Fwd: For immediate release! Please publicize.

[Phil Cash Cash]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -



Endangered Language Activists Bring the World to Kansas

LAWRENCE, KANSAS.

"My grandmother chose not to teach me Kickapoo purposefully. She said, 'You
don't need to know that' because her hair was washed with kerosene and
her mouth was washed out with lye soap for speaking to her sister in our
language. She didn't want that to happen to me," wept JoAnne Grandstaff.
The Kickapoo language, a Native American language spoken in Kansas, is
fighting for its survival, as are many endangered languages worldwide.

Community language activists from indigenous communities within Morocco,
Kenya, Nigeria and North America, met in Lawrence, Kansas at Watson Library
on the campus of the University of Kansas for an endangered languages
conference.  Speakers and signers representing languages as diverse as
Amazigh, Uda, North American Indian Sign Language, Nez Perce, and Ekegusii
joined forces to raise awareness of their language communities and the
endangered status of their languages.  Many have been doing this kind of
work for a long time, but this meeting of minds will also train a new
generation and pass on the knowledge from different parts of the world.

"Most of the time the reason the parents do not transmit the language to
their children is due to the stigmatization and exclusion of the language,"
noted Yamina El-Kirat, a member of the Amazigh community from Morocco,
where she is a linguistics professor.

"Often a key factor is that parents have the false feeling that the many
languages a child might learn will inhibit their knowledge of English,"
said Kennedy Bosire, director of the Ekegusii Encyclopedia and a language
activist from Kenya.  "To change this, we are here for a good purpose and
we want the world to know."

"For us, it's not a question of the parents consciously choosing. The only
language spoken in school is English." relayed Mfon Ibok Asanaenyi, a
barrister and an Uda language expert from Nigeria. "Also, the area is so
impoverished and there is a movement to the urban area and they switch to
the language of the urban area and then their indigenous language is lost."

Also from the Uda community, Prince Chris Abasi Eyo stated, "All
stakeholders in the project of preserving the diverse human cultures
through language revitalization have been asked to re-energize their
language activism through participatory advocacy."

The workshop at the University of Kansas in June and July, CoLang 2012
focuses on language documentation and revitalization.  Held in 2010 in
Eugene, Oregon and 2008 in Santa Barbara, California, the conference
unites linguists and community language activists to attain their common
goals.

"At this meeting, we're taking this diverse knowledge base, scientists and
community activists, and we're seeking ways to transform the world through
language activism, in the best possible way," said Phillip Cash Cash, a
Cayuse-Nez Perce speaker and scholar.

The workshop consists of two weeks of intensive short courses, followed
by an optional month-long course that implements that instruction into
collaborative practice by documenting one of three different endangered
languages.

"We can't imagine the world with one vegetable, one fruit, and language is
part of the nature of the diversity of the world," said Yamina El-Kirat.



About CoLang 2012

The CoLang Institute on Collaborative Language Research website is at
http://idrh.ku.edu/colang2012/

The workshop runs until July 29 and is directed by Professors Arienne Dwyer
and Carlos Nash from the Department of Anthropology at the University of
Kansas. Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation, among
others.



Contact info:

This press release was written by the Activism class participants at CoLang
2012. For follow up, contact the Activism instructors/facilitators:
Phillip Cash Cash at weyiiletpu at gmail.com or 520-904-7364, and Colleen
Fitzgerald at cmfitz at uta.edu



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