7000 Languages: Technology for the People

Executive Director Stephanie Witkowski and Board Chair Dr. Bill Rivers from 7000 Languages join X̱ʼunei to talk about technology and language learning, and how a commitment to bringing technology to language learning communities can help language movements. They talk about the history of the organization, current projects, the benefits and limitations of technology in language learning, and how to protect data sovereignty. Check out 7000.org to learn more, to get help, or to help out!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
They tried callingses try to genocide us. Yet I'm still
here with the tongue on grope and I'm gonna chee
to cut you Han. Well, yeah, one m gonna cheech.

(00:40):
Thank you all for listening. Uh. We have different ways
of talking in our language. And we have a an
Alaska Native hospital in Anchorage, Alaska. In there, when you
walk in, there's a poster that you'll see it says
how to say hello in Alaska Native languages. And when
you look at the one under shing it, it's says
what a question? Which I don't I'm not gonna say.

(01:03):
It doesn't mean hello, but it literally means is that you?
And it's a way to greet people that you know
really well. And so I think it's fun I think
it's funny. Every time I would walk by that post,
I think, well, that's kinda there's gonna be a bunch
of people walk around saying is that you? Is that you?
And there are sometimes some smart alec responses to that.

(01:24):
You can say I'm still me, or you could say
I don't know, or you could say kaike no. So
this is how we talk when we know each other
pretty well. And I was just thinking as we start,
I like to do different greetings, to just start the
show and have our language be at the forefront. That

(01:45):
sing get language. Uh. And So we have some folks
with us today from a group called seven Thousand Languages
full disclosure. I'm on the board, and I think they're
doing wonderful things. I was volunt told by my teacher
and mentor, uh Ko Komanui Peta Wilson, who say you

(02:05):
should go do this thing with these great people. So
I said, you bet. And we're gonna talk with them
today about what they're doing, what kind of projects they're
working on, data sovereignty, how to be a good ally,
how technology can assist with indigenous language revitalization and revitalization

(02:25):
of languages around the world. So I think we'll start um,
tell the folks who you are, and then we'll talk
about seven thousand Languages and kind of go from there.
All right, do not teach. Thank you so much. Hello,
alofa men. My name is Stephanie Wikowski. I'm the executive
director of seven Thousand Languages. I'm really happy to be

(02:49):
here with you today. I'm coming to you from Southern
California or the Stolen Lambs and the Tongva and the
Hatchman people did take a moment to acknowledge that, and
of course the the tireless work that they're doing to
revitalize their culture and their language. UM. I worked for

(03:09):
a tribal nation down here in southern California, and they
said how may not to say hello, but how may
not means how are you? And so UM. We were
doing research on the language, and we films and research
that suggested that this this tribal nation, they were known
as the like how are you? They were always going

(03:31):
around asking everybody how are you? How are you? How
are you? But um, but it always it means more like,
let's take a pause, and let's really check in with
each other, and let's truly ask how are you today?
Let's see each other and be here in this moment.
And I'm pleased to be with you. And I'm trying

(03:55):
to get the pronunciation right because clean it is um
from the languages I know. I'm Bill Rivers. I'm the
president of the Board of seven Thousand Languages UM, and
I come at this from a place where I have
this incredible, um ineffable joy of being multi lingual and

(04:18):
of being part of multiple cultures. Where um Kuebequa French
was part of my father's family. I was born in Germany.
Um Irish was a part of my mother's family. Um
where and and but also a place where in looking
at languages in the United States and coming to you

(04:42):
from the unseated lands of the Piscaticois and Tusco or
nations in Greater Washington, d C. Where we've you know,
America is the been characterized by a professor at you
see UM, I think Riverside Reuben Rambo as the graveyard

(05:03):
of languages, where where we have done as a culture,
our very best to extinguish, um, the languages of five
more than five seventy four Native American, Alaskinative and Hawaiian nations,
of all of the immigrant languages that come to us.
And yet there they persist. And yet um, there are

(05:25):
folks like Cune who are out there, um, you know,
doing the hard work of reviving, revitalizing, reclaiming language. And
how can we, as seven thousand languages support that. How
can we come in and you know, facilitate whatever facilitating

(05:46):
I'm sorry to use that's like you know, a BS
term from the business world. How can we help, right,
and what can we do two? Two make it possible
to transmit languages to another generation, to make it possible
to grow the community of native speakers. Now, I come

(06:08):
from on my mother's side, very fierce and proud um
uh Hualan tradition that the language of of Southwest Ireland,
far southwest of Ireland, which was nearly exterminated by the British,
along with the people um where um my great grandfather,

(06:31):
my grandfather were teachers, were language teachers. Where where we
look at um the way that our language describes the
natural world, where my ancestors went out in seal skinned
boats two fish the waters of the North Atlantic, and

(06:56):
where all of the terminology of weather and sea conditions
is incredibly detailed, because that was their life, and you know,
they had to understand that, and they had to be
able to pull that living from the waters. And that's
not that long ago, that's a hundred years ago. And
we're in Alaska right now. There's not enough salmon right um,

(07:22):
especially following this horrific storm. So there's there's a connection
between the language you have and your ancestors and the
way you you live your life. That is too easily
obscured right by a whole bunch of other stuff. Now,

(07:45):
I had a cup of coffee after lunch because it's
you know, five thirty here on the East Coast. I apologize.
I'll try not to dominate the conversation, but I'm deeply
passionate about empowering communities to do whatever they need to do,
to do whatever they want to do with their language.
Not stop now I'm gonna cheech. And uh, well, there's

(08:08):
a bunch of stuff that you folks brought up, and
and thank you for being here, thank you for sharing
your time with us, and for talking with folks just
about what they can do. Like a lot of what
we're trying to do here is just sort of bring
these conversations to folks who might not know about them,
and then bring tools and options to folks who are

(08:29):
out there doing this type of work. It's usually pretty
small groups of people doing everything they can, trying to
figure out like this uphill climb and look at genocide
right in the face and just saying, uh no, thank you,
We'll just sort of exist if that's okay. Uh, And
so as we look at this like seven thousand languages

(08:49):
and and so When I think about that name, I think, Okay,
there's about that many languages now, and our goal is
to say there should be about that many languages always,
which is a difficult thing to do because I would
say pretty confidently that with the way things are going,
there's probably more languages now than we can accurately document.

