<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="6" style="font: 24.0px Helvetica"><b>Language of the elders</b></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Arial"><i>Preserving the sounds and identity of their American Indian culture</i></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; min-height: 19px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Helvetica"><a href="mailto:fespe@eastoregonian.com"><b>By Flynn Espe</b><b></b></a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">The East Oregonian</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; min-height: 19px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">As in any typical high school classroom, the level of engagement varied from student to student Tuesday morning in the Umatilla language class at Nixyáawii Community School.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">In reviewing Umatilla vocabulary for articles of clothing, teacher Tawtaliksh (English name Fred Hill, Sr.) told several amusing stories behind the meaning of the words, being careful to clarify the language's precise sounds. With the slightest of change in vowel pronunciation, he demonstrated, the word for sleep would turn into the word for drink.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">While some peers chatted away in various corners of the room, senior Randy Robinson, now in his third year of learning the language, sat front and center taking down notes.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">"I kind of try to focus on myself," Robinson said. "I'm starting to understand more of what Fred says when he starts speaking."</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">In another classroom on campus, a different group of students reviewed the answers to a test on the Walla Walla tribal language, while a third classroom of students spent the morning studying pronouns of the Nez Perce language. Sitting in on the latter session, two elder Nez Perce speakers listened to make sure their apprentice teacher taught the proper annunciation.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px"><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 15.0px Times"><b>A new effort</b></font></p><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">While the three American Indian dialects once flourished across the region as a backbone of native culture, very few fluent speakers - who learned the languages orally, often through grandparents - remain living.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">Beginning in 1996, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation adopted an ambitious language program to preserve the old tongues from becoming extinct.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">Each weekday, a small selection of tribal elders representing all three languages gathers informally to socialize and help one another re-extract the old words and phrases from their memories. While the group started with about nine elders, two have since died.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">With the help of descriptive linguist Noel Rude, Ph.D., the tribes have begun to amass a collection of recorded and phonetically written texts of the native dialects, transcribed interviews with the present tribal elders. From those, Rude has continued to expand the dictionaries and figure out the language grammars.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">While that work continues, the tribes have begun to build curriculum to teach the languages, now foreign, to the newest generation.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">At Nixyáawii, often depending on their blood lineage, students choose to study either Umatilla, Walla Walla or what the tribes refer to as Cayuse-Nez Perce, a slightly modified version of the Nez Perce language the Cayuse people began to speak after being nearly wiped out from war and disease in the 1800s. As the true Cayuse language no longer exists, tribal members attached the name to the Nez Perce as an identifier of the people who lived on through intermarriage.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px"><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 15.0px Times"><b>Reclaiming what was lost</b></font></p><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">"When the Catholic priests came and they started the boarding schools, they punished the young people for speaking Indian. And also the United States government schools punished the youngsters severely," said elder Shaw' shwíinan' may (Kathleen Gordon), who helps pass on the Cayuse-Nez Perce language. "It was beaten out of us really. So our grandmas and our parents feared for us being punished and beaten."</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">For many, such painful history contributed to long-lasting feelings of suspicion.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">"There was a lot of resistance at one time to have the language written down," said Kakiinash (Thomas MorningOwl), original language program director, explaining the old sentiment of some elders. " 'Why do you write down the language? The white man has stolen our identity. They've stolen our land.' "</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">It's a viewpoint MorningOwl said has begun to fall by the wayside.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">"If I have the language, as I do, and I don't do anything to pass it on to my kids and leave a legacy of the written word behind, and I go to my grave ... I steal it from everybody," MorningOwl said.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">As the program now operates, a handful of elders from each language work independently to teach one or two adult apprentices, who in turn pass on the language to the high school students. Students study the languages twice a week. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">The tribes also work the language into their HeadStart program and teach a group of students weekly at Pendleton's Washington Elementary.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px"><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 15.0px Times"><b>Language barriers</b></font></p><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">It is by no means an easy task. Aside from the different grammar and vocabulary, each of the three native tongues incorporates phonetic sounds not used in the English language.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">"English is kind of the upper limit for vowel sounds, huge numbers of vowels," Rude said. "And these (American Indian) languages are really rich in consonant sounds."</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">Those sounds can incorporate everything from subtle pops at the front of the mouth to guttural throat pronunciations.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">"One of the things that always comes to my mind is, 'Are the people here really ready to start pronouncing the words how they're supposed to be pronounced?' " program supervisor Tîsyawak (Mildred Quaempts) said. "If they really want this language to go out, they have to be patient, and they have to be willing and committed."</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px"><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 15.0px Times"><b>A link to creation</b></font></p><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">For Hill, it also is a matter of immersing the young people in storytelling, an important teaching vehicle by which past generations learned to imitate the sounds of language not easily captured on paper.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">"There were life lessons, and as the stories were told you learned to become a listener. And one of those ways you indicated you were listening was by begetting sounds as you listened," he said, demonstrating a few vowel hums. "There are sounds that are evoked by the spirit of the story."</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">And many tribal members believe those sounds have roots as deep as creation, a message Gordon imparts to all of her students.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">"These were sacred gifts to us from our creator that we were to speak for a lifetime. But they were taken from us and we need to revive them, because it is our true identity," Gordon said. "Like every bird has a song, their own unique song and sound - the dogs, the cats - everything has their own sound and this is our unique sound the creator gave to us."</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">In an increasingly English-saturated world, local languages like the Umatilla, Walla Walla and Nez Perce, may never again exist in the same pure capacity as the past.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">"It's very hard to maintain a minority language in the world anywhere today," Rude said. "That's what we're trying to do here."</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">Nevertheless, teachers at Nixyáawii may find encouragement from students like Robinson, who are making more noticeable efforts to listen.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Times">"I'm hoping to come back next year as an apprentice," he said. "I would like to keep up with the language, so I don't lose it over time."</font></div>
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