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Language Restoration Programs Reach Beyond Tribal Colleges and Universities

On February 14, students at the White Clay Immersion School visited the staff and faculty at Aaniiih Nakoda College (ANC, Harlem, MT). They passed out Valentine's Day cards, then headed down to the college's career fair. "They get involved in everything," remarked President Carole Falcon-Chandler (member of the Aaniiih and of Nakoda descent), who is proud of the students and the school.

Founded in 2003, the school's mission is to "maintain the cultural integrity of the White Clay (Aaniiih) and Nakoda (Assiniboine) tribes." The school currently offers K-8 students the chance to learn their native language, A'ani. Since it's an immersion school, students don't simply sit through language classes for 50 minutes each day. Rather, students learn about science, math, and history while hearing, speaking, and experiencing the A'ani language. Classes in A'ani aren't just another attempt to fill out the day; they're an integral part of the whole learning experience.

When the school was founded, only 5 to 10 fluent A'ani speakers remained--in the entire world. Now educating its second generation of cohorts, the school has already doubled the number of A'ani speakers.

ANC's White Clay Immersion School is widely praised as the tribal college movement's first immersion language school. And while most tribal colleges have Native language programs and courses, increasingly they are creating language programs that reach into daycares, preschools, elementary schools, and beyond. This is vitally important work. According to a 2004 report from the American Indian College Fund, a total of 155 Indigenous languages are spoken today in North America. Of those, 135 are spoken only by elders.

Today, tribal colleges and universities are at the forefront of language preservation among college-age students and youth. "Those of us who are activists in trying to save the language have a hard time getting this across, even to our own people: That a language that has been viable for hundreds of years, maybe even thousands of years, is going away," says Chief Dull Knife College President Richard Littlebear (Northern Cheyenne). "All the unique references, all the unique humor, all the worldviews that go along with that--that might act as a conscience for a country like the United States--are slowly dying out." Littlebear is a graceful force for change on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation and across Indian Country. And anyone who has attended an American Indian Higher Education Consortium meeting is familiar with his words. With an easy smile and spirited good humor, Littlebear is often invited to say a prayer before meals or to commemorate the end of a meeting.

Cheyenne is Littlebear's first language, and even when he has lived off-reservation, he kept the language moving through his mind. He also learned to read and write Cheyenne. At language workshops, he encourages speakers and teachers to do the same. "You don't have to use reading and writing to teach--that should be done orally," he says, "but learn to read and write your language so you can write your lesson plans and curricula." He also encourages people to create a literature of their language. Littlebear is perpetually playing with words, figuring out their alternative meanings and derivations, translating, and deciphering word puzzles. He also writes short stories and poetry. "When you write something like poetry, it's revealing a part of yourself that maybe you don't want to reveal. So it's hard," he says, explaining that he was initially reluctant when people encouraged him to share his poetry: "One of the arguments I came across was, 'Do it for the kids, do it for the future generations. If you're really interested in saving languages, in perpetuating languages, you should have it written down.'"

Chief Dull Knife College in Lame Deer, Montana offers Cheyenne language classes and oversees a program at the tribal housing authority for those who want to learn about Cheyenne culture and language. Through a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Native Americans (ANA) grant, Cheyenne is taught to infants and young toddlers at the tribal college's daycare center. That project had a rocky start, says Littlebear, because the tribal college lacked experience teaching such young students. It's running more smoothly now, he says, but any new programs will face challenges. Teacher training is critical: For instance, someone who is fluent in the language may not be a natural-born teacher.

Littlebear himself leads a language reading and writing class for teachers who are then tested. If the teachers pass the test--which is not a given--they are certified and licensed to teach Cheyenne language and culture. "It took me 11 years to work up the nerve to take my own test, and I passed it," he says, chuckling with a characteristic joke: "That was kind of a harrowing experience, actually."

Every Wednesday, Littlebear also attends Cheyenne Soup Day, where Cheyenne speakers gather to eat, laugh, and tell stories. "It's a joy to hear all that. But in the back of my head, I keep thinking, 'Will this still occur ten years from now?'" According to a 2010 survey, only 19% of people living on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation spoke the Native language--down from 29% in the late 1990s.

"Everything seems to center around money and funds and all that," he says, adding that while grants--including the ANA grants many tribal colleges receive--fund crucial work, relying solely on them has its drawbacks. "In order for sustainability to occur, we have to do it on our own," he says. "The commitment has to come from the people, and we need to quit relying on government funds--they're too sporadic and too report-driven."

