Ambitious and Controversial School Attempts to Save the Mohawk Language and Culture (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

Ambitious and Controversial School Attempts to Save the Mohawk Language and
Culture

By Tanya Lee July 29, 2012

In 1988 a few parents in the Mohawk community of Kahnawà:ke, 15 miles
southwest of Montreal, decided to try to preserve the language of their
elders by teaching it to their toddlers. So they started a school. Dale
Dione-Dell, one of the founders of the school, Karihwanó:ron Kanien’kéha
Owenna Tsi Ionteriwaienstahkwa, says, “We were not satisfied with the way
the schools were teaching the language. They were not meeting our needs,”
and with fewer and fewer fluent speakers left in the community, the living
language was in danger of being lost. “Being a people requires a language,
a culture and a land base,” she says. “Culture, ceremony and spirituality
are all learned through the language. Our children learn how to offer
thanksgiving to all the natural world” at the end of each school day. “That
is part of who they are.”

Read more:
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/07/29/ambitious-and-controversial-school-attempts-to-save-the-mohawk-language-and-culture-126169
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