LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.08.22 (09-2) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 22.AUG.2002 (09) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian L=Limburgish
 LS=Low Saxon (Low German) S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language variety

Sorry. This ran away from me before I could past the text.

Dear Lowlanders,

Below please find excerpts from a newspaper article published today.  It
is not directly Lowlands-related, unless you focus on the English
component, but it deals with a global problem that is likely to befall
any of the language varieties we talk about here.

BTW, the Makah live here in Washington State, on the Olympic Peninsula,
about a couple of hours' drive and ferry ride from Seattle.

Cheers (even though that's not the best word choice in the case)!
Reinhard/Ron

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RUTH CLAPLANHOO: 1902-2002
BASKET WEAVER'S LEGACY IS WOVEN INTO FABRIC OF THE MAKAH
By Mike Barber
P-I reporter

Ruth E. Claplanhoo, the last tribal elder for whom the Makah language
was a mother tongue, died Monday at the age of 100 at her home in Neah
Bay.
   Born into a world where Native American children were sent away to
boarding schools and punished for speaking their own language, Mrs.
Claplanhoo became in later years a living bridge to keeping her culture
alive.
   "She was a huge part of the Makah people and Neah Bay, and it seems
as if we have lost the last tie between the old ways," said Gordon
Smith, tribal council chairman and Mrs. Ruth's Claplanhoo grandnephew.
   "She was born in 1902, a whole different era and a whole different
time. She was integrally woven into the fabric of the community through
her participation in culture and through her willingness to share and to
teach," he said.
   A lifelong resident of Neah Bay in the Makah Nation on the northwest
tip of the state, she helped researchers from the Makah Cultural and
Research Center and mentored younger tribal members in language and
craft skills. She was a distinguished weaver of cedar baskets who once
demonstrated the traditional methods at the Smithsonian Institution.
   She died at her home in Neah Bay two months after a heart attack left
her physically weak, though family members said she remained mentally
strong.
   She celebrated her 100th birthday two weeks ago.
   Mrs. Claplanhoo's passing comes a year after that of her sister,
Isabell Ides, 101, much beloved by the tribe, and a month after that of
Helma Ward, 84, matriarch of the Swan family who also worked at the
Makah cultural center translating.
   The women participated in many of the tribe's regional cultural
events.
   "It's devastating. There are some things that will be forever lost,"
said Janine Bowechop, executive director of the cultural and research
center. "You see a lot in a hundred years, and build a lot of character
and a lot of wisdom."
   At the same time, people feel enriched and privileged to have
lifetimes that overlapped with such people, Bowechop said.
<snip>
   Even up to the weeks before her death, Ruth was sought out in her
home by researchers and others for help in understanding Makah ways, she
said.
   Her recollections and those of other elders were called upon after a
fierce storm in the 1960s unearthed a centuries-old Makah village at
Ozette, one of the most significant archaeological events in North
America, but unearthing artifacts that mystified researchers.
   The elders, however, easily identified some toys that were recovered,
having played with similar toys as children at the dawn of the 20th
century
<snip>

[Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 22, 2002]

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