September 5, 2022 • 64 mins
Tribal member Karelle Hall and linguist Keith Cunningham join to talk about their work with the Nanticoke Tribe in Millsboro, Delaware to revitalize their language, which had not been spoken since 1859. They talk about the work it takes to bring a language back, and the ways that collaboration and belief in overcoming genocide can help move back towards language use and strength. They also share ideas on what folks can do when they lose the last speaker of their language, and ways that people can contribute to language movements.
Follow Tongue Unbroken on social media at https://twitter.com/tongueunbroken, https://www.facebook.com/tongueunbroken, and http://tongueunbroken.com/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
They tried callingses, try to genocide us. I'm still here
with the tongue unprope and to cut you t H
(00:37):
t A T goodness cheechh. Thank you all for being here.
This is the tongue unbroken. I'm so glad we're together.
I'm so glad you're listening to this. Welcome back. If
this is the first time you're checking us out, welcome
check out the other stuff we've been doing talking about
and if you've been listening to this, A lot of
what we're trying to do here is de colonization. So
(01:00):
if you're on board with de colonization, you're gonna enjoy
some of the stuff that we're talking about today. If
you're not sure what de colonization is, then you'll just
keep listening. We're going to talk about this stuff. Sometimes
we're gonna break some of these things down, like the
specifics of what is colonization, what is coloniality, what is
de colonization, what is de coloniality, what's hegemonial, all these
(01:23):
different things, because they all play a role in the
future of Native American languages, and we are all about
maintaining the same number of languages that were here, which
sometimes takes a tremendous amount of work and a tremendous
amount of change. So if you're not sure, just keep trying.
(01:46):
You have parts that are probably deeply ingrained in you
and that you have been that have been planted through
the educational systems to get you to resist some things
like this. And you might even think someone's trying to
keep me from doing some thing, someone's trying to take
something away from me, and you know, there there's there
might be some truth to that because what's being taken
(02:07):
away is concepts of supremacy. Because supremacy cannot exist on
this continent without genocide. You just can't have one without
the other. And so it's like a faulk crump and
a lot of things we try to I try to
not think in terms of like one thing or the other,
but sometimes there are some situations where you know, someone's
(02:29):
got their foot on someone's neck, and you can't just
have your foot on someone's neck and expect everyone be
okay with that. So I am going to be proposing
here that we decolonize everything, everything, especially public institutions and education.
(02:50):
Education is such a powerful tool in America. It creates
a lot of problems when it comes to Native American histories,
Native American ideology, native American languages, because they're often just
not truly part of what's being taught to people. And
so if education, if educational systems have not fully examine
(03:13):
themselves with an intention to decolonize, they are probably agents
of destruction and agents of genocide and oppression. So to
move away from that, we're going to have some conversations
about what it specifically takes to get out of that,
because it takes people doing different things, it takes people
(03:33):
constructing different systems. A lot of educational systems are rotten
at the core because they are rooted in these concepts
of supremacy, which some people hate. Some people hate to
hear this because it challenges some of the notions that
they're comfortable with. A lot of people are comfortable with
(03:53):
supremacy and they are comfortable with annihilation of Native American
people's because if there's no annihilation, that we have to
be in the room, we have to be in the systems,
we have to be in whatever everybody else is in.
And that's what we're looking for because we remain. We
were here, we are here, we will be here and today,
(04:16):
we're gonna have two special guests who are working on
a language that went to sleep, and we're gonna use
the term sleep because sometimes you do lose the last
of your speakers. This is something that's going to happen
across the North America, and we have to be ready.
So sometimes we have to be ready to say no,
we're not going to allow that to happen. Sometimes we
(04:36):
have to be ready to say, boy, we're coming close.
We need to make sure that doesn't happen. And sometimes
we're going to say, okay, that has happened. And we're
not extinct, extinct as a colonizer's term. I remember someone
wrote an article about a language gathering, and in this
language gathering, there are folks who said, we're not extinct.
Please don't call us that. And they wrote an article
(04:57):
and they said that. I was like, you were there,
you heard the you heard them. I wrote to the
author who denied what I was trying to tell them.
You try to say, well, according to some stupid standard
or some stupid thing, this is what the term is.
And no. So people who have been oppressed and people
who have been victims of what colonization has done and
(05:20):
so we're talking about all kinds of people, all kinds
of people. We're talking about ethnicities, races, genders, sexual orientation,
about all kinds of stuff. They have the right to
define themselves. They have the right to define what's safe
for themselves, and they have the right to exist in
comfort without having to try to not be themselves. So
(05:45):
in future episodes, we're probably about halfway done with this season,
so we're gonna keep trying to extend this and keep
trying to do more. Uh, this is a wonderful work
to just have conversations with people about this kind of stuff.
But at some point we're going to go over the
story of how Alaska Native languages became co official languages
(06:07):
in Alaska, because there's there's some weirdness to it. There's
some violence to that story. There's some you know, some
things that emerged that I think we need to talk about,
and that's good to just sort of put on the table.
But today we're gonna celebrate Mary Peltola, the first Alaska
Native in Congress and a powerful, wonderful Alaska Native female voice.
(06:35):
For now, we're listening to our guests. We're gonna have
a conversation I'll pop in at the end to wrap
this one up. Gonna cheet. So glad you're here. Keep going,
keep being strong, keep doing the good stuff. If you're
not doing the good stuff, look at yourself. Look at
what you can be doing right now. You could be
(06:55):
a change agent. You could be a positive force in
your community that helps people survive and thrive and live
and come back to places of strength. And one last
thing about being an educator doing this type of work,
I've been trying to think of some terminology that I
think helps, because sometimes you have people like there's okay,
(07:17):
let me, let me, let me get to the definitions right.
And I don't like to label people a whole lot.
But I also sometimes have problems because there's certain people
that I have worked with where they have said things
in meetings and sometimes they've been administrators, sometimes they have
been faculty members, and they have said de colonization is totalitarianism.
(07:40):
And then they talk about how academic freedom is threatened
by de colonization, which at the core is all about inclusion.
It's just saying, if you're teaching at a place where
these people are, you have to include those people in
the content. You cannot exclude them from the content, and
that means you have to go to their voices and
have their voices be heard. So, uh, some of the
(08:03):
folks who do this stuff, and it gets complicated because
some people will be against de colonization and will be
actively creating atmospheres of discrimination against Indigenous people's in their
classrooms and in their work. So those are not colleagues.
I started to say colleagues. So I've got these colleagues, colleagues, colleagues,
and I thought about that word, and that word just
(08:24):
seemed very nice, like like we're somehow on this same
sort of team, and I'm not trying to go against them,
but I'm moving them out of the way. I'm like, Okay,
if that's what you're thinking, you've gotta get out of
the way because your motive thinking. If you start saying
things like genocide is the wrong word for Native Americans
(08:46):
to use to describe their own experiences and their own histories,
that mode of thinking is like expired old milk been
in the fridge too long, starting to curdle, and you
need to reboot your operating system. You need to update
some of those files because it's an outdated mode of
(09:07):
thinking that's rooted in supremacy, and supremacy is a huge myth,
a huge lie. So enough of that they'll be from well,
not enough, more and more and more, but not more
for me. More from our guests today, Gonna cheech, gonna
cheese to cut juhan Wassaki, yeahs Hunky and Hastatan h
(09:41):
clan chat and how kods it ta eat that Welcome everybody.
I'm so happy you folks are joining us. I hope
you're having a wonderful day. And I'm excited to talk
to with two new friends of mine and to talk
about what's going on with their language. It's a iportant
for us to know that there are lots of indigenous
(10:03):
languages in North America. There used to be lots, There
are lots right now. They're all important and it's important
for us to learn about what's going on with folks
in different parts of North America. So I am joined
by Keith and Correll, and if you would like to
introduce yourselves, and we're gonna have a conversation about what
you folks are doing, what's going on, what you might need,
(10:26):
what's going to happen next, all kinds of exciting stuff,
So go ahead and tell the people who you are,
can Chief Keith Gunningham, Dellaens. My name is Keith Gunningham.
I am the linguist of the Natico Indian tribe na
Carrel Deloans nant I'm Correll and I am part of
(10:47):
the Nantacoke Indian tribe and very excited to be here today.
Fabulous And where are you folks? What's your folks land? Like,
what's your language? What's what's going on? Uh? You know,
the East Coast is such a magnificent place of wonderful,
rich indigenous peoples and histories that I think are sometimes
(11:09):
overlooked erased. So we want you to have a chance
to tell us about your people in your language. Well,
we are a fairly small community in Delaware, in southern Delaware,
So for any of you guys who have been out
to the Delaware beaches, Rehobeth Beach are tribal lands are
a little bit inland from that. We also have a
(11:30):
couple of sister communities, um one in central Delaware and
another one in South Jersey. And we're you know, one
extended family and but three separate political communities. And we
have been here on this land for forever, and they
weren't able, they didn't push us off. We managed to
(11:50):
stay against all odds and to keep our communities together
and to keep our families together. And we're still out
here today doing that. That's amazing. And I got a
lot of love and respect for people on the East
Coast who who felt the brunt of a lot of
colonial forces uh for a longer period of time and
(12:12):
often h in an incredibly violent way to try and
displace people, get rid of people. And so in in
your folks's language, work with what you're doing, what are
some of Well, I want to talk about what are
you folks doing first before we get into what's hard
about it? So what's going on with your language? What
(12:34):
kinds of things have you folks been working on and
has been going? Well? You know, you're right, our communities
have you were some of the earliest too experience those
colonial invaders. Right. So six eight was actually when John Smith,
infamous John Smith came and visited our community and so
(12:56):
we have been struggling through a lot of challenges since then.
Our languich has actually been sleeping for a while now,
so we don't have any native speakers alive today. Our
last speaker passed in the mid eighteen hundreds, and so
what we're doing right now is we're waking that language
(13:16):
back up. So we have some old archives that m
I'll let Keith tell you a little bit more about
the details of how you even take these old books
and you know, help to reawaken the language from that.
But our communities are really making that push right now
(13:36):
to bring that language back, um put it in the
mouths of our children, and to put in the mouths
of the elders and the adults in every single person.
We're all starting off at the beginning, but we're all
really excited to bring that language back, and the children
of tomorrow and for the next several generations are going
to have this language. It's incredible going to Cheese for
(13:57):
all that work, for for having the courage to step
forward and to do that. We talk a lot in
our region about these kind of three different terms that
we use. We say language stabilization is if you've got
a lot of speakers and just kind of trying to
stay where you're at. And language revitalization means you don't
(14:17):
have a lot of speakers and you're trying to create
speakers so you can do stabilization, and then revival is
you don't have speakers and you need to start creating
new speakers. And it's wonderful and inspirational to hear that
this can happen, that it is happening. I wish you
all the very very best as you folks are doing
(14:38):
this work. And I guess what are some of those
challenges that you face, and what are your strategies to
to overcome those challenges, to defy all the odds what
you are going to do and what you are doing.
So you know, since Anato Cooke were among the first
to encounter cologists and the language when mormant, before we
(15:01):
had things like shape recorders, I P A or any
other linguistic notation. What we have at our disposal are
some very inconsistently recorded documents, of which contain a little
under four hundred unique words. But fortunately UH, the Algonkian
family as a whole was very closely related and UH
(15:25):
with the individual languages, and particularly along the Eastern seaboard.
