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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=patb42@sbcglobal.net href="mailto:patb42@sbcglobal.net">Pat Benabe</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=goodtracks@peoplepc.com
href="mailto:goodtracks@peoplepc.com">Jimm Goodtracks</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, November 27, 2007 8:56 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> language</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2><A
href="http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=071126_1_A1_ahref1651"><FONT
size=3>http://www.tulsawor<WBR>ld.com/news/<WBR>article.aspx?<WBR>articleID=<WBR>071126_1_<WBR>A1_ahref1651</FONT></A><BR><FONT
size=3>8<BR><BR>Tribal language fading away<BR><BR>by: SE RUCKMAN, World Staff
Writer<BR>11/26/2007 1:37 AM<BR><BR>Doris Jean Lamar is the last fluent speaker
of the Wichita and Affiliated<BR>Tribes.<BR><BR>ANADARKO -- Oklahoma had been a
state for only two decades when Doris Jean<BR>Lamar was born in 1927. Her first
spoken words were not English, but an<BR>American Indian language taught to her
by grandparents.<BR><BR>Today, Lamar is the last fluent speaker in the Wichita
and Affiliated<BR>Tribes, a tribe of 2,300. Sitting in a tribal canteen that she
supervises,<BR>the 80-year-old Lamar carries a language that once was spoken by
thousands,<BR>then hundreds of Wichita language speakers.<BR><BR>"I never
thought I would be in this position as a girl, to be our last<BR>fluent
speaker," she said.<BR><BR>Wichita is one of the languages classified as
Caddoan, but is only similar<BR>in stock to the Caddo language, scholars said.
Lamar's tribe is one of a<BR>handful indigenous to Oklahoma with a present-day
jurisdiction in Caddo<BR>County.<BR><BR>Lamar's journey was not unlike other
girls in southwest Oklahoma in the<BR>years right before the Great Depression.
Her full-blood maternal<BR>grandparents worked a farm and raised their
grandchildren. She recalls<BR>fewer cars, more thriftiness and no electricity
back then. With a white<BR>father and an Indian mother, Lamar stood out among
her peers.<BR><BR>"I never thought of myself as white; to me, I was Wichita,"
she said. "The<BR>old ladies of our tribe thought it was something to hear this
little white<BR>girl speak Wichita."<BR><BR>She eventually married a non-Indian
and had children. After she divorced in<BR>1959, she moved back among her Indian
relatives near Gracemont. She<BR>continued to speak Wichita as she did as a
girl.<BR><BR>"Ever since I could remember, I spoke Wichita," she said. "My
husband told<BR>me that me speaking Indian was the only time he remembered I was
Indian."<BR><BR>Around 1962, Lamar met an earnest young linguist who followed
tribal<BR>members in order to listen to them speak, she recalled. That young
linguist<BR>was David Rood from the University of Colorado.<BR><BR>Rood has been
working with the Wichitas since he stumbled upon the Indian<BR>language while
looking for one that was not being preserved, he said. He<BR>still works with
Lamar and other tribal members. They race to record the<BR>Wichita language so
that a dictionary can be gleaned. They have spent hours<BR>going over Wichita
words and compiling language CDs on creation stories,<BR>verbs, nouns and
names.<BR><BR>Defining tribal fluency can be tricky, Rood said. In small tribes,
debates<BR>exist over who qualifies as a fluent speaker. Lamar speaks some
Wichita<BR>with another tribal member who labors with the language.<BR><BR>"She
tells me there are so many words in her head that she can't get out,<BR>she gets
frustrated," Lamar said.<BR><BR>Speaking and writing the language are key.
Sometimes tribal members know<BR>ceremonial songs by heart. Yet linguists think
fluency is more complicated<BR>than that.<BR><BR>"I would say when somebody is
able to speak the language in a way that has<BR>never been spoken before or ever
written in a language book . . . as an<BR>abstract thought, then that is
fluency," Rood said.<BR><BR>The linguist tried to organize a conversation among
the last few fluent<BR>Wichita speakers in the early 2000s, he said. He regards
the exercise as a<BR>half-success. But the gathering was stilted because of
political<BR>differences among the speakers.<BR><BR>"Which is typical in almost
all Indian tribes," he said of tribal political<BR>factions. "They spoke a
little, but not much."<BR><BR>Hope exists for the Wichitas' dying language. An
immersion class for<BR>children has been soldiering forward, as is an
adult-oriented language<BR>class, both subsidized by fed eral grants.<BR><BR>But
the Wichitas must cross another obstacle of language
revitalization:<BR>retention. Sam Still, a Cherokee speaker, said retention
among adults and<BR>children remains low if the language is not already spoken
in the home.<BR><BR>"For children, when they have no one at home to speak the
language with,<BR>there is no one to practice the sounds with and they lose it,"
Still said.<BR>"When you're around the language, you learn it
better."<BR><BR>Meanwhile, Lamar fishes a small recorder out of her pocket and
turns it on.<BR>She speaks English words first, then the Wichita word
follows.<BR><BR>"I have been doing this a lot, lately," she said, pressing play.
"I just<BR>put whatever words pop into my head."<BR><BR>The tribal elder is
aware that her language hangs on the precipice. She<BR>remembers the time when
everyone around her spoke Wichita. Now, none of her<BR>children speak more than
a few words, she said.<BR><BR>"They live in the white world," she said. "I
don't."<BR><BR>S.E. Ruckman 581-8462<BR></FONT><A
href="mailto:se.ruckman@tulsaworld.com"><FONT
size=3>se.ruckman@tulsawor<WBR>ld.com</FONT></A><BR><BR><FONT
size=3>*****<BR><BR>Fluent, but for how long?<BR><BR>Indian languages with fewer
than five fluent speakers:<BR><BR>Chirachua
Apache<BR>Osage<BR>Otoe<BR>Ottawa<BR>Plains
Apache<BR>Quapaw<BR>Wichita<BR><BR>Indian languages with zero remaining fluent
speakers:<BR><BR>Alabama<BR>Cayuga<BR>Delaware (Lenape)<BR>Hitchiti,
Mikasuki<BR>Kaw (Kansa)<BR>Kitsai<BR>Koasati<BR>Mesquakie (Fox)<BR>Miami,
Peoria<BR>Modoc<BR>Natchez<BR>Seneca<BR>Tonkawa<BR>Wyandotte</FONT><BR></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>