Program aims at keeping American Indian language alive (fwd)

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Program aims at keeping American Indian language alive
http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=109352

As a child, Emma Fairbanks was sent to an Indian boarding school, where
she was hit with a ruler if she spoke Ojibwe.

But seven decades later, her daughter, Cleone Thompson, runs a child
care center where young children are enrolled in an American-Indian
language immersion program.

"I never thought it would come back," Fairbanks, 79, said. "I was
worried they (future generations) would forget their Indian ways."

Thompson said that in about 10 years, most of the elders on the
reservations will be gone and there won't be anyone left who speaks the
language. Her child care center in her Minneapolis home, Nokomis Child
Care, is part of the first Indian language immersion program in the
nation for urban preschoolers to revitalize native languages.

About 55,000 American Indians are enrolled in tribes in Minnesota.
Roughly 3,000 are fully fluent Ojibwe speakers and about 30 are fully
fluent in Dakota, according to estimates by the Grotto Foundation,
which has focused much of its philanthropy on language revitalization.

Many American Indians can say certain words and phrases, but few can
carry on a conversation, community leaders say.

It is part of the legacy of the boarding schools that American Indians
were forced to go to for decades.

"My parents didn't want me to speak Dakota; they were afraid for us,"
said Jennifer Bendickson, program director at the Alliance of Early
Childhood Professionals, which was awarded the federal grant to launch
the preschools this month. "They would talk to each other in Dakota,
but when we came in, they'd stop."

Universities and tribal schools have offered language and culture
classes over the years. But now, people are finding new ways to keep
native languages alive. There is an Ojibwe immersion preschool in Leech
Lake, and Indigenous Language Symposiums are held annually. In the Upper
Sioux community, a specialized class teaches Dakota to entire
households, rather than individuals. At University of Minnesota,
language students drive up to Canada on weekends in the fall for an
immersion experience at wild rice harvests.

Research shows that immersion programs -- from preschool to high school
-- have the best results, said Margaret Boyer, executive director of
the Alliance for Early Childhood Professionals.

"If you want to learn Spanish, you can go to South America," Boyer said.
"If you want to learn French, you go to France. But there's nowhere in
the U.S. you can go and hear only Ojibwe or Dakota. So the best way to
learn is immersion -- and starting at a young age."

At All Nations Child Care Center, the students practice counting numbers
and saying animal names and colors in Dakota. They also are surrounded
with drawings of symbols in American Indian culture, such as eagles and
wolves.

Similar immersion programs will be launched at Four Directions Child
Development Center, Cherish the Children Learning Center and Nokomis
Child Care. The first batch of Dakota and Ojibwe speakers are expected
to graduate from these programs in three years.

Boyer hopes for a ripple effect -- the students' parents must take a
class to learn the same materials as their children. And people playing
community bingo in the neighborhood the immersion centers are will hear
numbers yelled out in Dakota and Ojibwe, she said.

"Our project rolls a lot of different things into one," Boyer said. "So
all around the community, when people meet each other, they can use the
same words."



(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)