Lakota Language

[Andre Cramblit]

  Lakota on Path to Recapture Language

        PINE RIDGE, S.D., March 15 (AScribe Newswire) -- The Lakota  
Sioux language, made famous through its portrayal in the 1990 film  
"Dances with Wolves," is now one of only a small handful of Native  
American languages with enough remaining speakers to survive into the  
next generation, announced a major language organization. Lakota is  
currently one of the last major Native American language hold-outs in  
what is a worldwide crisis of linguistic extinctions.

        To keep the Lakota language from disappearing completely, an  
ambitious revitalization campaign has been organized by a group of  
tribal leaders and linguists. The campaign is spearheaded by the  
nonprofit Lakota Language Consortium, which develops the Lakota- 
language teaching materials used in 23 area schools and which trains  
language teachers. The organization's goal is to encourage the use of  
the language by a new generation of speakers. Children using the  
group's language materials become proficient in Lakota by the fifth  
year of use. The group plans to have a fully sequenced curriculum  
that students can follow from first grade through college.

        The consortium's latest Level 2 textbook is currently being  
distributed to schools across Indian country. For Leonard Little  
Finger, the great-great-grandson of Chief Big Foot and one of the  
group's co-founders, the textbooks symbolize an important milestone  
for the Lakota. Little Finger notes that, "the effects of government  
policies were profoundly destructive to our language and our ability  
to pass it on to our children. These materials are so important  
because they are the first ever designed to raise children to speak  
Lakota. Not since before our great-grandparents were confined to the  
reservations, have we been allowed to raise our children speaking the  
language. As Lakotas, we will not let our language die, and these  
books give me hope that my grandchildren, at least, will have the  
privilege to speak their language."

        Tribal elders and traditional leaders have made it a priority  
to keep the language alive for future generations. 81-year-old  
Clarence Wolf Guts, the last surviving Lakota code talker from WWII,  
points out that, "our people need to know that Lakota had an  
important position and to learn to be proud to speak Lakota. It is  
good that the kids are now learning Lakota in the schools." Oglala  
Sioux Tribe Vice-President, Alex White Plume, shares this opinion and  
explains that through the group's efforts, ³we are finally making  
some progress in teaching the language to the children.²

        The group recently received the nation's leading language  
revitalization award, the Ken Hale Prize, from the Society for the  
Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas. The consortium was  
distinguished for its outstanding community language work and deep  
commitment to the promotion and revitalization of Lakota. Still, the  
group's Linguistic Director, Jan Ullrich, points out that,  
"revitalizing a language is no easy task and much more needs to be  
done to educate the public about the state of endangered languages  
and the needs of indigenous peoples." Ullrich concedes that Native  
American language loss is an enormous though silent crisis. "The fact  
is, few people know about the seriousness of the language crisis -  
that there are perhaps only a dozen languages that have a chance of  
surviving in the United States out of the original five hundred. When  
a language disappears, we lose an important record of our human  
experience - our linguistic heritage. Languages encompass a people's  
unique and irreplaceable songs, prayers, stories, and ways of seeing  
the world. Ninety percent of these repositories of knowledge will  
pass into oblivion unless we do something about it."

        The organization's goal is to expand its revitalization  
efforts beyond the classroom and to more actively bring the language  
back into use within the community. They aim to provide incentives  
for young people to speak the language, to develop Lakota-language  
television programming, and to expand the literature available in the  
language. They model their actions on the best practices of other  
successful language revival efforts from around the world. However,  
the group's Executive Director, Wilhelm Meya says that funding  
continues to be the primary obstacle to the return of the language,  
"government aid is almost nonexistent and there are very few grants  
available for endangered languages. Individual donations seem to be  
the only hope endangered languages like Lakota have."

        Luckily, there are other people besides the Lakota themselves  
who want to see the language preserved. Meya explains that support  
for the group's effort has come from a number of less common sources  
such as German nonprofit organizations like the Tatanka Oyate Verein.  
"We have had to be creative to garner support for our efforts. It's  
very important that we succeed," Meya says. He also cites several  
other unique donors to the Lakota language, including the Washington  
Redskins Charitable Foundation and Sioux Tools. Meya notes that the  
sports franchise, in particular, "is committed to helping the Lakota  
language and is a very proud supporter of our cause." Meya explains  
that individual donors have also played a significant role in helping  
language rescue efforts. One such donor, Jim Brown of Bemidji,  
Minnesota, is ardent about the need to support Lakota. He emphasizes,  
"it is my duty to do whatever I can to help Native American cultures  
survive. I'm very pleased to be part of this effort to keep the  
Lakota language alive and available to all of us."

        The remaining Lakota speakers are acutely aware of the high  
cost of the potential loss of their language. Elmer Bear Eagle, a  
resident of Wounded Knee, remembers with fondness when most people  
still spoke Lakota and laments the current state of the language. As  
an extra in "Dances with Wolves," he was very glad to be able to  
speak Lakota in the film but observes that, "if we can't save our  
language soon, all of our children will need to read the subtitles in  
the movie, just like everybody else, to understand what it being said  
in Lakota. Then, we will have truly lost our uniqueness as Lakota  
people."

        More details on the Lakota Language Consortium are available  
at: http://www.lakhota.org

        - - - -

        CONTACT: Wilhelm K. Meya, Lakota Language Consortium,  
812-340-3517, fax 812-857-4482, meya at lakhota.org
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