‘Through love, we lost the language’ (fwd link)

[phil cash cash]

Published - Monday, June 02, 2008

‘Through love, we lost the language’
By Jason Stein / Lee Newspapers

Note: This is the second in a three-day series by the Wisconsin State Journal
about declining native languages, “Down to a whisper.”

KESHENA, Wis — As her father lay dying in 1972, Kris Caldwell agonized over a
question.

All her life, Caldwell had begged her father, Jim, to share with her the
Menominee language that tribal members believe the creator gave to their
ancestors. But her father, then a 79-year-old former logging boss, would only
teach her a few words. “Why were you so mean to me, Dad?” the then 21-year-old
Caldwell asked the man she admired so much. “Didn’t you like me?”

“What? Oh, you’re foolish, foolish,” her father answered. “Times are changing,
daughter. It’s a white man’s game now. If you want to prosper and get ahead in
the world, you have to learn to play their game and play it better.”

Only years later did Caldwell come to understand the reasons behind her father’s
reticence: The trauma he endured at Indian boarding schools.

Access full article below:
http://www.lacrossetribune.com/articles/2008/06/02/news/z03language0602.txt