The Eastern Algonkian languages, which comprise a genetic subgroup within
the wider Algonkian family, are really more closely related to
one another than say French or Spanish or Italian are
related to one another. So even though we might not
have a complete vocabulary of the language, we do we
(15:49):
are able to draw inference from other better documented languages
of ones that still have speakers or ones that have
gone dormant after we have already a are appreciable numbers
of recordings of them. And so what I'm doing with
the language, I'm doing kind of the dirty work of
language or vitalization, which is taking these documents trying to
(16:12):
puzzle out their orthography, which again they didn't have i
PA or anything of that sort. But I'm taking these
words meticulously finding cognates and these other related Algonkian languages
and fortunately also Algunky and does happen to be the
best studied language family in the New World, and we
do have we already have several dictionaries of protoil Gunkey,
(16:35):
and so a lot of reconstructive work has been done.
And so my work has been in addition to to UH,
gathering cognates and looking at protoil Gunkey and proto Eastern
Algunkey and just trying to figure out how did not
to Cooke descend from the proto languages, and how is it,
how does it resemble neighboring languages? It's other relatives, and
(16:55):
with that we can fill in a lot of the
gaps that are in the documentation thereby creating a working language. Again.
That's wonderful. And I enjoyed seeing you had cat that
was crawling on your keyboards that it was fun. I
had to take my dogs toys away before we started this.
And so we're just hanging out, we're chilling, We're just
talking about language revitalization. We're talking about what's what's going on,
(17:20):
So like what kinds of things, what kinds of things
are you making, what kinds of things are you doing,
what kinds of Who is your target audience for some
of this stuff? Um, yeah, I'm very fascinated to hear.
So one of the elders in our community, Raggy, had
this idea, this vision, this dream that she could find
a way to really bring this language to the children.
(17:42):
We've had for the last decade or so. Um, we've
had some other elders in our community get together and
work with some of those other speakers of sister languages.
So they worked with a woman who's is from the
Niche Nabe people, and so those languages are sister or
cousin languages two hours and so they, alongside Keith, worked
(18:07):
together to create a series of classes mainly geared at
adults or older children to start to learn some of
the vocabulary and grammar. And so we had like some
classes that we did a series of classes, um, but
so Raggie wanted to find a way to bring it
(18:29):
to the younger children that those you know there are
future and they're going to be the people taking our
language into the future. And also something that people could
have all the time because due to you know, we're
all busy adults. UM. Keith and I are both in
graduate school right now, so you know, we are very busy.
But we wanted to, you know, create something that people
(18:52):
could have all the time, that they could access and
learn at their own pace, in addition to the classes
that will still be offering in the future. And so
she had this idea of putting together a children's book
in the language, and so that's actually what we've been
spending most of the pandemic working on because you know,
I couldn't do anything else. So it's perfect for at least,
(19:13):
you know, language work and being able UM. You know,
since I wasn't able to do some of my other
work and other research at the time, we can really
dive into that language work and put this book together.
And so we have a really great team of people
who are working to make this a reality. So it's
one of those introductory books that has colorful illustrations done
(19:36):
by a very talented artist from our community page and
we UM have this character, Grandmother Turtle, who takes everyone
through the lessons and she actually kind of reminds everybody
of Raggie. She's modeled after this wonderful elder in our
community who is also a storyteller. And so Grandmother Turtle
(19:59):
she teaches greetings UM, the greetings that Keith and I
gave at the beginning. Those are in the books and
we want everyone to learn them. UM. There's also lessons
on UM animals and colors and UM family members. And
even within those lessons, there's also you know, our own
(20:20):
cultural teachings that are you know, brought into that. So
in the family section, for example, we tell them that
our word for siblings and our word for cousins are
the same thing in the language because you know how
our people are like your siblings, your cousins, those are
you know, they're all your brothers and sisters, and so
it's there in the language, yes, exactly. So you know
(20:44):
some of those things are in there. We have, um,
you know, a section about giveaways and why those are important,
and so you know, also they learned the words for gift,
and they also learned that teaching of you know, what
giveaways are about and the sort of generosity that is
sort of embedded in our in our cultures. Wow, that
(21:05):
is beautiful because you have children who will be learning
this as a new language, and you also have adults
who will be learning this as a new language. And
so as everybody sort of starts to bring it back,
it's wonderful to think about these things that can fit
for everybody. And I'm so happy you folks used the
term sleeping like I'm not happy that that's the state.
(21:26):
But you know, I was at a language gathering here
in Alaska that was it was very strange like. So
they wanted to bring our languages forward because we had
made us most of our Alaska Native language is co
official languages of Alaska. So they wanted to have a
signing ceremony to kind of prop up this politician. So
(21:47):
they reached out to me and said, could you get
someone from could you? And there was kind of a
team of us. He's like, could you guys get someone
from every Alaska native language to say thank you? I'm
so happy be my language is an official language of
the state of Alaska. And I said, well, that's something
would never say in our languages. But I said, we
could probably say something kind of close to that, but
(22:10):
if you give people a chance to start speaking their language,
they're gonna say a lot more than that, so you
better be ready for it. And they really weren't, And
they were trying to get me to get everyone to
be quiet, and I said, what you brought us here
to celebrate our languages. Now you want me to tell
people to be quiet. You picked the wrong guy for
that job. And so at one point, we have a
language here e K, which is a beautiful language just
(22:33):
north of us UH. And they don't have any fully
fluent speakers right now as far as I know. There
might be one or two, but they had sort of
famously lost one of their last speakers in the ninety nineties.
I believe maybe it was the early two thousand's um
and her name was Anne Smith, and people started using
(22:57):
the word extinct to talk about their language, and a
lot of us always felt like that's the wrong word
to use one because if someone gets murdered, you don't
you know, it's different. And so there's these colonial forces
that have annihilated and genocided indigenous peoples are attempted to
and then also like the people are there and we
(23:18):
see languages that are bringing their languages back to use,
bringing their languages back to life. And so the Eak
peoples who came to this, they said, don't say we're extinct.
We're not. We're right here. We're doing everything we can.
We're trying to bring our language back. And there was
some reporter who wrote an article and said including the
(23:39):
extinct language of ec and I reached out to that reporter.
I said, hey, man, I was there, and they said,
don't use that word, and you turn around use that word.
And then they tried to explain, well, according to something
something that's like, it's not your place. And so, uh,
I think it's important for indigenous communities to define themselves,
to define their own work, to set their own path,
(24:01):
and I'm so happy to hear that this is what
you folks are doing as you go forward. And so
let's say someone else has a language that doesn't have
any speakers. What's your advice on how do they get started? Well,
I would definitely tell them to think about what other
(24:22):
resources do they have, because a lot of people they
get really it's it's intimidating, it is, and it's a
very daunting task, but it's not impossible. And so there
might be old archived documents, there might be old recordings,
you know, depending on when, um, you know, when their
(24:45):
language was last spoken. So if we're talking like the
last elders, you know, just recently passed, there may still
be people who may not be fluent speakers, but they
may know some of it. To go to them, um
and start talking with them, and we're working with them, um.
And then you know, for other communities that are similar
to ours, and we are going on archives text. Also
(25:09):
remember your own language families. There are so many languages, um,
you know, all across North America and across the rest
of Turtle Island, and they all are related to somebody else.
And so go find your neighbors, Go find your cousins,
your long lost cousins, your linguistic cousins, and you know,
see how you guys can help each other. So I
(25:33):
think we just need to not think about it as
these isolated communities bringing an isolated language back to life.
It's not. It's more than that. You know, we all
we do things by community anyway, and so reaching out
across those communities for help and for resources, I think
is one way to go amazing. Also, one thing that
(25:55):
I've really come to appreciate as I've been working on
the Naticoke language is that no matter how many generations
have passed since the last speaker has walked on, that
the culture is still alive and well, and the worldview
the values are still very much a part of the culture.
And so the experience of reintroducing the language is and
(26:18):
so much teaching a foreign language so much as it
is welcoming a relative home. Even though someone may even
though the current generations of students may have never heard
the language spoken before, there is still this intimate familiarity
that it just kind of recognized that there's just a
sense of familiarity with the language even if they haven't
spoken it. Once they learn how there are just certain
(26:41):
ways of expressions. And imagine Corel can probably speak a
lot more about this than I can. But that's a
really I mean that it's just something just clicks when
it's somebody reconnecting with their own ancestral language versus trying
to learn a completely new paradigm um. And I found
that very moving as I as I gave my classes
(27:03):
where it's just I will just as you know, coming
to it as an outsider, I'd be explaining some things
that are different from a kind of English background. And
the reaction I got was more like, oh, yes, of course,
you know that makes perfect sense that it should be
this case. It whether it be you know, animus e
or you're not saying goodbye, it's like i'll see you later.
That's just a common way of it's never farewell. Everybody
(27:25):
always reunites. And h I found that very moving. Yeah,
and especially I think using that example of goodbye, realizing
that in the Nantaicoke language, they don't say goodbye, they
say i'll see you again, or i'll see you another time,
i'll see you later, something like that. Growing up, all
the elders in our family never used the word goodbye.
(27:48):
They always would say later. And I remember as a
kid very clearly, UM, getting yelled at by one of
my um great aunts because I would say bye to
her because you know, that's I don't know, that's what
all the other kids say to people like UM. And
she was like, no, we don't, we don't do that,
you know, don't say goodbye. Um, it's bad luck is
what she would always say. And UM She's like say,
(28:11):
I'll see you later, I'll see you again, because we
always will see each other again in this life for
the next one. And so it's really exciting as I
learned more and more about this language, and as I'm
learning more of it, how many things like that are
embedded that we're kept by the community even if they
passed into English, Like we're using English words, but we're
(28:32):
still expressing some of these same ideas, right, And I
think it's important for folks to also realize, like the
level of reconstruction that also often has to happen in
in Native America, and so like with the amount of
destruction that colonialism has done historically and continues to do
by you know, mothering people and keeping them out of
(28:54):
spaces and just generally just ignoring like whole nation and languages.
Often you have to put so much stuff back together.
But some of the things that I think of as
we had an elder his name is Kingisti David Katzik,
and he used to always stand up to in front
of classes and say two yea yet, to yea yet.
(29:17):
Our language is inside of you. It's inside of you.
We're gonna wake it up. We're gonna we're gonna bring
this thing back. And then another elder, his name was
Ka Walter Sobeloff. He used to say, never forget this
wonderful thing that was born on the world and that
allowed our ancestors to survive, because I think in order
(29:37):
to survive as indigenous people's, I think we need our languages.
And for some of us, we're just going to try
and get back everything that we can, little bits at
a time. Uh. And so I'm I'm so happy to
hear what you folks are doing. Uh. And I we're
gonna hear more about it, but first we're gonna take
a short break. We're gonna listen to some folks who
(29:58):
have something we might be int stid and hopefully it's
a good thing. So gonna chee. This is the tongue unbroken.
We'll be right back. What's happening, baby, This colonization ship
got you down. You're gonna get on this decoalization. Yeah,
it's time the language revitalization, and across North America, the
(30:23):
land of the language coming back into the hands of
future generations where it all belongs, rise up and have
their voices be heard to beat all the colonial forces
that try to hold you down. Okay, gonna's cheech. We
(30:47):
are back. We're happy to be having this coast to
coast conversation. So we brought the Pacific Ocean and the
Atlantic Ocean together for this conversation. So a to the
work that I think happens in language revitalization as language planning.
So for language planning, a lot of times when I
(31:08):
go to Hawaii a look at things and say, okay,
this could be us thirty years from now, I'd always
have to think, okay, we gotta come up with like
some kind and they would throw that number at us.
And so Peter Wilson and Cowanois Kamana and others that'd
say thirty years, what's it going to be like thirty
years from now? And so it was interesting because I'm
I'm not a very organized person, so sometimes trying to
(31:30):
think of like two years from now is going to
be difficult. But I'd say, oh, well, you know it's
gonna be like twenty fifty. What's going to happen in
other than flying cars and rain all the time or
whatever is in the movies? Right? But I guess, for
what's your vision for what is going to happen with
your language? And how are you going to get there?