(09:11):
But we're also losing so many languages right now that
will never actually know how many there are, and if
things continue how they're going, there will never be this
many again. And you can parallel this with biological diversity.
There's there's species that are going extinct faster than they
can be recorded, and so you're also looking at this

(09:34):
similar link where there will never be as many species
of different things as there are right now. And so
as we look at what this could do in terms
of removing diversity, is I think you're looking at a
downward spiral. And so if you try to go from
seven thousand human languages to say fifty, I think the

(09:56):
amount of information you're gonna lose and the amount of
ability to s vibe that you're going to lose is irreplaceable.
So how did it start, what was the intention? Who
was behind it? Spills spills spilled the coffee. Sure so, um,
this question of the the inextricable linkage between um local

(10:22):
knowledge of the biosphere, your local you know, ecology and
the language itself in the culture is actually um deeply embedded.
And almost every human language. Now there are big global languages, right,

(10:43):
you know, English, um putsung Wa, Mandarin, Chinese, plus so
standard Arabic, which you know, we could talk about that.
That's another subject, right, because there's so many dialects of Arabic, Spanish, etcetera.
The top ten languages which account for roughly of the
world's population, where a lot of that knowledge is lost.

(11:06):
But I was talking about my my Irish forebears, and
I have relatives in the far west of Ireland who
still you know, all of these very you know, very
nuanced descriptions of the rain and the weather and the
sea and seaweed which is used for you know, seaweed

(11:26):
which is used for all sorts of different purposes in
the culture, you know, food and food processing and you
know other other things where you know, that's still that's
still there, even though they live modern you know, post
industrial lives with internet and live professional lives. Yet that

(11:48):
still persists. And it persists now. When I talked to
my colleagues like Unamin Kavanaugh, who's you know, a generation
younger than me, And then I watched all of these
these young young while ago are these young Irish speakers,
you know, preserving that and pushing it forward. That occurs
in thousands of contexts around the world. And when when

(12:14):
there's an academic movement to think about the there's an
academic movement that looks at the linkage between linguistic diversity
and the knowledge of the living world. Um is relatively
recent with them, roughly the last ten years, but that's
always been there. And within that, within that, there are

(12:35):
enormous affordances for everybody else, not just for those those
folks living in those contexts. And there's and when when
that knowledge goes away, when the language dies, there's the
loss is incalculable. We can revive a language from nothing,

(12:55):
right there are you know Hebrew Cornish in Southwest England,
um um mashin Tucket, uh, the you know, the the
the Wapanoa folks in mashp Massachusetts. But nevertheless, when you
lose that knowledge, it's still this ineffable, this enormous loss,

(13:18):
and the the there's a kind of market driven point
of view this as well, you know, we're important, but
that that just that leads all of the frankly, you know,
imperialist history behind the growth of certain languages because certain

(13:40):
people's had certain afford you know, certain nations had certain
affordances are made, you know, just historical luck was on
their side or whatever. And the loss of all of
this knowledge and all of this UM all these ways
of life that conform, you know, with with climate change
being the the issue, right that that's you know, that's

(14:03):
the fundamental issue for survival. Look like, you know, what
happened with a storm in Alaska, what's happened with Shishmaref
and villages on the Arctic coast sinking into the sea.
What's happening with you know, Storm Fiona running up the
East coast and wiping out villages in Canada. UM, if

(14:24):
we can't understand the world around us and we can't
address the world, that's that's one part that you know,
that's sort of existential force. And then I stepped back
and say, well, as as clinic knows very well, we
have really good data now in the United States about
UM kids who come to school with another language, and

(14:50):
if they are allowed to continue to develop that language,
their lives are better. Right. But these are all so
so we can say, okay, there's the there's of the
value to humanity and the community in the country of
of linguistic diversity and the the preservation and transmission and

(15:10):
reclamation of languages. That's one piece. We can say, Okay, well,
there's this value to the individual. I'm going to get
a better grades and um, get into a better college
and graduate with a higher g p A, get a
better job, and oh, by the way, I'll have better
mental health outcomes and better physical health outcomes as I

(15:32):
age if I am bilingual. But then there's the thing
that I started off saying, there's this just fundamental part
of me. I've always been bilingual. I don't know what
it's like to be monolingual, right, I don't know how
monolingual brain works. And to me, it's it's just immediately

(15:52):
and totally and entirely evident that you know it's better.
You're better off me in bilingual anyway. That's mean who
I am. I'm sorry to talk so long. Okay, let's
get us back, Stephanie. If I, if I saw you
walking down the street with this amazing tote bag that
said seven thousand languages on it, and I didn't know you,

(16:15):
and I said, whoa, what's that? What's that about? Where
did it start? Tell me about it? Absolutely, yeah, got
some great points and what came to mind and what
you said as well, whe was this idea of you know,
we think there's about seven thousand languages in the world,
and you're absolutely right. We don't know, we don't know,
and we don't know what languages are are being lost. Um,

(16:37):
we don't know the status in every language. We know
that right now, UM, more languages are being lost than
ever before. And we also know that right now there
are more technology than ever before, There are more vitalization
reclamation efforts than ever before, and we know that there
are more resources and tools being made available bit ever before.

