Back from the (Nearly) Dead: Reviving Indigenous Languages across North America

The people of the Cochiti Pueblo were moved to revitalize their language after they conducted a survey that disclosed that all of its fluent speakers were thirty-five years of age or older. The few speakers under age thirty-five were semiliterate, according to Mary Eunice Romero, a Karas (Pueblo). Romero then asked, "What is going to happen to our language in 20-years when those [who are] 35-years old become 55? In 20 more years, when they're 75?"1 The Cochiti immersion program began in 1996 with a summer program for thirty children under instruction from the Tribal Council, all instruction to be carried out orally, with no written texts. After that, according to Romero, the program grew quickly: "When the kids went home, they spread the news that, 'Wow, they're not using any English. They're not writing. It's just totally in Cochiti.' We started out with four teachers. The next day, we got 60 kids. By the third week, we had 90 kids. By the end of the summer, the kids were starting to speak."2 Romero also watched the mode of instruction change the behavior of the children: "The behavior change was a major miracle. These kids came in rowdy as can be. By the time they left, they knew the appropriate protocol of how you enter a house, greet your elder, say good-bye. The fact that they could use verbal communication for the most important piece of culture, values, and love started a chain reaction in the community."3 Experiences at the Cochiti Pueblo mirror a trend across Turtle Island (North America). Native American languages, many of which have been verging on extinction, have enjoyed a revival in recent years largely due to many Native American nations' adoption of "immersion" programs, [End Page 566] which teach a language as the major part of many reservation school curricula. Two books have been developed from a series of symposia on teaching Indigenous languages that have been held annually since 1994.4 The symposia have gathered roughly three hundred people a year at several venues around the United States. Several were held at Northern Arizona University, where they were sponsored by its Multicultural Education Program, a subdivision of the university's Center for Excellence in Education. These two books celebrate the rediscovery of language with a sense of joy. The revival of Indigenous languages—immersion training has become one of the hottest educational tickets in Indian Country—is in stark contrast to the somber purge of Native languages and cultures that was delivered more than a century ago with the federal government's historical emphasis on assimilation into English-speaking mainstream culture. It was encapsulated in the slogan "Kill the Indian, save the man," used by Richard Henry Pratt, who founded the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1879. Julia Kushner, one of the contributors to Revitalizing Native Languages (she describes language work among the Arikara), cites studies indicating that 90-percent of the 175 Native languages that survived General Platt's cultural gauntlet today have no child speakers.5 That figure dates from the mid-1990s. Speakers mourn the continuing loss of several languages, more than a dozen of which lost their last living speakers during the first half of the 1990s alone. The revival of Native languages has been a grassroots affair in many Native American communities, as immersion programs have spread across Turtle Island, from the Akwesasne Mohawk territory (which straddles the borders of New York State, Ontario, and Quebec), to the Cochiti Pueblo of New Mexico and the Native peoples of Hawaii. Language as the Basis of Sovereignty Why teach language? Little Bear said that "language is the basis of sovereignty," as well as the vessel of culture.6 During the nineteenth century, said Little Bear, the United States showed its respect for Native American languages' essential role in...

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