Re-learning the language, reinvigorating Miami’s culture (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Re-learning the language, reinvigorating Miami’s culture
Dictionary could prevent native tongue from vanishing

Friday, February 25, 2005
http://www.oxfordpress.com/life/content/features/stories/2005/02/25/OP0225myaamia.html;COXnetJSessionID=CfvAeZIsk2St7IDAhza4LDY1iqX1kPmPaFiPgHk2NHNJgltwUe8N!2039876020?urac=n&urvf=11093562886030.25732388284999275

Miami University is working with the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma to
resuscitate the tribe’s native language — silenced, smothered and
nearly suffocated by past federal policy — and working to rebuild the
language one step at a time, each step a breath of fresh air.

The project involves many different aspects and includes the first
comprehensive dictionary for the native language which will be
published at the end of the month. There have been other dictionaries
written for the tribe but none as in depth as this. It is being
co-edited by Daryl Baldwin and David Costa.

The Myaamia neehi peewaalia kaloosioni mahsinaakani ( A Miami-Peoria
Dictionary) will be 200 pages and will include 3,500 entries, a brief
description of the language, an English cross-reference list and many
example sentences.

Baldwin is the Myaamia Project for Language Revitalization project
director and a member of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. He began working
on the project when he came to the university in 2001.

Costa, Ph.D, is a linguist who lives in San Francisco and has been
studying the Miami-Illinois language since 1988. He has been working
with the Miami Indian Tribe since 1995 and has had several publications
on the language.

Baldwin said before Columbus came to America, there were about 300
languages spoken. Today, only about 175 of these languages are still
spoken.

The Miami Tribe was indigenous to the midwest inhabiting much of Ohio
and Indiana and eastern Illinois. In 1846, the tribe was forced out of
their homeland and relocated to Kansas, and then to Oklahoma.

Not only were the Miamis forced to relocate, they were also forced to
assimilate. Native languages were under attack by the federal policy,
spurring a trickle-down effect which reduced many native languages like
the Miamis’ from standard to distant memory.

In the 1960s, the last member of the Miami tribe who could speak the
language conversationally, died, collapsing the bridge between
yesterday’s native- tongue speaking members and today’s first
generation English- speaking tribe members.

The negative effect this had on the tribe was not fully acknowledged
until the late 1980s. In 1990, a native language law passed which
reversed the former federal policy, sparking the tribe’s organized
effort to revive its lost language which began in 1995.

Baldwin said reviving the language is important because language is
culture — it encompasses the values, beliefs and knowledge of a
community as a whole.

“I personally feel it is important to my own heritage to perpetuate the
language,” Baldwin said.

The Miami language is one of 25 in the Algonquian language family and is
structured very similarly to other languages within the family such as
Ojibwa-Potawatomi-Ottawa, Mesquaki-Kickapoo and Shawnee. Baldwin said
because of this, they were able to use related languages as tools to
aid in the dictionary project.

The language has been recorded in written form for nearly 300 years so
Baldwin said there was a lot of information to work from.

Most tribe members have been raised speaking English and know very
little about the language, Baldwin said. Even the tribal elders know
only a few words, phrases and prayers.

Costa said there are already Miamis learning to speak the language and
said the extent of which the language is actually spoken among tribe
members in the future lies within the motivation of the community.

“Whether it’s possible to revive a dormant language is entirely up to
the community whose language it is,” Costa said. “If the will exists at
the community level to revive the language then there is nothing left to
prevent it.”

Costa said there are many aspects of the project which make it so
rewarding, he said.

“Knowing that I’m helping to create something that will be used many
years into the future and that through my efforts the Miamis are coming
closer to getting their language back” are reasons for the work, Costa
said.

The project is being funded by Miami University, The Miami tribe of
Oklahoma and a donation form Rotary International, NW Ohio District

Baldwin said plans are, after the project is complete, that the tribe
will handle copyrighting, publishing and distributing the dictionary.