language revitalization

Indigenous languages crucial to cultural flourishing

Author
Producer
Rabble.ca
Year

I believe our languages to be so central to who we are as Indigenous peoples, that I cannot discuss our present or our future without reference to languages. The oppression we have faced, and continue to face, does not define us in the way our languages do. Our resilience, and the fact that we have not disappeared all the times it was predicted that our end was just around the corner, is very much rooted in our languages. The ability to transmit our languages to our children has been actively interfered with for generations, and remains greatly threatened. The fact that anyone remains at all to speak our languages is a cause for celebration, and such tenacity in the face of unimaginable adversity warrants admiration. Think about that for a moment....

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Âpihtawikosisân (Chelsea Vowel). "Indigenous languages crucial to cultural flourishing." Rabble.ca. December 4, 2013. Blog. (http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/apihtawikosisan/2013/12/indigenous-langu..., accessed July 25, 2023)

Keeping Language Alive: Cherokee Letters Being Translated for Yale

Producer
Indian Country Today
Year

Century-old journals, political messages and medicinal formulas handwritten in Cherokee and archived at Yale University are being translated for the first time.

The Cherokee Nation is among a small few, if not the only tribe, that has a language translation department who contracts with Apple, Microsoft, Google and Ivy League universities for Cherokee translation projects...

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Cherokee Nation. "Keeping Language Alive: Cherokee Letters Being Translated for Yale." Indian Country Today. September 27, 2013. Article. (https://ictnews.org/archive/keeping-language-alive-cherokee-letters-being-translated-for-yale, accessed August 1, 2023)

Tribe fights to keep language alive

Year

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 last week’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...

Resource Type
Citation

Wheeler, Natalie. "Tribe fights to keep language alive." The East Oregonian. September 17. 2013. Article. (http://www.bendbulletin.com/article/20130917/NEWS0107/309170370/, accessed September 18, 2013)

Languages help save tribal cultures

Year

It’s been said that the traditions of Indian culture are embedded within our tribal languages. But for several generations, the majority of people who spoke their tribal language have passed on without new speakers taking their place. This has caused widespread concern among tribal communities and sparked a renaissance of culture and language across Native America...

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

McKosato, Harlan. "Languages help save tribal cultures." Santa Fe New Mexican. July 6, 2013. Article. (http://www.santafenewmexican.com/opinion/local_columns/article_9fec1194-..., accessed August 23, 2013)

Comanche Nation College Tries to Rescue a Lost Tribal Language

Producer
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Year

A two-year tribal college in Lawton, Okla., is using technology to reinvigorate the Comanche language before it dies out. Two faculty members from Comanche Nation College and Texas Tech University worked with tribal elders to create a digital archive of what's left of the language. Only about 25 people nationwide speak Comanche, down from about 15,000 in the late 1800s, they estimate.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Mangan, Katherine. "Comanche Nation College Tries to Rescue a Lost Tribal Language." The Chronicle of Higher Education. June 9, 2013. Article. (http://www.chronicle.com/article/Comanche-Nation-College-Tries/139631/, accessed March 29, 2023)

Harbor Springs restaurant becomes first to embrace Odawa tribal language

Year

Aanii Biindigen. Miigwech baamaapii. Hello, come in. Thank you, until later.

Those traditional greetings in Anishinaabemowin, the language of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, were lettered on the front door Tuesday at Out to Lunch, a breakfast and lunch restaurant on State Street in Harbor Springs, embracing the language of the people who first lived in Northern Michigan.

The move is one Odawa tribal members hope the local community in and around Harbor Springs -- where the tribe is based -- will potentially begin a movement to embrace its local Native American heritage...

Resource Type
Citation

Hubbard, Brandon. "Harbor Springs restaurant becomes first to embrace Odawa tribal language." Petoskey News. June 12, 2013. Article. (http://www.petoskeynews.com/news/featured/pnr-harbor-springs-restaurant-..., accessed May 31, 2023)

Speaking a culture: How efforts to revitalize a language can have a ripple effect

Author
Producer
News-Review
Year

Carla Osawamick stands in front of a class of students with a wide range of life experiences, from one still in high school to a great-grandmother.

The students all have one thing in common: they are dedicated to learning and speaking Anishinaabemowin, the language spoken by many Native Americans in the Great Lakes region, including the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians.

Osawamick is teaching an intermediate language class at North Central Michigan College in Petoskey, where two sections of beginning and two sections of intermediate courses in the language are offered.

Resource Type
Citation

Coe, Aebra. "Speaking a culture: How efforts to revitalize a language can have a ripple effect." Petoskey News. June 12, 2013. Article. (https://www.petoskeynews.com/speaking-a-culture-how-efforts-to-revitalize-a-language, accessed November 30, 2023)

Addressing the crisis in the Lakota language

Year

With only 2 to 5 percent of children currently speaking Lakota, Thomas Short Bull, president of the Oglala Lakota College, said the time has come to raise the alarm.

As the day begins at the Lakota Language Immersion School, a young boy passes an abalone bowl of sage to each child sitting on the floor in a circle. Children from kindergarten through third grade gather for the morning ceremony with prayers, songs, and a short discussion of things to know and remember...

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Rose, Christina. "Addressing the crisis in the Lakota language." Native Sun News. April 26, 2013. Article. (http://www.indianz.com/News/2013/009473.asp, accessed February 28, 2023)

Klallam dictionary opens window into tribal heritage

Year

It weighs in at nearly six pounds, fills more than 1,000 pages, and represents the work of many hands and hearts.

The Klallam people’s first dictionary for what was always an unwritten language was built syllable-by-syllable, from tapes and spoken words transcribed into a phonetic alphabet.

The work was a race against time: About 100 people spoke Klallam as their first language when he first began learning Klallam in 1978, said Timothy Montler, a University of North Texas linguistics professor, and author of the dictionary. By the time the dictionary was published by the University of Washington Press last September, only two were left...

Resource Type
Citation

Mapes, Lynda V. "Klallam dictionary opens window into tribal heritage." The Seattle Times. January 22, 2013. Article. (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/klallam-dictionary-opens-window-into-tribal-heritage/, accessed August 1, 2023)

Revival of nearly extinct Yurok language is a success story

Author
Year

Carole Lewis throws herself into her work as if something big is at stake. "Pa'-ah," she tells her Eureka High School class, gesturing at a bottle of water. She whips around and doodles a crooked little fish on the blackboard, hinting at the dip she's prepared with "ney-puy" – salmon, key to the diet of California's largest Native American tribe. For thousands of years before Western settlers arrived, the Yurok thrived in dozens of villages along the Klamath River. By the 1990s, however, academics had predicted their language soon would be extinct. As elders passed away, the number of native speakers dropped to six. But tribal leaders would not let the language die. Last fall, Eureka High became the fifth and largest school in Northern California to launch a Yurok-language program, marking the latest victory in a Native American language revitalization program widely lauded as the most successful in the state...

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Romney, Lee. "Revival of nearly extinct Yurok language is a success story." Los Angeles Times. February 6, 2013. Article. (http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/06/local/la-me-yurok-language-20130207, accessed October 18, 2023)