Oneida Indian Nation Works to Recover its Language

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RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

It's estimated that about 300 languages were spoken in North America when Europeans first arrived. Many have since been lost. David Chanatry has a story about one tribe in upstate New York that's trying to save its ancient language in a most modern way.

DAVID CHANATRY: It's not easy to confuse Mariah Carey with Ben Stiller, but in this classroom it sometimes happens. Teacher Sherry Bagwynn(ph) is using pictures of the two stars to help her students learn how to say man and woman. Bagwynn points to Stiller.

Ms. SHERRY BAGWYNN (Teacher): (Foreign Language Spoken)

Unidentified Group: (Foreign Language Spoken)

Mr. SHANATRI: The eight students will repeat over and over the phrases for man and woman, just as they'll go over and over other words and phrases they might use in everyday conversation. They're learning language by immersion, no English is spoken - only Oneida, or Onyota'aka.

If the method seems like what you might get at a commercial language school like Berlitz, it should. This is the Berlitz method, adapted to an indigenous American tongue.

Brian Patterson sits on the tribal council of the Oneida Indian Nation. He says the tribe offered weekly language classes for 20 years. But no one really became fluent.

Mr. BRIAN PATTERSON (Oneida Council): You see these ads from time to time and you're like learn Spanish in 30 days, speak French in 30 days. And so, you know, I come from - what was that effort all about? Why couldn't we do that to Oneida?

CHANATRY: Going outside the tribe for help was a drastic but necessary step. Only a few elders spoke the language that once served an entire people

Ms. MARILYN JOHNS (Clan Mother, Oneida Nation): My name is Marilyn Johns. I'm their clan mother for the Oneida Nation.

CHANATRY: Marilyn Johns' parents spoke Oneida but she does not. Her parents were put in a school for Indians and she says they were beaten for speaking the language. It's a common story and not just here. Indian culture, including language, was widely suppressed.

Ms. JOHNS: It was the white world that tried to assimilate them into the white world and the language had no part in that white world.

CHANATRY: The Oneida words faded with the tribe. Their territory once stretched across much of upstate New York but they were eventually pushed onto a tiny 32-acre reservation about 30 miles east of Syracuse. But first with a bingo hall then a modern casino, nightclub and five golf courses, the Nation, as it's known here, has in recent years transformed itself into a hugely successful business empire. It's now the largest employer in a three-county area and it pours its profits into educating people and recovering its culture.

Some of its money has gone to a contract with Berlitz. Like many Indian languages, Oneida had already been written down. Back in the 1930s a young anthropologist named Floyd Lansbury(ph) had described the spoken language, associating every discreet sound with a letter or combination of letters from the English alphabet.

Some members of the Canadian branch of the tribe still knew this form so Berlitz hired a few, including Ray George, to translate 40 chapters of its curriculum.

Mr. RAY GEORGE (Translator): So that's what we did. I spoke the words, Norma had done the writing and Sherry(ph) is the one that done all the typing to get these sent and then it was sent to Berlitz.

CHANATRY: And after being trained in the Berlitz's method, Ray George taught the first class last year. Now, the nation is paying those students to teach, and the eight students this year are being paid too - $10 hour an hour to start for a 40-hour week of classes.

Though learning the language is hard work, Karen Pierce says she's doing it to recover a part of herself.

Ms. PIERCE: Because I am Oneida and I should know my native background. I should know everything about it. I should know my language. I should know my ceremonies.

CHANATRY: Language say ultimately for the Oneida's program to be successful, it must turn out lots of speakers who use the language in everyday life, and it must reach the young. Already the nation has sent instructors to its daycare program and a summer camp, but the society around them speaks English. And like any other kids, Indian youth are influenced by TV and computers and popular English-speaking media.

Still, for councilmember Brian Patterson, the classes are an impressive start to regaining a piece of his heritage.

Mr. PATTERSON: They're laughing and joking and it's all in Oneida. Granted, they may be like schoolchildren having conversation, but the point is Oneida is spoken on Oneida land once again by Oneidas.

CHANATRY: And one day soon he and many others here believe the Oneida people will once again speak the language of their fathers.

For NPR News, I'm David Chanatry.

MONTAGNE: You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.

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