(16:57):
And you think that leads perfectly into the Lord story
as seven thousand languages. Um, so seven thousand languages. We're
not for profit organization, right, we have to incredibly intelligent
board members were multiple language incredibly intelligent board members, but
too that I'm speaking to right now. UM, so you
know we are driven by obviously very passionate Board of

(17:21):
Directors to run our organization, and our mission is to
empower communities around the world really who are engaged in teaching, learning,
and sustaining their languages. And we do that through so
many different ways. But I would see the core of
what seven Thousand Languages does is we provide technology tools,

(17:45):
in particular online language learning materials, and so we have to, um,
we have to also take a step back and talk
a little bit about how seven Thousand Languages came to be,
to talk a bit about our mission and what we
are able to provide our communities. The Seven Languages Bill
know much better than I, UM, but seven do Languages began?

(18:08):
Um from I think just a really brilliant idea of
the CEO of Transparent Languages, name is Michael Quinlan. And
you think you had this, I did, and we we
sort of just touched on. There is incredible technology existing
right now right technology like Transparent Language, like Rosetta Stone,

(18:29):
like do a Lingo, these language technologies that are available
for people to learn languages, learn languages no matter where
they are in the world, no matter if they have
a connection, a personal connection to a native speaker or not,
they can still learn language there's speech recognition technology. We

(18:50):
obviously have incredible abilities to record UM to provide learners
with UM solid language learning methodologies. So why isn't this
technology available to all languages? How come it's only available
to these top five percent of the world's languages. If

(19:13):
that the technology is there, why aren't we sharing this?
Why aren't we spreading this? It costs It doesn't cost money.
You know, the technology has been developed. It doesn't cost
extra money to ensure these communities that are reclaiming, re
vitalized and preserving their language have the ability to use
these tools. And that's exactly what seven does a languages does.

(19:36):
We bridge that gap, so we work we you know,
we're really grateful to have Transparent Language and their domination
of their software tool. UM it's a really fantastic, robust
language learning technology tool. There are over forty different activities. UM,
it's amazing, right, You're really you're able to record an
elder and you're able to you is that elder use

(20:01):
their stories and their voice and their knowledge to teach
future generations to come. So that's that's a corporate mission.
Now that being said, I think Bill and Whiney, you
know that once you start with the language learning, it
doesn't It's not just language, right, It's about connection to land,

(20:22):
it's about curriculum development, it's about oral histories and traditions
and traditional knowledge. And so we find that at seven
dozen languages, a lot of the other support we've started
to provide us around that as well. We provide um
a curriculum development support, and we provide we hope that

(20:42):
we provide new ways in which technology can be leveraged
to truly capture the traditional knowledge and the way the
communities want to engage with their language. I firmly believe
that the technology can and should adapt to fit the
needs of language and not the other way around. And

(21:05):
it happens far too often the other way around, Like
you know, here's a list of phrases on how to
get to the airport. Well, that worked for you, and
it's like, no, not really. You know, things for the tumbling,
but that's not at all what we want to be
sharing and passing down to our children and our children's children.

(21:27):
And so the seven languages we are really at the
forefront of, like, Okay, what can the technology do. Let's
bend it, let's break it. If we have to um
because it can face these communities. Chief We're going to
take a short break here, folks, but before we had
to break, I just want to talk about something real quick,

(21:47):
and then we'll come back and we'll we'll talk about
what's going on, the current projects and current goals, and
then we're also going to get to some more of
this conversation about data sovereignty, because if you're gonna bring
in extern old groups, you need to make sure that
there's agreements in terms of what is everybody doing, and
what do folks own and who who gets to say

(22:08):
what happens with what? And so as we've seen a
lot of different languages that end up also exploited or
people take things from them and close the door, and
we want to make sure that that's not happening to anybody.
But before we go to break, I'll share a real
quick narrative. So I've I've raised our three children with

(22:29):
think it. That's one of their first languages, so they've
been bilingual. One of our elders refers to them as
our e s L babies, and he does it lovingly.
He says, this is exactly what we need as children
who are growing up in our language. And it was
interesting because there's not a whole lot of kids who
who can speak, and there's more now and we're gaining
and we're gaining children who can speak. But at one

(22:52):
point I was talking with my oldest and I told
her and think it all right, go tell your brother
and says, year, we're going to the store. And then
her friends. She was playing with some friends and they
were pretty new friends because we're spending the summer in
the community of Sitka. She and one of her friends
turned and said, what language is he speaking? No, she

(23:15):
turned to me and she said, what language are you speaking?
So I turned to my daughter and I said, doing
kind of nique doc, I said, tell her what language
it is, And so she turned to her and shrugged
her shoulders and said human language. And so it was
so neat to see her perspective on that. And um,
so there's these multiple components will be talking about here,

(23:37):
which is second language learning and then making new birth
speakers again. So but if she's will be right back.
What's happening, baby, This colonization ship got you down. You
gotta get on this declization. It's time the language revitalization.

(24:00):
All across North America, the land of the language, coming
back into the hands of future generations where it all belongs,
ris up and have their voices. We heard, defeat all
the colonial forces that try to hurt you. I'm gonna

(24:25):
change your way. We're so happy you came back. This
is a podcast, so it's not a visual element, but
if if it was, you would see we've really dressed
up for this conversation. So we're very thankful to be here.
We're very thankful that you folks are listening to um
what we're talking about and what we're sharing. So I

(24:45):
think we'll dive back into seven thousand Languages and then
we're gonna get to these larger conversations about the the
operational philosophies and the ideologies that go into bringing technology
to languages. But for now, what's going on with the
current projects? What are the goals? What is seven thousand

(25:05):
Languages doing. We've got a lot going on, which is
really exciting. We've got a lot going on. Or came
with a lot of communities and we're finding new ways
to serve even more communities. That's that's a big goal
as we move forward, right, I mean, the name seven
thousand languages right, Like it's it's an overwhelming amount of

(25:25):
work that has to be done and and there's there's
plenty of people who are engaged in doing this work.
But um, you know, we really know, and I think
I always go back to the word empowering as well.
We know that it's critical to work with communities, work
in close close partnerships. Do not just provide language learning

