Tribe wants to revive Arapaho language (fwd0

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Tribe wants to revive Arapaho language

By WHITNEY ROYSTER
Star-Tribune staff writer
http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2004/05/19/news/wyoming/8bde50ae4a0bcb6a87256e9900069a70.txt

JACKSON -- Unless drastic changes are implemented on the Wind River
Reservation, the Arapaho language will die within 15 years, a language
professor said Tuesday.

Eugene Ridgely Jr., director of the bilingual education program for the
Wind River Tribal College in Ethete, said the key is to speak Arapaho
in the home and elsewhere as much as possible.

"Without the language, you don't have the culture," Ridgely said. "The
stories, even everyday conversation, it's different than we're going to
have with English."

An Arapaho language revitalization effort is being undertaken by the
tribe members and was spearheaded by a Council of Elders concerned with
the culture loss. A meeting with the Arapaho Business Council, Council
of Elders, Arapaho Language and Cultural Commission, school officials
and teachers will be held today at 11 a.m. at the college.

"First, we've got to get the people to care," Ridgely said. "If they
don't care then we have a big problem. We need to lay down the
groundwork to address those (language) concerns. ... We need
cooperation from every entity that we're going to talk to."

Ways of infusing the Arapaho language in schools and in homes is the
group's primary focus.

Ridgely said the college conducted a survey in 1995, asking students,
parents and grandparents in the community about the language they
spoke.

"From there we drew some conclusions that (the Arapaho language) was in
a sense declining very rapidly," he said. "This was also foreseen back
in the years of the 1970s."

In the 1970s, the level of language loss was determined to be a "three"
on a scale of one to five, with five being a level of total extinction.

The Arapaho language was flourishing until the 1950s.

"It's gotten worse really fast," Ridgely said. "Now we maybe have about
15 years of fluency left, maybe less."

Years of fluency are determined by the age of elders who are still
fluent. Of the nearly 8,000 tribe members, less than 1,000 are fluent
and at a conversational speaking stage, according to the college.

Ridgely said some words don't translate into English. He said some
stories told in the Arapaho language don't translate readily to
English, and those stories are important in the history of the tribe.

The loss of native languages are the result, in part, of the U.S.
government and churches infusing reservations with European thinking
and the English language.

The "No Child Left Behind" act also makes teaching native languages in
schools difficult, because so much emphasis is placed on traditional
curriculum, Ridgely said.

Language revitalization efforts have been successful for tribes in the
Hawaiian islands.

"It starts with total immersion from the little ones up, gradually
working their way to speaking adults," Ridgely said. "Those
revitalization efforts will take several years; it won't happen
overnight."

Non-speakers and non-tribe members need to be concerned about the
disappearance of the language, too, Ridgely said, if people want to
experience native cultures.

One way to ensure the viability of the language is to pair children with
fluent, Arapaho-speaking elders, Ridgely said.

"This is going to be the first step in many," he explained. "We want to
get the word out that it needs to be addressed soon or else we will all
be English speaking within 15 years. It's going to be an uphill
struggle."