Elaina Albers Is My Niece 

Bringing Our Languages Home: Language Revitalization for Families is a book Edited and with a How-to Guide for Parents by Leanne Hinton (ILI/CILO partner).

Learning More Than a Language

Intensive Kanien’kéha Course a Powerful Link for Mohawk Community

SPECIAL ISSUE BY SAM SLOTNICK — PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 5, 2013

Akwiratékha Martin’s grandmother, like so many of her generation in Kahnawake, didn’t see learning Kanien’kéha—the Mohawk language—as a priority for her children, or her grandchildren.

Martin’s grandmother, who went by her English name, Marina, belonged to a generation who were beaten if they spoke Kanien’kéha, and were told their language was inferior to European tongues.

But after having a stroke in the late stages of her life, Marina asked a then-17-year-old Martin to do something for her.

“Akwiratékha, promise me that you’ll speak the language,” she said. Martin responded like any teenager might: “Yeah, Ma.” Marina passed away shortly thereafter.

Martin not only kept his promise, for the past 8 years he has been helping others in Kahnawake fulfill promises they made to themselves, their relatives, their children or their community.

Access full article below: 

http://thelinknewspaper.ca/article/3962

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30, 2013

Racing To Save A Language

The vesper landscape on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. Barren Butte stands alone from the Barren Hill range. Photo by Dakota for The First Scout.

Lakota Language Nest, An Immersion School
Reviving A Language On The Knife’s Edge Of Extinction

By Dakota for the North Dakota Humanities Council

It is the heart of winter on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. Gleaming white snow blankets the landscape, the Missouri River has turned to ice and the crisp cold air somehow makes every sound sharper–the peal of a bell seems to carry an impossible distance from town–but the sounds of children playing, laughing and singing warms everything.

The children are in pre-school, ages three to four. Their high-pitched play echoes down the hall when their door opens. The pitch of little voices sounds like what one would hear in any other early child care service across the state, but listen closer and it becomes obvious that this isn’t like any other day care service. The children speak a mix of English and Lakota amongst themselves, but the teachers strictly speak only Lakota in the classroom.

This preschool is called Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi, the Lakota Language Nest. It is an immersion school still in its first year of practice and based on the language nest model which was designed by the Maori people in New Zeeland. The language nest was established to raise language loss awareness on the reservation and to raise up a new generation of first-language Lakota speakers.

Access full blog article below: 

http://ndhumanities.blogspot.com/2013/01/racing-to-save-language.html?spref=tw

Can the digital age save the Cherokee language? The halls of Facebook, Google and texting

He has callers on the line, waiting. People want to tell him about road conditions, chapter meetings, and church functions.

If you tell him your bit of news, he will report it, but in a fun way. He throws in trivia, games and that sort of thing.

Werito, a radio personality at KNDN AM radio in Farmington, is considered the Jay Leno of the Navajo Nation, according to some of his listeners.

Access full article below: 

http://bit.ly/XMIqLK

Tribal language programs nationwide have begun summer program preparations for a range of community language immersion and teacher training opportunities. Among Cultural Survival’s advisor programs, the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project and Euchee (Yuchi) Language Project, will offer multi-week language camps for youth focused on building conversational skills and ceremonial vocabulary to engage students as future community cultural leaders. During Summer 2012 Cultural Survival helped sponsor daily youth classes at the Euchee House in Sapulpa, OK, and the first annual Euchee Language Bowl competition. On Cape Cod in Massachusetts, Cultural Survival’s Endangered Languages program co-sponsored the Summer Turtle Camp for three dozen students who participated in traditional tribal fishing, clambake, and other food ways, along with crafts, and daily language lessons including songs, prayers, and performances for their families—and the Governor of Massachusetts on the final day of camp. This summer Cultural Survival is again seeking donors to co-sponsor these invaluable summer youth language and ceremonial training opportunities which are creating new generations Indigenous language speakers and future community leaders.

Cultural Survival also helped sponsor two language apprentices’month-long attendance at summer language teacher training sessions at the University of Arizona in Tucson and the University of Alberta in British Columbia, Canada—at the renowned American Indian Language Development Institute and Canadian Indigenous Languages and Literacy Development Institute.

Language educators nationwide once again have the opportunity to attend the biennial Washington, D.C. based Breath of Life Archival Institute for Indigenous Languages sponsored by the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Endangered Language Fund, and National Science Foundation. 

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ACTION NEEDED NOW: CALL CONGRESS TO REAUTHORIZE THE ESTHER MARTINEZ NATIVE AMERICAN LANGUAGES PRESERVATION ACT   Advocate Now to Preserve Our Native Languages  NIEA needs your urgent attention this week to ensure Native culture and languages are protected and preserved for our next generations.   The Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act (S. 3546), which authorizes and awards grants to support and strengthen Native American language immersion programs - including language nests, survival schools, and restoration programs - is currently up for reauthorization. With your help, we have the opportunity now to get the bill passed through.   TAKE ACTION NOW. Call Senate Committee on Indian Affairs Chairman Akaka (D-HI) at (202) 224-2251 today, and urge him to use the "clearance" process for a quick passage of Esther Martinez.      In your message, tell Sen. Akaka that: The Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act strengthens tribal language, culture, and identity. The survival of American Indian and Alaska Native languages is essential to the success of tribal communities and Native ways of life. The Esther Martinez Native American Languages Act provides tribes with critical support to establish and maintain immersion programs that revitalize Native languages. Download this brief on the Esther Martinez Reauthorization, and NIEA's resolution calling for reauthorization of the act, to learn more. And contact Clint Bowers, your NIEA Research and Policy Associate for additional information.

By some measures, California is one of the most linguistically diverse places on Earth—but unless certain steps are taken, that could change.

“Estimates as to how many indigenous languages were spoken here before contact range from 80 to 100,” says the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival (AICLS) website. “There are 50 indigenous languages that still have one or more native speakers, though these numbers are dwindling fast. There are also at least 30 languages with no native speakers left with descendants who desperately want to regain their languages.”

AICLS, a nonprofit founded in 1992, is one of a number of groups working to revitalize languages in the Golden State.