisition, applied linguistics or closely related field by August, 2008; demonstrated ability to carry out research; second or foreign language teaching experience; and evidence of excellent teaching ability at the university level. Desirable qualifications: Publication in journals and books; teaching experience in a second language studies or equivalent graduate program; ability to win competitive research funding; interest in the Asia-Pacific region, including Asian and Pacific languages; and teacher education experience. POSITION #84105. ASSISTANT OR ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR Applicants should have major research expertise and instructional competence in psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology as they relate to second language learning, processing, and instruction. Minimum qualifications: For Assistant Professor, a doctorate in second language acquisition, applied linguistics or closely related field by August, 2008; demonstrated relevant research ability as evidenced by publications; and evidence of teaching excellence. For Associate Professor, in addition to these requirements, current appointment at that rank. Desirable qualifications: Evidence of research productivity commensurate with rank; prior teaching experience in a second language studies or equivalent graduate program; second or foreign language teaching experience; demonstrated ability to win competitive research funding; interest in the Asia-Pacific region, including Asian and Pacific languages. Duties for both positions: Teach courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the area of specialization in the Department of Second Language Studies; conduct and publish research; participate fully in supporting activities for academic programs, departmental governance, and service to the University and community. Annual 9-month Salary Range, both positions: commensurate with experience E-mail inquiries: Position #82454: Dr. Lourdes Ortega, Chair of Search Committee lortega at hawaii.edu Position #84105: Dr. Richard Schmidt, Chair of Search Committee schmidt.dick at gmail.com To apply: Applicants should submit letter of application, curriculum vitae, list of courses taught, and sample publications. In addition, letters of reference should be submitted directly by three recommenders. All application materials should be sent by September 15, 2007 to: Chair Department of Second Language Studies 570 Moore Hall 1890 East-West Road University of Hawaii Honolulu, Hawaii 96822 USA Closing date for both positions: September 15, 2007. The University of Hawaii is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. ************************************************************************* N National Foreign Language Resource Center F University of Hawai'i L 1859 East-West Road, #106 R Honolulu HI 96822 C voice: (808) 956-9424, fax: (808) 956-5983 email: nflrc at hawaii.edu VISIT OUR WEBSITE! http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu *************************************************************************