Dedicated to keeping their language alive (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

GETTING TO KNOW GEORGE ADAMS AND CATALINA RENTERIA

Dedicated to keeping their language alive
http://news.bellinghamherald.com/stories/20041012/TopStories/211700.shtml

[NOOKSACK HERITAGE: George Adams and Catalina Renteria are language
specialists who work in the cultural management resource office at the
Nooksack Indian Tribal center in Deming. They use books, videos and
ceremony to help preserve the tribe's traditional language. MAME BURNS
HERALD PHOTO]

By Linda Kendall Scott, for the Bellingham Herald

Modern technology is being linked with the voices of elders to return
the nearly extinct Nooksack language to life. Lhchelesem nearly died in
1977 with the last fluent speaker, Sindick Jimmy.

Cultural specialist and teacher George Adams said the Nooksacks were
bilingual for nearly 200 years after the young men began going north,
around 1790, to find brides. Later, the northern language, Upriver
Halq'emylem, was more commonly used. As the elders died, even that
language began fading away.

In the early 1970s, linguist Brent Galloway, now on the staff of the
University of Regina in Saskatchewan, and other scholars began
recording and transcribing stories and songs told by the elders in both
languages.

In May 2002, nearly 50 CDs of Halq'emylem were presented to the Nooksack
tribe. Meanwhile, language specialist Catalina Renteria adapted an
interactive computer program to teach the language at the Nooksack
Education Center.

Now, Renteria, Adams and Galloway are creating a program to preserve and
revive Lhchelesem. They've got an alphabet and digitized dictionary, and
they're retrieving parts of speech and syntax from Jimmy's recordings.
They hope some of their youths will become trilingual.

Q: How will you accomplish this?

Adams: Our young people grew up speaking English. Perhaps a dozen can
now read and write basic Halq'emylem and converse in simple sentences.
We think Halq'emylem speakers can learn Lhchelesem. The alphabets of
the two languages are similar. We'll be happy if even six to eight of
our young people become fluent. With only a handful of elders who knew
it, we made enough tapes to revive it.

Renteria: The young people hear these words when we teach our history.
The language is tied to the land. It emanates from our stories, songs
and dances.

Q: You've shared Nooksack culture with nontribal children and parents in
the community and in public classrooms. Why?

Adams: It educates the public that we're still here, and this is our
language and culture.

Renteria: It claims our inherent right to the land, sovereignty, and
cultural identity. If we lose the language, gone is an irreplaceable
resource, gone is the teachings of our old ones, gone to our little
ones and gone for scholars and scientists.

Q: What do children and parents experience with your ceremonies?

Adams: We engage the students in making gifts for a give-away -
clappers, medicine pouches, rocks from the river painted with a Coast
Salish design. It's a high premium in our society to give rather than
receive. They learn the language by learning to sing a song or tell a
story. Using our shawls and drums, they will celebrate the song or
story.

Renteria: We engage the students in the oral tradition of calling
witnesses from among the parents and visitors to explain what took
place and to acknowledge their responsibility to remember what they
learned.

Adams: A lot of feedback from the witnesses is often very touching.

Linda Kendall Scott is a freelance writer. For questions or story ideas,
contact Dean Kahn at dean.kahn at bellinghamherald.com or 715-2291.