(31:51):
I think for so many of us, it's to have
children born and speaking Nana Cooke as their first language,
and growing up and still speaking Atacoca as that first language,
learning English because you know, we all live in this
world and we have to know it and and work
in it and deal with it. But having that language
(32:12):
at home and in our communities, and so we go
to community gatherings and everybody speaking in the language, and
you know, each new generation, the kids coming up with
new slang and I don't know, jokes and songs in
the language. You know, something that you know makes it
fun and keeps it going. Um, So that very broadly,
and I have some ideas how to get there. I
(32:33):
don't know whether that's my thirty year plan, the fifty
year plan, the hundred and fifty year plan. But however
long it takes, as long as we keep going and
take a step forward each day, I think that you know,
they're going to get there, those next generations. I don't
know which one it will be, but they will get there.
But I think for us, I would love to see
(32:54):
this book that we're creating. We're gonna have it soon
in the hands of the pay as many people in
our community as possible. We are going to create an
online dictionary where people it'll be an interactive dictionary where
people are able to look up words and grammar and
you know, start to put together some of their sentences themselves.
(33:15):
I would love to see some language nests as soon
as we get enough, um people learning to speak the
language well enough to create some of these language only
spaces where we can work with um, you know, different
groups of people, children or adults, or you know, small
groups of people where we can really help to increase
their fluency. And yeah, having our own schools again, um,
(33:38):
we used to have our own schools in our communities. UM.
But not in the language of court. But um. But
you know, just for our sort of community members, but
having our own schools and facilities in the future where
you know, we can we can teach them math in
the language. You know, we can teach um real history
(33:58):
in the language, UM, literature, government politics, UM, actual global studies. UM.
So I would love to see that as UM. I
know I've been looking around it, you know, all the
people in Indian Country who are doing some of these
programs now and just really seeing what they're doing and
how they're moving that forward. And you know, I'm really
(34:19):
excited to see what I can help and who I
can inspire and pass it on to and it chief.
And yeah, we we think about this stuff a lot,
just in terms of trying to see the getting this
long range vision and then trying to figure out like, well,
what are the pieces to really get there, And a
lot of that takes just a lot of innovation, jumping
(34:41):
outside the colonial boxes and creating some things. And sometimes
you're creating stuff specifically for age groups, like so, okay,
this is for kids, and so we need to get
some stuff for the kids. Is for the adults. We've
got to get some stuff for the adults. And then
once you start getting this critical mass of learners who
can start to speak. Then you start to think about
creating community spaces and so for for us and think it.
(35:05):
We spent the summer doing some language immersion gatherings and
one of the things that we realized is we have
a very large population, well pretty large for um for us.
We have a pretty large population here in Juno, and
Juno is probably thirty thousand people and I'd say maybe
twenty our indigenous and so we're pretty large part of
(35:30):
the population, but we don't really have a space where
we can gather specifically around our language. And so we
have a lot of wonderful organizations who have developed spaces
and purchase spaces and built buildings, but most of the
times those are English speaking spaces, even though they are indigenous,
and so we do a lot of partnerships with them.
(35:52):
But then we realize what we need some spaces where
we can just gather and have dinners and get together
and basically a language house, because we rented some through
through these different companies where you can sort of rent
a house for a while. And I think there's a
lot of land moguls who were involved with this stuff,
and I don't think it's very healthy for communities in general.
(36:12):
But we got like really bad reviews because we moved
furniture around. We had a bunch of cars there, and
it wasn't your typical have a little vacation type of thing.
Like we we had work to do. And so what
we're going to try and figure out here is how
do we acquire some spaces that are specifically for our language,
so we can say, let's go to language house and
once you cross that threshold, then you you just leave
(36:35):
your English outside. And we found that when we were
living like that, it was a lot easier to speak,
a lot easier to understand. But then we also have
to get a lot of people ready for that, which
is you know, all these interlocking pieces. And so as
as you folks are doing this work, I'm so happy
that you have neighboring languages that you can work with.
(36:58):
I know, uh, like, I guess, what are some models
that you're looking at that you're hoping to replicate in
your work with your language. So really my inspiration for
the work I'm doing was Jesse Little do Baran's work
the Wampanog language um So Wampanog. Similarly, UH did not
(37:21):
have speakers of the language for several generations, and so
Jesse little to working with the late doctor Kinneth Hale
worked with resources such as as the Elliott Bible and
some native native documents in Massachusetts to reconstruct the language.
And uh so I'm basically I'm using the same method,
(37:43):
albeit with a smaller corpus to work from. And uh
also so looking towards the future right now, as I mentioned,
I'm kind of doing like the dirty work of the
language or vitalization, with this sorting of orthography to phone
um correspondences and all that historical work. But moving forward,
I think, of course pedagogy is the most important thing, UM,
(38:06):
getting this reconstructed language back to the people. And I've
learned certainly things like language camps and like and opportunities
to actually use the language are certainly absolutely crucial to that, UM.
And I think as I've as I've been studying the language,
I'm looking at it to the lens of a linguist,
so things like obviative or transitive, animate and so forth.
(38:31):
And that works well for me, but I find, you know,
in the classroom setting, explaining these things like obviative, etcetera,
and using those terms. Sometimes it just kind of draws
a blank and just kind of you know, dissecting the
language in that way, kind of like a taxi army
or just kind of like a very forensic way of
looking the language doesn't really help as much as just
(38:51):
providing these opportunities to just kind of use it as
a living language. Um. Ultimately, the language language is patterns
and sound. That's learning the languages is pattern recognition. And
so just you know, getting those language camps started and
have just all these opportunities to use language, I think
that's really going to be crucial for getting the language
back communities, right, Um, yeah, those the Wampanog example is
(39:16):
one that I've I've very much. I've learned a lot
from from their approach. Um, I've studied a few other
indigenous languages along the way. I did some Adnetizad, some Upsaloca,
and they all basically very similar. Is kind of creating.
Creating the environment for the language with the language camps
(39:39):
and activities is kind of people actively using them versus
is kind of like Latin style, uh, grammatical instruction. And
our communities, the Nanticoke community, um we many of the
Eastern Aloan community eastern Hucan communities are and sider the
(40:00):
Lenape people to be sort of the grandfathers, the original
people of this land, and our languages are of course
very similar to Lenape um. Lenape itself has broadly to
two rough sort of categories of dialects. Some people would say,
you know, some of these words are not um, you know,
(40:20):
as useful for describing what you know, how these languages
operate in practice. But um, there's the months, the in
the in the northern, tsunami in the south. And I've
been able to learn some months see um from speakers
in Canada from the two months a communities on Ontario
(40:41):
who um they've been working on their language revitalization as well,
and it's been really valuable to both connect with them
as you know, these distinct kin because you know they
are they're also our people and um, and also to
learn about what they're doing with language revital as they shan.
And one good thing about the pandemic, I don't even
(41:04):
know if I want to say that as a phrase,
but um something this rise of zoom and being able
to have online classes because you know, my language teachers
in Canada and so you know me down here in
Delaware would have been very hard to attend, you know,
bi weekly classes that would be held in Ontario, but
(41:25):
due to the pandemic, they moved these classes online and
so now you're having people from all over being able
to log in and um and talk to each other
in the language, even if they're geographically separate. So it's
also been really great to connect with other people like that. Yeah,
that's amazing. We started using Zoom I think a couple
(41:46):
of years before the pandemic for teaching because we're trying
to find high fidelity options, you know, and so a
lot of the kind of interfaces for having video conferences
and for having some sort of class or conversation would
compress the audio because they just a lot of folks
who are probably designing this stuff assumed that everybody speaks
(42:07):
the same language. So it's just all about like being
visually pleasing and having some good interactivity and being easy
to use. And so we started hunting around and we
are we have a great I T department at our
university who are always looking for these microphone solutions and
who are looking for ideas. And there was a uh
(42:29):
an English teacher named Kevin Meyer said if you tried
to zoom thing and and so he's a professor at US,
and I said no, and I looked at it, and
I said, this is what we need. So lucky for us,
when the pandemic hit, we had already been zooming for
a year or two, and so we were just sort
of kind of ready to roll right into that. And
then we we had a massive open online courses through
(42:52):
a couple of institutions uh Selaska Heritage Institutes and Outer
Coast out of Sitka, and they had they were hosting
these free online classes and we're getting hundreds of people
signing up, showing lots of interest, a lot of people coming.
And so we started to try and think of strategies
in terms of, Okay, we gotta get people interested, then
(43:13):
we got to get them started. Then we've got to
start breaking off these groups who were starting to really
make some progress, and then just keep pushing everybody higher
and higher and higher, because we went you know, we
still we have an unbroken chain of speakers, but we
went probably forty fifty years without creating any speakers, and
(43:34):
and so now we're starting to get to a point
where we can create them and we can start to
have conversations with each other. But then even with that,
we find that we have to resist the urge to
switch to English so that we could explain what we're
trying to say or where things where there was an
error or whatever. And so instead of focusing on perfection,
(43:55):
we're always trying to just focus on communication to make
sure that the lane, which can be something of daily communications.
I loved what you're saying about, like making the thing
that you use to talk about movies or sports or
hunting or fishing or whatever people want to do, give
them the tools to do so. Uh in your language.
(44:17):
So I guess, um, what about some of your You
both are studying hard, and I think pursuing PhD is
good for both of you. Uh, that's a long hard
wrote did that? And uh so how is that going?
And how are your studies relating to what you're trying
to do in your language work? So, Um, I'm getting
(44:39):
towards the end of my dissertation, which is one not
to coke historical phrenology. I've meticulously analyzed the historical word lists,
um revised repeats, repeat, multiple rounds of revisions, and just
sending it around for coordination with other with other experts,
getting a feedback and all that. Um So I'm coming
(45:03):
up towards the end of that and um but yeah,
that's been the culmination of I've been and you know,
so I started the PhD program in two thousand and fifteen,
but actually my work with the Napticoke community I started
back in two thousand twelve. I um, I just happened
to visit the Naptocook Museum, UM and I met with
the curator Sterling Street. And before that, actually, way a
(45:26):
way back, I can really actually giving a little bit
more background about myself, I think might make it a
little clearer about some of my motives with this. So
you know, I myself, I don't have Naptacoke ancestry. UM.
I grew up in Landsdown, at a town so outside
Baltimore City. I um but um, I really started my
love of languages in high school when so they started
(45:51):
offering Japanese in my high school, which was unusual because
they were getting ready to get rid of all foreign
language programs in the school. UM So, Shield sense was
a very important influence in my life, and I am
I'm very grateful match you basically taught me another worldview.
It was the experience of studying Japanese, learning this different language,
(46:13):
all the values and different worldview rather it expresses. That
was absolutely a transformative experience for me. And so when
I continued studying Japanese during my undergraduate days and UM
also happened to take a course in Chinese historical phonology,
which was a really you know, that's a very I
just had this very sort of esoteric, really laser focused
(46:34):
interest on this historical phonology thing. It was kind of like,
you know, almost like algebra in a way. The correspondence
is just really fascinated and that just how languages evolved
are from ancestral forms and all. UM. But then it
was actually seeing that documentary Uh we Still Live here
up one project where I thought, Okay, this is really
(46:54):
a way that I can tie together my esoteric interests
to something that can really benefit cool UM. And then,
as you mentioned in your UM inaugural podcast that you
were kind of setting this table like we want to
have a seat and sharing this great meal. I think
it's imperative that all Americans that we take an active
interest in one of those cultures UM under and moreover,
(47:18):
that we under we endeavor to understand every group on
their own terms rather than their adherence to you some
sort of your American model of being. UM. So that
really finding this project that was something where I thought,
that's my way I can kind of say, you know,
I see you, I honor you, I've I want to
do my part to to help you. Yeah to uh,
(47:42):
I want to do my part to contribute to the
continued vitality of your culture. And M just you know,
as my fellow Americans is the well being is important
to me. And I want to see you thrive, and
I want to hear what you have to say. And
so this you know that that that's that's really been
the motive for me. That as I've been kind of
sifting through all these old documents and and uh meticulously
(48:05):
gathering cognates, it's just that goal of kind of restoring
something that was taken away that really, I mean, that's
really motivated me. And I you know, I humbly I
hope that I have made a contribution to something written
well will benefit many generations from now. And I am
(48:27):
not really at the end of my dissertation. UM, I
would say I'm in the latter half of it. Is
where I'm at. I'm finishing up my field work finally.
