Speaking up before a heritage turns silent
Aozotorp
Speaking up before a heritage turns silent
Suppression and indifference have nearly wiped out the Arapaho tongue,
threatening not only the words but the culture that defined them.
By Monte Whaley
Denver Post Staff Writer
Ethete, Wyo. - The walls of Alvena Oldman's preschool classroom are filled with
pictures and words intended to teach the kids their native Arapaho language.
But the chairs are empty.
None of the parents who said they were going to enroll their children in
Oldman's Arapaho immersion class showed up. That left the once-retired language
arts teacher sifting through lesson plans and worrying that the ancient words
her grandparents used to speak will soon die with the oldest members of her
tribe.
"We talk about saving the language, but I guess people are not that
interested," Oldman said.
Arapaho is just one of hundreds of native dialects largely silenced by a
combination of 19th- and 20th- century government policies that sought to
eradicate Indian culture, and by modern-day apathy among tribe members
themselves.
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"In short, Native American languages are becoming endangered species," said
James Crawford, a writer and lecturer who specializes in the politics of
language.
Now the best hope for the native tongue of the Arapaho may come through
reviving it as a foreign language.
Oldman's summer class was aimed at 3- to 5-year-olds who tribal leaders hope
will one day lead a revival of the Arapaho tongue on the rolling green hills of
Wind River Indian Reservation in central Wyoming.
Only about 1,000 of the 8,000 tribe members on the reservation are fluent in
the language, and the youngest of them are in their late 50s, said Eugene
Ridgely Jr., director of the bilingual education program for the Wind River
Tribal College.
The college and the Northern Arapaho Council of Elders are lobbying Arapaho
parents and local schools to begin immersing children in their native customs
and dialect.
They worry that without a last-ditch effort, the remnants of Arapaho tradition
and culture - which developed in the Denver and Boulder area - may evaporate.
"All that we have is Arapaho," said 66-year-old Nelson White, a council elder.
"Without that language, we'll be lost."
The would-be saviors of the language say they are hampered by the complexity of
the dialect and the feelings of some on the reservation, which suffers from
high unemployment, that the language has little meaning in today's world.
"For someone who doesn't learn it as a kid, it is very difficult," said Andrew
Cowell, a linguist from the University of Colorado who is training Arapaho
speakers at Wind River. An 11-word sentence in English translates into a
27-word sentence in Arapaho, Cowell said.
Hope in immersion
Over the years, the world has presented plenty of reasons for kids to forgo
learning Arapaho.
White grew up when white teachers would beat Indian youths for speaking their
native tongue. He also remembers the signs in the windows of nearby Lander that
said, "No dogs or Indians allowed."
"How are we going to pass along our ceremonies to our young children without
the language?" White said. "It's our only way of survival."
Ridgely, White and others hope to model an Arapaho immersion program after
those used in Hawaii and New Zealand to teach long- forgotten languages. There,
language "nests" were created in local schools to teach several subjects - all
in the native language.
WYOMING INDIAN SCHOOLS
As things stand now, Arapaho is barely spoken in schools, even on the Wind
River reservation.
"There is maybe 15 minutes of Arapaho once a week in some schools," Ridgely
said. "We need to remedy that."
The language's salvation may come thanks to the federal No Child Left Behind
Act. That law mandates new, higher standards for public schools - including an
expanded study of foreign languages.
Wyoming Department of Education spokeswoman Deborah Hinckley said Arapaho would
qualify for additional attention and aid under the act.
"This would certainly be treated as a foreign language and thus (be) critical
and important," she said.
At least 50 Native American language nests have emerged nationwide in hopes of
reversing a national trend erasing Indian culture altogether. As many as 400
Indian languages were spoken in 1900, but that number has been whittled to
about 185 - and many of those are nearly dead.
Immersion programs are leading to some small revivals, including those at K-8
schools among the Blackfeet tribe in Montana and elementary schools for the Lac
Courte Oreilles Ojibwa of Wisconsin, Cochiti Pueblo of New Mexico, the Navajo
of Arizona and the Onondaga of New York, according to the Tribal College
Journal.
Language experts say immersion schools do more than keep cultures breathing.
While Native American students traditionally do poorly in white-dominated
schools, immersion students score high on standardized tests and often
outperform their white counterparts.
The students who speak both their native language and English are broadening
their intellectual capacity to communicate, said Marjane Ambler, editor of the
Tribal College Journal.
"They are stimulating the part of their brain that would otherwise not be
used," said Ambler, whose magazine has covered the immersion issue extensively.
Native American immersion students are also discovering they can successfully
merge the ideas of their old culture with modern-day life.
"Not only are they regaining their language but also respect for the
accomplishments of their ancestors," Ambler said.
Establishing acceptance
Still, indifference and cultural pressure discourage many Native Americans from
embracing their ancestral dialects, say language experts and Native Americans.
Northern Arapaho who use their native tongue are sometimes mocked by other
tribal members who see no use for the language, said 23-year-old Lisa Yawakia.
Her father, for instance, will not speak his native Zuni.
"He doesn't see a point in using his language in his society," Yawakia said.
Her mother, she said, has a scar on her head from being hit with a ruler for
speaking Arapaho in school. She rarely speaks it now.
Yawakia's little sister used to cuddle and listen to her grandfather speak the
language but has since forgotten everything he taught her, Yawakia said.
"A lot of our kids are influenced by other cultures and forget about their
past," she said.
Yawakia will not. She works at the local reservation radio station, KWRR, and
hopes someday to teach Arapaho on the air.
Local radio personality Joe Antelope does that every day, repeating English
words and then their Arapaho translation in between strings of Native American
music.
The radio station is part of a musty complex that houses the immersion classes
run by Oldman. Nearby are a grocery store and a senior center.
During the school year, Oldman oversees classes with as many as 10 students.
The summer course was heavily advertised in the town of about 1,000,
emphasizing its importance in passing on the Arapaho language to a younger
generation.
The lack of response only causes Oldman to shrug.
"They can talk about saving the language all they want, but as they say, it's
all smoke and no fire," she said.
Across the street at the local community center, Oldman's niece Arlene sits on
the steps and regrets letting the language slip away from her lips.
She said she and a lot of kids her age virtually ignored their parents, who
tried to pass on the language to them.
Now, Arlene Oldman speaks only a few words of Arapaho, as do her own children.
"Lots of us should have paid attention to our folks," she said.
THE ALPHABET
The Arapaho alphabet is made up of 16 symbols - 12 consonants and 4 vowels:
B C E H I K N O S 3 T U W X Y '
Vowel pronunciations
Singular vowels are short:
e: "eh" as in "neck"
i: "ih" as in "bit"
o: "aw" as in "hot"
u: "uh" as in "cut"
Double vowels create the long vowel sounds:
ee: "ee"
ii: "aye"
oo: "oh"
uu: "oo"
Some consonant pronunciations
c: has a "ch" sound
3: pronounced "th," as in "bath"
t: Can be pronounced "d" or "t"
': A "glottal stop." It doesn't make a sound, but shows that the sound or
breath is cut off suddenly.
Some simple words
nec (netch) water
hee (hee) yes
he3 (heth) dog
toot (dote) where
ON THE WEB
Find examples of the Arapaho language and hear pronunciations of the alphabet
at www.eslbilingualed.org/index.htm
Post / Andy Cross
A class poster reads, “The young boy has long hair.” Only 1,000 of 8,000
Arapaho on Wyoming’s Wind River Indian Reservation are fluent, all of them
older than 50.