grassroots programs

[Rudy Troike]

Dear Tammy,

   That's great to hear what you are doing. My old friend, the late great
Bea Medicine, once told me that when she was growing up, there was even a
newspaper in Dakotah that people read. It would be great if that could
happen again. Keep up the good work!

   Rudy

   Rudy Troike
   University of Arizona


Quoting Tammy DeCoteau <tdc.aaia at verizon.net>:

All good comments Cathy and Rudy.  I too think it is crucial to make "language
relevant to their daily lives."  Once someone told me that surrounding 
yourself
in the language is a form of immersion.  So we have a little project that I
call, "surrounding the community in the language."  We try to put Dakotah
everywhere.  At the store, at the tribal office, at the schools, on facebook,
on twitter, in the hallways of the buildings, in the restaurant, on the tribal
radio station.  We need to combat the thinking, "Well, I'm never going to
use it anyway."

We made little cards for the local flower shops so the cards are in 
Dakotah and
they express the way we feel about things.   The sympathy cards say 
things like,
"I will see you again" and "they’re with their relatives now."  We even
made a full line of greeting cards in Dakotah.


Tammy DeCoteau
AAIA Native Language Program


>   On Jul 23, 2011, RUDY TROIKE  wrote:  I like the thought of 're-branding',
> and incorporating language into a
> different context. There is often funding for collecting 'oral history',
> for example, which of course necessarily involves language. Collecting
> native terms for aspects of the environment, as a means of discovering
> changes in flora and fauna, can be a basis for funding. Some years ago,
> I worked with some programs which were aimed at bilingual vocational
> training. One program on the Rosebud Sioux reservation, which aimed at
> training people in building trades, using Lakota and English, had the
> remarkable effect of reaching one man who had never completed a training
> program before, and was regarded by the community as a hopeless case (all
> the previous programs offered before had been in English). Even younger
> community members were impressed that he had completed the course, got
> a job, and set up a savings account in the bank for the first time in
> his life. Validating the language in non-traditional contexts can be a
> powerful way of demonstrating that it is not just a relic of the past
> which is irrelevant in the present, or has only emotional value. And
> people can gain useful (and even marketable) skills in the process,
> while making the language relevant to their daily lives.
> Rudy Troike
> University of Arizona