(25:48):
courses to not just say, hey, go ahead, give us
your data. We're gonna like do some stuff over here
with the software and we're gonna give it back to you,
like yeah, good for us, thanks, But really, what we
want to do is we want to provide the know
how because this I'm not that technology technologically savvy. This
isn't that hard. It's possible for all communities to create

(26:12):
their own online language learning materials, and we want to
create that. We want to create those opportunities to really
share the tools, to teach how to build the tools.
Not just here you go, we made this course for you,
UM come back, come back with more data if you
need us again, right and create this this sort of

(26:33):
like a cycle. But um, so we're working with several
communities right now and really close partnership. UM. We just
launched a Cherokee language course, which was really really exciting
because we brought in I remember a Cherokee Nation as
one of our interns. He was working with seven thousand
languages for about a year now. It was a really

(26:55):
long process. It was a really beautiful course to create
UM and also that course but you know for a
sillabary and to create a beginner's Charkey course. So he
really took over as the project manager of that UM
and it was such such an exciting UH program to
have this inter working that we we doubled down and

(27:18):
so this summer we brought on several more interns so
that they could really learn the project management, learn the software,
and begin to create courses and other language materials in
their language. UM. And we claimed to do much more
of that. So we have a laws course which also
just launched that as an Indigenous Endangered language of Turkey. UM.

(27:40):
We have a Kickapoo course that's coming out from one
of our interns. We're working really closely with coming into
Nation UM. We're working closely with the Gental Study and Association,
and we're going UM. We're really excited to create some
clinket courses with that group UM with a long student
partnership with the Dorian Foundation. They're based in Fairbanks that

(28:04):
their region serves ten languages in Alaska, and we're working
with them. We've created in partnership with them man courses,
and we're we're really working towards getting that ten language
course as well. So UM that's going on. But one
of the really really exciting things that we're working on,

(28:24):
one of our big GALTH maybe forward, is to create
a mobile app actually, and this apple will really be
one of the first of its kind because using only
your cell phone, using only like UM sell data, without
any internet access, without any WiFi needs, communities will be

(28:47):
able to create language learning materials. So this apple will
guide them through UM sort of a pretty typical course outline.
It'll it lately UH editable, so it's completely UM open
for the communities to decide on what makes sense for

(29:09):
them to put in their language learning courses, but we
sort of guide them through the process of UM creating
the vocabulary, assembling lessons, assembling units to create a full
course UM and then once they create that, the other
side of it is that language learning app, right, kind
of like dueling. But UM, this is really the first

(29:32):
of its kind. This is the first app of its
kind that's getting be deployed worldwide and you're able to, yeah,
with your phone, take pictures, record your audio. UM, you
can write the language, but that's also fully optional, so
we really want complete creativity. UM. We hope to serve
so many more communities, and in particular communities that don't

(29:55):
always have access to internet. They don't have access to
laptops or deskshop computers, right, communities that are oftentimes sort
of shut out with some of mis language technology UM
because of those limitations. They're really excited to to UM
launch that app as well. So those are some of
our current projects to some of them. We're also leading

(30:18):
workshops UM, so they'll lot going on. UM. But the
need is is great. That's exciting, and and so like
watching technology and how technology can interact with language learning,
I think there's so many possibilities just in terms of
having an interface, having an access. People be on screens

(30:40):
all the time, so you might as well find people
where they're at. But I think there's also this a
bit of a misnomer that if you can only get
this technology, then you'll be safe, right, because sometimes people
put so much energy into it that they sort of
forget to change their whole life to create language. So
you have any thoughts on that bill, Yeah, I mean

(31:00):
it's it's so I've worked on language and learning technology
for twenty plus years. It facilitates learning. It may augment
what goes on in the classroom if there's a classroom context.
But you gotta step back and say, well, you know,
what does the community need? Um? Where where is the

(31:22):
community in terms of their ability to create and use
language learning materials? The technology is um to some degree.
It's it's essentially a delivery service, right. It's instead of
having printed materials and textbooks that you've gotta ship here

(31:45):
and you know, hither and yon, you've got um. You know,
if you've got a decent fog signal, then you can
use the app. But the app itself, you know, to
me is is it's necessary, but it's not sufficient. It's
not the full Um, it's not the full issue of

(32:07):
learning language or transmitting or reclaiming or vitalizing a language.
The technology has enormous affordances and when we roll out
this this mobile app that will work on cell phone data,
that will make you know learning. You know, you pick
or an Infticut or Alliott. You know, these languages that

(32:30):
are in places where you don't have good broadband, which
is not just a last thing. That's an Upper Midwest
and Mountain Rockies and oh, by the way, Appalachia and
pretty much everywhere in rural America, and where's the rest
located rural America? You know, if we can get get

(32:50):
the get the delivery mechanism sorted out, then we can
help communities. But it's it's really you know, I'm old
and you guys are young, you know, so I remember
I remember back when, you know, the language learning technology

(33:10):
in the classroom was a chalkboard, and then we went
to whiteboards, and then we went to smart boards, and
now we've got phones and iPads and everything else. It's
it's the technology is um to step into the history
of seven thousand languages. Sure, it's it's it's centered on
the history of the organization, centered on the technology and

(33:33):
the affordances of that technology. But the technology is really
the the mechanism whereby we work with communities two to
help them develop curricular to help them deliver curricular for
whatever their requirements are and so the technology itself is

(33:56):
an enabling tool, but it is not, at least in
my view as the chair of the board. And you know,
I don't want to disagree with my executive director um
who you know, who does a great job and all
that the technology itself isn't the raison on Detroit. That
isn't why we're here. We're here two figure out how

(34:17):
to work with UM First Nations to figure out what
they need and to help and to then work with
them to empower them to create the learning materials that
will make sense for them, right, and that that technology enables.

