Technology helps tribe pass on native speech (fwd link)

[phil cash cash]

Technology helps tribe pass on native speech

By Ann Marie Bush
The Capital-Journal
Published Wednesday, March 05, 2008

POTAWATOMI RESERVATION — Cecelia "Meeks" Jackson is helping revitalize an almost
lost language.

Jackson, 85, is one of six people nationwide who fluently speak the Potawatomi
language, Sydney Van Zile, director of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Language
Center, said Tuesday.

Thanks to advanced technology, Jackson is sharing her knowledge with other
members of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation through the Phraselator Language
Companion, a one-way translator.

"We are in a highly critical state now," Van Zile said of the language. "Life
happens. There are things that replace it."

The Phraselator Language Companion was invented by the U.S. military to
communicate with Iraqis in the war on terror, said Don Thornton, president of
Thornton Media Inc., based in Banning, Calif.

Full article link below:
http://www.cjonline.com/stories/030508/loc_253864388.shtml