Got this from Chill:
In the most recent edition of The Language Educator, I was pleased to see an article entitled “Teaching and Preserving Native Languages”. The article highlights the plight of many indigenous languages many of which are facing extinction. Quoting The Enduring Voices Project: ” Every fourteen days a language dies. By 2100, more than 7000 languages spoken on Earth – many of them not yet recorded – may disappear, taking with them a wealth of knowledge about history, culture, the natural environment, and the human brain.”
Having met and been very impressed and moved by an amazing group of native Americans- Kate, Jacob and Josh and the young man with the amazing smile who taught me about wanting drive – at NTPRS, I was pleased to read that Jacob Manatowa-Bailey was specifically mentioned as being the force behind the revitalization of the Sauk language. Jacob is the Director of the Sauk Language Department for the Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma. Jacob is passionate about his work. He is currently working against the clock to spend time with the few remaining elderly speakers to codify the language while organizing ways for families and children to learn Sauk in his local public schools. Ben is really the expert on all of the details and has blogged on the topic.
Another gifted CI practitioner, Jan Holter-Kittok, was also mentioned in the article. In her role as a Language Education Consultant for the state of Minnesota, Jan was part of the working group on Dakota and Ojibwe Language Revitalizationand Preservation. Regarding the importance of the involvement of language educators in the efforts to save endangered indigenous languages, Jan said the following: ” We have much to share. The language revitalization efforts are on a short timeline. They don’t have time for trial and error strategies…we also cannot cannot afford to continue practices which do not result in language acquisition.
Related:
https://benslavic.com/blog/2011/07/27/sauk-language-video-2/
https://benslavic.com/blog/2011/08/09/drawn-by-an-echo/