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<td>[Possible SPAM] Upper Sioux Dakota speakers honored</td>
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<td>Mon, 3 Mar 2008 12:01:14 -0600</td>
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<p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px;"><font
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face="Times New Roman" size="6"><b>‘We need to hold on to our language’<span
class="Apple-style-span"
style="color: rgb(0, 61, 146); font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;"></span></b></font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px;"><font
style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 22px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: ;"
face="Times New Roman" size="6"><b><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="color: rgb(0, 61, 146); font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;">By
Deb Gau</span></b></font></p>
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face="Times New Roman" size="4">UPPER SIOUX COMMUNITY — Some gifts
don’t last forever. In the case of languages, even the richest cultural
heritage only lives as long as the people who speak it. Time may be
running out for Native American languages like Dakota, speakers at an
honor ceremony Saturday evening said.<br>
<br>
“Looking at my elders here, less than five years ago we would have
needed about two more tables up here,” Upper Sioux Community Chairman
Kevin Jensvold said, acknowledging the table where the remaining six
Dakota speakers in the community sat.<br>
<br>
The dinner and ceremony at Prairie’s Edge Convention Center celebrated
the Upper Sioux elders who grew up speaking Dakota. Honorees Genevieve
LaBatte, Dean Blue, Evangeline Lesko, Carrie Schommer, Harry Running
Walker and Joan Pasillas, as well as speakers at the ceremony, called
for community efforts to keep their language alive.<br>
<br>
“Language is your identity. It’s who you are,” said guest speaker
Phyllis Red Day.<br>
<br>
Only a few generations ago, life in the Upper Sioux Community was
carried out completely in Dakota, speakers said — from the hymns at
church to the conversation at the grocery store. But as white culture
became more and more dominant, people stopped speaking in Dakota, and
more importantly stopped speaking it to their children.<br>
<br>
“It was like turning off a light,” Jensvold said. “They did this to
help us survive. But now it is time for us to survive on our own.”<br>
<br>
Speaking in English might be the key to getting an education or making
a living today, said honoree Carrie Schommer, but it loses the
perspective of the Dakota way of life.<br>
<br>
“The language has so much more meaning than in (English),” said
Schommer, who spent many years teaching Dakota herself. “You could find
all the things in the English dictionary, but Dakota people could
express some things so much more in the language.”<br>
<br>
Event organizer Chris Mato Nunpa said he had wanted to acknowledge the
elder speakers, “before they’re gone.” The loss of indigenous languages
is a problem being faced by cultures around the world, Mato Nunpa said,
and definitely in North America.<br>
<br>
“These people are treasures for the Upper Sioux Community,” Mato Nunpa
said.<br>
<br>
Mato Nunpa suggested that immersive language camps, where children
spend time in an environment speaking nothing but Dakota, would be the
most effective way to teach the language. <br>
<br>
Several of the speakers at the ceremony acknowledged the idea of
language camps, or at least organized efforts to pass Dakota language
on to present generations, as one possibility for the community.<br>
<br>
The idea made sense, said guest speaker Mike Simon. <br>
<br>
When the honorees were growing up, Simon said, “they didn’t have books,
where they say, ‘let’s learn about colors and about the animals.’ <br>
<br>
“They just talked. All of us learned that way.” <br>
<br>
Honoree Harry Running Walker said teaching shouldn’t just be directed
at children, but at whole families.<br>
<br>
“I would like some of their mothers and dads to learn also,” he said.<br>
<br>
Honoree Dean Blue said it was good to see the importance of Dakota
language and culture recognized, but he was cautious about how
effective efforts to preserve Dakota language would be at first. <br>
<br>
It’s impossible to escape the influence of white culture and the
English language, he said. <br>
<br>
“It will be a long, slow process,” Blue said. <br>
<br>
The main thing, Mato Nunpa said, was to start some serious discussion
about preserving Dakota language. Hopefully, that process had already
started. <br>
<br>
“We need to think how — I don’t like the word ‘preserve,’ but how we
can continue to hold on to our language here at Upper Sioux,” Jensvold
told the audience.</font></p>
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