Creating language teams in Oklahoma Native American communities

Abstract

I dont have any place to go and talk Indian," was a comment made by an elderly Speaker of Loyal Shawnee (Sawanwa) in White Oak, Oklahoma. The chiefofthe Loyal Shawnee Tribe reports there are 8,000 tribalmembers and yet only a handful of eiders still remember the language. The chief initiated an informal language program, which meets weekly and attempts to record the linguistic knowledge ofthose eiders and to create an environment in which the language of interaction is Shawnee. The story is very similarfor the Euchee Tribe of l,500people just south ofTulsa, Oklahoma. A young lawyer found there were only 10 to 12 fluent Speakers left in his Community. Startled with the finding, he began to organize a language class. This article is an account of what mostly elderly Speakers of Oklahoma Native American languages feel about their languages, what they want to do with the language situations in their communities, and what Community members and education/linguistic specialists have done to revitalize these languages. Special attention is given to issues andproblems of designing programs for language revitalization.

“Our Beloved Cherokee”: A Naturalistic Study of Cherokee Preschool Language Immersion

“…I was also sensitive to my position of privilege, being of primarily European descent and middle-class upbringing. Initially, then, I was uncertain as to whether or not I would be welcomed by the community, but was encouraged by the experiences of others who had dedicated themselves to endangered-language revitalization and had formed partnerships with community members with whom they worked (see, e.g., Linn et al 1998).…”

Chapter 7: Indigenous Elders in Rural America

“…Churches were given federal funds to establish and operate schools on reservations, and some engaged in aggressive proselytizing (Linn, Berardo, & Yamamoto, 1998;McCarty, 1998). Religious conversion meant abdication, not only of traditional religious practices, but also of health practices, which in Indigenous cultures have a strong spiritual component.…”

“…As Fillmore (1994) pointed out, "the question of cultural identity is synonymous with the question of language" (p. 1; as cited in Linn, Berardo, & Yamamoto, 1998). The U.S. government has long recognized the importance of language.…”