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Teaching Indigenous Languages Saturday, April 5, 2008 Teaching Indigenous Languages books | conference | articles | columns | contact | links | index | home Selected Resources on Native American Language Renewal Jon Reyhner The annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages conferences have sought since 1994 to bring together tribal educators and experts on linguistics, language renewal, and language teaching to lay out a blueprint of policy changes, educational reforms, and community initiatives to stabilize and revitalize American Indian and Alaska Native languages. Much of the relevant previous literature on the subject is cited in the various papers included in Stabilizing Indigenous Languages, especially in Dr. Burnaby's paper in Section I, which emphasizes the Canadian experience. Since the publication of Stabilizing Indigenous Languages in 1996, Northern Arizona University has published five related books: * Reyhner, J.; Trujillo, O.; Carrasco, R.L.; & Lockard, L. (Eds.). (2003). Nurturing Native Languages. Flagstaff, AZ: Northern Arizona University. On-line at http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/NNL/ * Burnaby, B., & Reyhner. J. (Eds.) (2002). Indigenous Languages Across the Community. Flagstaff, AZ: Northern Arizona University. On-line at http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/ILAC/ * Reyhner, J.; Martin, J.; Lockard, L.; Gilbert, W.S. (Eds.). (2000). Learn in Beauty: Indigenous Education for a New Century. Flagstaff, AZ: Northern Arizona University. On-line at http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/LIB/LIBconts.html * Reyhner, J.; Cantoni, G.; St. Clair, R.; & Parsons Yazzie, E. (Eds.). (1999). Revitalizing Indigenous Languages. Flagstaff, AZ: Northern Arizona University. On-line at http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/RIL_Contents.html * Reyhner, J. (Ed.). (1997). Teaching Indigenous Languages. Flagstaff, AZ: Northern Arizona University. On-line at http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/TIL_Contents.html The proceedings of the 1999 Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Conference

resources Home On-line Research Dictionaries Bibliographies Indexes CD-ROMs On-Line Research DIGITAL DREAMING: A National Review of Indigenous Media and Communications Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission http://www.atsic.gov.au/Programs/broadcasting/Digital_Dreaming/default.asp Guidelines for Strengthening Indigenous Languages Adopted by Assembly of Alaska Native Educators. Anchorage, Alaska, February 6, 2001 Alaska Native Knowledge Network http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/standards/Language.html The Role of the Computer in Learning Ndjébbana Glenn Auld. Language Learning & Technology. Special Issue, Technology and Indigenous Languages. Volume 6, Number 2, May 2002. http://llt.msu.edu/vol6num2/default.html Internet Strategies for Empowering Indigenous Communities in Teaching and Learning Ron Aust, Brian Newberry, and Paul Resta. INET, 1996. http://www.isoc.org/isoc/whatis/conferences/inet/96/proceedings/h4/h4_4.htm Charter Schools Keep Native Language Alive by Rhoda Barton. Northwest Education Magazine, Vol. 9, No.3, Spring 2004. http://www.nwrel.org/nwedu/09-03/charter.php Saving a Language with Computers, Tape Recorders, and Radio Ruth Bennet. 2003. In Nuturing Native Languages. Reyner, J., Octaviana V. Trujillo, Roberto Luis Carrasco, and Louise Lockard. Northern Arizona University. http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/NNL/NNL_5.pdf Reversing Russia's Indigenous Languages Shift in View of International Experience: A Policy Brief for the FSA Contemporary Issues Fellowship Program. Tamamara Borgoiakova. http://www.irex.org/programs/ci/spotlight/03-feb-jun/Borgoiakova.pdf CAN THE WEB HELP SAVE MY LANGUAGE? Laura Buszard-Welcher. Published in Leanne Hinton and Ken Hale, eds. (2001) The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice. Pp. 331-48. San Diego: Academic Press. http://www.potawatomilang.org/Reference/endlgsweb4.htm In the Language of Our Ancestors Programs in Montana and Washington Give Voice to Disappearing Words by Mindy Cameron. Northwest Educat

