Cherokee language initiative a welcome development (fwd)

Thu Aug 17 21:42:07 UTC 2006

CITIZEN-TIMES.com
Cherokee language initiative a welcome development
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060817/OPINION01/60816055/1194

As a steamy summer rolls on, the first hints of a change in seasons are
beginning to appear. The temperature has backed off a few degrees, kids
are heading back to school and harvests are coming in from fields and
gardens across the region.

Autumn is always welcomed because of relief from the heat but even more
because it brings with it a renewal of many traditions. Football fans
fire up their love for their favorite squads, connections to alma
maters are rekindled and autumnal rites of all sorts are observed.

We can’t understate the importance of the traditions that tie us to the
land, to institutions and to one another. They’re important.

Some are more important than others. Some go beyond tradition and cut
straight to the core, to the very identity of a people.

That’s why we are excited about a new initiative on the Qualla Boundary
creating language immersion schools to preserve and revive the Cherokee
language.

It’s a language that belongs in these mountains, a language that has
survived attempts to snuff it out completely. But it is still a
language on the edge. The necessary steps to nurse it back to health
are being taken.

Speaker population aging

Currently about 7 in 10 people who speak Cherokee fluently are past the
age of 50. Renissa Walker, Kituwah Preservation and Education Program
manager, noted that in a little over a year, “we have probably lost
over 30 fluent speakers. When you put a speaker in the ground, it’s not
as though another is going to spring up in his place. So we have to be
that seed of the language because that speaker has not been replaced.’’

With more than 13,000 enrolled members, the Eastern Band of the Cherokee
has only around 400 people in the area who speak the language.

Resurrecting and preserving a language is a big challenge, but it’s one
that is being tackled with a comprehensive plan.

• The Cherokee Preservation Foundation recently directed nearly $460,000
in support for the language initiative. The first steps are staffing and
designing the Cherokee Language Academy.

• Around $200,000 of the funds secured by the Foundation are targeted
for the hiring of a fluent Cherokee speaker as a language and community
coordinator, and for a linguist as a language program developer, at
Western Carolina University. In turn, a Kituwah Teaching Fellows
Program is being developed.

• Immersion schooling will be aided by the Kituwah program. Already
under way, the Eastern Band’s immersion program currently has more than
a dozen children up to age 5 involved in a new immersion schooling
initiative. In the program the language isn’t set aside and studied,
but spoken and used in a variety of school subjects. The program is
targeted to expand through sixth grade beginning in 2009.

WCU graduate student Ben Frey, an Eastern Band member, is designing a
Cherokee language class.

‘Saving a language’

WCU’s director of Cherokee studies, Jane Eastman, said, “Immersing
children in a language is the way to save a language. Native languages
are so important. If we can do something to help revitalize the
Cherokee language, it would be an honor to be part of the process of
saving a language.’’

Much is happening in this endeavor. Last week a Cherokee Language
Revitalization Symposium, coordinated by the Tsalagi Aniwoni Committee
and co-sponsored by WCU, was held to bring the community up to date of
language revitalization efforts. Also at WCU, the United Cherokee
Nations Anthem, adopted by the three federally recognized Cherokee
tribes but never professionally recorded, was preserved for the first
time in Project Songbird.

Many good things are happening. However, the clock is running. A small
group of people have to pass down the language, and a new group must
learn and acquire the skills to hand it off to another generation.

It will not be an easy feat.

But thanks to the initiative of the Eastern Band and the efforts of the
Cherokee Preservation Foundation and WCU, the feat is being undertaken.

As Renissa Walker said, “Without the language, many traditions and
history would be lost.’’

As autumn nears, we remember that tradition runs deep in these
mountains. We hope this effort honors and preserves the traditions that
have marked the passing of time here for thousands of years with the
language that describes that passage best.