I was supposed to start it at the UM but
you know, pandemic, so um, I'll be starting my write
up process very soon. And my research is studying Nana
(48:47):
Cooke in the Nape sovereignty and identity and really trying
to tease a part this word sovereignty. I've even had
many conversations with people about you know, maybe sovereignty isn't
even the word that we want to use because it
has so many different nations to it. But really talking
to people about, you know, what it is to exist
(49:07):
as a nantecoc or Lenape person and how we are
able to um be ourselves, express our culture, express our
our identities, and stay together as these communities. And some
of that is through our language work, and some of
it is through political work, and some of it is
(49:28):
through you know, other different types of embodied forms of existing.
And so yeah, my work is teasing out that. UM.
I became interested in language revitalization probably well as a kid.
I knew that. Um the only word I think I
knew was wenny she which is thank you, which is
(49:50):
a word that you know, one of the words that
most many people in the community do know. But um,
when I went to college, and it was the first
time where I got to be with other Native students
from like other communities, Native people who weren't my cousins. Uh.
So it's really my first opportunity to meet, you know,
people from all parts of Native America. And one of
(50:13):
the classes I took was about language revitalization, and you know,
I really got to hear all these different communities talk
about the different stages that their languages were in, and
they were you know, all over the board as far
as you know, some people like people from Navajo Nation
for example, who are working on that stability right now, right, Um,
(50:34):
I didn't know. I have a clinket friend actually from
college as well. So um. But yeah, so it made
me really think about what our community like, where we
were at, and what I could do to contribute to
bring us to a stronger place. And I did a
study abroad program in New Zealand and my host family
(50:55):
was a Maudi family and they were running a Maori
immersion in preschool. Um, and so you know, they were
telling me about how they were trying to you know,
keep Maudi alive and being um, and helping to make
sure that it gets past to the children and the
children are learning it in addition to English. And so,
(51:16):
you know, after I graduated, I wanted to, you know,
see what I could do, you know, how how can
I use whatever talents that I have to help our
community bring it back. And I got to meet Keith,
and you know, we've been working together for a while
and just you know, really excited to bring together different
people to UM, you know, to bring this language back
(51:39):
to our communities. I've really been learning a little bit
about you know, teaching methods and you know, how do
you effectively teach people things, how do you connect with people?
How do you teach in UM these non colonial ways,
you know, these are some of the things that I've
been trying to learn so that UM, you know, I'm
in a position to UM you know, bring to speak
(52:00):
our language and to bring it back to our community
in a way that's going to really UM work for
us and and help us and something that we want
and that we can shape. And so yeah, still looking
for UM more ways to be helpful, learning, trying to
learn more skills and pass them on. And I will
(52:22):
say that I'm really excited by how many, Um, you know,
how many elders are also starting to learn some of
this language, because um, I was talking with one elder
and you know, he was saying, you know, it's very
daunting to try to learn, you know, a whole another language. However,
he now introduces himself in the language. He says, he
(52:42):
uses lannishi all the time. He can do his introduction.
He knows some prayer words. He can say Creator kishlag
like you know, so he is he has that language,
and I think that um, I think he's also said
it earlier. It's not as um important to and maybe
it was you. I don't now, I'm sorry. It's not
as important to to focus on that perfection of of
(53:06):
the language, but to work on communication. Sorry that was
you U. So yeah, just like really seeing how you know,
pulling some of the like what's important to people. Just
being able to speak those few words, to say that
short prayer to Creator in the language, that's what's really
important and beautiful. Okay, gout counter hit you hung yeah
(53:30):
dot Uh. We're gonna take another break, but before we do,
I just want to say it. I think in another
important part of decolonization is really continually analyzing everything and
being very paranoid that colonial mechanisms are going to be
entering into your consciousness, so being competitive, trying to be
(53:51):
the best and trying to uh, well they got this.
I'm mad that they got this. Right these other like
we were we were messing around with our elders trying
to come up with a term for like someone get
something and you're jealous that they got it, and they
had a really hard time because I said, we're not
like that. But you know, finally we had an elder
who who told me he had to sleep on it.
(54:12):
You know, his name was enough to hash Sam Johnston.
He's one of my favorites because he'll tell you how
to say all kinds of amazing stuff. But I think
just continually sort of analyzing the different ways that you
can sometimes get caught in a trap and that that
trap will also leave you sometimes saying Okay, well we're
not ready, but as soon as we get ready, we're
(54:33):
going to do the thing. Where I think, just do
the thing, don't wait to get ready, because that time
is not really going to come for a lot of
people's And so if your language is already in trouble,
if your language is endangered. If your language maybe doesn't
have speakers right now, then you can't wait for anything.
You've got to go and create changes and shifts. But
(54:53):
you can still have a plan, you can still go.
But I think you know, we used to run into
this here when we talk about building these immerged and environments,
like we we have a language nest now and it's beautiful,
and just watching those kids and those teachers. It's very
difficult to do, but it can be done. But a
lot of people would say, oh, we're just not ready
for that, and I'd say, we're in a state of loss.
(55:13):
We don't get more ready by just waiting for something
else to change. We we have to be that change.
And so if you're out there, you're doing this work,
you're thinking about doing this work, be positive, be productive,
don't be toxic to each other, don't hurt each other,
and just get in there and do it. So we'll
be right back and uh, we'll see a few folks
(55:35):
and maybe teach us a few things from your language
so we can hear it learn about it. Right after
this ad break going to cheat Once I thought about
a million birds all around the world sharing their songs,
thinking about the ways they have lived and they're gonna live.
(55:59):
This is the way a way to see and we're
(56:21):
back and chee unaway Artokri. I'm excited to hear a
few things from your folks as language as we start
to kind of wrap up this episode, wrap up this conversation.
It's been so wonderful to spend some time with you,
So teach us a couple of things. Let's hear this
(56:43):
material language so we can give you a greeting to
speak to your friends. So when we started, we said
Willy cannel, which means it's good to see you. Will
canol or Nie Top you can have the top on
the which is my friend, So you know, to make
it really personal because all of you are our friends.
(57:06):
Really can now will lead top cheese, Keith, you got
one for us? When is she? You say thank you language,
gonna cheese and and usually you you want to ask
about somebody's well being when you're greeting them, you can
say alamala huh one more time, colamalis huh. It means
(57:31):
how are you fabulous? And uh. Any parting messages for
the people who are listening. Anything you want to share, inspiration,
things you want to make sure that they know about you, folks.
I will say that even if you don't speak your
language today, or you're really afraid, if it seems too
daunting or too big of a job, start small. Learn
(57:53):
one word, then learn a second one. Soon you're gonna
have a whole phrase learned. It like simple words like
the ones that we're teaching. You learn what those greetings
are with those um, those words of gratitude, and start
from there, and before you know it, you will be
speaking your language. So don't give up, don't be discouraged.
Any any of our languages can come back and can
(58:17):
be re awoken. Yeah, I would like to add to
that that definitely, Um, I'd like to reiterate that you know, one,
it succeeds at language learning. Even the goal shouldn't always
be like, oh I must absolutely fluent in this language.
Things you know, identity performance is important, the ability to
(58:37):
to say a few phrases in one's language. That's um,
it's a very every every single word, every phrase used
in your language is a very potent statement of pride
in one's identity and also a very potent statement of
resistance against assimilation. UM. And I think that American Indian cultures,
Alaska Native cultures, languages are our integral part of our
(59:02):
of our nation's patchwork national treasures, and I think that
it's I find it very wonderful that that Native peoples
are re embracing their languages and their cultures. And I
also think that it's imperative that all Americans taken active
interest and that and learn as much as they can
about our first nations and that way, I think, I
(59:25):
think really just taking that active interest is going to
go a long way to healing wounds and just encouraging
people to be who they are. I think that's that's
of the utmost importance. And so where can folks find you,
support you. It's gonna be people on these coasts with
all kinds of money. Given some money, give build them things,
(59:48):
do things, make things happen. If if you're living on
indigenous lands, you better be finding a way to help
indigenous languages or else you're just playing colonizer or tourists.
And you don't want to have those roles. You want
your role to be an active decolonizer, a change maker,
someone who contributes to life instead of taking away from others.
(01:00:10):
Everything we're doing here is additive. We're all doing good things,
so how can people find your folks in support you?
So right now we're still working on a social media presence.
We're going to need a gen Z intern for that.
But right now we do have a dedicated email for
the language work and it's called Nanta Cooke Language at
(01:00:34):
gmail dot com. So no dots or spaces, just Nanticoke
Language at gmail dot com. How do you spell it?
That is n A n T I c O k
E Nanticoke And you're also, um, welcome to the Nanticoke
(01:00:56):
Indian Tribe has a website and contact information that are
so UM. That's another way to um if you can't
remember that email address or you're looking for a website
to go to. Our language work doesn't specifically have a
presence on the site yet. Um, you know, was something
we're still building. Um. If there's any people in that
tech world out there who wanna, you know, help us
(01:01:18):
with that, we would love some recommendations. Okay, somebody get
us a millennial. No, we're millennials. We need the gen zs,
We need the younger folks. Oh so that's the next
one day. See, I'm I think I'm gen X so
I'm behind on all those things. But yeah, someone with
some social media fluency, some web fluencies, some technology. We
(01:01:42):
do some work with seven thousand languages, and their their
headquarters are kind of close to you, folks. So yeah,
let's get you all some help, and let's get you
all some relief and just keep building these wonderful things.
And I just want to say, if if you reach
out to help people who are doing stuff in indigenous languages, uh,
and if you're not from that group, just stay humble,
(01:02:06):
be be kind, listen to people, try to pluralize. We
get a lot of folks who come here and say
Alaska Native culture, Alaska Native culture. I'm like, there's so
many of us, We're all different. Stop saying just a
singular thing and so uh, and also just be be
a good ally and also stay productive and stay uh
(01:02:30):
in tune with what the people are doing, and try
not to claim anything as yours. And so as we
sort of reach out for folks to come and visit
with you folks and to help you all out, we
want to make sure that they're coming in a good
way and that they're also being additive. And my hope
is that this thirty year dream where children are speaking
(01:02:51):
your language and their people are telling stories in your language,
and people are walking around just talking about their day
to day stuff. What they need to talk, try ash
to each other. They need to gossip, they need to
tell stories, jokes, all that good stuff. I hope it's
coming in your language and that you folks are h
a genesis of something that is wonderful and unstoppable. So
(01:03:16):
that's my that's my wish for what's coming forward for you, folks.
I want to thank you for reaching out to to
me after listening to our podcast Keith and too uh
just hanging out with us today and being awesome. So
I wish you all the best and uh, we'll talk
to you later when she I'm honored to speak with
you today. I wish you the best of luck for
your continued success. Chee utan joquit quote gonna cheech. Your
(01:03:57):
ancestors want you to success, eat, be brave. Strength is
inside of you because they want it. It's going to happen.
