"I have a beautiful language, I am blessed," she said. She is a living link to a past that is just a few generations ago. She talks vividly of her grandmother, who told her of the great buffalo hunts her family used to take part in. The tiny but sprightly Comanche woman said she did not speak English until she went to school. One such place lies at the end of an isolated country road a few miles from Walters, where Edith Kassanavoid, 90, lives alone in her bungalow. The last remaining native speakers of Comanche are a rich resource of language, lore and tradition, scattered in the forgotten corners of Oklahoma. "One day, the federal government might start to wonder, why do we treat you as sovereign? The language helps keep us distinct," said Red Elk. That includes the lucrative business of running Indian casinos. America's many Indian tribes are treated as sovereign nations, giving them rights that other ethnic groups do not have. It also might have a more practical purpose for Native Americans. Without it, we are not Comanche," said Red Elk. It is the glue that holds our entire culture together. The language is certainly embraced as a source of pride. Any word that I know, they know," she said. Collins's sister, Diane Fowler, was also attending the Comanche class and she was determined to pass the language on in her family. "The first English words she learned were 'Yes, Ma'am'," Collins said. In Walters, Jeanine Collins wept as she described how her grandmother had not passed on the language because she had been beaten in school for it. The language was brought low by a deliberate policy of eradication by white authorities, who set up boarding schools where Indian children were punished for speaking their language. Perhaps fewer than 100 native Comanche speakers are still alive and none is under 60. For example, the Comanche equivalent to the English phrase "Happy birthday" is to say: "We are glad for the day that you fell out." As with many Indian languages, the number of native speakers of Comanche is small and all are old. It has been more than a generation since Comanche was spoken as a family language, and it is difficult. As a teacher recited the words for the numbers 1 to 10 in Comanche, the group repeated them and wrote them down. "We tell these parents to follow their little ones around and expose them to as much Comanche as possible," said Ronald Red Elk, a leader of the CLCPC.Īt the school in Walters, the group of students represented a generational cross-section of the tribe, from young children to their parents and two elders. The group has also taught the language to some families, even going as far as to give financial incentives for some to teach their children Comanche. The Comanche Language and Cultural Preservation Committee (CLCPC) has created a dictionary, developed language courses and CDs of Comanche songs and holds annual courses in five Oklahoma towns in which large numbers of Comanche live. In Oklahoma, the 14,000-strong Comanche people, who little more than a century ago were rulers of the Great Plains, are trying to pull back their language from the brink. Most people think of trying to save exotic languages as something that happens in Africa or South American jungles. To many Americans, the development comes as a surprise. Tribal colleges from South Dakota to Michigan to Minnesota are doing courses in Indian languages. In Wyoming, the Arapaho tribe have set up a school to educate their children in their native language, not English. Efforts range from college courses and immersion schools for young people to simply recording the languages before the last native speakers die. Across America, similar scenes are being played out as Native American tribes try to revive their languages, many of which are on the edge of extinction.
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