ScholarSpace at University of Hawaii at Manoa > Language Documentation > Language Documentation & Conservation > Language Documentation & Conservation Special Publications > LD&C Special Publication No. 1: Documenting and Revitalizing Austronesian Languages > Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10125/1355 Title: Chapter 7. E-learning in Endangered Language Documentation and Revitalization Author(s): Rau, D. Victoria Yang, Meng-Chien Keywords: e-learning Yami Orchid Island Taiwan Issue Date: 25-Apr-2008 Series/Report no.: LD&C Special Publication 1 Abstract: This chapter analyses the application of e-learning in the revitalization of endangered languages. It outlines the areas in which e-learning is efficacious, the attitudes of the indigenous language teachers to e-learning, the feelings of the Yami community toward this kind of pedagogy, and the reactions of the users, mostly young and adolescent learners of Yami. The findings are based on the results of surveys and in-depth studies in the Yami community and also on surveys made in a nation-wide seminar that enrolled teachers of the majority of the still-spoken aboriginal languages in Taiwan. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to gather empirical data to address questions in the following three areas: (1) the contexts of developing e- Learning materials for endangered indigenous languages in Taiwan, (2) the indigenous language teachers' perceptions of e-Learning in Taiwan, and (3) the attitudes of the Yami community on Orchid Island toward e-Learning. This chapter provides a model for the many language revitalization projects underway in Taiwan and worldwide to take advantage of e-Learning. It also provides guidelines that enable each project to better understand the kinds of e-Learning that workto make e-Learning acceptable and efficacious. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10125/1355 ISBN: 978-0-8248-3309-1 Appears in Collections: LD&C Special Public

Preface Richard E. Littlebear Our Native American languages have been oral since time immemorial. Some of them have been written only in the last three centuries. We must remember this oral tradition when we teach our languages. We sometimes negate this oral tradition by blindly following the only model for language teaching we know: the way we were taught the English language with its heavy emphasis on grammar. Teaching our languages as if they had no oral tradition is one factor which contributes to the failures of our Native American language teaching programs so that we now have what amounts to a tradition of failure. Probably because of this tradition of failure, we latch onto anything that looks as though it will preserve our languages. As a result, we now have a litany of what we have viewed as the one item that will save our languages. This one item is usually quickly replaced by another. For instance, some of us said, "Let's get our languages into written form" and we did and still our Native American languages kept on dying. Then we said, "Let's make dictionaries for our languages" and we did and still the languages kept on dying. Then we said, "Let's get linguists trained in our own languages" and we did, and still the languages kept on dying. Then we said, "Let's train our own people who speak our languages to become linguists" and we did and still our languages kept on dying. Then we said, "Let's apply for a federal bilingual education grant" and we did and got a grant and still our languages kept on dying. Then we said, "Let's let the schools teach the languages" and we did, and still the languages kept on dying. Then we said, "Let's develop culturally-relevant materials" and we did and still our languages kept on dying. Then we said, "Let's use language masters to teach our languages" and we did, and still our languages kept on dying. Then we said, "Let's tape-record the elders speaking our languages" and we did and still our languages ke

Preserving While Documenting Documentation is the key to preserving endangered languages. Linguists are trying to document as many as they can by describing grammars and structural features, by recording spoken language and by using computers to store this information for study by scholars. Many endangered languages are only spoken; no written texts exist. So it is important to act quickly in order to capture them before they go extinct. To help preserve endangered languages, E-MELD (Electronic Metastructure for Endangered Language Data) aims to boost documentation by: * duplicating and digitizing high-quality recordings in an archival form; * emphasizing self-documenting and software-independent data; * giving linguists a toolkit to analyze and compare languages; * developing a General Ontology for Linguistic Description (GOLD) to allow interoperability of archives, and comparability of data and analysis. In another kind of archiving, Joel Sherzer, Anthony Woodbury and Mark McFarland (University of Texas at Austin) are ensuring that Latin America's endangered languages are documented through The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA). This Web-accessible database of audio and textual data features naturally-occurring discourse such as narratives, ceremonies, speeches, songs, poems and conversation. Using their Web browsers, scholars, students and indigenous people can access the database, search and browse the contents and download files using free software. Documentation is the right thing to do for both cultural and scientific reasons. According to NSF program director Joan Maling, we must explore as many different languages as we can to fully understand this uniquely human capacity-"Language" with a capital L. "Just as biologists can learn only from looking at many different organisms, so linguists and language scientists can learn only from studying many different human languages," she says. "Preserving lingu

