State's tribes devote resources to preserving their languages (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

State's tribes devote resources to preserving their languages

By S.E. RUCKMAN World Staff Writer
8/29/2006
http://www.tulsaworld.com/NewsStory.asp?ID=060829_Ne_A1_State30252

[photo inset - Euchee tribe members Josephine Keith (left) and Maggie
Marsey participate in a recent Euchee Language Project class in
Sapulpa. Oklahoma tribes are taking various steps to ensure the
survival of their languages. JAMES GIBBARD / Tulsa World]

For more
Listen to Maggie Marsey read Psalm 23 in Euchee, here.

SAPULPA -- Henry Washburn would say it's a "de che ne," or battle, to
keep his native tongue alive.

"This is a hard language; I guess there's no other one like it
anywhere," the Euchee elder said, chuckling. "Seems like it was only
yesterday that I was a young boy, listening to my elders speak Euchee
to me."

Learning the Euchee language is painstaking. As an isolated American
Indian language, it takes a special determination to learn because it
is not linked to an existing language group.

Another trick is recognizing slight variations between the way men and
women speak the language. One is "women's talk" and the other is "man's
talk." To speak outside of their proper context is not only incorrect
but potentially embarrassing.

A group of like-minded Euchees gathers daily to labor over the language
of their ancestors. They are part of a small program, the Euchee
Language Project.

Launched in the 1990s, the program faces an uncertain future because a
federal Administration for Native Americans grant
was not renewed, said the program's coordinator, Richard Grounds.

With the loss of the $175,000 grant, the group will look mostly to the
Muscogee (Creek) Nation, which helps fund the Euchee lingual effort. It
focuses on daily classes for adults and weekly classes for children.

"I think the language issue is the most critical in Indian Country,"
Grounds said. "We need to realize the other problems we have in tribes
will be there in 10 years; our languages won't be."

According to the Intertribal Wordpath Society, only 27 of Oklahoma's 38
tribes have language speakers left. Some tribes, such as the Ottawa,
Otoe, and Delaware, have an estimated speaker count of less than five
each, the society says.

Grounds said those who are attempting to save a tribal language,
especially in smaller tribes, face two critical hurdles -- financial
and cultural resources.

"Sometimes, we go to language preservation seminars and we cannot relate
to them on the same page, because there are such big differences in what
they can do and what we can realistically do," he said.

A successful gaming operation can bolster a tribe's language efforts.
The Cherokee Nation allocated $1.4 million to its language
revitalization program in fiscal year 2005 and increased that amount to
$2.5 million in fiscal year 2006, officials said.

Larger tribal census numbers also mean more fluent speakers in a group.

The Miami Tribe in Miami has no fluent speakers left, said Julie Olds,
the tribe's cultural preservation officer. That means the 3,000-member
tribe does not qualify for most grants to preserve language.

The tribe shoulders the cost of its Miami Project, allocating money in
its annual budget for language revitalization. It too is made possible
with gaming profits, Olds said.

The Miamis have made signifiBalance = 20.0 ptscant gains from having no
fluent speakers since the early 1900s, officials said. The tribe
printed its first Miami language dictionary in 2005. It subsequently
mailed a copy to every enrolled Miami member.

"We have tribal members who live all across the country, so it went
everywhere," Olds said.

Mary Linn, the curator of native languages at the Sam Noble Museum of
Natural History at the University of Oklahoma, said the Miamis'
achievements were epic in regard to saving their language.

"Smaller tribes have something working for them that larger tribes don't
and that is immediacy," she said of language preservation. "People tend
to work better when the crisis is there. They are more unified."

As some tribes search for funding, the 3,000-member Pawnee Nation is
banking on a language immersion class that will start in January. It
will focus on children, ages preschool to 5.

Immersion is almost nonexistent among the state's smaller tribes, mainly
because of the cost. But immersion should be viewed as a solution for
tribes who want to save a language, said a native languages linguist,
Cedric Sunray.

A tribe has a better chance to restore fluency by surrounding members'
children with the language, he said.

The Pawnee Nation used its federal ANA grant to fund the new immersion
program, which includes drafting a new pronunciation manual based on
phonetics and not linguistics.

The goal is to make the Pawnee language familiar, Sunray said.

"When you're around it every day, your fluency level goes through the
roof," he said. "We want to see the fireman's kid, the tribal
employee's kid . . . the whole Pawnee tribe get out of the mold."

Linn said Oklahoma has more spoken tribal languages than any other
state.

"What a boring world it would be if everyone spoke the same language,"
she said. "Just imagine if you could not speak to anyone in the
language you grew up using, like English. This is why saving tribal
languages is so important."

S.E. Ruckman 581-8462
se.ruckman at tulsaworld.com