The Esselen Puzzle: Re-learning
a dead language
One woman's fight to revive her native language
Reported by Sarah Whites-Koditschek
Produced by Ben Phelps-Rohrs
57-year-old Louise Ramirez studied Spanish in ninth grade but she never mastered it and she couldn't roll her Rs. Learning Esselen is different, she says, in part, because she's just about the only tribe member learning more than a few words, and there's no one around to correct her pronunciation.
Learning a dead language was not something Ramirez, a retired payroll worker from San Jose State University, considered until she read an article about the importance of Native Americans re-learning and teaching their languages.
In 2006 she attended the University of California, Berkeley's Breath of Life conference, which brings together advocates of languages that are no longer spoken.
Of the hundred native American languages documented in California over the past century, half, including Esselen, are considered dead: they no longer have living native speakers.
Breathing life into Esselen
When I met Ramirez at the Breath of Life conference this June, she was culling the handwritten notes on Esselen of a 1910s anthropologist, John Peabody Harrington. Harrington documented Esselen through the 1920s, and took thousands of notes on the language. Ramirez hadn't seen this particular stack of notes before, and she came across lists of new words for her dictionary.
Over the past two years Ramirez has compiled an Esselen dictionary. She also translates stories and prayers into the language. This can be a challenge because Ramirez has a limited Esselen vocabulary. Several versions of the Lord's Prayer, which Ramirez reads at burial ceremonies, were found and discarded before she found one she could translate.
In some cases Ramirez has taken some liberties with the language -- for example, she substituted the word "cleanse" for "forgive." A broad interpretation will result in the right meaning, she believes.
For Ramirez, part of reviving the Esselen language is allowing it to change in pragmatic ways. She says that pure preservation and reconstruction of language is the work of linguists. Ramirez believes that learning Esselen words and their meanings should take priority over learning grammatical structure; this will make it easier for tribal members to learn.
Other tribes, she says, may be purists. But Ramirez prefers to have leeway to invent words for modern objects that couldn't have been a part of the language of her great-grandparents, like "computer."
As a tribal chairwoman, and author of the tribal newsletter, Ramirez is well-known in her tribe. She adds a vocabulary section to the tribal newsletter, which is distributed across the country. And she has the final say when it comes to creating words or designating new meanings to existing words.
The Esselen, a scattered people
Ramirez says the Esselen tribe has about 600 members, half of whom live in the Monterrey Bay area, with the rest scattered across the country. The Esselen tribe was not federally recognized until 1994, and it has never owned a reservation.
Geographical distance is one reason why the Esselen language did not survive. Another, Ramirez says, was social stigma associated with being Native American. Growing up, Ramirez hardly knew she was Native American. Hoping to avoid discrimination, her great grandparents and other speakers of their generation spoke their language privately and chose not to teach it to the younger generation. The last documented speaker of the Esselen language, Isabel Meadows, died in 1939. Esselen tribe members of Meadow's generation were fluent only when no one else was around, Ramirez and fellow Esselen council member Pauline Martinze Arias say.
For both Arias and Ramirez growing up, Esselen heritage was rarely discussed. They say their parents wanted to shield them from discrimination and they frequently "passed" as Latino.
UC Berkeley linguist Andrew Garrett says boarding school policies that discouraged the use of native languages and the missionization of Southern California also contributed to Esselen's demise.
Signs of progress within Yurok tribe
While most native languages in California are far from flourishing, some, like the Yurok language of the Yurok tribe in Klamath, Calif., still have living speakers and have made a conscious effort to maintain the viability of their language. The Yurok have worked on language revitalization since 1977. The tribe has a government-funded language program, which boasts language courses for children taught in public schools, teacher training sessions, and summer language camps.
The Yurok language has even been accepted into the UC system as a legitimate language for entrance requirements.
Linguist Garrett, who participates in UC Berkley's language revitalization conferences, says tribes across the state have shown increasing interest in re-learning languages in the past few years. He says there are a number of contributing factors.
Thelma Telleria, a registered nurse and member of the Tyme Maidu tribe of Oroville, Calif., says she hopes restoring the Maidu language will strengthen families and bring down rates of alcoholism and suicide among young people in her tribe.
Carole Lewis, language director of the Yurok tribe, says learning language helps mental capacity. Perhaps, she says, this is why the elders of her tribe remain lucid into their 90s.
For many members of the Esselen tribe, drawing on Esselen words in tribal ceremonies, council meetings and songs is a matter of cultural revitalization and re-affirmation. For Ramirez, it is also a part of her spiritual life. She says Esselen words carry meaning for her in a way that English does not. She believes her anscestors can understand her now that she speaks their languages. Using Esselen words in ceremonies and contemplating them herself, she says, makes her feel connected to her ancestors and the collective past of her tribe.
