Program aims to keep dying dialects alive (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Program aims to keep dying dialects alive

Patrick Springer
The Forum - 12/18/2006
http://www.in-forum.com/News/articles/149889

People gather every other Tuesday for soup and a bit of conversational
Dakota language instruction inside the gym of the tribal college in
Fort Totten, N.D.

The idea is to create an informal educational setting for members of the
Spirit Lake Reservation who aren’t fluent in their native language.

“To do it in a non-classroom, non-threatening setting, just to get
people talking,” says Cynthia Lindquist, president of Candeska Cikana –
or “Little Hoop” – Tribal College.

Spirit Lake, on the southern shore of Devils Lake, has perhaps 120
fluent native speakers – most of them elderly – on a reservation with a
population of 4,435.

“We’re losing these native speakers,” Lindquist says. So are many other
tribes. No known fluent speakers of Arikara remain, for example, and
just one fluent Mandan speaker is known to survive on North Dakota’s
Fort Berthold Reservation.

Lindquist was encouraged when she learned of legislation that recently
passed Congress to establish several tribal “language nests” for young
children, as well as language restoration programs and native language
instruction materials.

The legislation was pushed by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., ranking
Democrat on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. “It is part of
retaining the Indian culture,” he said.

Native language programs on some reservations have demonstrated benefits
beyond preservation of endangered languages, with improvements similar
to those for students taking foreign language or music instruction.

“The fact is the kids who are participating in these programs also have
better academic performance,” Dorgan said.

Under the legislation, funding will be available for multiyear grants to
three tribes, schools or other organizations to establish language
survival programs, he said. That will present tribes in North Dakota
and elsewhere with an opportunity to apply for funds to help safeguard
their languages.

“It’s an attempt to preserve an important part of the culture,” Dorgan
said. “A good number of these languages are lost to history.”

Linguists say more than 300 native languages were once spoken in North
America. That number has dwindled to about 175, and one estimate
predicts the number of viable native languages could drop to 20 by
2050.

The Dakota language is spoken by 20,355 in the United States and Canada,
according to figures compiled by Ethnologue, a language database. An
estimated 6,000 Lakota speakers, a very similar dialect, also remain,
making them among the most viable native languages.

But the threat is increasingly critical for languages spoken fluently
only by dying elders, Lindquist said. When she grew up, her
grandparents spoke Dakota, but her parents, who attended boarding
schools that forbade native languages, did not.

“It would be very, very helpful,” she said of the language preservation
measure passed by Congress. “We need a lot more help.”

A renaissance of traditional cultures has been spreading through many
tribes in recent years, which has helped American Indians reconnect
with their heritage, she said. That, in turn, helped boost self-esteem
and combat alcohol and drug abuse, among other problems.

“The healing is coming through the culture,” Lindquist said. “Language
and culture are entwined. Certain words and concepts, for example,
don’t translate into English.”

“It’s critical,” she said of the language preservation funding. “It’s
about time.”

Readers can reach Forum reporter Patrick Springer at (701) 241-5522