Technology helps tribe pass on native speech By Ann Marie Bush The Capital-Journal Published Wednesday, March 05, 2008 POTAWATOMI RESERVATION - Cecelia "Meeks" Jackson is helping revitalize an almost lost language. Jackson, 85, is one of six people nationwide who fluently speak the Potawatomi language, Sydney Van Zile, director of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Language Center, said Tuesday. Print E-mail Comment Anthony S. Bush / The Capital-Journal Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation elder Cecelia "Meeks" Jackson works with Laverne Haag on recording translations from English to Potawatomi for the Phraselator on Tuesday. The Phraselator is a one-way communication translator being used by the Prairie Band Pottawatomi Nation to record and teach its language, which is spoken fluently by only six people. PRAIRIE BAND POTAWATOMI NATION The Potawatomi are very protective of their language. However, they did share three greetings: Bosho: Hello Bosho Nikan: Hello, friend Nitte na kin: How are you? Source: Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation Thanks to advanced technology, Jackson is sharing her knowledge with other members of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation through the Phraselator Language Companion, a one-way translator. "We are in a highly critical state now," Van Zile said of the language. "Life happens. There are things that replace it." The Phraselator Language Companion was invented by the U.S. military to communicate with Iraqis in the war on terror, said Don Thornton, president of Thornton Media Inc., based in Banning, Calif. After Thornton read about the technology, he contacted the defense contractor, Voxtec, for the right to use the technology for native language revitalization. He was denied, but continued on his quest. Three years ago, he received approval, and today the company works with more than 75 tribes and tribal organizations in the United States and Canada. The Phraselator is a handheld tool that allows a user to instantly translate spoken Englis

Military device holds key to saving Oneida language Jennifer O'Brien Sun Media November 28, 2007 The problem is, Oneida children don't speak Oneida -- haven't for three generations -- say leaders from the area First Nation. TRANSLATES: The hand-held Phraselator seems like a gadget out of the original Star Trek. Load an SD card with the appropriate language software, speak an English phrase into the unit and it immediately translates. (KEN WIGHTMAN/Sun Media) EXCITING: Verland Cornelius, 78, right, spoke Oneida when she was a young girl and today she is part of an effort to save the language for future generations. With Cornelius at the training session in the use of the new language-protecting equipment are, from left, Olive Elm,, Darelyn Doxtator, Mary Elijah who is director of the Oneida Language Cultural Centre, and Bonita Abram, all members of the Oneida Nation. (KEN WIGHTMAN/Sun Media) But suddenly, thanks to a military tool, the Oneida of the Thames community has found a way to tap into a solution for its dying language. One that was there all along. Some of the 2,000-strong community's eldest -- only 90 still speak fluent Oneida -- spent yesterday recording phrases in their native language onto machines called Phraselators. "This is going to revitalize our language before it dies," said Mary Elijah, director of Oneida Language and Cultural Centre, gesturing to one of eight hand-held devices recently bought by the settlement. "This (Phraselator) is going to outlive everybody." And not a moment too soon, she said, adding the youngest Oneida speaker is 50 years old, and most are over 70. Created for the U.S. military, the Phraselator LC allows the user to translate English words into any native language. It's used by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Don Thornton, who has distribution rights to deliver the device to native settlements across Canada and the U.S. Thornton, who is Cherokee and originally from Oklahoma, lobbied the U.S. Army for