language revitalization

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Indigenous languages crucial to cultural flourishing

Indigenous languages crucial to cultural flourishing

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…

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Keeping Language Alive: Cherokee Letters Being Translated for Yale

Keeping Language Alive: Cherokee Letters Being Translated for Yale

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,…

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Tribe fights to keep language alive

Tribe fights to keep language alive

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…

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Languages help save tribal cultures

Languages help save tribal cultures

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…

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Comanche Nation College Tries to Rescue a Lost Tribal Language

Comanche Nation College Tries to Rescue a Lost Tribal Language

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…

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Revival of nearly extinct Yurok language is a success story

Revival of nearly extinct Yurok language is a success story

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…

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Harbor Springs restaurant becomes first to embrace Odawa tribal language

Harbor Springs restaurant becomes first to embrace Odawa tribal language

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…

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

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

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…

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Addressing the crisis in the Lakota Language

Addressing the crisis in the Lakota language

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…

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Klallam dictionary opens window into tribal heritage

Klallam dictionary opens window into tribal heritage

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…

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Immersion School is Saving a Native American Language

Immersion School is Saving a Native American Language

The White Clay Immersion School on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Harlem, Montana is trying to save the A’ani language. Thanks to the school’s efforts 26 students, a record for the school, are currently studying the Native American language...

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Study Evaluates Young Native Adults' Connection to Tribal Lands. Arizona Public Media

Study Evaluates Young Native Adults' Connection to Tribal Lands

University of Arizona master's student Aurora Trujillo is a member of the Taos Pueblo nation in New Mexico, a full-time resident of Tucson during the school year, and is working at an internship in Montana this summer. She is representative of other young adults who do not live on the tribal…

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Survival of the Chickasaw Language

Survival of the Chickasaw Language

Chickasaw is an endangered language, but its chances of survival are much better thanks to the life's work of fluent speaker Catherine Willmond and linguist Pamela Munro. From beginners to conversational speakers, their books have become staples to students of the Chickasaw language everywhere.

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Entering Seneca Nation Territory sign: o : nõtowa' ke : onõ' ohiyo : nõ' (Seneca language)

Huge Push to Save Endangered Seneca Language

The Seneca Nation of Indians have a deep rooted history in Western New York. Stories of their ancestors are here and their culture from ceremonies to traditions is still very much alive. But the language, a huge part of their culture, is dying. That's why there is a big push to preserve the…

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The 2013 Narrm Oration: Taiaiake Alfred

The 2013 Narrm Oration, "Being and becoming Indigenous: Resurgence against contemporary colonialism", was delivered by Professor Taiaiake Alfred on 28 November. Professor Alfred is the founding Director of the Indigenous Governance Program at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.…

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The Ways: Living Language: Menominee Language Revitalization

The Ways: Living Language: Menominee Language Revitalization

Before European contact, the Menominee Indian Tribe had a land base of over 10 million acres (in what is now known as Wisconsin and parts of Michigan) and over 2,000 people spoke their language. Today, their land has been reduced to 235,000 acres, due to a series of treaties that eroded the tribe’s…

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Reviving Yurok: Saving one of California's 90 languages

Reviving Yurok: Saving one of California's 90 languages

California is home to the greatest diversity of Native American tribes in the US, and even today, 90 identifiable languages are still spoken there. Many are dying out as the last fluent speakers pass away and English dominates. But one tribe is having success reviving the Yurok language, which was…

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The Ways: Language Apprentice: Bringing Back the Ho-Chunk Language

The Ways: Language Apprentice: Bringing Back the Ho-Chunk Language

Members of the Ho-Chunk Nation work hard to sustain their culture and beliefs. They believe it is essential to keep their traditional knowledge alive by passing on their culture and language from elders to younger generations. In their continued efforts to maintain their traditional knowledge, the…

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Native Report: Season 5: Episode 5

Native Report: Season 5: Episode 5

This week the Native Report crew visits the Waadookodaading the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe language immersion school. Also come with us to the Honor the Earth Powwow, one of the largest and oldest powwows in the region. And we talk with noted writer David Treuer and hear his thoughts on Native…

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Betting on a School

Betting on a School

Ninety miles east of downtown Los Angeles in the San Bernardino Mountains, a school for Native American children peers down onto its main benefactor, a glittering, Las Vegas-style casino and hotel owned and operated by the Morongo Band of Mission Indians. Millions of dollars spent in the casino by…