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<h1>Recording and preserving the Dakota language</h1><br><div class="sidebar"><ul><li class="relatedRow1"><a href="http://www.startribune.com/audio/rich_media/1288840.html"><b>Audio:</b> Wayne Wells and Curtis Campbell, Sr.
</a></li></ul><br></div><div class="storyBody"><p>Dakota language teacher Wayne
Wells pulled a chair next to tribal elder Curtis Campbell, who had
settled into his favorite living room rocker to begin an unusual
recording session. Wells clutched a gray metal box called a
"phraselator," an electronic interpreter first introduced in Iraq and
Afghanistan for use by U.S. soldiers at military checkpoints and
security zones. He handed a microphone to Campbell, and asked him to
repeat -- in Dakota -- decidedly civilian phrases such as "I want some
coffee."</p><p>Campbell responded, "Pezutasapa mak'u wo." And the words
were added to a databank of hundreds of phrases and sentences stored in
the device. Word by word, the effort is helping students at Prairie
Island Indian Community preserve their fragile native language.</p><p>"There's
only about two or three people here who speak Dakota fluently, so time
is of the essence," said Wells, the language teacher at the community
outside of Red Wing. "If the kids don't learn it now, there won't be
anyone left who knows it."</p><p>Last year, the Prairie Island
Community became one of more than 50 Indian communities nationwide to
integrate phraselators into their arsenal of language preservation
tools. The hand-held device resembles a small computer, with a monitor
showing tabs for "weather,"family,"animals" and "Dakota virtues and
values," among other subjects.</p><p>"You can scroll up and down and
find different phrases," explained 12-year-old Kachina Yeager, one of
Wells' students, sitting on her front porch and fiddling with the tabs.
"Say I want to hear the word for 'mother.' I can find it here and then
tap it. Or I can just speak 'mother' into the top of the phraselator."</p><p>A few seconds after explaining this, Campbell's deep voice boomed "een na" out of the phraselator.</p><p>The
first batch of phraselators was loaded with phrases in languages such
as Arabic, Pashto and Farsi, said John Hall, president of VoxTec
International, the device's Maryland-based manufacturer. The stock
phrases would include "show me your hands" or "stay away from the
area," he said. But a few years ago, it began catching on with Indian
communities as well, Hall said. </p><p>Because Campbell is one of just
a handful of native speakers left, he and Wells have spent hundreds of
hours together in his living room decorated with tall Indian vases from
the Southwest and Native American art on the walls. </p><p>Last week,
the two were completing a section on food. The session showed the
challenges of bringing ancient languages into modern times. Wells asked
Campbell to translate, "I want some cake."There is no word for 'cake',"
responded Campbell. "How about 'sweet bread'?" Ditto for
"restaurant."How about 'food house'?" he asked.</p><p>Campbell, a retired construction worker, said he speaks Dakota fluently in part because of a lucky turn in his childhood.</p><p>Growing
up in the 1940s, he was able to avoid being sent to a Indian boarding
school, where children were beaten if they spoke their native language.
He did, however, have to cut his long shiny hair in order to start
school at a little one-room schoolhouse, he recalled, and had to learn
to speak English fluently. But he continued to speak Dakota at home.</p><p>Wells
wasn't so fortunate. He said his grandfather refused to speak Dakota
with his children because he was so "traumatized" by the boarding
school experience. So Wells learned Dakota at the University of
Minnesota. He's still nowhere near fluent, but recording with the
phraselator is helping, he said.</p><p>Kachina's mother, Shelley
Buck-Yaeger, has been so impressed with the device that she's planning
to buy one for the family. Her parents didn't speak Dakota either, she
said, and she's always wanted to learn. </p><p>Plus the phraselators
are practically indestructible, a key feature given the wear and tear
they can undergo at the hands of active children. Made for combat, they
can be dropped 6 feet onto cement without damage, according to the
VoxTech advertisements. </p><p>The phraselators aren't cheap: The cost
of purchasing three of them, plus installing the software, and
receiving training and technical support, was about $25,000, said Alan
Childs, treasurer for the Prairie Island tribal council. </p><p>But
the device can be used for more than just basic translation, he said.
It can also preserve traditional Dakota songs and stories, said Childs,
who is a singer in the community.</p><p>Over the years, there have been
other attempts to preserve the Dakota language, which now only has
about 100 fluent speakers in four Indian communities in Minnesota,
Childs said. It's still too soon to tell whether the phraselators are
going to make a breakthrough, he said. But a combination of a fancy
high-tech tool and a dedicated teacher from the tribe could start
making a difference, he said.</p><p>"You start building the wheel," Childs said, "and eventually it will start turning."</p><p class="contact">Jean Hopfensperger • 612-673-4511 • <a href="mailto:hopfen@startribune.com">
hopfen@startribune.com</a>
</p></div>
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</tbody></table><br>-- <br>____________________________________________________________<br>Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D.<br><br>Associate Director, Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL)<br>
Department of English (Primary) <br>American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI)<br>Second Language Acquisition & Teaching Ph.D. Program (SLAT)<br>Department of Language,Reading and Culture<br>Department of Linguistics
<br>The Southwest Center (Research)<br> Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836<br><br><br>"Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought, an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities." <br>
<br> Wade Davis...(on a Starbucks cup...)