Unfortunately, for many who live among us, the wonder of their language, the marvels of generations of tribal history, will soon fade away. These fading languages are a powerful source of knowledge and wisdom, many of which will soon be no more.
A California reporter interviewed several Native Americans about the power of language and the cumulative effect of the death of particular languages. For many tribes, language is sacred, and is an endowed gift.
To many Native Americans, language is a gift from God. They believe it is bestowed on the people by their Maker, like the ability to breathe or to think. To them, so sacred is the genesis of speech that they include it in their creation stories.
According to the Times, California native communities are among the most active in the nation when it comes to preserving tribal languages, but, like many Native American communities all over the nation, time is indeed running out. (Ibid)
Elders such as Doris Lamar, an 80 year old Witchita, are the last native speakers of their tribal languages. Lamar told reporters that she never thought she’d be the last native speaker of her tribe who once numbered into the thousands.
Today, Lamar is the last fluent speaker in the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, a tribe of 2,300. Sitting in a tribal canteen that she supervises, the 80-year-old Lamar carries a language that once was spoken by thousands, then hundreds of Wichita language speakers. (Tulsa World, 11-26-07)
From Alaska to Kansas, Missouri and beyond, our elderly native speakers are the repository of linguistic treasures beyond kin. When they die, the power of their ancestral language fades from existence.
Marie Smith knows that her language - the Alaskan tongue of Eyak - will die with her. And she mourns its passing.
"If you were expecting a little baby, and it went back to its home so that it wasn't born alive, how would you feel?" says Smith, 85, who moved to Anchorage from her tribal home on Prince William Sound in 1973. (Baltimore Sun, 2003)
Mary Smith, Doris Lamar, and a hand full of others are all that stand between their native languages and linguistic extinction. According to the Smithsonian, at least 200 other Native American languages are on the endangered list.
The plight of Chemehuevi (chay-mah-WA-vy) is very similar to that of some 200 other Native American languages, according to Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages in Salem, Oregon. The organization's director, Gregory Anderson, estimated that almost none of those languages remain viable. Navajo and Cherokee are among the healthiest, so to speak; up to 20,000 people speak Cherokee, and he estimates that around 75,000 use Navajo. (Smithsonian Magazine, 10-31-07)
Fifty-three year old Johnny Hill, Jr., is a generation removed from Smith and Lamar, but he’s in the same boat. “He is one of the last people on the planet who speak Chemehuevi, a Native American language that was once prevalent in the Southwest.” (Ibid)
Hill and other speakers of endangered languages know exactly what is happening and it pains them to be the last living speakers of a dying language. "It hurts," the 53-year-old Arizonan says. "The language is gone." (Ibid)
Native American languages have proven themselves vibrant, despite more than a century of attack from federal government policies. For more than one hundred years, Native children were forced to attend government schools, forbidden to speak their native languages. Now, the circle is turning around, with many Native American teachers bringing their native languages to the classroom. One such language disciple is Lucille Watahomigie.
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