Arizona to certify Native language teachers

Arizona Adopts Native American Language Teacher Certification PolicyA new policy will enable certified Native language speakers to teach their Native languages in Arizona classrooms.

“These Native American languages are in danger of becoming extinct. It is imperative that we work to support Native American communities in their efforts to preserve their languages through the generations,” said Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal in a press release.

Of the 22 tribal governments in the state, the Navajo Nation is already participating, and others are drafting proficiency assessments to take part.

The Native American Language Certification Policy was developed by the Arizona Department of Education and Native American tribes and was unanimously adopted by the State Board of Education.

Reinvigorating language through radio

Radio Free Cherokee: Endangered Languages Take to the Airwaves

How indigenous tongues facing extinction are finding new life on community radio stationsLoris Taylor, the CEO and president of Native Public Media, still has the scars on her hands from when she was caught speaking Hopi in school and got the sharp end of the ruler as a result. "They hit so hard, the flesh was taken off," she remembers. "Deep down inside, it builds some resistance in you."

Now, she's at the forefront of a movement to revive dead and dying languages using an old medium: radio. As CEO and president of Native Public Media, she's lobbied the FCC and overseen projects to get increasingly rare tongues like Hopi onto airwaves so that Native Americans can keep their ancestors' ways of speaking alive—and pass those ways of speaking to new generations.

"At a certain time, people thought 'We live in a white man's world and have to change our language to make it.' But now we see how wrong that was." Similar efforts are taking place worldwide. In Ireland, Dublin's youthful Top-40 Raidio Ri-Ra and Belfast's eclectic indie Raidio Failte have been broadcasting entirely in Irish for several years. In Washington, D.C. earlier this month, indigenous radio producers from Peru, Mexico, Canada, El Salvador, and a handful of other countries gathered for the "Our Voices on the Air" conference, organized by the 40-year-old nonprofit Cultural Survival and the Smithsonian's Recovering Voices program.

Following centuries of oppression that have marginalized minority languages, radio represents a modest but surprisingly promising way to reinvigorate the traditions keeping those languages alive. In the Maori community of New Zealand, for example, the combination of 21 radio stations and rigorous early childhood immersion programs have brought Maori-languages speakers from an all-time low of 24,000 in the 1980s to 131,000 in 2006, according to Mark Camp, deputy executive director at Cultural Survival.

"It's not a silver bullet, but it's an important piece," Camp says of radio. "If you don't have some sort of media—and radio is the best in our opinion—to counterbalance the predominant commercial media that is all in Spanish or in English, it makes language less of a modern, living thing. It becomes something that you might do with your grandparents."Below:  "Arizona's KUYI 88.1 broadcasts in Hopi to approximately 9,000 people." (KUYI)

Documentary about Tewa language

Documentary Follows Native Students Learning and Preserving Tewa Language

By Vincent SchillingIn November 2009, Santa Fe Preparatory School in Santa Fe, New Mexico sent out a newsletter announcing a self-study curriculum in which Native teenagers would study the Tewa language with the help of a mentor. When producer/director Aimée Broustra heard about it she decided to make a documentary.

“I knew this would be a story of inspiration and hope and it was a story that needed to be told,” Broustra said during a radio interview on Talk 1260 KTRC.

“The teenagers in The Young Ancestors are motivated and enthusiastic about learning because they understand the symbiotic relationship between language and culture; that one cannot survive for too long without the other,” Broustra says on the documentary’s website, TheYoungAncestors.com. “In a broader context the documentary explores the burgeoning movement by Native Americans to revitalize their native languages in tribes throughout America.”And:In the film, the Native youth, who are all Tewa, spend hours learning the Tewa language with mentor Laura Kaye Eagles, a seventh grade literature teacher at Santa Fe Prep. The pilot program is administered with the Indigenous Language Institute to help revitalize Native languages. The students get language credit for studying Tewa, as opposed to studying French or Spanish.

“We’re Native American, that’s who we are and we’re proud of it. We have that tradition backing us up,” Jordan Naranjo says in the film.

“I could hear my ancestors before but now that I am learning the language, I feel connected with my ancestors in everything I do,” Jeremy Montoya says.Below:  "Native students study Tewa with mentor Laura Kaye Eagles, a seventh grade literature teacher at Santa Fe Preparatory School in Santa Fe, New Mexico."

Siletz Dee-ni Talking Dictionary

Tribe Revives Language on Verge of Extinction

By Kirk JohnsonLocal native languages teeter on the brink of oblivion all over the world as the big linguistic sweepstakes winners like English, Spanish or Mandarin ride a surging wave of global communications.

But the forces that are helping to flatten the landscape are also creating new ways to save its hidden, cloistered corners, as in the unlikely survival of Siletz Dee-ni. An American Indian language with only about five speakers left—once dominant in this part of the West, then relegated to near extinction—has, since earlier this year, been shouting back to the world: Hey, we’re talking. (In Siletz that would be naa-ch’aa-ghit-’a.)

“We don’t know where it’s going to go,” said Bud Lane, a tribe member who has been working on the online Siletz Dee-ni Talking Dictionary for nearly seven years, and recorded almost all of its 10,000-odd audio entries himself. In its first years the dictionary was password protected, intended for tribe members.

Since February, however, when organizers began to publicize its existence, Web hits have spiked from places where languages related to Siletz are spoken, a broad area of the West on through Canada and into Alaska. That is the heartland of the Athabascan family of languages, which also includes Navajo. And there has been a flurry of interest from Web users in Italy, Switzerland and Poland, where the dark, rainy woods of the Pacific Northwest, at least in terms of language connections, might as well be the moon.Below:  "Bud Lane, a tribe member, has worked on the online Siletz Dee-ni Talking Dictionary for nearly seven years. Stabilization of the language is the goal now, but he hopes to create a pool of speakers so it will not go away." (Thomas Patterson for The New York Times)

Lakota Song and Dance Project

Revitalizing the Lakota language through danceWith the Lakota-speaking population rapidly aging and decreasing, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota is trying to encourage young children to take an interest in a language that is, in many ways, secondary to English.

The tribe's Child Care Service's Song and Dance Project aims to teach families how to make colorful, detailed dancing regalia and teaches the intricate dances to the children so they can perform in the annual wacipi, or powwow.

The hope is that the song and dance will help re-energize both parents' and children's excitement about their culture. It also encourages parents to take an active role in their kids' lives.

"It's putting identity and pride back into the people," said Gale Spotted Tail, director of the Child Care Services.

Dakota One phone app

New app for equipment teaches kids Dakota languageThe Marty Indian School on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota has released a new language app designed to teach children the Dakota language.

The app is called Dakota One. It includes more than 700 sound files and images in 25 categories including animals, numbers and clothing.

A news release from the school says the app is available to download for the iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone for $9.99 from the iTunes store.

The Dakota language is spoken by the Dakota people of the Sioux tribes. It is closely related to the Lakota language.

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)