AP News: Dakota Sioux Language Saved by Scrabble

[Kenneth Ehrensal]

Print Story: Dakota Sioux Language Saved by Scrabble on Yahoo! News
Back to Story - Help
Dakota Sioux Language Saved by Scrabble Mon Mar 27, 6:13 AM ET
 


Those who hope they can stop the Dakota Sioux language from dying have hit on the perfect word: Scrabble.

A special Scrabble tournament in the language made its debut Friday, pitting teams from Sioux reservation schools in North Dakota, South Dakota and Manitoba.

The game is part of the tribe's campaign to revitalize the Dakota language, now spoken fluently by a dwindling number of elders. One survey predicted the last fluent Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota speaker would die in 2025.

"With these efforts, we'll try to prolong that," Darell DeCoteau said as he gestured to a nearby Scrabble board. "This will probably push that back a little bit."

"Start in the middle," David Seaboy told a group of middle-school students from the Enemy Swim Day School at Waubay, S.D. "Everybody help somebody make a word."

The first word to take shape was sa, pronounced "shah" — the color red.

After a few minutes of frantic consultation with the official Dakota Sioux Scrabble dictionary, a team built on the base to form the word sapa, pronounced "shah-pa," or dirty, a word worth seven points.

"This is a good stimulant for the mind," said Seaboy, 63, one of a group of Sisseton-Wahpeton elders, all fluent in the language, who wrote the 207-page Dakota dictionary.




Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. 


      Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
      Questions or Comments
      Privacy Policy -Terms of Service - Copyright/IP Policy - Ad Feedback 
 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/linganth/attachments/20060328/096bd07b/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: ma_nws_1.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 1538 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/linganth/attachments/20060328/096bd07b/attachment.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: ap_small.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 1137 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/linganth/attachments/20060328/096bd07b/attachment-0001.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: z0icmVmdXJsX25ld3NfeWFob29fY29tIg--%2fQ%3d-1%2fS%3d1%2fJ%3d5323BECE&U=129cpj07f%2fN%3d4Gb_AM6.Irs-%2fC%3d-1%2fD%3dFSRVY%2fB%3d-1
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 43 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/linganth/attachments/20060328/096bd07b/attachment.obj>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: g--%2fQ%3d-1%2fS%3d1%2fJ%3d5323BECE&U=13945djau%2fN%3d22b_AM6.Irs-%2fC%3d224039.1983420.3465435.1919853%2fD%3dFOOT%2fB%3d1030392
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 43 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/linganth/attachments/20060328/096bd07b/attachment-0001.obj>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: aG9vX2NvbSIgcmVmdXJsPSJyZWZ1cmxfbmV3c195YWhvb19jb20iIHRvcGljcz0icmVmdXJsX25ld3NfeWFob29fY29tIg--%2fQ%3d-1%2fS%3d1%2fJ%3d5323BECE
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 43 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/linganth/attachments/20060328/096bd07b/attachment-0002.obj>