(34:40):
That technology is a critical component, but it isn't the
mission in and of itself. I don't know if that
makes any sense to do you Cline or to you Stephanie,
but that's that's where my mind is right now. Absolutely.
I think I mean to get really, you know, big here,

(35:00):
the limitation of all technology, regardless of what it is,
is that it simply can't replace the real purpose of language,
which is human connection, right, I mean, the real purpose
of languages. Maybe it's survival, you know, it's like, hey,
there's there's that way, but you know, real human language

(35:22):
is about connecting with one another. And you think, I
hope our technologies and service of that is in service
of creating real connection, real community. And I'd like to
think that if if that's at the absolute center and
the absolute core of why we engage in language, so

(35:43):
why we would engage in language revitalization. Technology is absolutely
the periphery, but I think it can, um, maybe in
a way link those moments of connection. And I'll give
an example. Um, we have our partners at Joan Foundation
and and we've created all the language and materials with
them and they put it in the schools. They have

(36:04):
a partnership at the Charter school and in fair Banks
where their children who have heritage languages of the I
want to say ten out of time, language is of
the Doyan reaching right. And Um, one of the things
that they also do in the school, which just sounds
so amazing, is that they have elders come in. Elders
come in from all the different languages and come and

(36:26):
visit with the children and speak to them about whatever
the elders want to speak to them about. Right, And
that is the moment, that is the center, that is
the court, that is language, and action is connection. But
what I think we do a cend and does a
languages and what do I foundation that's without of courses

(36:47):
is they they say, okay, these elders are absolutely the
center of what we want this experience as language experience
to be for our students. But the elders come in
once a week, only an hour. They're not the teachers
in the school. So how do we fortify that We'll
have the children preload right, We'll have them get comfortable

(37:07):
in the language. Because language learning is really scary, it's
really hard at indigenous language learning and endangered language learns
also often you know, incredibly emotional. And so how can
we get people to feel comfortable in the language, to
feel ready to engage in the language, to be able

(37:29):
to actively listen in the language when those moments arise.
Technology can help support that, And how do we ensure
that after that experience of being able to connect and
be in that space with the elder, that we're able
to reiterate that knowledge that was passed on, reiterate that language.

(37:50):
Technology can kind of come at the back end as well.
I'd like to think that that's how um our specific
programs UM are really strengthening that one effort in that community.
And it looks different for every community, and it looks
different work for um for every group, depending on what
their goals are. But that's sort of the big difference

(38:13):
that the huge limitation of technology. It will never ever
ever replace those moments of real community and connection and
engagement and relationship. But I do think that it can
um strengthen it and fortify it and uplifted and I
hope that we do that. Awesome. So yeah, so there's
this incredible technology out there that can help organize and

(38:36):
help sort of, uh get folks on, you know, just
bring language learning right to your fingertips basically, and make
sure that you have one pathway sort of forged for you.
And there could be many different pathways to get there,
but for a lot of languages, if they're highly endangered,
you need to have sort of like a singular pathway
until you get plurality and you get a diversity of

(38:59):
speakers and then you can increase that, you know. And
so if I'm out there in the world and I'm
struggling and I'm trying to get my language going, and
I say, oh, this would be great, Uh, where do
I start? What do I do? How do I get
in touch with folks? Yeah, we'll always you know, just
get started right, But can visit us definitely check us out.

(39:22):
Our website is pretty easy. It's www dot seven thousand,
seven zero zero zero dot org. Reach out to us.
We like I said, we're leading some workshops. So we
have a lot of workshops where we are really engaging
with the with the software. We're showing people how to
use it or showing people how to create. Maybe you

(39:42):
only know enough language for two lessons, that's great, trauma
over create language learning lessons with whatever you know. If
you know ten words, let's make a lesson, let's do it. Um.
So we're we're doing workshops, but we're working really closely
with communities as well. Um. Now we're we don't say

(40:02):
no and we never charge communities. There's no cost to
the community. You know, we work with communities to figure
out where they are in there, work with all you
know for stations to figure out where they are in there.
Language tune is it, you know, reviving from from scratches

(40:24):
it revitalization is it? Reclamation? Is that the development of
you know, a full K twelve curriculum, you know, to
support the language we can handle all of X. We
have that expertise, but it's it's never at the cost
of the community. And very importantly, the data that comes

(40:47):
from the community belong to the community, and they can
be you know, set into the the language learning productor
hesitate to use the word product, but the learning objects
in the curriculum um. But they also belong to the community.

(41:08):
If the community needs to work on dictionaries or grammars
or whatever else it needs to do, those belong into
the community. And then if if you know, we know
full well there are nations, there are first nations that
don't want for whom for which the first nations for

(41:28):
which the language is a private and and maybe sacred object.
We can work with that too. You know that will
not be exposed to the broader world. We will support
that first nation if the first nation is comfortable sharing
its language. If there's you know, money, do you mean
money to be made from selling frankly, those the language

(41:53):
learning all of all of those proceeds, all those proceeds
go back to the first nation, and there's there's we
accommodate everything in between. But we work from the principle
and we have you know, I was the first board
chair came on board UM seven years ago, and it
was the firm commitment of the organization from the very

(42:17):
beginning that not only do we respect data sovereignty, we
support data sovereignty actively and we work with communities number one.
Number two, we worked with communities where they are in
terms of their language journey, and we support whatever those
goals are because we know those vary from nation to

(42:38):
nation tremendously. You know, there's there's a five seventy four
federally recognized in the United States, right, um, Native American
nations and many more that are not yet federally recognized
that we have state recognition, etcetera. Right, So, so we

(42:59):
worked with the communities to say, okay, well where are
you guys. Our challenge and my role as the board
chairs to raise the money to support our very long
queue of nations that want help, right and Stephanie can
talk to the length of that queue, but it's a
very long key UM. And because there's a there there's

(43:23):
more energy in Indian country around language reclamation and people
understand in the broader society or the understand in Washington,
d C. Or Sacramento or June I'm sorry, you know,
right that the people are doing it. People are saying, hey,

