Re: School Zone: Abbott’s helping to preserve Oneida speech (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

...here is the link.

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/news/archive/local_13371734.shtml


On Nov 28, 2003, at 11:39 AM, phil cash cash wrote:

> Posted Nov. 28, 2003
>
> School Zone: Abbott’s helping to preserve Oneida speech
>
> <image.tiff>
> For 30 years, Cliff Abbott, a professor at the University of 
> Wisconsin-Green Bay, has helped preserve the Oneida language. B.A. 
> Rupert/PRess-Gazette
> UWGB professor has taught the language for about 30 years
>
> By Cynthia Hodnett
> chodnett at greenbaypressgazette.com
>
> He’s a professor of information and computer sciences and Native 
> American studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
>
> But Clifford Abbott’s resume also includes 30 years of teaching the 
> Oneida language to students on campus and Oneida people off campus.
>
> “The work that I do with the Oneidas gives me an opportunity to spend 
> (time in) a different world outside of academics,” he said. “It’s very 
> refreshing.”
>
> Spoken for hundreds of years, the Oneida language was nearly silenced 
> during the relocation of Indian tribes across the country during the 
> 1800s and early 1900s.
>
> Many children were taken from reservations and placed in government 
> boarding schools, causing many to abandon their native tongue. Now, 
> many tribal members are learning the language.
>
> Abbott, 56, said he first became interested in the Oneida language 
> while attending graduate school. It was there that he met a researcher 
> who studied the history of the language.
>
> Some words have several different meanings, he said. Those who are 
> fluent in the language say the language also has more than 50 
> pronouns.
>
> “The language is amazingly complex,” Abbott said. “I would have sworn 
> that when I first studied it in graduate school that people actually 
> studied it at one time.”
>
> In the 1970s, Abbott worked with other tribal members with a program 
> developed to train Oneida teachers for jobs in local school districts 
> and tribal schools. His work continued into the 1990s with a group of 
> Oneida speakers to develop a 700- plus page Oneida language 
> dictionary.
>
> Abbott is currently involved in a number of projects with the tribe 
> including teaching a linguistics class and helping tribal members 
> design a program to certify Oneida language teachers.
>
> Amelia Cornelius, a member of the Oneida Gaming Commission and former 
> director of the tribe’s Bilingual/Bicultural Program, recalls Abbott’s 
> work in translating stories form Oneida elders from their native 
> tongue into English and from English into Oneida. Many of those 
> stories are contained in pamphlets used in tribal schools, she said.
>
> “His work is invaluable to us,” Cornelius said. “He was a very easy 
> person, a very understanding person who was diligent in his work.”
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 3654 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20031128/64bff2ba/attachment.bin>