10th annual Oklahoma language fair

American Indian students perform during Oklahoma Native American Youth Language Fair

About 600 students representing more than 20 tribes shared their language and creative arts skills during the Oklahoma Native American Youth Language Fair in Norman.

By Ashley WestYoung American Indians representing more than 20 tribes gathered at the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History this week for the 10th annual Oklahoma Native American Youth Language Fair.

American Indian communities place a high value on culture, oratory skills and creativity through expression, and the fair provides a venue for young people to share the knowledge of their ancestors and speak their native languages publicly.

During the fair Monday and Tuesday, participants submitted their works and displayed their talents before a panel of judges. About 600 performers came this year.

The fair also provides students with peer support and new ideas for language learning, organizers said.

Digitizing Alutiiq

Program seeks to recover Afognak's lost Alutiiq words

Kodiak village is starting to digitize video and audio recordings of elders.

By James BrooksThe Native village of Afognak is beginning a long-term project to digitize hundreds of hours of video and audio conversations with Alutiiq elders, converting them into a format accessible to modern researchers. Locked within the recordings may be Alutiiq language words lost to current speakers.

"We want to identify those lost words and bring them back," said Melissa Borton, tribal administrator of the village.

In 2003, a survey found only 45 fluent or semi-fluent Alutiiq speakers on the island. Intensive efforts to revive the language of Kodiak's Native inhabitants have taken place since, but it's not simply a matter of maintenance.

In 2007, April Counceller started the Kodiak Alutiiq New Words Council. Each month, Counceller and a group of elders meet to discuss ideas for Alutiiq words to translate modern items or concepts. In 2010, for example, the group translated "hovercraft" as tengauruasqaq, literally "kind of flier."

Cherokee pen pals

Immersion students share with pen pals in CherokeeThe Cherokee Nation recently started a new pen pal program with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina to encourage and promote stronger cultural interactions in the Cherokee language.

Immersion students in kindergarten, first grade and second grade from both tribes have been exchanging activities, cards and cultural items, all written in Cherokee. Recently, Cherokee Nation’s second-grade immersion students received a package from their pen pals containing materials they collected in the forest. Each student bagged up items including sticks, moss, lichens and rocks and labeled the bags with their Cherokee name.

“The kids are excited and they feel like they’re getting to know the other kids a little bit,” said Denise Chaudoin, Cherokee Nation Immersion School second-grade teacher. “It’s a really good program for the kids in both areas to get to know each other and realize we’re all Cherokees, whether we’re from the east or west.”

The Cherokee Nation Immersion School, Tsalagi Tsunadeloquasdi, began in 2001 as a language preservation program, which aims to educate children in a cultural environment while revitalizing and promoting the use of the Cherokee language. Students in preschool through sixth grade are immersed into an environment where Cherokee is the only language spoken.

Navajo language blog

Navajo Now: Learning and Perpetuating the Navajo Language

Pauma language preservation project

Language preservation helps American Indian students stick with college

By Marisa AghaEducators say that confronting cultural differences is one of the challenges facing American Indian students in higher education. CSU San Marcos, which counts about 40 tribes in its service area, has launched a new California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center aimed at strengthening relationships between the tribes and the campus. The center's ultimate goal is to boost the retention and graduation rates of American Indian students statewide.

Among the center's first efforts is a language preservation project with the Pauma Band of Luiseño Indians in northern San Diego County, made possible by a $40,000 gift from the tribe. Through the project, staff members and students like Murphy have gone to the Pauma reservation to collect photographs and record the native language once predominantly spoken by tribal members.

Then they uploaded the photos and recordings onto cartridges as songs, images, prayers, quizzes and stories, and distributed the cartridges to families on the reservation for use on a Nintendo DSi. A picture of a big brown bear, for instance, appears with the Luiseño word for bear, "hunwut."

The project helps reinforce students' ties to their tribe and ignites academic and technological curiosity, said Joely Proudfit, the center's director and an associate professor at the university.Below:  "Joely Proudfit, right, who teaches at CSU San Marcos, shows Cheryl Zohm, left, and Cathy Deveers how to use a language program on a Nintendo device during a Luiseño Language Preservation Project workshop at the tribal hall on the Pauma Indian Reservation in the Pauma Valley near Fallbrook." (Sandy Huffaker/Special to The Bee)

The benefits of bilingualism

Why Bilinguals Are Smarter

By Yudhijit BhattacharjeeSPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.

This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.

They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.

Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins—one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.

Ojibwe People's Dictionary

Homeroom: University of Minnesota helps create online Ojibwe People's Dictionary

By Mila KoumpilovaGerri Howard was loath to let a digital recorder capture her voice for a new kind of dictionary.

