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Learning the language
Anthropology and American Indian Studies' Jill Wagner is working
to revitalize a Native American language in Idaho.
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Jill Maria Wagner
happened to be in the right place at the right time. The result was what
she hopes will be a lifelong research project.
It was a day before
Valentine's Day in 1995 when Wagner, now an assistant professor of anthropology
and American Indian Studies, was asked if she wanted to go to the Coeur
d'Alene Reservation in Idaho. She had completed her coursework for her
doctorate degree at Washington State University and was waiting for just
such a call.
"I didn't have
a dissertation topic and time was running out," Wagner recalled.
"I was really waiting for someone to call me rather than seeking
out a topic. It just happened this was the call."
On that day, the
Coeur d'Alene Tribe was seeking a linguist to help revitalize the Native
American nation's native language. The only thing was the linguist had
to go to the reservation the very next day.
Wagner made that
60-mile trip on Valentine's Day and immediately hit it off with the tribal
members. That initial expedition has led her on a continual journey with
the Coeur d'Alene Tribe.
Her dissertation
explored the relationships between language and ethnicity on the reservation
and the use of both as sources of power for individuals and groups. Since
her arrival at Iowa State in 1998 with specialties in anthropological
linguistics and American Indian studies, she has continued to work with
the tribe in development and maintenance of language revitalization programs.
For the Coeur d'Alene
Tribe and countless other Native American nations, language revitalization
programs are extremely difficult. Wagner said when she was contacted there
were few fluent speakers of the tribe's language, "snchitsu'umshtsn."
"No one spoke
it on a daily basis," she said.
But the revitalization
of the language was important to the tribe for a number of reasons including
for legal issues. The U.S. Government uses language as one determinant
of its recognition of nations, including Native American nations.
In addition to the
legal rights a language gives a tribe, it also an important identifier
for tribe members.
"A language
tells us who we are," Wagner said.
Currently there are
approximately 1500 members of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, two-thirds of which
live on the reservation that Wagner first visited six years ago.
The language fell
into disuse beginning in the 1890s when children from the tribe were sent
to boarding schools where they were forbidden to speak their native tongue.
That program, which was sanctioned by the U.S. government and the churches
running the boarding schools, didn't end until the 1960s.
Which has now left
the youngest fluent Coeur d'Alene speaker of "snchitsu'umshtsn"
at 84 years old. But the language is making a comeback thanks to the efforts
of Wagner and members of the tribe.
The anthropology
and American Indian Studies professor has helped develop two workbooks
and a reference book for the language working with the few native speakers.
The language is taught
at the local high school and has gained so much in popularity that the
enrollment couldn't be supported for Spanish, French and "snchitsu'umshtsn."
French has since been discontinued at the school. The language has also
made a comeback in some daily uses.
"Greetings
on the streets are now more common in Ôsnchitsu'umshtsn,'" Wagner
said. "It's spoken at tribal meetings where the opening speeches
are spoken in the language.
"It's coming
back into use, but not on a daily basis. Since it took 100 years to get
to this state, you can't expect it to come back in a single generation."
Wagner says "snchitsu'umshtsn" is an extremely difficult language
for English speakers to learn. It's a language where one word is essentially
an entire sentence.
And Wagner herself
has yet to master it. "I find it challenging, not frustrating,"
she said. "I have mastered the sound system, but the number of topics
I can speak on is limited to what our team has chosen to include in the
workbooks."
Wagner, who lived
at the Coeur d'Alene reservation for 18 months while working on her dissertation,
now journeys back to Idaho every spring break and summer. This summer
the six-person language team (which includes tribe members) is scheduled
to write a teacher's manual for use in the high school classroom.
One of those team
members is Lawrence Nicodemus, a tribe member who has a law degree. "He
is 92 and comes to the high school class as the master teacher every day,"
Wagner said.
"He has worked
with linguists and anthropologists since somewhere in the 1910s, including
working with Franz Boas, who is the father of American anthropology. <
"I really like
working with him and so many other people," she continued. "It's
a fun project."
Around LAS
April 9-15, 2001
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