The real indication of success, says Littlebear, is making a fluent speaker of someone who has no experience whatsoever with the language. "Even here on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, I don't think we have produced a pure Cheyenne speaker. Maybe that's not possible anymore in this day and age, but that would be a good indicator," he says. Littlebear has seen changes at the tribal college, however: Cheyenne greetings ring up and down the hallways; students introduce themselves in their native language. "There's a new awareness of the language among the younger people, and they're really interested in it," he says. "Somehow, we have to keep going because they're only here for two years and then they're out. If we can keep lighting that spark, it might help."

In fact, many tribal colleges and universities are lighting that spark and prioritizing language programs. In 2008, the College of Menominee Nation's education program began training, certifying, and recertifying teachers--and helping them to integrate the Menominee language and culture into classroom curricula. And thanks to an ANA grant, Stone Child College on the Rocky Boy's Reservation has created a Cree Language Nest Planning Project and Cree language curriculum. The project's first phase includes a language immersion classroom for newborns and toddlers; the second phase will include a language nest classroom, where daycare and Cree immersion are combined.

At Sitting Bull College on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, the Lakota language nest--Lakȟól'iyapi Wahóȟpi--is in its first year. In that immersion preschool, where children learn Lakota, instructors follow a curriculum based on one designed by the Maori people in New Zealand. In the "language nest" model, instructors focus on connecting children with elders, and help parents learn the language, too. The need for innovative language programs is crucial; today, there are only about 200 fluent Lakota speakers on the Standing Rock Reservation.

Language restoration has long been a priority for Oglala Lakota College President Thomas Shortbull. The tribal college, which serves the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, offers a 12-hour immersion course for those seeking to learn the Lakota language. Oglala Lakota College (OLC, Kyle, SD) also administers Lakota Woglaka Wounspe, a language immersion school in Porcupine, SD, for K-4 students. According to Tom Raymond (Sicangu Lakota), OLC's dean of education and principal of Lakota Woglaka Wounspe, between 25 and 30 students are currently enrolled at the school. Thanks to vehicles provided by OLC, they arrive from as far away as Pine Ridge and Kyle, each about 45 miles from Porcupine. Raymond says the school could serve even more children if it had more transportation options; he also hopes that the school can be expanded to someday extend through the fifth, eighth, or even twelfth grades.

At Lakota Woglaka Wounspe, 99.9% of the instruction takes place in Lakota, says Raymond. There are four teachers, a school coordinator, two cooks--and a council of elders that offers its advice. "To truly understand this project, you have to rethink school and rethink how we learn language: [The students] are learning the language because they're learning how to use the language," he says. "Our students are learning math and language and science and social studies and all that--they are learning it through the use of the Lakota language."

To survive, says Raymond--who says he is not fluent in Lakota--a language must be used. It must be spoken, lived. "We tend to think of language as something to be used to communicate with people. The problem with that is the Lakota language is a way of life. It's part of a whole culture. You don't just learn a language, you learn a way of living," he says. "It reflects back on the old ways of life, when there was a lot of sharing, and traditional ways of living. I'm not talking about dancing back the buffalo, and everyone's wearing feathers and skins and lives in tipis. I'm talking about preserving a traditional way of life that is one with the world around." He adds that once a language has disappeared, it's not only the words that are gone--but also the culture, and a people. With Lakota Woglaka Wounspe, OLC is trying to ensure that never happens to the Lakota language or the Lakota people.

Meanwhile, far to the west and north, language programs are blooming across the North Slope--thanks to Ilisagvik College in Barrow, Alaska. The tribal college takes a multifaceted approach to teaching the Iñupiaq language, says Devin Bates, interim director of Uqautchim Uglua, the college's language program. Currently, only about 13% of Iñupiaq are fluent in their indigenous language.

Ilisagvik College offers classes in storytelling, conversation, grammar, and traditional dance. "In the traditional dance class every semester, students learn how to sing, how to drum, how to do the motion of the dances--and you can learn a lot of the language by repetition, by singing the songs, learning how to pronounce the words," says Mary Sage (Iñupiaq), Uqautchim Uglua's program coordinator. "We also have a carving class offered by a retired language teacher." He travels out to traditional villages across the North Slope, learning and teaching traditional carvings. There are also skin sewing classes, in which students learn to sew parkas, hats, boots, and mukluks. All of those classes solidify student connections to their native language.

Ilisagvik College also has its own immersion nest, which opened in November 2012, and serves preschool-aged students. Lessons and activities are conducted entirely in Iñupiaq, and students spend time with elders and attend field trips. In mid-February, for instance, students attended Kivgiq, or Messenger Feast, a massive cultural celebration held every few years in Barrow. The relative success of a program is hard to judge, especially when there are so few students. But, says Bates, those preschool students have started to speak Iñupiaq with their families and peers. "They're not fully fluent," he says, "but we're really seeing them move leaps and bounds forward."