A fluent speaker of Ojibwe on Minnesota's Leech Lake Reservation, she didn't like how she sounded on playback. But the sense of urgency she and other Ojibwe speakers share about their endangered tongue prevailed.

With help from elders such as Howard, a University of Minnesota professor and students have created the first online talking dictionary of Ojibwe. The effort involved crisscrossing Minnesota and Wisconsin to record the voices of the dictionary and brainstorm entries for new-fangled concepts such as "Internet" and "school dance."And:In tandem with the Minnesota Historical Society, the university lined up a roughly $375,000 Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment grant for the project.

Going digital opened up many possibilities: Users can search definitions using both Ojibwe and English. The authors were eventually able to include 30,000 entries, compared to 7,000 in Nichols' "A Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe." Most importantly, Childs said, "You click on a word, and you hear Ojibwe people actually speaking the language."

The dictionary also is a virtual museum of sorts, with photos, drawings and texts from the Historical Society collection complementing the entries. But the new format was also an adjustment.

Lakota Toddler app

Toddlers Can Learn Lakota With New AppLakota Toddler, a new free app available in the iTunes store, is an easy to use, fun way for toddlers to learn Lakota words.

The app has two options on the menu screen —learn and play. The learn option gives users a colorful flashcard with a picture of an object or number, the Lakota word and the English translation. When the screen is tapped, the word is spoken by Dollie Red Elk, reported the Rapid City Journal.

Currently the app has three categories—numbers, food and body—and it says new lessons are coming soon. App creators Isreal Shortman, Navajo, and Rusty Calder, owners of tinkR’ labs, are excited about expanding their latest app and creating new ones.

Their first app, Navajo Toddler, came out last year and started with the same three categories. It now includes animals, colors and phrases.

Shoshone databases, iPads, and software

As elders pass, Wind River Indian Reservation teachers turn to technology to preserve Shoshone language

By Tetona DunlapWhen Teran started the phonetic and audio dictionary project 10 years ago, she said she felt a sense of urgency because there were only a few Shoshone elders who were fluent speakers. Today, Teran estimates that number is even smaller as elders pass away. And for her, that sense of urgency has amplified.

“We’re real poor on elders but our language is really rich and beautiful,” Teran shared. “Time is of the essence.”

In January 2012, Guina passed away, decreasing the number of fluent speakers even more.

“When Manfred passed away my heart just went down,” Teran said. “I thought ‘Geez, that’s one less person.”

In the meantime, she is working to revitalize the language through books rather than audio recordings.

In Oct. 2011, Teran received a grant from the Wyoming Historical Society to write a children’s book called “Elka,” which is a family story about a baby elk Teran’s brothers caught and raised. The book will contain Shoshone words that are translated into English and listed in a glossary. She also received a donation from a family foundation in California of $400 to buy software that will allow her to create a font for the Shoshone language since writing words phonetically can be very long.

And though it may seem that Teran’s idea of capturing the language digitally has stopped for now; the conversation started by Teran and others is being picked up once again — this time with the use of technology such as iPads and computer software.

“The whole idea of using technology is to incorporate language and culture. It’s a very effective tool for me because of student engagement,” said middle and high school Shoshone language teacher Lynette St. Clair. She often has her students utilize laptops and programs like PowerPoint to aid students in speaking Shoshone.Below:  "Lynette St. Clair watches her students Selena Jarvis, D'Etta Durgin, and Sierra Ferris, left to right, using the Shoshone language iPad application she developed." (Brad Christensen/WyoFile)

Animal app is criticized

Native Language App Gets Cool ReceptionA new American Indian language app hit the iTunes store January 20. The app features translations of animals from English to four languages—Diné (Navajo), Lakota (Sioux), Mvskoke (Muscogee Creek) and Ponca.

Each language features a variety of animal translations, which users can click on to hear the word pronounced in their preferred language.

But some users have responded negatively to the effort, one said “14 animals and that’s your app? Come on, do these languages some justice.”

Native American Public Telecommunications (NAPT) created the app and the group’s executive director, Shirley K. Sneve, Sicangu Lakota, responded to the negative comments saying the app is “a simple start.”

Tribal elders to teach languages?

Students could soon learn Indian languages

Bill aims to make it easier to teach them

By Joe HanelIndian tribal elders would be able to work in public schools as teachers of their native languages, under a bill that advanced Wednesday at the state Capitol.

Senate Bill 57 authorizes schools to hire people fluent in native languages, even though they might not have a teaching license.

“The tribes have such a great opportunity to get the tribal elders involved in the program,” said Ernest House Jr., secretary of the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs and a member of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.

Although Southwest Colorado has the state’s only two Indian reservations, the bill is modeled on a program in Denver Public Schools. Denver has the state’s highest Indian population, including an especially large group of Lakota people.

