NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBES: Keeping languages alive (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBES: Keeping languages alive

UA researchers work to save indigenous systems of communication, which
have no written form

PAUL L. ALLEN
Tucson Citizen
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&story_id=112704a6_language&page_number=0

[photo inset - Tucson Citizen.  Phillip Cash Cash, a University of
Arizona doctoral candidate, and Susan Penfield, a UA professor, are
using modern technology to help tribal members around the state
preserve their languages.]

With little fanfare, America's indigenous languages have dwindled to
only about 150, flickering out one by one as aging tribal elders fluent
in the languages complete the circle of life.

Two University of Arizona English department researchers are focusing on
tribal youths to save the remaining languages.

By training American Indian teachers and librarians to use modern
technology, professor Susan Penfield and her assistant Phillip Cash
Cash hope to encourage younger generations to learn and preserve
languages that are in danger of disappearing.

[media inset - Video: Saving native languages]

How serious is the problem?

Only five people are fluent in Chemheuvi, a language spoken by Indians
living on the Colorado River Indian tribes' reservation in west-
central Arizona, Penfield said.

The total Chemheuvi population has dwindled to about 150.

North of them live the Mohave, with about 3,800 tribal members, whose
fluent speakers number about 30.

"By the year 2050, there are expected to be only about 30 indigenous
languages in this country that are still spoken," said Penfield, a
senior lecturer who spent nearly 30 years working with the Mohave
language.

Penfield and Cash Cash, a doctoral candidate pursuing a joint program in
linguistics and anthropology, are working to help tribal members around
the state use modern technology and computer software to preserve their
languages. They also hope to revive younger tribal members' interest in
their native language.

Their work is funded by a $203,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, with matching funds from UA.

Penfield said the initial funding from the Gates foundation grant was
intended to create a manual for beginners in computer technology to
develop multimedia, slides, PowerPoint and other language development
tools. That funding is nearly exhausted.

Additional grants are being pursued to continue the project.

Cash Cash is a member of the Cayuse tribal group on the Umatilla
Reservation in Oregon.

The Cayuse, known for their breeding of horses of the same name,
originally had their own language, he said. But in the 19th century,
taking political and practical considerations into account, they
adopted the Nez Perce language. Cash Cash is fluent in the adopted
language, thanks to his close relationships with his grandparents.

The name Cayuse, he said, is an adaptation of the Spanish word "caballo"
- horse.

"In the native tongue, there usually is no "v" sound, so the name got
borrowed into the language as 'cayuse.'"

Penfield's and Cash Cash's work involves videotaping fluent speakers as
they recount their own histories or tell other stories, speaking a few
sentences at a time in the native language, then repeating themselves
in English.

Because of a concerted effort by federal officials to eliminate tribal
languages, many tribal members in their 50s and younger may understand
their native language, but not speak it.

Penfield's and Cash Cash's program also is used to help teachers
organize teaching aids.

"The most successful way to revitalize native languages has been to
adapt methodology called immersion language teaching," she said. "That
means all instruction is done in the tribal language."

Preserving languages is important, not only for a group's cultural
identity, but as a "window" into individual perceptions of the world.
Penfield noted, English verbs are based on time - I go today, I went
yesterday. By contrast, Navajo verbs are based on weight and shape. The
verb to "pick up" a piece of paper, for example, would differ from the
verb to pick up a rock or a potato.

Languages such as Chemhuevi and Mohave "should not be seen as
artifacts," said Penfield, a senior lecturer who spent nearly 30 years
working with the Mohave language.

"The vocabulary is vast," she said. "They change and adapt, just like
any other language."

"When they're gone, they're gone," said Penfield, noting that Indigenous
languages are more vulnerable to extinction because they have no written
form. "There is nothing written, there is no preservation except in
communities where there was early recording."

Many tribes are trying to preserve their languages. "My understanding is
that Hopi is now mandated as a second language in their schools," she
said. "Apache is being taught at Whiteriver; you can take Apache I or
Apache II. You can choose those instead of a 'foreign' language, and
get the same credit."

Joyce Bahe, an Apache-Navajo, teaches at Alchesay High School in
Whiteriver. Fluent in Apache, she is learning and using some of the
methods developed by Penfield and Cash Cash to teach her students.

"I see a revival of interest in the language," she said. "Some of my
students told me, 'I went home and spoke Apache to my Mom and Dad, and
they were happy.'"