Cherokee tribe tries to save a dying language (fwd)

[Phil CashCash]

Cherokee tribe tries to save a dying language

JENNY BURNS, Associated Press Writer
Friday, September 19, 2003
©2003 Associated Press

URL:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/09/19/state1618EDT7535.DTL

(09-19) 15:54 PDT   LOST CITY, Okla. (AP) --

The kindergarten teacher speaks to her class in Cherokee, telling the
children to pull out their mats for nap time. Using their Cherokee
names, she instructs "Yo-na," or Bear, to place his mat away from
"A-wi," or Deer. Soft Cherokee music lulls them to sleep.

These youngsters' parents were mocked for speaking Cherokee. Their
grandparents were punished. But Cherokee is the only language these
children will speak in their public school classroom.

By immersing the youngsters in the language of their ancestors, tribal
leaders are hoping to save one of the many endangered American Indian
tongues.

It is a modest start, consisting of just 10 kindergartners in a single
classroom at the Lost City School, 50 miles east of Tulsa. But their
Cherokee language instruction will continue throughout their school
years.

"The language is going to be gone if we don't do something, and the best
people to learn are kids in the developmental stage of kindergarten,"
said Annette Millard, a non-Cherokee who is superintendent of the Lost
City School, with about 100 students, two-thirds of them from the
tribe.

Around the country, other Indian languages are disappearing as well. The
native speakers are dying off, and the language cannot compete against
English, which is pervasive through television and other forms of pop
culture.

While many tribes are trying to reinvigorate their languages, doing so
can be particularly difficult in places like Oklahoma, where Indians
generally attend public schools and do not live on reservations.

On the vast Navajo reservation in the Southwest, for example, the Navajo
language is taught on reservation schools and most tribal members speak
it. In Oklahoma, fewer than 8,000 of the 100,000 Cherokees can speak
the language fluently, and most of those who can are over 45.

In fact, assimilation policies once discouraged Cherokees from speaking
their native language in schools.

The father of Cherokee Nation Chief Chad Smith was punished for speaking
Cherokee at Sequoyah High School, located at the seat of Cherokee
government in Tahlequah.

"If you spoke the language, your mouth was washed out with soap," Smith
said. "It was an effort to destroy the language and it was fairly
successful."

In Lost City, Millard offered a classroom -- and started learning the
language along with her staff -- after hearing a plea from the chief.
The Cherokee Nation is paying the salaries of the teacher and an
assistant.

The school has a weekly "Rise and Shine" assembly where all grades begin
with the greeting "o-si-yo" and discuss the word for the week. One
recent week, the word was truthfulness, or "du-yu-go-dv."

Millard calls students by their Cherokee names and encourages them by
saying "o-sta" -- "good" -- with a smile. Her office is adorned with
Cherokee words and pronunciations posted on objects like the telephone
and her desk chair. (The Cherokee alphabet, which now consists of 84
symbols, each representing a syllable, was codified by Sequoyah in
1821.)

The children are encouraged to speak Cherokee at home.

After five weeks of school, Lane Smith, or "A-wi," told his mother in
Cherokee that he was going outside to play. She was not quite sure what
he said, but she is now starting to relearn the language she knew at
age 5.

"My family has asked Lane what he has learned today and they are
learning right along with him," said Kristal Smith, who is not related
to the Cherokee chief. "I plan to have him keep going with the
language."

Tribal leaders say it is vital that the language survive.

"We have our medicine, our plant life, our universe and the language the
Creator has given us," said Harry Oosahwee, the tribe's language
projects supervisor. "Our medicine doesn't understand other languages
but Cherokee. All this is interconnected."