Cherokee language happy hour

NSU students create Cherokee Language Happy Hour

By Tesina JacksonStriving to learn outside of the classroom, Northeastern State University Cherokee language students created a Cherokee Language Happy Hour on Jan. 28 by translating Boomerang Café’s menu from English to Cherokee and interacting with the public.

“From our perspective at the university, especially my students in the programs that we run at Northeastern, they practice Cherokee all day long in classrooms. They practice Cherokee in the hallways there, but they really don’t bring it outside into the community where they can mix with the fluent speakers, where they can mix with the people that use it everyday out on the streets of Tahlequah, out in the roads of the communities,” said Dr. Leslie Hannah, NSU Cherokee programs director. “They’ve got classroom Cherokee, so this is our effort to bring that Cherokee out of the classroom into the community and let them get some community Cherokee because it is a community language.”

At the Boomerang Café, NSU students changed the menus from English to Cherokee so waitresses and customers spoke Cherokee when dealing with food orders.

“Right now we’re really trying to create venues for the language use. So today was a great step in order to get a lot of the parents from the immersion school, as well as children and students from the university to use the language they’ve been learning,” NSU student Hayley Miller said.Below:  Karen and Bruce Gaddis, left, use Cherokee and English menus at the Boomerang Café in Tahlequah, Okla., to order food. On Jan. 28, Northeastern State University students created a Cherokee Language Happy Hour at the café by translating the English menu to Cherokee." (Tesina Jackson/Cherokee Phoenix)

Audio books in Cherokee

CNF to create Cherokee–language focused reading center

By Tesina JacksonThrough a partnership with Cherokee Media Ltd., the Cherokee Nation Foundation plans to create a reading center featuring audio books in the Cherokee language.

“The reading center is a portable resource used in a classroom setting,” said CNF Executive Director Kimberlie Gilliland. “It is incorporated into daily lesson plans to help with literacy and Cherokee language fluency. The reading center is currently being used in the Cherokee Nation Language Immersion School in a first grade classroom.”

The books were written by Ray D. Ketter and Wynema Smith and illustrated by America Meredith. Cherokee sisters America and Samonia Meredith of Noksi Press donated the first audio books. Audio recordings were produced by Andrew Sikora, director at Cherokee Media and feature the voice of Wynema Smith. The book titles are “The Three Bears,” “The Little Red Hen” and “Origins of Oak Leafs.”Below:  "Cherokee elder Wynema Smith reads to students at the Cherokee Language Immersion School in Tahlequah, Okla."

Inuit develop names for STDs

Group to develop Inuktitut health terms

One of the challenges lies in number of dialectsInuit women are meeting in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, N.L., this week to develop Inuktitut words for sexual health.

Right now, there are no standard Inuktitut words for diseases such as HIV-Aids, or for infections such as Chlamydia and gonorrhea.

Health care workers have to describe the infections, and the descriptions can differ between Inuktitut dialects.Below:  "A stop sign in Iqaluit shows both English and Inuktitut. A group of Inuit women are trying to develop Inuktitut words for sexual health issues." (The Canadian Press)

Cherokee Nation's translation department

Cherokee Translators: Translation specialist set on preserving Cherokee language

By Will ChavezCherokee speaker and translator John Ross is focused and determined to do his part in preserving the Cherokee language.

Ross, 56, originally of the Greasy Community in Adair County, is one of six translation specialists in the Cherokee Nation’s translation department where documents, signs, books and other printed items are translated from English into Cherokee.

Ross said his main task is translating three books a month for Cherokee Immersion School students. “That’s our priority. Then we work with all the departments in the Cherokee Nation. We translate words and phrases, and we do about 30 translations a month.”

The department also translates three to four articles from English into Cherokee for the Cherokee Phoenix each month, and coordinates the Cherokee language proficiency test for employees wanting to be recognized for their language knowledge. He said about 100 employees have taken the proficiency test.Below:  Translation specialist John Ross translates a document from English to Cherokee. Ross and five other translation specialists translate documents and create materials for the tribe’s immersion school." (Will Chavez/Cherokee Phoenix)

Native languages for class credit

Native American Languages Could Count For Class Credit

By Carol BerryGoodbye, French and German. Hello, Dine, Lakota and other Native American languages—with some qualifications.

Under a proposed new program in Colorado, European and Asian tongues would remain options for foreign language credit in high school, but Native languages from federally recognized tribes could also be offered for that purpose.

The plan is described in a bill filed January 13 for submission to the Colorado General Assembly by Sen. Suzanne Williams (D-Aurora), a member of the Comanche Nation, and co-sponsor Rep. J. Paul Brown (R-Ignacio).

Space is carved out in the proposal for teachers to obtain authorization for Native American language teaching without being required to complete a teacher preparation program or to have a baccalaureate degree, Williams said. The Colorado Board of Education would establish criteria for the authorization.

