5th annual Lakota Language Summit

Fight to save tribal languages topic of summitCarlow and his group’s annual Lakota, Dakota, Nakota Language Summit brings together hundreds of tribal members and tribal educators from all over the U.S. to share best practices and techniques for improving language fluency. The summit is expected to draw as many as 800 people this year.

This is the fifth year for the event. Participants include Sioux tribes from North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Montana and Canada, as well as tribes from other parts of the country.

The effort expands beyond the Oglala Sioux. More than 20 tribes are represented, including the Standing Rock Sioux, the Winnebago, the Cree and the Dine Nation.

“It’s not to push one way or one method or one orthography or one curriculum. (It’s) to bring everyone together to share so that we can all be exposed to what’s out there—what strategies, what methods, what resources, technologies are out there,” Carlow said.

Tribal members can take the different approaches back home and add to what they are already doing successfully, he added.Brewer pledges to preserve Lakota language

By Andrea J. CookA retired educator, Brewer, 65, addressed the fifth annual Lakota Language Summit, being held in Rapid City at Best Western Ramkota Hotel. Representatives of 23 Lakota-, Dakota- and Nakota-speaking tribes from 11 states and three Canadian provinces are at the summit.

This is a turning point in history for the Seven Council Fires, Brewer said, referring to the seven major divisions of the Sioux Nation.

One year ago, the state and national alliances to save Native languages declared the Lakota language in a state of emergency. An action plan was suggested to the Oglala Sioux Tribe, Brewer said.

“The OST tribal council executive committee did absolutely nothing to address this growing emergency. They wasted an entire year,” Brewer said.

The tribe has pushed off the urgency to preserve the language for a long time, Brewer said. It has been talked about and then ignored, he said.

As tribal president, Brewer intends to lead a Lakota Language Revitalization Initiative that will focus on the creation and operation of Lakota language immersion schools and identifying all fluent Lakota speakers.Below:  "Fred Stands, left, talks with Bryan Brewer, president-elect of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, on Thursday before the Lakota Language Summit at the Ramkota Best Western Hotel. Stands and Brewer lived in a dormitory together at Holy Rosary Mission on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation." (Benjamin Brayfield/Rapid City Journal)