FLAGSTAFF – The first European settlers arrived on a continent where more than 300 different languages flourished. Today, the number of spoken native tongues in North America is down to an estimated 210 – and shrinking.

“It used to be, we came to the powwow in Flagstaff and people would go into the tent and speak Hopi, Navajo, Maricopa – all these different languages,” Damon Clarke of the Hualapai Nation recalled. “Now we converse in English. Our values have changed, our dress has changed, our religion has changed.”

Clarke and members of other U.S. tribes met with linguists at Northern Arizona University last week to draw strategies for saving endangered languages. As tribal cultures continue to change as a result of economic development, intermarriage and mass media influence, many native tongues are only a generation away from dying out, they warned.

The three-day conference, sponsored by the U.S. Office of Bilingual Education & Minority Languages Affairs in cooperation with NAU, offered equal portions of good and bad news.

Michael Krauss, professor of linguistics at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, told participants that Southwestern native languages – including Navajo – remain relatively strong. There are other areas, including Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest, where young people no longer speak or understand the language their grandparents grew up with, Krauss said.

Krauss’ informal surveys show that nationwide, only 11 percent of American Indians learn their native language from their parents or grandparents. Of the 175 or so native languages spoken in the U.S. today, only 20 are taught in this traditional way.

This means a vast majority of tribal languages are spoken only by parents and the older generation, with young children using solely English, Krauss said.

“About 30 U.S. states still has native languages,” he said. “The question is, for how much longer?”

Dennis Moquino, director of education for the Zia Pueblo in New Mexico, said surveys conducted by his tribe showed that children hear their native language spoken in the community, but avoid using it themselves.

“We heard kids say, ‘it sounds funny when I talk Zia and I don’t want to be laughed at,'” Moquino said.

Now the Zia Day School has embarked on an aggressive language program in an effort to save the tribe’s ancient tongue before it dies out.

“Hopefully, the little ones will speak it fluently by the time they’re in high school,” Moquino said. “It’s a real push we’re making as a community.”

Other tribes, increasingly mindful of the threat of language loss, are making similar efforts.

Lester Sandoval of the New Mexican Jicarilla Nation said his tribe is currently conducting a study to determine the status on the Apache language in the community and is considering developing an Apache dictionary. For only by knowing your language can you truly understand and retain your culture, he said.

On the Navajo Nation, it is estimated that 90 percent of adults, 30 years of age and over speak Navajo. Unfortunately, the younger generation isn’t keeping up the good work: census figures show that only half of all children aged 5-10 are Navajo-speakers, said Wayne Holm, education specialist with the tribe’s Office of Dine Culture/Language.

“There’s little to be optimistic about in the Navajo situation – it’s only in comparison to many other languages that it seems better,” Holm said. “Anybody in this business would say there’s no such thing as an unendangered native language.”

The Office of Dine Culture/Language is developing a Navajo culture curriculum framework which schools reservationwide will be able to adopt. Several reservation schools, including Rock Point, Rough Rock and Borrego Pass community schools, have already implemented their own intensive Navajo language programs in which children learn to read and write in their native tongue before they’re taught English.

Such efforts are all part of a growing movement within Indian nations to preserve and revitalize their languages, Holm said.

When Congress funded the Native American Language Act for the first time last year, no fewer than 160 U.S. tribes applied for funds to run local language programs, he added.

Navajo linguist and Johnson O’Malley Program Director Paul Platero believes that if native language programs are implemented in all schools on the reservation in the next few years, the Navajo language will have a good chance of surviving.

His own survey of reservation pre-schoolers found that many children apparently lose much of their native language during their first years in school because there isn’t enough instruction in Navajo.

“For a long time we felt comfortable based on our sheer numbers (of tribal members) and because we didn’t have data showing the language loss,” Platero said. “Now we know that no language is safe.”

There are 6,000 languages spoken worldwide. In the next century, as our planet becomes a more homogeneous place, 20-50 percent of those languages could become extinct, according to Krauss, the Alaskan linguist.



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