Course develops new Kumeyaay speakers (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Course develops new Kumeyaay speakers

By Leonel Sanchez
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
June 3, 2007

[photo inset - EDUARDO CONTRERAS / Union-Tribune. Stan Rodriguez led a
review session in his Kumeyaay language class last month at Kumeyaay
Community College on the Sycuan reservation.]

EAST COUNTY – Stan Rodriguez begins his class with a prayer in the ancient
language of the Kumeyaay Nation.

As a bowl of burning sage passes hands, Rodriguez prays that his students
are prepared to remember the day's lesson.

“So that they can pass it on,” he says, translating the prayer's last words
into English.

For the next 2½ hours, the ponytailed instructor teaches the 12 students a
dying Indian language he is working to revive with help from two East
County community colleges.

“Our language is in danger of extinction. We have few speakers,” said
Rodriguez, who is paid by Cuyamaca College in Rancho San Diego but teaches
the course at Kumeyaay Community College on the Sycuan reservation in the
Dehesa Valley.

[audio inset - Kumeyaay language sample. The FREE Windows Media Player is
necessary to play this file.]

The course has been offered for two years by Cuyamaca College and stands to
gain more recognition next school year, when students transferring to
University of California and California State University campuses can use
the course to meet general education language requirements.

“The course meets requirements for comprehensiveness, academic rigor and
cultural content,” said Cristina Chiriboga, Cuyamaca College's vice
president of instruction. “It is also a vehicle to keep the language and
culture alive.”

The Kumeyaay have preserved their language through more than 10,000 years
and across 17 bands, including Viejas, Sycuan, Campo and Jamul. There is no
traditional alphabet, making the effort difficult.

Some students enrolled in the latest class – which ended May 23 – are
members of Kumeyaay bands who want to get closer to their roots.

“I want to know how to speak my language,” said Alexis Tucker, 15, a
sophomore at Steele Canyon High School in Rancho San Diego.

“It's very enlightening,” said Roy Robinson, 51, of Spring Valley.

Others are not Indian but are fascinated by the culture.

“I like the idea they're preserving the language while the elders are still
around,” said Jan Tubiolo, 67, of Lakeside, who makes presentations on the
life of the Kumeyaay.

The fledgling Kumeyaay Community College provides a place to teach the
language. Recordings are made at the site by members of the Kumeyaay
Language Institute, which includes the few elders on the reservation who
speak it fluently.

“To have a new generation of Kumeyaay speakers is our goal,” said Nubia
Ruiz, director of Sycuan's Education Department, which oversees Kumeyaay
Community College.

Rodriguez, 49, was trained to meet that goal. Rodriguez, a Santa Ysabel
Indian Reservation resident, is a graduate of a Bay Area-based language
immersion program that aims to revitalize 50 California Indian languages,
including Kumeyaay.

“All of these languages are still on their last legs,” said Leanne Hinton, a
linguistics professor at the UC Berkeley and co-founder of Advocates for
Indigenous California Language Survival. “Nobody has been learning these
languages at home for a couple of generations.”

Hinton said there is hope for these languages because of the concerted
effort to keep them going.

“There's a tremendous desire to develop new speakers, she said.

Ray Sandoval, 14, is one of those new speakers. Only a few years ago, he
assumed the language he heard some adults speaking on the Sycuan
reservation was Spanish.

Ray knows better now.

“This class has gotten me more interested in speaking Kumeyaay,” he said.
“My grandmother told me about it. She said it would be good for me to take
it to get more involved in my culture.”

Leonel Sanchez: (619) 542-4568; leonel.sanchez at uniontrib.com

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