Lakota is an endangered language. The number of fluent speakers is decreasing rapidly and we now find them mainly among the elders. There has been no new generation of native speakers for almost three decades.
Losing a language represents a tremendous change for the people who once spoke it, because together with their language a significant portion of their culture and identity is lost as well.
Unlike most Native American languages Lakota hasn't reached the point of no return. There still is a large enough community of speakers, who could pass the language on to the coming generations and who could serve as teachers in schools. Therefore it is about time for Lakota people to do their best to revitalize their language.
Revitalization efforts started as "early" as the 1970s when Lakota became a part of the curriculum of some of the reservation schools. Unfortunately, no unified and standardized language teaching materials were developed and the schools programs didn't produce any significant number of speakers, not even semi-fluent ones. Later during 1980s and especially 1990s the reservation colleges produced two or three teaching materials (some of these were developed under grants from governmental institutions.). These have been in use at the college level studies, in some of the elementary schools and disseminated commercially. Unfortunately, none of those programs have been successful in increasing the number of speakers (some reports actually show, that they haven't produced a single new fluent speaker). Reasons for this situation are several:
· the materials are targeted at college level students, while an effective revitalization needs to start at elementary school level (or in kindergarten).
· the existing materials don't employ effective language teaching methods
· teachers lack training in language teaching methods (being a native speaker of a language does not automatically make a good teacher of the language)
· there is no standardized curriculum and orthography (each reservation, community and teaching program uses different orthography; the quarrels about the orthography have been going on for over thirty years).
Is there still hope?
Yes, but…
Both historical and recent examples show that revitalization efforts can be successful. Such is the case of Hebrew or the recent development of the situation with Maori language in New Zealand.
But those projects were effective only because the people united
and had an agreement on policy, teaching methods and materials. If the individual
Lakota reservations, communities, colleges and schools keep acting independently,
the revitalization process can never become effective. What is needed right
now is full and broad support of the Lakota Language Consortium
- the only organization which tries to unite all the Lakota reservations for
bringing the language back..
How can I help?
Anyone who cares about the future of Lakota language can help.
By buying the Lakota Language Consortium textbooks, you will donate money to the current revitalization project.
The current teaching materials can be order only at: Lakota Language Consortium
Anyone can help to save the language.
Editing and web design by Jan F. Ullrich; mail to jfuNOSPAM@lakhota.org (remove NOSPAM)