This has been The Tongue Unbroken, a production of the
I Heart Media Network and the next up initiative Check
them out. Partition Black Fat, Fem and Beauty Translated beautiful
(01:04:22):
voices stepping out from the margins. This has been produced
by Ian Johnson. We'll be back next week, going to
Cheech
They tried callingses, try to genocide us. I'm still here
with the tongue unprope and to cut you t H
(00:37):
t A T goodness cheechh. Thank you all for being here.
This is the tongue unbroken. I'm so glad we're together.
I'm so glad you're listening to this. Welcome back. If
this is the first time you're checking us out, welcome
check out the other stuff we've been doing talking about
and if you've been listening to this, A lot of
what we're trying to do here is de colonization. So
(01:00):
if you're on board with de colonization, you're gonna enjoy
some of the stuff that we're talking about today. If
you're not sure what de colonization is, then you'll just
keep listening. We're going to talk about this stuff. Sometimes
we're gonna break some of these things down, like the
specifics of what is colonization, what is coloniality, what is
de colonization, what is de coloniality, what's hegemonial, all these
(01:23):
different things, because they all play a role in the
future of Native American languages, and we are all about
maintaining the same number of languages that were here, which
sometimes takes a tremendous amount of work and a tremendous
amount of change. So if you're not sure, just keep trying.
(01:46):
You have parts that are probably deeply ingrained in you
and that you have been that have been planted through
the educational systems to get you to resist some things
like this. And you might even think someone's trying to
keep me from doing some thing, someone's trying to take
something away from me, and you know, there there's there
might be some truth to that because what's being taken
(02:07):
away is concepts of supremacy. Because supremacy cannot exist on
this continent without genocide. You just can't have one without
the other. And so it's like a faulk crump and
a lot of things we try to I try to
not think in terms of like one thing or the other,
but sometimes there are some situations where you know, someone's
(02:29):
got their foot on someone's neck, and you can't just
have your foot on someone's neck and expect everyone be
okay with that. So I am going to be proposing
here that we decolonize everything, everything, especially public institutions and education.
(02:50):
Education is such a powerful tool in America. It creates
a lot of problems when it comes to Native American histories,
Native American ideology, native American languages, because they're often just
not truly part of what's being taught to people. And
so if education, if educational systems have not fully examine
(03:13):
themselves with an intention to decolonize, they are probably agents
of destruction and agents of genocide and oppression. So to
move away from that, we're going to have some conversations
about what it specifically takes to get out of that,
because it takes people doing different things, it takes people
(03:33):
constructing different systems. A lot of educational systems are rotten
at the core because they are rooted in these concepts
of supremacy, which some people hate. Some people hate to
hear this because it challenges some of the notions that
they're comfortable with. A lot of people are comfortable with
(03:53):
supremacy and they are comfortable with annihilation of Native American
people's because if there's no annihilation, that we have to
be in the room, we have to be in the systems,
we have to be in whatever everybody else is in.
And that's what we're looking for because we remain. We
were here, we are here, we will be here and today,
(04:16):
we're gonna have two special guests who are working on
a language that went to sleep, and we're gonna use
the term sleep because sometimes you do lose the last
of your speakers. This is something that's going to happen
across the North America, and we have to be ready.
So sometimes we have to be ready to say no,
we're not going to allow that to happen. Sometimes we
(04:36):
have to be ready to say, boy, we're coming close.
We need to make sure that doesn't happen. And sometimes
we're going to say, okay, that has happened. And we're
not extinct, extinct as a colonizer's term. I remember someone
wrote an article about a language gathering, and in this
language gathering, there are folks who said, we're not extinct.
Please don't call us that. And they wrote an article
(04:57):
and they said that. I was like, you were there,
you heard the you heard them. I wrote to the
author who denied what I was trying to tell them.
You try to say, well, according to some stupid standard
or some stupid thing, this is what the term is.
And no. So people who have been oppressed and people
who have been victims of what colonization has done and
(05:20):
so we're talking about all kinds of people, all kinds
of people. We're talking about ethnicities, races, genders, sexual orientation,
about all kinds of stuff. They have the right to
define themselves. They have the right to define what's safe
for themselves, and they have the right to exist in
comfort without having to try to not be themselves. So
(05:45):
in future episodes, we're probably about halfway done with this season,
so we're gonna keep trying to extend this and keep
trying to do more. Uh, this is a wonderful work
to just have conversations with people about this kind of stuff.
But at some point we're going to go over the
story of how Alaska Native languages became co official languages
(06:07):
in Alaska, because there's there's some weirdness to it. There's
some violence to that story. There's some you know, some
things that emerged that I think we need to talk about,
and that's good to just sort of put on the table.
But today we're gonna celebrate Mary Peltola, the first Alaska
Native in Congress and a powerful, wonderful Alaska Native female voice.
(06:35):
For now, we're listening to our guests. We're gonna have
a conversation I'll pop in at the end to wrap
this one up. Gonna cheet. So glad you're here. Keep going,
keep being strong, keep doing the good stuff. If you're
not doing the good stuff, look at yourself. Look at
what you can be doing right now. You could be
(06:55):
a change agent. You could be a positive force in
your community that helps people survive and thrive and live
and come back to places of strength. And one last
thing about being an educator doing this type of work,
I've been trying to think of some terminology that I
think helps, because sometimes you have people like there's okay,
(07:17):
let me, let me, let me get to the definitions right.
And I don't like to label people a whole lot.
But I also sometimes have problems because there's certain people
that I have worked with where they have said things
in meetings and sometimes they've been administrators, sometimes they have
been faculty members, and they have said de colonization is totalitarianism.
(07:40):
And then they talk about how academic freedom is threatened
by de colonization, which at the core is all about inclusion.
It's just saying, if you're teaching at a place where
these people are, you have to include those people in
the content. You cannot exclude them from the content, and
that means you have to go to their voices and
have their voices be heard. So, uh, some of the
(08:03):
folks who do this stuff, and it gets complicated because
some people will be against de colonization and will be
actively creating atmospheres of discrimination against Indigenous people's in their
classrooms and in their work. So those are not colleagues.
I started to say colleagues. So I've got these colleagues, colleagues, colleagues,
and I thought about that word, and that word just
(08:24):
seemed very nice, like like we're somehow on this same
sort of team, and I'm not trying to go against them,
but I'm moving them out of the way. I'm like, Okay,
if that's what you're thinking, you've gotta get out of
the way because your motive thinking. If you start saying
things like genocide is the wrong word for Native Americans
(08:46):
to use to describe their own experiences and their own histories,
that mode of thinking is like expired old milk been
in the fridge too long, starting to curdle, and you
need to reboot your operating system. You need to update
some of those files because it's an outdated mode of
(09:07):
thinking that's rooted in supremacy, and supremacy is a huge myth,
a huge lie. So enough of that they'll be from well,
not enough, more and more and more, but not more
for me. More from our guests today, Gonna cheech, gonna
cheese to cut juhan Wassaki, yeahs Hunky and Hastatan h
(09:41):
clan chat and how kods it ta eat that Welcome everybody.
I'm so happy you folks are joining us. I hope
you're having a wonderful day. And I'm excited to talk
to with two new friends of mine and to talk
about what's going on with their language. It's a iportant
for us to know that there are lots of indigenous
(10:03):
languages in North America. There used to be lots, There
are lots right now. They're all important and it's important
for us to learn about what's going on with folks
in different parts of North America. So I am joined
by Keith and Correll, and if you would like to
introduce yourselves, and we're gonna have a conversation about what
you folks are doing, what's going on, what you might need,
(10:26):
what's going to happen next, all kinds of exciting stuff,
So go ahead and tell the people who you are,
can Chief Keith Gunningham, Dellaens. My name is Keith Gunningham.
I am the linguist of the Natico Indian tribe na
Carrel Deloans nant I'm Correll and I am part of
(10:47):
the Nantacoke Indian tribe and very excited to be here today.
Fabulous And where are you folks? What's your folks land? Like,
what's your language? What's what's going on? Uh? You know,
the East Coast is such a magnificent place of wonderful,
rich indigenous peoples and histories that I think are sometimes
(11:09):
overlooked erased. So we want you to have a chance
to tell us about your people in your language. Well,
we are a fairly small community in Delaware, in southern Delaware,
So for any of you guys who have been out
to the Delaware beaches, Rehobeth Beach are tribal lands are
a little bit inland from that. We also have a
(11:30):
couple of sister communities, um one in central Delaware and
another one in South Jersey. And we're you know, one
extended family and but three separate political communities. And we
have been here on this land for forever, and they
weren't able, they didn't push us off. We managed to
(11:50):
stay against all odds and to keep our communities together
and to keep our families together. And we're still out
here today doing that. That's amazing. And I got a
lot of love and respect for people on the East
Coast who who felt the brunt of a lot of
colonial forces uh for a longer period of time and
(12:12):
often h in an incredibly violent way to try and
displace people, get rid of people. And so in in
your folks's language, work with what you're doing, what are
some of Well, I want to talk about what are
you folks doing first before we get into what's hard
about it? So what's going on with your language? What
(12:34):
kinds of things have you folks been working on and
has been going? Well? You know, you're right, our communities
have you were some of the earliest too experience those
colonial invaders. Right. So six eight was actually when John Smith,
infamous John Smith came and visited our community and so
(12:56):
we have been struggling through a lot of challenges since then.
Our languich has actually been sleeping for a while now,
so we don't have any native speakers alive today. Our
last speaker passed in the mid eighteen hundreds, and so
what we're doing right now is we're waking that language
(13:16):
back up. So we have some old archives that m
I'll let Keith tell you a little bit more about
the details of how you even take these old books
and you know, help to reawaken the language from that.
But our communities are really making that push right now
(13:36):
to bring that language back, um put it in the
mouths of our children, and to put in the mouths
of the elders and the adults in every single person.
We're all starting off at the beginning, but we're all
really excited to bring that language back, and the children
of tomorrow and for the next several generations are going
to have this language. It's incredible going to Cheese for
(13:57):
all that work, for for having the courage to step
forward and to do that. We talk a lot in
our region about these kind of three different terms that
we use. We say language stabilization is if you've got
a lot of speakers and just kind of trying to
stay where you're at. And language revitalization means you don't
(14:17):
have a lot of speakers and you're trying to create
speakers so you can do stabilization, and then revival is
you don't have speakers and you need to start creating
new speakers. And it's wonderful and inspirational to hear that
this can happen, that it is happening. I wish you
all the very very best as you folks are doing
(14:38):
this work. And I guess what are some of those
challenges that you face, and what are your strategies to
to overcome those challenges, to defy all the odds what
you are going to do and what you are doing.
So you know, since Anato Cooke were among the first
to encounter cologists and the language when mormant, before we
(15:01):
had things like shape recorders, I P A or any
other linguistic notation. What we have at our disposal are
some very inconsistently recorded documents, of which contain a little
under four hundred unique words. But fortunately UH, the Algonkian
family as a whole was very closely related and UH
(15:25):
with the individual languages, and particularly along the Eastern seaboard.
The Eastern Algonkian languages, which comprise a genetic subgroup within
the wider Algonkian family, are really more closely related to
one another than say French or Spanish or Italian are
related to one another. So even though we might not
have a complete vocabulary of the language, we do we
(15:49):
are able to draw inference from other better documented languages
of ones that still have speakers or ones that have
gone dormant after we have already a are appreciable numbers
of recordings of them. And so what I'm doing with
the language, I'm doing kind of the dirty work of
language or vitalization, which is taking these documents trying to
(16:12):
puzzle out their orthography, which again they didn't have i
PA or anything of that sort. But I'm taking these
words meticulously finding cognates and these other related Algonkian languages
and fortunately also Algunky and does happen to be the
best studied language family in the New World, and we
do have we already have several dictionaries of protoil Gunkey,
(16:35):
and so a lot of reconstructive work has been done.
