With the Dakota language on life support, a resurgence among native youth (fwd link)

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With the Dakota language on life support, a resurgence among native youth

By Jeff Severns Guntzel | Published Wed, Aug 10 2011 6:27 am
USA

MORTON, Minn. – From a park picnic table a woman named Ruby watches
her 12-year-old granddaughter, Shayla, answer a reporter's questions.
They are mostly one-word answers. Are you having fun learning the
Dakota language? "Yes." Is it hard? "No." What's the hardest part?
"Sentences."

Shayla is as tiny as her answers are short. She's at the Birch Coulee
County Park just outside of Morton to celebrate the end of a summer
camp for Dakota youth learning the language. Look in any direction and
there are clusters of kids playing language games.

Her parents don't speak the language. Ruby, her grandmother, doesn't
speak it either. "My grandparents raised me," she says, "and Dakota is
all they ever spoke. But then they took it away from us in the schools
and we lost it. I'm proud of Shayla. Very proud."

Of the roughly 4,000 Dakota people living in Minnesota, there are just
eight who are known to be fluent in the Dakota language.

Access full article below:
http://www.minnpost.com/ruralmn/2011/08/10/30695/with_the_dakota_language_on_life_support_a_resurgence_among_native_youth