Anumpa Achukma/Good News

Language Loss Can Be Reversed

2006.09

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.

                                                                                                                                               

Participation

As we approach the solstice and ceremonies associated with it, I am reminded that language represents culture. Consequently, I am urging all to participate in these ceremonies to keep them strong along with the language that goes with them.

Nitak Hollo Chito Yukpa

Da-ni-s-da-yo-hi-hv o-s-da

Yá’át’ééh Késhmish

                                                                                                         

 

News from Indigenous Languages Institute

 

ILI Language and Tech-Knowledge Workshop series has provided local community people, teachers, and organizations with the technological tools and skills to develop their own print, audio, and visual materials in Native Languages. This has been done by teaming up members with technological know how with Native speakers from the same community. The program has been funded by IBM.

 

For more information contact Tom Kauley lmdc@indigenous-language.org.

 

ILI is creating an online site where communities can provide stories in audio or visual form. This project is being done in conjunction with the New Mexico State Library Tribal Libraries Program through the NM Department of Cultural Affairs.

 

For more information about ILI, go to http://www.indigenous-language.org/.

 

                                                                                                         

 

The Esther Martinez Bill

 

The US House of Representatives has approved H.R. 4766, The Esther Martinez Native Language Preservation Act of 2006. The bill authorizes competitive grants through the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services to support American Indian heritage language and immersion schools aimed at children under age seven: It breathes new life into the Native American Languages Act of 1990, focusing more on immersion for younger children. The Senate still must approve the bill and the president must sign it before it becomes law. (SSILA Newsletter XXV:3)

 

                                                                                                    

 

Cherokee Translation

 

One hundred pages of Charles Frazier’s new novel, Thirteen Moons, is being translated into Cherokee. This translation will be published separately. Myrtle Driver, a fluent Cherokee speaker who works for the Eastern Band of Cherokees, is the translator.

 

                                                                                                         

Voices of the Earth

2^nd Annual Threatened Languages Poetry Reading

Sunday, January 14, 2007

5:30-7:30 PM

Harwood Art Center

Albuquerque, NM

If you are going to be in the area, stop on by for a pleasant evening of celebrating this beautiful, creative use of language. This year’s performance includes these languages.

Nahuatl

Irish

Navajo

Hawaiian

Zapotec

Okinawan

Sesotho

                                                                                                                                               

Nahuatl Language and Culture Workshops

Mapitzmitl offers these workshops. You can contact him at pazehecatl@hotmail.com. You can view video footage and photographs of Kalpulli Ehecatl (Community of the Wind) at http://kalpulliehecatl2.blogspot.com.

                                                                                                                                               

Cherokee Language Lessons

http://nativepeople.net/moodle

                                                                                                                       

Send your stories to holabitubbe@gmail.com. Tell us about your language programs, plans, proposals, etc.

                                                                                                                                               

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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

                                                                                                                                               

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

 

George Ann Gregory, Ph.D.

Choctaw/Cherokee

Fulbright Scholar