And so my work has been in addition to to UH,
gathering cognates and looking at protoil Gunkey and proto Eastern
Algunkey and just trying to figure out how did not
to Cooke descend from the proto languages, and how is it,
how does it resemble neighboring languages? It's other relatives, and
(16:55):
with that we can fill in a lot of the
gaps that are in the documentation thereby creating a working language. Again.
That's wonderful. And I enjoyed seeing you had cat that
was crawling on your keyboards that it was fun. I
had to take my dogs toys away before we started this.
And so we're just hanging out, we're chilling, We're just
talking about language revitalization. We're talking about what's what's going on,
(17:20):
So like what kinds of things, what kinds of things
are you making, what kinds of things are you doing,
what kinds of Who is your target audience for some
of this stuff? Um, yeah, I'm very fascinated to hear.
So one of the elders in our community, Raggy, had
this idea, this vision, this dream that she could find
a way to really bring this language to the children.
(17:42):
We've had for the last decade or so. Um, we've
had some other elders in our community get together and
work with some of those other speakers of sister languages.
So they worked with a woman who's is from the
Niche Nabe people, and so those languages are sister or
cousin languages two hours and so they, alongside Keith, worked
(18:07):
together to create a series of classes mainly geared at
adults or older children to start to learn some of
the vocabulary and grammar. And so we had like some
classes that we did a series of classes, um, but
so Raggie wanted to find a way to bring it
(18:29):
to the younger children that those you know there are
future and they're going to be the people taking our
language into the future. And also something that people could
have all the time because due to you know, we're
all busy adults. UM. Keith and I are both in
graduate school right now, so you know, we are very busy.
But we wanted to, you know, create something that people
(18:52):
could have all the time, that they could access and
learn at their own pace, in addition to the classes
that will still be offering in the future. And so
she had this idea of putting together a children's book
in the language, and so that's actually what we've been
spending most of the pandemic working on because you know,
I couldn't do anything else. So it's perfect for at least,
(19:13):
you know, language work and being able UM. You know,
since I wasn't able to do some of my other
work and other research at the time, we can really
dive into that language work and put this book together.
And so we have a really great team of people
who are working to make this a reality. So it's
one of those introductory books that has colorful illustrations done
(19:36):
by a very talented artist from our community page and
we UM have this character, Grandmother Turtle, who takes everyone
through the lessons and she actually kind of reminds everybody
of Raggie. She's modeled after this wonderful elder in our
community who is also a storyteller. And so Grandmother Turtle
(19:59):
she teaches greetings UM, the greetings that Keith and I
gave at the beginning. Those are in the books and
we want everyone to learn them. UM. There's also lessons
on UM animals and colors and UM family members. And
even within those lessons, there's also you know, our own
(20:20):
cultural teachings that are you know, brought into that. So
in the family section, for example, we tell them that
our word for siblings and our word for cousins are
the same thing in the language because you know how
our people are like your siblings, your cousins, those are
you know, they're all your brothers and sisters, and so
it's there in the language, yes, exactly. So you know
(20:44):
some of those things are in there. We have, um,
you know, a section about giveaways and why those are important,
and so you know, also they learned the words for gift,
and they also learned that teaching of you know, what
giveaways are about and the sort of generosity that is
sort of embedded in our in our cultures. Wow, that
(21:05):
is beautiful because you have children who will be learning
this as a new language, and you also have adults
who will be learning this as a new language. And
so as everybody sort of starts to bring it back,
it's wonderful to think about these things that can fit
for everybody. And I'm so happy you folks used the
term sleeping like I'm not happy that that's the state.
(21:26):
But you know, I was at a language gathering here
in Alaska that was it was very strange like. So
they wanted to bring our languages forward because we had
made us most of our Alaska Native language is co
official languages of Alaska. So they wanted to have a
signing ceremony to kind of prop up this politician. So
(21:47):
they reached out to me and said, could you get
someone from could you? And there was kind of a
team of us. He's like, could you guys get someone
from every Alaska native language to say thank you? I'm
so happy be my language is an official language of
the state of Alaska. And I said, well, that's something
would never say in our languages. But I said, we
could probably say something kind of close to that, but
(22:10):
if you give people a chance to start speaking their language,
they're gonna say a lot more than that, so you
better be ready for it. And they really weren't, And
they were trying to get me to get everyone to
be quiet, and I said, what you brought us here
to celebrate our languages. Now you want me to tell
people to be quiet. You picked the wrong guy for
that job. And so at one point, we have a
language here e K, which is a beautiful language just
(22:33):
north of us UH. And they don't have any fully
fluent speakers right now as far as I know. There
might be one or two, but they had sort of
famously lost one of their last speakers in the ninety nineties.
I believe maybe it was the early two thousand's um
and her name was Anne Smith, and people started using
(22:57):
the word extinct to talk about their language, and a
lot of us always felt like that's the wrong word
to use one because if someone gets murdered, you don't
you know, it's different. And so there's these colonial forces
that have annihilated and genocided indigenous peoples are attempted to
and then also like the people are there and we
(23:18):
see languages that are bringing their languages back to use,
bringing their languages back to life. And so the Eak
peoples who came to this, they said, don't say we're extinct.
We're not. We're right here. We're doing everything we can.
We're trying to bring our language back. And there was
some reporter who wrote an article and said including the
(23:39):
extinct language of ec and I reached out to that reporter.
I said, hey, man, I was there, and they said,
don't use that word, and you turn around use that word.
And then they tried to explain, well, according to something
something that's like, it's not your place. And so, uh,
I think it's important for indigenous communities to define themselves,
to define their own work, to set their own path,
(24:01):
and I'm so happy to hear that this is what
you folks are doing as you go forward. And so
let's say someone else has a language that doesn't have
any speakers. What's your advice on how do they get started? Well,
I would definitely tell them to think about what other
(24:22):
resources do they have, because a lot of people they
get really it's it's intimidating, it is, and it's a
very daunting task, but it's not impossible. And so there
might be old archived documents, there might be old recordings,
you know, depending on when, um, you know, when their
(24:45):
language was last spoken. So if we're talking like the
last elders, you know, just recently passed, there may still
be people who may not be fluent speakers, but they
may know some of it. To go to them, um
and start talking with them, and we're working with them, um.
And then you know, for other communities that are similar
to ours, and we are going on archives text. Also
(25:09):
remember your own language families. There are so many languages, um,
you know, all across North America and across the rest
of Turtle Island, and they all are related to somebody else.
And so go find your neighbors, Go find your cousins,
your long lost cousins, your linguistic cousins, and you know,
see how you guys can help each other. So I
(25:33):
think we just need to not think about it as
these isolated communities bringing an isolated language back to life.
It's not. It's more than that. You know, we all
we do things by community anyway, and so reaching out
across those communities for help and for resources, I think
is one way to go amazing. Also, one thing that
(25:55):
I've really come to appreciate as I've been working on
the Naticoke language is that no matter how many generations
have passed since the last speaker has walked on, that
the culture is still alive and well, and the worldview
the values are still very much a part of the culture.
And so the experience of reintroducing the language is and
(26:18):
so much teaching a foreign language so much as it
is welcoming a relative home. Even though someone may even
though the current generations of students may have never heard
the language spoken before, there is still this intimate familiarity
that it just kind of recognized that there's just a
sense of familiarity with the language even if they haven't
spoken it. Once they learn how there are just certain
(26:41):
ways of expressions. And imagine Corel can probably speak a
lot more about this than I can. But that's a
really I mean that it's just something just clicks when
it's somebody reconnecting with their own ancestral language versus trying
to learn a completely new paradigm um. And I found
that very moving as I as I gave my classes
(27:03):
where it's just I will just as you know, coming
to it as an outsider, I'd be explaining some things
that are different from a kind of English background. And
the reaction I got was more like, oh, yes, of course,
you know that makes perfect sense that it should be
this case. It whether it be you know, animus e
or you're not saying goodbye, it's like i'll see you later.
That's just a common way of it's never farewell. Everybody
(27:25):
always reunites. And h I found that very moving. Yeah,
and especially I think using that example of goodbye, realizing
that in the Nantaicoke language, they don't say goodbye, they
say i'll see you again, or i'll see you another time,
i'll see you later, something like that. Growing up, all
the elders in our family never used the word goodbye.
(27:48):
They always would say later. And I remember as a
kid very clearly, UM, getting yelled at by one of
my um great aunts because I would say bye to
her because you know, that's I don't know, that's what
all the other kids say to people like UM. And
she was like, no, we don't, we don't do that,
you know, don't say goodbye. Um, it's bad luck is
what she would always say. And UM She's like say,
(28:11):
I'll see you later, I'll see you again, because we
always will see each other again in this life for
the next one. And so it's really exciting as I
learned more and more about this language, and as I'm
learning more of it, how many things like that are
embedded that we're kept by the community even if they
passed into English, Like we're using English words, but we're
(28:32):
still expressing some of these same ideas, right, And I
think it's important for folks to also realize, like the
level of reconstruction that also often has to happen in
in Native America, and so like with the amount of
destruction that colonialism has done historically and continues to do
by you know, mothering people and keeping them out of
(28:54):
spaces and just generally just ignoring like whole nation and languages.
Often you have to put so much stuff back together.
But some of the things that I think of as
we had an elder his name is Kingisti David Katzik,
and he used to always stand up to in front
of classes and say two yea yet, to yea yet.
(29:17):
Our language is inside of you. It's inside of you.
We're gonna wake it up. We're gonna we're gonna bring
this thing back. And then another elder, his name was
Ka Walter Sobeloff. He used to say, never forget this
wonderful thing that was born on the world and that
allowed our ancestors to survive, because I think in order
(29:37):
to survive as indigenous people's, I think we need our languages.
And for some of us, we're just going to try
and get back everything that we can, little bits at
a time. Uh. And so I'm I'm so happy to
hear what you folks are doing. Uh. And I we're
gonna hear more about it, but first we're gonna take
a short break. We're gonna listen to some folks who
(29:58):
have something we might be int stid and hopefully it's
a good thing. So gonna chee. This is the tongue unbroken.
We'll be right back. What's happening, baby, This colonization ship
got you down. You're gonna get on this decoalization. Yeah,
it's time the language revitalization, and across North America, the
(30:23):
land of the language coming back into the hands of
future generations where it all belongs, rise up and have
their voices be heard to beat all the colonial forces
that try to hold you down. Okay, gonna's cheech. We
(30:47):
are back. We're happy to be having this coast to
coast conversation. So we brought the Pacific Ocean and the
Atlantic Ocean together for this conversation. So a to the
work that I think happens in language revitalization as language planning.
So for language planning, a lot of times when I
(31:08):
go to Hawaii a look at things and say, okay,
this could be us thirty years from now, I'd always
have to think, okay, we gotta come up with like
some kind and they would throw that number at us.
And so Peter Wilson and Cowanois Kamana and others that'd
say thirty years, what's it going to be like thirty
years from now? And so it was interesting because I'm
I'm not a very organized person, so sometimes trying to
(31:30):
think of like two years from now is going to
be difficult. But I'd say, oh, well, you know it's
gonna be like twenty fifty. What's going to happen in
other than flying cars and rain all the time or
whatever is in the movies? Right? But I guess, for
what's your vision for what is going to happen with
your language? And how are you going to get there?
