State's tribes devote resources to preserving their languages

By S.E. RUCKMAN World Staff Writer
Published: 8/29/2006  8:36 AM
Last Modified: 8/29/2006  8:36 AM

SAPULPA -- Henry Washburn would say it's a "de che ne," or battle, to keep his native tongue alive.

 

Euchee tribe members Josephine Keith (left) and Maggie Marsey participate in a recent Euchee Language Project class in Sapulpa. Oklahoma tribes are taking various steps to ensure the survival of their languages. JAMES GIBBARD / Tulsa World

 

Learning the Euchee language is painstaking. As an isolated American Indian language, it takes a special determination to learn because it is not linked to an existing language group.

Another trick is recognizing slight variations between the way men and women speak the language. One is "women's talk" and the other is "man's talk." To speak outside of their proper context is not only incorrect but potentially embarrassing.

A group of like-minded Euchees gathers daily to labor over the language of their ancestors. They are part of a small program, the Euchee Language Project.

Launched in the 1990s, the program faces an uncertain future because a federal Administration for Native Americans grant was not renewed, said the program's coordinator, Richard Grounds.

With the loss of the $175,000 grant, the group will look mostly to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, which helps fund the Euchee lingual effort. It focuses on daily classes for adults and weekly classes for children.

"I think the language issue is the most critical in Indian Country," Grounds said. "We need to realize the other problems we have in tribes will be there in 10 years; our languages won't be."

According to the Intertribal Wordpath Society, only 27 of Oklahoma's 38 tribes have language speakers left. Some tribes, such as the Ottawa, Otoe, and Delaware, have an estimated speaker count of less than five each, the society says.

Grounds said those who are attempting to save a tribal language, especially in smaller tribes, face two critical hurdles -- financial and cultural resources.

"Sometimes, we go to language preservation seminars and we cannot relate to them on the same page, because there are such big differences in what they can do and what we can realistically do," he said.
A successful gaming operation can bolster a tribe's language efforts. The Cherokee Nation allocated $1.4 million to its language revitalization program in fiscal year 2005 and increased that amount to $2.5 million in fiscal year 2006, officials said.

Larger tribal census numbers also mean more fluent speakers in a group.

The Miami Tribe in Miami has no fluent speakers left, said Julie Olds, the tribe's cultural preservation officer. That means the 3,000-member tribe does not qualify for most grants to preserve language.

The tribe shoulders the cost of its Miami Project, allocating money in its annual budget for language revitalization. It too is made possible with gaming profits, Olds said.

The Miamis have made significant gains from having no fluent speakers since the early 1900s, officials said. The tribe printed its first Miami language dictionary in 2005. It subsequently mailed a copy to every enrolled Miami member.

"We have tribal members who live all across the country, so it went everywhere," Olds said.

Mary Linn, the curator of native languages at the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History at the University of Oklahoma, said the Miamis' achievements were epic in regard to saving their language.

"Smaller tribes have something working for them that larger tribes don't and that is immediacy," she said of language preservation. "People tend to work better when the crisis is there. They are more unified."

As some tribes search for funding, the 3,000-member Pawnee Nation is banking on a language immersion class that will start in January. It will focus on children, ages preschool to 5.

Immersion is almost nonexistent among the state's smaller tribes, mainly because of the cost. But immersion should be viewed as a solution for tribes who want to save a language, said a native languages linguist, Cedric Sunray.

A tribe has a better chance to restore fluency by surrounding members' children with the language, he said.

The Pawnee Nation used its federal ANA grant to fund the new immersion program, which includes drafting a new pronunciation manual based on phonetics and not linguistics.

The goal is to make the Pawnee language familiar, Sunray said.

"When you're around it every day, your fluency level goes through the roof," he said. "We want to see the fireman's kid, the tribal employee's kid . . . the whole Pawnee tribe get out of the mold."

Linn said Oklahoma has more spoken tribal languages than any other state.

"What a boring world it would be if everyone spoke the same language," she said. "Just imagine if you could not speak to anyone in the language you grew up using, like English. This is why saving tribal languages is so important."