Anumpa Achukma/Good News

Language Loss Can Be Reversed

2006.05

This is a newsletter dedicated to reporting the successes in revitalizing endangered languages worldwide. Share your good news with us by sending us an article about your program or current activity in revitalizing an endangered language.

Please forward this newsletter to anyone who might be interested.

                                                                                                                                               

Promote It and Make It Popular

 

Now, it is time to talk about Maori Television. It’s jazzy; it’s snazzy! From 4-11 PM daily, you can watch kohänga reo in Maori, of course, cartoons in Maori, do aerobics in Maori, and “Ask Your Auntie” in Maori and English. There is also a soap-opera-like program to teach Maori. On some days, you can get directions for playing video games in Maori. Every day you can get the news in Maori. Later there are other programs in English, for example “On the Rez,” a Canadian production.

 

After school programming, aimed at young people but often watched by elders, has a high concentration of Maori—using Maori is cool. Even guest hip hop bands learn a little Maori when they appear. In between programs, cameos of different individual Maori, often using some Maori, appear. The use of the Maori language is openly promoted.

 

Then there is Bob Marley in Maori along with Shakespeare and opera. Maori is for use, and it is used everywhere language can be used. Non-Maori newscasters and the prime minister herself begin with “Kia ora,” a common Maori greeting. In fact, Maori is creeping more and more into the daily lives of all New Zealanders. Here are a few words you might hear in broadcasts or see in newspapers.

 

Aotearoa                      New Zealand

Marae                          traditional meeting ground/building

Mana                           integrity

Tino rangatiratanga            sovereignty

Kawanatanga                 right to self-government

Tangata whenua             people of the land (Maori name for themselves)

Whanau                        the extended family

Iwi                                tribe

Hui                               meeting, gathering

Pakeha                         European

 

If there is any area where language can be used, Maori is moving into that area.

 

The advertising industry has shown us the effectiveness of active promotion. The right packaging can make or break a product. Promoting a language definitely creates good effects, and targeting young people is important. Since language change begins with children, our young people need to especially courted in this process, giving them avenues they are interested in for using their own mother tongues.

 

Certainly, preserving the old songs and stories is important. At the same time, a healthy language creates new songs and new stories. Ofelia Zepeda, for one, has taught creative writing in indigenous languages at the University of Arizona. This is for adults, but I would expect to see children doing the same things in indigenous languages that they have been expected to do in English (or some other national language), like making story books, having spelling bees, making videos, or even rapping.

 

I would love to hear about some of these activities, so send me your stories.

 

                                                                                                                                               

 

Some thoughts on the question Whatarangi raised in response to my comment about how long it might take to revitalize a language. In the Americas, language shift began at the time of initial contact about 500 hundred years ago. There is evidence that some communities and families lost their mother tongues within a few generations. There are many historical junctures where cultural and linguistic identity changed for large numbers of America’s indigenous peoples.

 

Language is not static. It changes. Because of that, it may be difficult to know when we have arrived at revitalization. For sure, all we can do is move forward and take our languages with us.

 

                                                                                                                                               

 

Success Stories

 

I

 

Lyle Campbell at the University of Utah presented this success story at the most recent LASSO (Linguistic Association of the Southwest).

 

While visiting linguists worked on documenting these South American languages, Chulupí and Chorote, two Matacoan languages of northern Argentina and Paraguay, the members of the three communities where the linguists were working decided to reverse their language loss. Part of what is interesting about these languages is that spouses always marry someone from another language group. Each child then chooses the language he/she will speak.

 

School, hitherto, has been totally in Spanish. This has had its toll on the use of the indigenous languages, particularly among young people. The community asked the visiting linguists to help them in their efforts.

·        The lay Anglican minister preached the importance of the linguists’ work and support them.

·        Two people did a survey of adult reading in Chorote throughout the region.

·        One of the cacique called a meeting of the elders to sign documents of community support for the work and ask for help with language programs.

·        The director of the school asked the linguists to help to develop materials for bilingual programs.

·        The community asked the linguists to develop education materials in all three indigenous languages, including Wichí, which is not part of the grant.

·        Misión La Paz leaders asked the linguists to document Wichí.

·        Laureano Segovia with 15 years of recordings of Wichí traditional stories asked the linguists to help archive and transcribe.

·        Leaders of Chorote communities declared a need for language programs.

·        Other Chorote communities asked the linguists for help teaching adults to read their language.

·        The La Paz language center will train native speakers in transcription, reading, and writing so they can go take the programs for children and adults to other communities of the region whose leaders have also asked for help, provide adult learning programs for reading in the indigenous languages, and help to preserve their rich oral traditional and culture while working with community members dedicated to doing this.