(31:51):
I think for so many of us, it's to have
children born and speaking Nana Cooke as their first language,
and growing up and still speaking Atacoca as that first language,
learning English because you know, we all live in this
world and we have to know it and and work
in it and deal with it. But having that language
(32:12):
at home and in our communities, and so we go
to community gatherings and everybody speaking in the language, and
you know, each new generation, the kids coming up with
new slang and I don't know, jokes and songs in
the language. You know, something that you know makes it
fun and keeps it going. Um, So that very broadly,
and I have some ideas how to get there. I
(32:33):
don't know whether that's my thirty year plan, the fifty
year plan, the hundred and fifty year plan. But however
long it takes, as long as we keep going and
take a step forward each day, I think that you know,
they're going to get there, those next generations. I don't
know which one it will be, but they will get there.
But I think for us, I would love to see
(32:54):
this book that we're creating. We're gonna have it soon
in the hands of the pay as many people in
our community as possible. We are going to create an
online dictionary where people it'll be an interactive dictionary where
people are able to look up words and grammar and
you know, start to put together some of their sentences themselves.
(33:15):
I would love to see some language nests as soon
as we get enough, um people learning to speak the
language well enough to create some of these language only
spaces where we can work with um, you know, different
groups of people, children or adults, or you know, small
groups of people where we can really help to increase
their fluency. And yeah, having our own schools again, um,
(33:38):
we used to have our own schools in our communities. UM.
But not in the language of court. But um. But
you know, just for our sort of community members, but
having our own schools and facilities in the future where
you know, we can we can teach them math in
the language. You know, we can teach um real history
(33:58):
in the language, UM, literature, government politics, UM, actual global studies. UM.
So I would love to see that as UM. I
know I've been looking around it, you know, all the
people in Indian Country who are doing some of these
programs now and just really seeing what they're doing and
how they're moving that forward. And you know, I'm really
(34:19):
excited to see what I can help and who I
can inspire and pass it on to and it chief.
And yeah, we we think about this stuff a lot,
just in terms of trying to see the getting this
long range vision and then trying to figure out like, well,
what are the pieces to really get there, And a
lot of that takes just a lot of innovation, jumping
(34:41):
outside the colonial boxes and creating some things. And sometimes
you're creating stuff specifically for age groups, like so, okay,
this is for kids, and so we need to get
some stuff for the kids. Is for the adults. We've
got to get some stuff for the adults. And then
once you start getting this critical mass of learners who
can start to speak. Then you start to think about
creating community spaces and so for for us and think it.
(35:05):
We spent the summer doing some language immersion gatherings and
one of the things that we realized is we have
a very large population, well pretty large for um for us.
We have a pretty large population here in Juno, and
Juno is probably thirty thousand people and I'd say maybe
twenty our indigenous and so we're pretty large part of
(35:30):
the population, but we don't really have a space where
we can gather specifically around our language. And so we
have a lot of wonderful organizations who have developed spaces
and purchase spaces and built buildings, but most of the
times those are English speaking spaces, even though they are indigenous,
and so we do a lot of partnerships with them.
(35:52):
But then we realize what we need some spaces where
we can just gather and have dinners and get together
and basically a language house, because we rented some through
through these different companies where you can sort of rent
a house for a while. And I think there's a
lot of land moguls who were involved with this stuff,
and I don't think it's very healthy for communities in general.
(36:12):
But we got like really bad reviews because we moved
furniture around. We had a bunch of cars there, and
it wasn't your typical have a little vacation type of thing.
Like we we had work to do. And so what
we're going to try and figure out here is how
do we acquire some spaces that are specifically for our language,
so we can say, let's go to language house and
once you cross that threshold, then you you just leave
(36:35):
your English outside. And we found that when we were
living like that, it was a lot easier to speak,
a lot easier to understand. But then we also have
to get a lot of people ready for that, which
is you know, all these interlocking pieces. And so as
as you folks are doing this work, I'm so happy
that you have neighboring languages that you can work with.
(36:58):
I know, uh, like, I guess, what are some models
that you're looking at that you're hoping to replicate in
your work with your language. So really my inspiration for
the work I'm doing was Jesse Little do Baran's work
the Wampanog language um So Wampanog. Similarly, UH did not
(37:21):
have speakers of the language for several generations, and so
Jesse little to working with the late doctor Kinneth Hale
worked with resources such as as the Elliott Bible and
some native native documents in Massachusetts to reconstruct the language.
And uh so I'm basically I'm using the same method,
(37:43):
albeit with a smaller corpus to work from. And uh
also so looking towards the future right now, as I mentioned,
I'm kind of doing like the dirty work of the
language or vitalization, with this sorting of orthography to phone
um correspondences and all that historical work. But moving forward,
I think, of course pedagogy is the most important thing, UM,
(38:06):
getting this reconstructed language back to the people. And I've
learned certainly things like language camps and like and opportunities
to actually use the language are certainly absolutely crucial to that, UM.
And I think as I've as I've been studying the language,
I'm looking at it to the lens of a linguist,
so things like obviative or transitive, animate and so forth.
(38:31):
And that works well for me, but I find, you know,
in the classroom setting, explaining these things like obviative, etcetera,
and using those terms. Sometimes it just kind of draws
a blank and just kind of you know, dissecting the
language in that way, kind of like a taxi army
or just kind of like a very forensic way of
looking the language doesn't really help as much as just
(38:51):
providing these opportunities to just kind of use it as
a living language. Um. Ultimately, the language language is patterns
and sound. That's learning the languages is pattern recognition. And
so just you know, getting those language camps started and
have just all these opportunities to use language, I think
that's really going to be crucial for getting the language
back communities, right, Um, yeah, those the Wampanog example is
(39:16):
one that I've I've very much. I've learned a lot
from from their approach. Um, I've studied a few other
indigenous languages along the way. I did some Adnetizad, some Upsaloca,
and they all basically very similar. Is kind of creating.
Creating the environment for the language with the language camps
(39:39):
and activities is kind of people actively using them versus
is kind of like Latin style, uh, grammatical instruction. And
our communities, the Nanticoke community, um we many of the
Eastern Aloan community eastern Hucan communities are and sider the
(40:00):
Lenape people to be sort of the grandfathers, the original
people of this land, and our languages are of course
very similar to Lenape um. Lenape itself has broadly to
two rough sort of categories of dialects. Some people would say,
you know, some of these words are not um, you know,
(40:20):
as useful for describing what you know, how these languages
operate in practice. But um, there's the months, the in
the in the northern, tsunami in the south. And I've
been able to learn some months see um from speakers
in Canada from the two months a communities on Ontario
(40:41):
who um they've been working on their language revitalization as well,
and it's been really valuable to both connect with them
as you know, these distinct kin because you know they
are they're also our people and um, and also to
learn about what they're doing with language revital as they shan.
And one good thing about the pandemic, I don't even
(41:04):
know if I want to say that as a phrase,
but um something this rise of zoom and being able
to have online classes because you know, my language teachers
in Canada and so you know me down here in
Delaware would have been very hard to attend, you know,
bi weekly classes that would be held in Ontario, but
(41:25):
due to the pandemic, they moved these classes online and
so now you're having people from all over being able
to log in and um and talk to each other
in the language, even if they're geographically separate. So it's
also been really great to connect with other people like that. Yeah,
that's amazing. We started using Zoom I think a couple
(41:46):
of years before the pandemic for teaching because we're trying
to find high fidelity options, you know, and so a
lot of the kind of interfaces for having video conferences
and for having some sort of class or conversation would
compress the audio because they just a lot of folks
who are probably designing this stuff assumed that everybody speaks
(42:07):
the same language. So it's just all about like being
visually pleasing and having some good interactivity and being easy
to use. And so we started hunting around and we
are we have a great I T department at our
university who are always looking for these microphone solutions and
who are looking for ideas. And there was a uh
(42:29):
an English teacher named Kevin Meyer said if you tried
to zoom thing and and so he's a professor at US,
and I said no, and I looked at it, and
I said, this is what we need. So lucky for us,
when the pandemic hit, we had already been zooming for
a year or two, and so we were just sort
of kind of ready to roll right into that. And
then we we had a massive open online courses through
(42:52):
a couple of institutions uh Selaska Heritage Institutes and Outer
Coast out of Sitka, and they had they were hosting
these free online classes and we're getting hundreds of people
signing up, showing lots of interest, a lot of people coming.
And so we started to try and think of strategies
in terms of, Okay, we gotta get people interested, then
(43:13):
we got to get them started. Then we've got to
start breaking off these groups who were starting to really
make some progress, and then just keep pushing everybody higher
and higher and higher, because we went you know, we
still we have an unbroken chain of speakers, but we
went probably forty fifty years without creating any speakers, and
(43:34):
and so now we're starting to get to a point
where we can create them and we can start to
have conversations with each other. But then even with that,
we find that we have to resist the urge to
switch to English so that we could explain what we're
trying to say or where things where there was an
error or whatever. And so instead of focusing on perfection,
(43:55):
we're always trying to just focus on communication to make
sure that the lane, which can be something of daily communications.
I loved what you're saying about, like making the thing
that you use to talk about movies or sports or
hunting or fishing or whatever people want to do, give
them the tools to do so. Uh in your language.
(44:17):
So I guess, um, what about some of your You
both are studying hard, and I think pursuing PhD is
good for both of you. Uh, that's a long hard
wrote did that? And uh so how is that going?
And how are your studies relating to what you're trying
to do in your language work? So, Um, I'm getting
(44:39):
towards the end of my dissertation, which is one not
to coke historical phrenology. I've meticulously analyzed the historical word lists,
um revised repeats, repeat, multiple rounds of revisions, and just
sending it around for coordination with other with other experts,
getting a feedback and all that. Um So I'm coming
(45:03):
up towards the end of that and um but yeah,
that's been the culmination of I've been and you know,
so I started the PhD program in two thousand and fifteen,
but actually my work with the Napticoke community I started
back in two thousand twelve. I um, I just happened
to visit the Naptocook Museum, UM and I met with
the curator Sterling Street. And before that, actually, way a
(45:26):
way back, I can really actually giving a little bit
more background about myself, I think might make it a
little clearer about some of my motives with this. So
you know, I myself, I don't have Naptacoke ancestry. UM.
I grew up in Landsdown, at a town so outside
Baltimore City. I um but um, I really started my
love of languages in high school when so they started
(45:51):
offering Japanese in my high school, which was unusual because
they were getting ready to get rid of all foreign
language programs in the school. UM So, Shield sense was
a very important influence in my life, and I am
I'm very grateful match you basically taught me another worldview.
It was the experience of studying Japanese, learning this different language,
(46:13):
all the values and different worldview rather it expresses. That
was absolutely a transformative experience for me. And so when
I continued studying Japanese during my undergraduate days and UM
also happened to take a course in Chinese historical phonology,
which was a really you know, that's a very I
just had this very sort of esoteric, really laser focused
(46:34):
interest on this historical phonology thing. It was kind of like,
you know, almost like algebra in a way. The correspondence
is just really fascinated and that just how languages evolved
are from ancestral forms and all. UM. But then it
was actually seeing that documentary Uh we Still Live here
up one project where I thought, Okay, this is really
(46:54):
a way that I can tie together my esoteric interests
to something that can really benefit cool UM. And then,
as you mentioned in your UM inaugural podcast that you
were kind of setting this table like we want to
have a seat and sharing this great meal. I think
it's imperative that all Americans that we take an active
interest in one of those cultures UM under and moreover,
(47:18):
that we under we endeavor to understand every group on
their own terms rather than their adherence to you some
sort of your American model of being. UM. So that
really finding this project that was something where I thought,
that's my way I can kind of say, you know,
I see you, I honor you, I've I want to
do my part to to help you. Yeah to uh,
(47:42):
I want to do my part to contribute to the
continued vitality of your culture. And M just you know,
as my fellow Americans is the well being is important
to me. And I want to see you thrive, and
I want to hear what you have to say. And
so this you know that that that's that's really been
the motive for me. That as I've been kind of
sifting through all these old documents and and uh meticulously
(48:05):
gathering cognates, it's just that goal of kind of restoring
something that was taken away that really, I mean, that's
really motivated me. And I you know, I humbly I
hope that I have made a contribution to something written
well will benefit many generations from now. And I am
(48:27):
not really at the end of my dissertation. UM, I
would say I'm in the latter half of it. Is
where I'm at. I'm finishing up my field work finally.