Ojibwe documentary wins Emmy

Native Language Documentary Emmy Tours Participating SchoolsLast September, First Speakers: Restoring the Ojibwe Language, a documentary funded through Minnesota’s Legacy Amendment, was awarded a MidWest Regional Emmy for Artistic Excellence in the Documentary-Cultural category.

The golden statuette recently visited one of the many organizations featured in the one-hour film, the Niigaane Ojibwemowin Immersion School on the Leech Lake Reservation near Bena, Minnesota.

“Niigaane kindergarten through sixth grade classrooms participated in the film during late spring of 2010,” said Leslie Harper, the school’s director. “At Niigaane, all academic and social content is taught through the medium of Ojibwe language. In this way, the Leech Lake communities hope to reclaim the Ojibwe language as a vital, necessary language for the coming generations. In order to revitalize and maintain a language, it must be spoken and used by all generations in a community.”

The Emmy is currently on a “Miigwech Tour” to all of the sites that participated in the film. First stop was the Niigaane school, where Harper said the Niigaane students took care of the award and “talked about the importance of our language in today’s world.” The award was at Niigaane until January 6.Below:  "Niigaane Ojibwemowin Immersion School is located on the Leech Lake Reservation near Bena, Minnesota."

Learning languages by Web translation

One Man Aims to Translate the Web Into Every Major LanguageHow is one man going to get 100 million people to translate the web into every major language for free? According to his January 8 post on CNN.com he is giving them something in return.

Luis von Ahn, the founder and former CEO of ReCAPTCHA, Inc., and an associate professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, recently introduced the world to his newest project—Duolingo, where web users can “learn a language for free, and simultaneously translate the Web.”And:Von Ahn took this another step when he asked one of his graduate students how he could get 100 million people translating the web for free. Because more than five million of us have spent more than $500 for language learning software, we want to learn.

This is where Duolingo comes in. Users are “learning by doing,” von Ahn says in the video. The site gives beginners simple sentences in whatever language they want to learn, and as the user translates them they learn what the words mean and are subsequently given more advanced phrases to translate.

“The crazy thing about this method is it actually, really works,” he says. “People really can learn a language with it and they learn it about as well as the leading language software.”

Inuktitut iPad app

New Inuit language app makes learning fun for little ones

Educational tool available in Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun and English.

By Sarah RogersYoung Inuit children are growing up with fast-evolving technology, but some parents fear their traditional language skills just can’t keep up.

That’s what inspired one Iqaluit father to create an educational online game and application software for children in the Inuit language.And:The Inuit-language page presents a list of syllabics alongside Arctic animals. When the user clicks or touches the fish image, they’ll hear the word iqaluk, and then must spell it out using the listed syllabics.

Successful spellers then move onto a page where they can colour in the image they’ve spelled.Below:  "Iqaluit filmmaker Qajaaq Ellsworth’s new app and educational game, Iliarnnarnaqsivuq, or Time for School, is designed to encourage learning among Inuit youngsters. Users choose an avatar, like the ones pictured here, to walk through a day at school, starting from dressing in warm Arctic gear, eating a nutritious breakfast and choosing a safe route to get to school."

Erdrich sisters' Ojibwe-language press

Literature the Ojibwe Way: Erdrich Sisters’ Wiigwaas Press Helps Preserve Ojibwemowin

By Konnie LeMayIn 2008, Heid and Louise Erdrich, both authors and sisters from the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, founded the Birchbark House Fund “to support the work of indigenous language scholars and authors,” Heid Erdrich told Indian Country Today Media Network. In 2010 the two created Wiigwaas Press to publish books solely in the Ojibwe language. Heid oversees the day-to-day operations. Wiigwaas, or birch bark, seemed an appropriate name; the durable bark once served as the medium for delivering messages.

“That was our original writing material for the sacred literature as well as the personal stories,” said Erdrich. “Birch bark was also used for messages such as, ‘We went thataways.’ It was the ‘sticky notes’ of the Ojibwe.”

The sisters first discussed a need for an Ojibwe-language press when Louise helped Mille Lacs Band elder Jim Clark write his autobiography. In 2002 she published that book, Naawigiizis, The Memories of Center of the Moon, through her Minneapolis bookstore, Birchbark Books.

“James Clark has written both in English and in Anishinaabemowin,” Heid Erdrich said. “But the language doesn’t translate precisely.”Below:  "From left, sisters Heid, Louise and Angela Erdrich enjoy some time together. Heid and Louise are authors and have created Birchbark House Fund to support indigenous language scholars and authors and Wiigwaas Press to publish Ojibwe-language books. Dr. Angela Erdrich, a pediatrician at the Indian Health Board in Minneapolis, is on the national board of Reach Out and Read." (Marian Moore)