(43:45):
this language matters, we matter, this language matters, and we're
gonna do it, and we're not going to wait for
permission or some federal grant or what have you. But
sooner or later that runs into well, you know, how
many people are there in our nation. I was just
talking to this earlier, just before this podcast, with a
very dear colleague in Minnesota, UM where she's like the

(44:09):
head of government relations, but she also runs the emergent school.
But she's also on the tribal council. But she's also
you know, one of their one of their people involved
in sorting out the rice harvest every year the world. Right,
it's like everybody's got four or five jobs, and so
they're real bandwidth limitations. And so how do we as

(44:31):
an organization helps solve you know, one of those resource questions,
like you know, where's the money going to come from?
That's on on our board and on Stephanie and the
staff to find the support to meet that demand, which
is really out there too. ReVibe, revitalized, reclaim. I'm not
sure which term I like. I like reclamation, but I

(44:52):
know I know it's not appropriate and every circumstance to
to really build communities around these languages. Because even if
even you know, even if it's a very small community,
and even if the fact that kids grow up bi lingual,
we have now twenty years of data from any country

(45:16):
in the United States. If kids learn their own if
the children learn the language of their community and the nation,
they lead better lives. They lead better lives, they have
better educational outcomes, they have better job outcome, job search,
they have better you know there, they don't get his

(45:37):
divorces often there there, their kids do better. There's something
deeply human about having the language of your culture in
your house, in your own person. That leads to a
better life. And that's you know, fundamental. It's a promise
that the federal government has made. It's not kept right now.

(46:00):
Native American Language Act nine honored in the breach, like
every other treaty made with Indian country. Hello, but you
know we're in a place at seven thousands, like you know,
we're going to do what we can. Two support communities.
I get, I get, I get fired up, and I apologize,
but I get fired up. Stay fired up. We're gonna

(46:21):
take another break, folks, as we had to break. I
just want to share something from one of our elders.
He would be a hundred years and old if you're
alive today, and he's not h We lost him about
seven years ago. His name was Cyril George, and we
recorded him telling some stories, and in one of these

(46:42):
stories he talks about this place called kin, which is
often translated as peaceful river, but the literal translation is
the river that untangles a person's mind. And I wanted
to share this name with you, Foth, because maybe you're
out there doing this work and maybe it's difficult, and
maybe you're looking at things and it's difficult. And we're

(47:04):
going to engage in a few conversations when we get back,
and a few topics anyways, And one of the things
that's really challenging with colonialism is this how identity functions.
So when you take away a language from people, you
kill those people. It's just something that happens, and so

(47:24):
there's a misunderstanding a lot of times. I was testifying
one time and these two Alaska State legislators said, well,
my ancestors spoke Russian, and when they moved here, they
stopped because that's what you do. And my ancestors spoke Norwegian,
and when they moved here, they learned English because that's
what you do here. And this idea that English is

(47:45):
part of a naturalization of becoming someone who's from this place.
And I think there's something deeply wrong with with that idea,
and there's something deeply inhumane behind it. And so one
of the things that that happens to indigenous people's is
you get denied your own identity, and then your own

(48:06):
identity gets destroyed, and then you're told you have to
become something else, which you're also never allowed to fully become.
And the and one of the things I try to
get folks to understand is you can go to Russia
and you can learn Russia, and you can learn Russian
from home, and you can go to Norway and you
can learn Norwegian from home. But if these languages are destroyed, like,
it's very difficult to bring them back because they're being

(48:30):
killed off in the places where they are born. So
he tells the stories. He'll tells the story about this
boy who insulted the salmon and they took him and
then he became a salmon, and he came home after
a year to this place where his family works on fish,
which is called Khin, and he's he's from Ongoon. It's
a beautiful community. Shout out to you, uh. And this

(48:53):
is how this is how he ends the story. He says,
yeah on Goon duch a city. Yah ya yay kasah
need ye. So when you see us here, the people
from Angoon, and he's talking about going somewhere for a funeral,

(49:16):
when you look upon our faces, may it be like
as if you've been brought to the river that entangles
a person's mind. Chih, We'll be right back. Once I
thought about a million birds all around the world sharing
their songs and thinking about the way they've lived, and

(49:41):
they're gonna live. And this is the way, yeah, yeah
cook to see to glow m the chishan. There's another

(50:09):
phrase that elders shared with us. This one was from
Kahn John Martin. If you went to a glacially fed
river with a clear container, like a glass, a clear glass,
and you just scoop some water out, you'd see all
this silt and all these different parts moving around. And
if you just let that water be still for long enough,

(50:31):
it would settle clear and so we call that cow
de coo. And then there's a phrase which has let
your spirit be like the water that has settled, because
there's there's a lot that we do with calmness with
still water where people who live on the ocean, so
still water means easy traveling and it also is a

(50:51):
symbol for peace. So wherever you're at, whatever you're doing,
I hope that you're finding peace and you're feeling feeling
good about the work that you're doing. There's some terms
that we use in this field, and I think it's
good to just talk about them every now and then.
For me, there's these three terms language revitalization, language stabilization,

(51:14):
and language revival that are related terms and really have
to do with where you're at with things. So for me,
if you've got a lot of speakers and there's a
high percentage of people that speak and the language is
spoken in a wide number of places, then you're probably
looking at stabilizations, which means we're trying not to slip

(51:34):
into this place where our language is endangered. If your
language is endangered, which means there's few people who speak it,
there's not very many places that speak it, it's not
used between generations. Then you're looking at language revitalization, which
is saying, let's get ourselves up to stabilization. And if
you don't have any speakers, then you're usually looking at

(51:57):
language revival, which means the language is currently asleep and
we're looking at bringing it back, and we have to
come up with ways to just build at least a
few speakers and then more, and then more and then more.
So your strategies shift depending on kind of where you're at,
similar to UH and I like to look at these
things on sort of a spectrum, sort of like fluency.