I was supposed to start it at the UM but
you know, pandemic, so um, I'll be starting my write
up process very soon. And my research is studying Nana
(48:47):
Cooke in the Nape sovereignty and identity and really trying
to tease a part this word sovereignty. I've even had
many conversations with people about you know, maybe sovereignty isn't
even the word that we want to use because it
has so many different nations to it. But really talking
to people about, you know, what it is to exist
(49:07):
as a nantecoc or Lenape person and how we are
able to um be ourselves, express our culture, express our
our identities, and stay together as these communities. And some
of that is through our language work, and some of
it is through political work, and some of it is
(49:28):
through you know, other different types of embodied forms of existing.
And so yeah, my work is teasing out that. UM.
I became interested in language revitalization probably well as a kid.
I knew that. Um the only word I think I
knew was wenny she which is thank you, which is
(49:50):
a word that you know, one of the words that
most many people in the community do know. But um,
when I went to college, and it was the first
time where I got to be with other Native students
from like other communities, Native people who weren't my cousins. Uh.
So it's really my first opportunity to meet, you know,
people from all parts of Native America. And one of
(50:13):
the classes I took was about language revitalization, and you know,
I really got to hear all these different communities talk
about the different stages that their languages were in, and
they were you know, all over the board as far
as you know, some people like people from Navajo Nation
for example, who are working on that stability right now, right, Um,
(50:34):
I didn't know. I have a clinket friend actually from
college as well. So um. But yeah, so it made
me really think about what our community like, where we
were at, and what I could do to contribute to
bring us to a stronger place. And I did a
study abroad program in New Zealand and my host family
(50:55):
was a Maudi family and they were running a Maori
immersion in preschool. Um, and so you know, they were
telling me about how they were trying to you know,
keep Maudi alive and being um, and helping to make
sure that it gets past to the children and the
children are learning it in addition to English. And so,
(51:16):
you know, after I graduated, I wanted to, you know,
see what I could do, you know, how how can
I use whatever talents that I have to help our
community bring it back. And I got to meet Keith,
and you know, we've been working together for a while
and just you know, really excited to bring together different
people to UM, you know, to bring this language back
(51:39):
to our communities. I've really been learning a little bit
about you know, teaching methods and you know, how do
you effectively teach people things, how do you connect with people?
How do you teach in UM these non colonial ways,
you know, these are some of the things that I've
been trying to learn so that UM, you know, I'm
in a position to UM you know, bring to speak
(52:00):
our language and to bring it back to our community
in a way that's going to really UM work for
us and and help us and something that we want
and that we can shape. And so yeah, still looking
for UM more ways to be helpful, learning, trying to
learn more skills and pass them on. And I will
(52:22):
say that I'm really excited by how many, Um, you know,
how many elders are also starting to learn some of
this language, because um, I was talking with one elder
and you know, he was saying, you know, it's very
daunting to try to learn, you know, a whole another language. However,
he now introduces himself in the language. He says, he
(52:42):
uses lannishi all the time. He can do his introduction.
He knows some prayer words. He can say Creator kishlag
like you know, so he is he has that language,
and I think that um, I think he's also said
it earlier. It's not as um important to and maybe
it was you. I don't now, I'm sorry. It's not
as important to to focus on that perfection of of
(53:06):
the language, but to work on communication. Sorry that was
you U. So yeah, just like really seeing how you know,
pulling some of the like what's important to people. Just
being able to speak those few words, to say that
short prayer to Creator in the language, that's what's really
important and beautiful. Okay, gout counter hit you hung yeah
(53:30):
dot Uh. We're gonna take another break, but before we do,
I just want to say it. I think in another
important part of decolonization is really continually analyzing everything and
being very paranoid that colonial mechanisms are going to be
entering into your consciousness, so being competitive, trying to be
(53:51):
the best and trying to uh, well they got this.
I'm mad that they got this. Right these other like
we were we were messing around with our elders trying
to come up with a term for like someone get
something and you're jealous that they got it, and they
had a really hard time because I said, we're not
like that. But you know, finally we had an elder
who who told me he had to sleep on it.
(54:12):
You know, his name was enough to hash Sam Johnston.
He's one of my favorites because he'll tell you how
to say all kinds of amazing stuff. But I think
just continually sort of analyzing the different ways that you
can sometimes get caught in a trap and that that
trap will also leave you sometimes saying Okay, well we're
not ready, but as soon as we get ready, we're
(54:33):
going to do the thing. Where I think, just do
the thing, don't wait to get ready, because that time
is not really going to come for a lot of
people's And so if your language is already in trouble,
if your language is endangered. If your language maybe doesn't
have speakers right now, then you can't wait for anything.
You've got to go and create changes and shifts. But
(54:53):
you can still have a plan, you can still go.
But I think you know, we used to run into
this here when we talk about building these immerged and environments,
like we we have a language nest now and it's beautiful,
and just watching those kids and those teachers. It's very
difficult to do, but it can be done. But a
lot of people would say, oh, we're just not ready
for that, and I'd say, we're in a state of loss.
(55:13):
We don't get more ready by just waiting for something
else to change. We we have to be that change.
And so if you're out there, you're doing this work,
you're thinking about doing this work, be positive, be productive,
don't be toxic to each other, don't hurt each other,
and just get in there and do it. So we'll
be right back and uh, we'll see a few folks
(55:35):
and maybe teach us a few things from your language
so we can hear it learn about it. Right after
this ad break going to cheat Once I thought about
a million birds all around the world sharing their songs,
thinking about the ways they have lived and they're gonna live.
(55:59):
This is the way a way to see and we're
(56:21):
back and chee unaway Artokri. I'm excited to hear a
few things from your folks as language as we start
to kind of wrap up this episode, wrap up this conversation.
It's been so wonderful to spend some time with you,
So teach us a couple of things. Let's hear this
(56:43):
material language so we can give you a greeting to
speak to your friends. So when we started, we said
Willy cannel, which means it's good to see you. Will
canol or Nie Top you can have the top on
the which is my friend, So you know, to make
it really personal because all of you are our friends.
(57:06):
Really can now will lead top cheese, Keith, you got
one for us? When is she? You say thank you language,
gonna cheese and and usually you you want to ask
about somebody's well being when you're greeting them, you can
say alamala huh one more time, colamalis huh. It means
(57:31):
how are you fabulous? And uh. Any parting messages for
the people who are listening. Anything you want to share, inspiration,
things you want to make sure that they know about you, folks.
I will say that even if you don't speak your
language today, or you're really afraid, if it seems too
daunting or too big of a job, start small. Learn
(57:53):
one word, then learn a second one. Soon you're gonna
have a whole phrase learned. It like simple words like
the ones that we're teaching. You learn what those greetings
are with those um, those words of gratitude, and start
from there, and before you know it, you will be
speaking your language. So don't give up, don't be discouraged.
Any any of our languages can come back and can
(58:17):
be re awoken. Yeah, I would like to add to
that that definitely, Um, I'd like to reiterate that you know, one,
it succeeds at language learning. Even the goal shouldn't always
be like, oh I must absolutely fluent in this language.
Things you know, identity performance is important, the ability to
(58:37):
to say a few phrases in one's language. That's um,
it's a very every every single word, every phrase used
in your language is a very potent statement of pride
in one's identity and also a very potent statement of
resistance against assimilation. UM. And I think that American Indian cultures,
Alaska Native cultures, languages are our integral part of our
(59:02):
of our nation's patchwork national treasures, and I think that
it's I find it very wonderful that that Native peoples
are re embracing their languages and their cultures. And I
also think that it's imperative that all Americans taken active
interest and that and learn as much as they can
about our first nations and that way, I think, I
(59:25):
think really just taking that active interest is going to
go a long way to healing wounds and just encouraging
people to be who they are. I think that's that's
of the utmost importance. And so where can folks find you,
support you. It's gonna be people on these coasts with
all kinds of money. Given some money, give build them things,
(59:48):
do things, make things happen. If if you're living on
indigenous lands, you better be finding a way to help
indigenous languages or else you're just playing colonizer or tourists.
And you don't want to have those roles. You want
your role to be an active decolonizer, a change maker,
someone who contributes to life instead of taking away from others.
(01:00:10):
Everything we're doing here is additive. We're all doing good things,
so how can people find your folks in support you?
So right now we're still working on a social media presence.
We're going to need a gen Z intern for that.
But right now we do have a dedicated email for
the language work and it's called Nanta Cooke Language at
(01:00:34):
gmail dot com. So no dots or spaces, just Nanticoke
Language at gmail dot com. How do you spell it?
That is n A n T I c O k
E Nanticoke And you're also, um, welcome to the Nanticoke
(01:00:56):
Indian Tribe has a website and contact information that are
so UM. That's another way to um if you can't
remember that email address or you're looking for a website
to go to. Our language work doesn't specifically have a
presence on the site yet. Um, you know, was something
we're still building. Um. If there's any people in that
tech world out there who wanna, you know, help us
(01:01:18):
with that, we would love some recommendations. Okay, somebody get
us a millennial. No, we're millennials. We need the gen zs,
We need the younger folks. Oh so that's the next
one day. See, I'm I think I'm gen X so
I'm behind on all those things. But yeah, someone with
some social media fluency, some web fluencies, some technology. We
(01:01:42):
do some work with seven thousand languages, and their their
headquarters are kind of close to you, folks. So yeah,
let's get you all some help, and let's get you
all some relief and just keep building these wonderful things.
And I just want to say, if if you reach
out to help people who are doing stuff in indigenous languages, uh,
and if you're not from that group, just stay humble,
(01:02:06):
be be kind, listen to people, try to pluralize. We
get a lot of folks who come here and say
Alaska Native culture, Alaska Native culture. I'm like, there's so
many of us, We're all different. Stop saying just a
singular thing and so uh, and also just be be
a good ally and also stay productive and stay uh
(01:02:30):
in tune with what the people are doing, and try
not to claim anything as yours. And so as we
sort of reach out for folks to come and visit
with you folks and to help you all out, we
want to make sure that they're coming in a good
way and that they're also being additive. And my hope
is that this thirty year dream where children are speaking
(01:02:51):
your language and their people are telling stories in your language,
and people are walking around just talking about their day
to day stuff. What they need to talk, try ash
to each other. They need to gossip, they need to
tell stories, jokes, all that good stuff. I hope it's
coming in your language and that you folks are h
a genesis of something that is wonderful and unstoppable. So
(01:03:16):
that's my that's my wish for what's coming forward for you, folks.
I want to thank you for reaching out to to
me after listening to our podcast Keith and too uh
just hanging out with us today and being awesome. So
I wish you all the best and uh, we'll talk
to you later when she I'm honored to speak with
you today. I wish you the best of luck for
your continued success. Chee utan joquit quote gonna cheech. Your
(01:03:57):
ancestors want you to success, eat, be brave. Strength is
inside of you because they want it. It's going to happen.
This has been The Tongue Unbroken, a production of the
I Heart Media Network and the next up initiative Check
them out. Partition Black Fat, Fem and Beauty Translated beautiful
(01:04:22):
voices stepping out from the margins. This has been produced
by Ian Johnson. We'll be back next week, going to
Cheech
Host
X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.