In this second blog entry about Sauk language revitalization, I want to talk about the master apprentice to the four elders. His name is Jacob. He has 85% of Sauk language. There are three others with him doing this work – Twiggy, Katy, Mosiah. That group of four meet daily with the four remaining pure speakers to assure that there are four to replace the four who are getting ready to go to sleep.
I don’t even know Jacob’s last name! He may not have one. Jacob and I spent hours working together – not enough. I modeled in French and he in Sauk. He is the best teacher. I asked him why and he told me that he had the theory of CI down pat but the hard part for him was in applying it. I was glad we were together because that area of application is one that I feel comfortable in. He learned so fast.
I didn’t get to work with Twiggy – I will next time. But the younger ones, Katy and Mosiah, only in their 20’s, when they taught me, I can’t describe it. The only way that I can describe it is that when they were teaching me I was very happy. Those were very happy moments for me is all I can say.
I feel that if I could be a student of Sauk with these teachers for an hour a day, I would learn the language in a very short time. Like Krashen said (I think it was Krashen), when we learn this way we learn 1600 times faster. That’s what it felt like to me.
But it wasn’t the speed. It was the being happy in those moments. Whenever Mosiah, whose other name in Sauk is so beautiful sounding that I chose to not even try to say it out loud even once – it would be an insult – whenever he said yes to me indicating that I had understood properly, there was a tone in the sound of HAY-HAy that was so approving. It was very approving. I don’t know how else to say it. HAY-MEc! (HIGH FIVE!)
Mosiah and Katy taught me with such love and approval – they let me know that I could learn this language. I will never forget it. As I reflect back on the quality of that instruction, I can identify an unmistakable feeling of love given and received mixed in with approval along with the instructional content. Marble ice cream.
Maybe there was so much love in their instruction because their language goes back through so many people, so many generations. Through so many centuries. Maybe languages which go back so many generations have more love in them because of all the people that spoke them for so long. All those people. I don’t know.
It is very hard to express what doesn’t happen in the mind, is not located in thought, what reflects that other part of the role of language as well as the “communicate an idea” part.