(52:19):
When I first started teaching, thing that people would usually
when they told them that that's what I did, that's say,
are you fluent? As if there was like a card
that I would get, like here's my b I a card,
and here's my clinket hide of card, and here's my
fluent card. Where I like, right, It's so I like
to see things on like maybe a scale of one

(52:41):
to ten if you're looking at fluency. And so the
other term that we're using quit a bit is language reclamation,
which I think is more of a philosophical term in
some in some ways, like because you're you're taking back
what was denied and what someone tried to take from
you for whatever reason. And so sometimes you're trying to

(53:01):
figure out what you need to do to create structural
shifts in education and organizations and individuals daily lives. And
so sometimes that reclamation is saying like, this is ours,
we are claiming it again. And sometimes that reclamation is saying,
this is a place physically or socially where our language
used to be used and it's been denied that and

(53:24):
so we're taking that domain back. And so this leads
us into the last part of our conversation, which is
like what do nations want and how do we maintain
trust and how do we make sure that the things
that are harvested in indigenous communities go back and or

(53:45):
stay and and and don't leave. So, before Stephanie provides
really concrete, detailed and principaled answers from seven UM, I
just want to state, as an organizational principle from the
establishment UM seven years ago, we are fully committed today's sovereignty.

(54:08):
And I think I said that in the previous segment
UM as a personal position, as a as a you know,
PhD linguist, and if you follow like UM, first stations
and any country language revitalization Twitter, the PhD is kind
of afraded a loaded term right now, like like you

(54:32):
already taken alive has been on that just just in
the last couple of days, and good for him. But
you know, I think that the organizational position of my
personal position is that UM reclamation means for for a
first nation, where what what makes sense? What? What does

(54:54):
that nation need? What do they want? What what can
they do? UM? Whether it's language or place you know,
toponyms and place names, and you and and you've been
great on this, you know, in terms of your own
Twitter feed about you know, place names, like they're all
these places named after people who came, you know, a

(55:14):
hundred years ago who get to somehow claim a piece
of Alaska that other people who live in there for
twenty years. Right. So, but as an organization, to me
at least, that we want to support communities, first nations
with whatever it is that they need UM wherever they

(55:38):
are in their journey to reclaiming their language, and knowing
that that journey has different starting points and different endpoints,
right and so so, where how do we support that?
How do we service allies? How do we build an
organization that is representative for the communities whom we serve.

(56:02):
And to me, that's you know, that's that's a sacred
duty as as a you know, there's a fiduciary duty
as a board chair in the white man's context of
five or one c. Three. But how do we build
and how do we build a community of UM of
practitioners and language learning and language learning technology and in

(56:27):
in training UM language teachers two to serve a broader purpose?
And that is a very very important question and goal.
And for the details of that, like okay, because again
they're likes to talk a lot, but for the details

(56:47):
of that, an alternative Stephanie, and and I'll be quiet now, yeah, okay,
look at that leadership I have. That's that's damning with
faith race. And thank you for me for what you
said earlier about fluency and and so then to two
sort of things came from learning when you were saying that,

(57:09):
and I mean it comes to this sort of phrases.
It's been going around a lot, and you think there's
a lot of different interpretations that standing like training space,
training space for language and language learning, and they need
literal space and domains but I also mean creating room
and emotional space and mental space and institutional space in

(57:32):
and I love what you said about fluency, because what
is what inf fluency is not the goal of the community.
Is that community still engaging in language or vitalization? Who's
to say what the goal has to be? And I
say about acknowledging, My background is also very flonialized. Right.

(57:53):
I want a master's degree in um linguistics and from
the University of Hawaii. But every professor I learned from
it was white. Every classmate I had was white. I'm
white facing, I'm white uppearing. And even the technology we use,
it's being developed by by white people, right, I mean,

(58:17):
like another limitation of this technology is the fact that
so often our biggest challenges are verb based languages polysynthetic languages.
Because when this language learing technology is being built, it's
being built for languages like English Spanish. Right, I have

(58:37):
to believe that if the creators of these software developers
spoke variety of languages, if they were indigenous, that the
technology would look different. Um. And so yes, I think
you know, I'll sort of say that I really see
my my role is creating that space. So I can.

(58:59):
I think, Um, yeah, I really appreciate what you said.
And so how do we gain quote unquote trust? And
I think, really that's that's by the acknowledgement and understanding
that acknowlogy is not enough. But how do we actively
acknowledgement and really understanding that A seven languages were the

(59:19):
guests were the visitors were not the experts um it.
Certainly I've learned about curriculum development here and linguistics there,
and please like exploit that knowledge, let it serve you
in your language goals. But I'm not the expert at all, UM.
And so I think that how we really work to

(59:42):
maintain the relationships that lead to the kind of UM
up comes that communities a lot. So guess when it
comes to UM data sovereignty right, and we have a
policy in place that it's on our website, right, and
our policies that the community own the owns the language

(01:00:02):
in every four And if we want to get really
nerdy about data, right, they are raw data, the data
that has collected, the audio filed, the dot I am
jus like everything everything all in that raw data and
formatted data, right, Because we take that row data and
we put it them back soft file sheets, We put
it into software programs, We spit out other data that

(01:00:24):
informs the software and tells it what to do. All
of that data belongs to the community. The course itself
is copyrighted to the community that creates the course, so
that belongs to the community as well. I'll being said,
we try to keep listening and have to keep learning.

