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[article provided by Lona. Thanks!]

 http://www2.startribune.com/stOnLine/cgi-bin/article?thisStory=81409599

Published Wednesday, February 23, 2000

Tribes work to preserve native language
Statewire

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Some Wisconsin Indian tribes, concerned that their
ancestral tongue will be lost with the advancing age of their elders,
focused this week on language immersion programs.

" Every year we' re losing more native language speakers. Once they' re
gone, we lose the whole dictionary of their wisdom, " said Dana Jackson, of
the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

One of the themes of the Native American Language Preservation conference at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus was finding effective programs
for teaching children their native language.

" There' s a lot of recognition that what we' ve been doing for the past 15
years is not working" to produce native speakers, Jackson said.

Teaching language using reading, pictures and writing doesn' t teach people
to speak as well as listening to elders, experts said.

But that is getting more and more difficult on the Bad River Reservation,
where only three or four elderly tribal members remain that are fluent in
the native language, according to Jackson.

The Bad River has 15 people, ranging in age from the teens to the 50s,
enrolled in an intensive language program. They are listening and
videotaping tribal elders talking about traditional activities.

Gordon Thunder of the Ho-Chunk Nation doesn' t remember learning his
ancestral language. He said it came to him as naturally as learning to walk.
When Thunder was growing up in Fairchild, his family lived in a traditional
wigwam and always had elderly relatives staying with them who spoke only
Ho-Chunk.

" Once we came in the door of the wigwam, we had to speak the language out
of respect for the elders, " said Thunder, former Ho-Chunk tribal chairman
and current head of the nation' s language program.

Larry Smallwood, of the Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa in Minnesota, said his
tribe recently bought a camp in northern Minnesota it plans to open this
summer for language immersion classes.

The tribe also recently bought a tavern on the shores of Lake Mille Lacs and
now uses it for weekly gatherings, where people come to socialize, play
cards and listen to the elders talk, Smallwood said.
 

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