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[Kara Briggs]

Dear All,
I think Tony makes some very important points. I am relatively new to this
listserv though I've been reading for several months. Native Americans,
namely in this case the Grand Ronde, need to be the acknowledged experts in
their own languages, even if the languages are dangerously close to being
lost. Although our languages were not originally written with alphebets, the
knowledge of them remains in the Native communities and specific tribes. I
was earlier this week at the quarterly meeting of the Affiliated Tribes of
the Northwest Indians at Coeur D'Alene. And there was a hugely important
resolution brought which called on the state of Washington to acknowledge
tribal languages as accredited second languages. There was no discussion of
Chinook, but there was a lot of talk about Sahaptian and Salish. The
resolution called on the state to fund the teaching of tribal languages at
public schools on reservations and public schools with significant Native
American populations.Ackowledgement would include paying tribal language
speakers a fair wage to teach, comperable to the wage paid a Spanish or
French teacher. During the discussion tribal leaders, many of whom were also
elders, discussed the differences in a single language might be spoken
between different bands of related peoples. The differences were noteworthy
changes in how consonants were said whether "ch" sound or a "t" sound. In
some cases tribal leaders said that their teachings said to keep the
language private and not share it with immigrants, meaning everyone who
arrived since 1492. In other cases the tribal teaching allowed more
openness. And there was some debate, to put it dramatically, about whether
it was worthwhile for a school to teach a langauge that might not be exactly
the dialect that a student's family might speak. The young men and women
from Inchellium, Wash., on the Colville Reservation, the ones who brought
the resolution, said that even if a child learned a different variation of
their language they could go home and start a conversation with their
grandparents about how their own band would say the same words. Differences
among Native people and their languages are part and parcel of who we are.
But these difference can be overstated.
Linguists say that when a people lose their language they lose their
culture. By the same token, it is important for those who admire languages
and peoples to know that a language cannot be divorced from the people from
whom it originated.
Play with it, write poems, make up jokes, tell stories. There is an
important place in life for people who hold a language or a custom for a
while so that it can be given back. The language's life depends on the
people like those taking classes at Grand Ronde.
Admiration and peace, Kara

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