(01:00:46):
So my position when it comes to the sovereignty is
I welcome our communities when we work with them. I
don't just say all right, here's the data, softwign here,
here's our language ownership agreement, set here on the dotted line,
and say you have something to change about this? Do
you have anything to add to this? How does this
read to you? Can we ever adopt or change or

(01:01:11):
mold our current practices? Because I think if we just say, like, oh,
look at us are our language practices are so great,
and we stopped there, we're gonna we're gonna lose sight
of our mensition and we're gonna lose sight of what
those goals were. As we have to keep listening and
we have to keep working with communities, not just to
like I'm here on the dotted line, but to say like,

(01:01:32):
what does this mean to you? What if your what
are your language documents? But you've created, how can we
meet those standards? Um? So I think that's how we
try to build trust. Is not saying come to us,
think how look at our standards, but it's saying, how
can we meet your standards, your goals, your practices, your traditions,

(01:01:55):
your knowledge. I just want to add that, you know,
it's like retaking a live um from standing Rock just
today said the problem with how education is structured is
our speakers cannot teach or get full time jobs. And
let's have a senseless piece of paper. There's still and
what I take from raise Um and I really respect

(01:02:16):
what he's done on data sovereignty. He's now moved into
the question of like what does the educational system look like? Right?
Who's allowed to teach? And there's there's a there's a
superstructure that's imposed where I think we are disenfranchising people. Right,

(01:02:37):
So we as seven thousand, I don't know that we
can change what you know North or South Dakota does
or Alaska does about who gets to teach in the classroom.
On the rez, we can we can talk. We can
talk about data sovereignty, and we can support data sovereignty
and in every way that we can right fully committed

(01:03:01):
to it. I came into this more than twenty years
ago as part of an NSF National Science Foundation, National
National Endowments, the Humanities Projects workshop on was it called
data sovereigns to them? But it was um data rights
and and how all of these linguistic archives, the University

(01:03:24):
of Pennsylvania at ua F, at the University of Texas
Austin at you know, how they treated the linguistic data
that signed you know, scientists quote unquote had gathered over
generations going back to you know, Franz Boas and Frederic
get Laguna visiting Alaska a hundred and some years ago,

(01:03:46):
where in point of fact, as a fundamental principle of
human rights UM and informed consent and all the other
you know, legal architecture white Man legal architecture of of research.
But so be it that those data belonged to the
people who provided it. If I asked Cnay about how

(01:04:10):
to say, you know, mug and fling it as versus
mug in English are Irish, you know that data belongs
to pay into his people seven thousands fully committed to that.
We know that this will continue to evolve, but we
are fully committed to that, fully committed. And I can

(01:04:30):
say that as president and speaking and on behalf of
the board unless you know I fully fully committed to that,
and I'm sure the board completely agrees. Today is signaling
me you can't see this on the podcast, and he's
got Oh for god, Billy, you please let me break in,
gotta cheese. We're gonna wrap things up here. And I

(01:04:51):
guess I would say from my perspective is I think
it's time probably for a federal act that I'm not
gonna acronyms, but it would be like the Native American
Intellectual Property Rights Protection Act, which would be NAPAPA. But
I guess we've got to figure out something. Somebody can
come up with the snazzy title. But I think for now,

(01:05:12):
if if you are coming into a community and you're
working with their language, I think a number of things
is you should be willing to put your name on
a piece of paper that says I will not claim
anything that I harvest as my own. I will not
tell anyone who's from that community and from who's connected
to that language in which ways they can and should

(01:05:32):
use this. I will not deny access to any of
this that will make sure that the originals are housed
within their community, and that includes your original files that
you're creating, which I think is a big step for
a lot of people just to say Okay, well here,
here's all of it, but to to sort of wrap
up everything that we've talked about. I appreciate you both

(01:05:54):
and the work that you're doing, the commitments that you
show repeatedly. Uh. And there's folks out there who might
be saying, well, how how can I help? What can
I do? So? How can folks contribute to seven thousand languages? UM? Well,
I want to say one other thing, not just about
like data belonging to the communities, but the process of

(01:06:15):
developing the course. Also, we're working towards giving that to
the community, Like I believe the community should be able
to create their own courses in perpetuity and train others.
UM data never needs to be hinted to us. Actually,
UM okay, so Steffie said, we would love we would
love people who want to get involved and want to

(01:06:37):
get more engaged with us to please please please um
over our West seven dot org. We just developed this
really exciting membership program where UM, we know that there's
so many people who see language engagement is a serious
issue and they want to support communities that are reclaiming
and revitalizing their languages. And so we have this membership

(01:06:59):
for god, we built up where you can learn all
the languages on our websites of course available for free.
You can leave more about our partners. So we have
exclusive events. We hold our own web events UM. And
also you can get some behind scenes books at what
we do and some other kind of cool exclusive stuff.

(01:07:21):
So we would invite anybody to come be part of
what we're doing, become a member UM. So I don't
remember to www dot st org support us UM. And
yeah you also say contact us. We're just happy to
connect because I know Clay has abroad UM audience in

(01:07:42):
Indian country. If you want help with your revitalizing, reviving, vitalizing,
reclaiming your language, right, let us know too. Yeah, we
have a lot. It's the queue is longer than We've
got more languages to help than we can ever do
a particular year, you know, And and that is UM,

(01:08:05):
that's challenge for us. It could be disinheartening but it's
also a positive scent. Positive in the sense that um,
their communities out there that really want to do something
for language, and the more that we know about that
the better, and it helps us go out and find
the government grants and the foundation grants where we can help.

(01:08:27):
We can help first nations do whatever they need to
do with their languages and make sure that they they
have control over the destiny of their languages, which is
really where we are. So again, I get I get
fired up every time I talk, every time I opened
my mouth. So stay fired up, everybody. Thanks for joining

(01:08:48):
us and check out seven thousand languages and figure out
what you need to do in terms of technology and
your language. Wishing you all the best and we'll catch
you folks later. Thanks for hanging out with us. Yeahhanda

(01:09:08):
do shoot tows and you can get on a car.
This is how we feel. Seven thousand languages staying strong
all around the world. This has been the Tongue Unbroken,
a project of the Next Up Initiative through My Heart.
Check out on Call with KB another Next Up fellow

(01:09:32):
launching an amazing podcast about the science behind the scenes
of television shows. We are produced by Daniel Goodman, and
we'll catch you next week. Keep doing the good stuff.
Decolonize everything,