 

More than anything, this shows how communities with little wealth can come together to revitalize language.

 

II

 

I have a little success story of my own.

 

Recently on the Choctaw Genealogy email list, someone requested help with translating English to Choctaw. I provided part of it. As a result, someone else emailed me about my translation. After a few emails, we decided to begin communicating in Choctaw with each other for the purpose of developing our use of Choctaw. She stated that she didn’t seem to be able to advance with her Choctaw: She speaks Mississippi Choctaw, and I am learning Oklahoma Choctaw. There are dialectal differences in the spoken language and the two orthographies are different. Despite these differences, we started communicating.

 

I have also been working on creating a computer corpus of written Choctaw. I have submitted a chapter about this project for an upcoming book. In preparation for publication, I was asked by the editor to translate all the Choctaw samples I included. I asked my new friend if she might help me—I had noticed she used some of the grammar particles this written piece used. She agreed.

 

I sent her the title of the paper I was working on. She started translating it. Then she took it to her mother, who helped her some. Now, her mother has requested the whole piece because “we never get to see any old Choctaw.” Also, my helper is taking it to other elders to help her with the translation. This young person now has a way to begin advancing in her own language, and I have brought something back to a traditional Choctaw community. This effort to revitalize our language is healing and connecting communities that were ripped apart by the Removal Act of 1830.

III

 

Subject: Windows Office 2003 in Native language: Maori version 

28 November 2005



By REUBEN SCHWARZ

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3492527a28,00.html



A Maori language version of Microsoft Office 2003 will be available free to existing Office users from tomorrow, with a Maori version of Windows XP to follow in two weeks.

 

Microsoft worked with the Maori Language Commission and Waikato University's School of Maori and Pacific Development to create the software, which is a "skin" that sits on top of the English-language versions of Office applications Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

 

It translates most of the text seen on screen by people using the software, such as the contents of drop-down menus, dialogue boxes and error messages.

 

Maori Language Commission chief executive Haami Piripi sees the project as another step in refreshing the image of Maori.

 

"It's a natural progression for languages to extend into new domains," he says. The cyber domain is a very important cutting-edge domain for up-and-coming generations of citizens. A language must be able to survive in the IT world if it's going to survive as a language in the future."

 

The commission and Waikato University translated 325,000 words for Windows and 303,000 words for Office, inventing 2500 terms to translate technical terms such as "hyperlink", or "honongaitua".

 

Mr Piripi expects "quite a big uptake" of the software.

 

The commission estimates that 130,000 adults speak Maori.

 

The Office 2003 skin will be released tomorrow at the World Indigenous People's Education Conference in Hamilton. The costs of development were met by Microsoft, with only incidental costs to the commission.

 

It is one of a series of translations carried out by Microsoft, which is creating skins for Office and Windows XP in more than 40 indigenous languages, such as Basque and Catalan.

 

It is available for download free from http://www.microsoft.com/nz/maori/default.mspx . Copies are also available on CD for $15.

 

Keep those success stories coming in!

                                                                                                                                               

 

Jeanette King at the School of Maori and Indigenous Studies, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ, is interested in hearing from those involved in pre-school language programs. You can reach her at this email address. j.king@canterbury.ac.nz.

 

                                                                                                                                               

 

HoAnumpoli & Abqslams

 

Present

 

Endangered Language

Poetry Reading

 

 

HoAnumpoli and Abqslams present ABQ's first Endangered Language Poetry Reading:  non-world languages (e.g . Spanish, English, French, German, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, etc.) including Native American languages, Polynesian languages, languages, such as Basque, Welsh, Yiddish, Irish & Scottish Gaelic, indigenous African languages, etc.  

 

If you are not sure whether your language is endangered, just ask.  Come celebrate the diversity of language and sound in an afternoon of poetry like you've never heard before. 

For information and sign-up please e-mail  hoanumpoli@yahoo.com

 

What:  Endangered Language Poetry Reading

When:  Sunday, January 15th, 2006 @ 2 PM

Where:  Harlow's on the Hill, Albuquerque, NM

            (nw corner of Carlisle & Central, Albuquerque)

How much:  $5.00 suggested donation, proceeds to go to ILI, Indigenous Language Institute

                                                                                                                                               

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Ho Anumpoli! is a New Mexico non-profit organization. For more information about us, go to http://www.oocities.org/hoanumpoli

Send your success story to us at holabitubbe@gmail.com

                                                                                                                                               

For previous issues of Anumpa Achukma, go to http://www.oocities.org/hoanumpoli/anumpa.html

 

George Ann Gregory, Ph.D.

Choctaw/Cherokee

Fulbright Scholar