The tribal college works closely with other local institutions. The public school district, for instance, is developing a program--The Iñupiaq Learning Framework--to create curriculum standards for K-12 classrooms. It also devised a visual Iñupiaq vocabulary program, an online database, and has worked with the staff of the Rosetta Stone Endangered Language Program to develop a CD-ROM for Iñupiaq.

In partnership with the Barrow Office of the Mayor and the North Slope Borough Heritage Center, the tribal college holds regular cultural events. Their first event, says Sage, was called Uqapiaqta--"Let's speak," or "Let's talk Iñupiaq." They coordinated with hunters who donated four seals. "We went to the heritage center's Traditional Room, where we could get messy, and butchered the four seals," she says. "We invited the community, and elders, and learned how to cut up the seals, to butcher, and also learned the names of the parts in the Iñupiaq language." Once a month, she says, they organize events centered on traditional skills and learning the Iñupiaq language. "You could see a lot of smiles," she says, "a lot of learning."

While much has changed in recent decades, North Slope communities still engage in many aspects of traditional cultural life. Whaling still occurs each spring and fall, says Sage. And there are traditional events, feasts, and dances, as well as gift-giving, bartering, and fun. "There are still a lot of things that we do, like hunting, skin sewing, dancing, camping," she says. "The only thing that's different is we're not fluent." Almost everyone under the age of 45, she says, is unable to speak Iñupiaq.

But that's changing.

"There is the recognition that it's time to learn the language--and use the language before we no longer have it," says Sage. "My children say what they can. Their grandmother was their babysitter; they can understand the basics, and they love using Iñupiaq words." At home, her children use the online Iñupiaq language tools available to them. They get excited, she says, when they earn top grades on the program--and she can hear them shouting out, proud of themselves.

As for the college's program director, Devin Bates, he too is learning Iñupiaq--even though he is non-Native. "The ability to speak Iñupiaq goes beyond words," he says. "The Iñupiaq language is an expressive language; it's a very rich language, and it has single words that--in the way that they work and the things they express--rival or exceed English at a post-doctoral level." One of those words, he says, is Ikiaqtalaaq, which means, "to flame or tingle because of emotional status." Bates explains: "It means basically, that your whole soul is pregnant, that you're tingling inside. Just one word means all that! There are words for concepts that don't exist in English. You can't learn diem and know them without living here, being here. And when that happens, it becomes transformative. It's very personal, very sacred."

Sage and Bates are both optimistic for the future of language programs at Ilisagvik College--and for the revitalization of the Iñupiaq language. "We're really shooting for language nest expansion across the North Slope. At this early stage and with the past history of language degradation and people being deported out to boarding schools, there are a lot of wounds that run really deep," says Bates. "But the community desperately wants this. Iñupiaq is very much alive--there just needs to be some catalyst, something that breaks the barriers that history and experience have put up."

In North America, and worldwide, Indigenous languages are disappearing at an alarming rate. But there are models of success for language revitalization. Richard Littlebear points to the current use of languages, such as Hebrew, Maori, or Hawaiian, that were once on the brink of disappearance. There is hope. And if Littlebear is a role model, the hard work of language revitalization can be accomplished with humor and joy.

Whether the language learners are tribal college students greeting one another in their native language, kindergarteners seated in a semi-circle around an elder, or people laughing and sharing a meal together, the joy of language learning segues into something serious. The language programs at tribal colleges and within Native communities across North America represent a way for young people to connect more deeply with the past--to understand and speak the words their ancestors uttered, call the features on their homelands by ancient names, and sing traditional prayers with confidence--and to stitch together the threads of a vibrant future for their tribes.

Clockwise from the top. White Clay immersion school students and teachers raised money to purchase Pendleton coats. Liz McClain helps first and second graders at Aaniiih Nakoda College's White Clay Immersion School conduct a geology experiment. Teaching students both the spiritual and material culture of the buffalo at Oglala Lakota College. Photo by Marilyn Fourier

THE NEXT GENERATION. Many of the teaching activities at OLC's Lakota Woglaka Wounspe (Lakota Language Immersion School) take place in a circle. Photo by Marilyn Fourier

PINNIPED PROCESSING. Students in Ilisagvik College's Uqautchim Uglua language program intertwine traditional practices such as seal butchering with language learning. Photo by Devin Nageak Bates

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By Laura Paskus

Laura Paskus is the former managing editor of Tribal College Journal. She is an independent editor, writer, and radio reporter based in New Mexico and she can be reached at la