Keeping native languages alive (fwd link)

[Phil Cash Cash]

Keeping native languages aliveUmatilla program aspires to link youth to
their lingual roots

By NATALIE WHEELER, East Oregonian

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Tribal members living in the Pendleton Round-Up's teepee village stopped,
listened and peeked their heads west when Carina Vasquez-Minthorn sang the
national anthem at Thursday's Happy Canyon Night Show.

Vasquez-Minthorn, 20, a Happy Canyon princess, sang in the Umatilla
language for the first time at the show. Some cried, others clapped and
cheered.

"She hadn't told me she was going to sing in Umatilla," Vasquez-Minthorn's
grandmother Marjorie Waheneka said. "I was telling everyone, 'That's
Carina, that's Carina!'"

Like many native languages, the Nez Perce language and Sahaptin language
group — including Umatilla and Walla Walla — are no longer the mother
tongues of most tribal members. Government boarding schools in the 19th and
20th centuries forbid tribal members from speaking their native language,
and for many years tribal members focused less on their own verse and more
on becoming masters of English.

But with the loss of language comes loss of culture. All the nuances of
explaining something, all the different words for plants, elk, deer and
salmon, help infuse tradition and values into a person, interpreter Thomas
Morning Owl explained. Morning Owl teaches language at Nixyaawii Community
School and helped develop the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian
Reservation's language program.

Access full article below:
http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/sep/14/keeping-native-languages-alive/
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