YouTube: Rising Voices/ Hótȟaŋiŋpi Trailer
Groundbreaking New Documentary Raises Hope For Saving Lakota Language
By LCT Staff Vision Maker Media and the Language Conservancy announce the release of Rising Voices to DVD. The film tells the story about the struggles to save the Lakota language, braiding together the efforts of the Lakota to learn their tribal language today, the historical attempt by the United States to annihilate the language, the rise of immersion language schools, and the participation of outsiders in the rescue of the Lakota language. History is interwoven with present-day short films about the culture, created by Lakota filmmakers and artists. Rising Voices is a portrait of a culture today, focusing on the myriad conflicts around the disappearing language on the Lakota reservations of North and South Dakota. The Lakota nation consists of 170,000 tribal members. Yet the language is clearly at risk -- just 6,000 people still speak Lakota now, and the average age of its speakers will soon be 70 years. Before Columbus, Lakota was one of 300 Native languages spoken north of Mexico. Today only half of those languages remain; experts say that by the year 2050 just 20 indigenous American languages will exist.
Junior Garcia, the education director for the Lakota Language Consortium, appears in the film Rising Voices. Photo from Facebook
Today, Lakota tribal members, in partnership with non-Indians, struggle to save their native language by introducing a new way of teaching, brought to the Lakota reservations from faraway places like the Czech Republic and France. These methods are producing results; for the first time, schools are capable of creating fluent second-language Lakota speakers. The new methods are helping the Lakota language to find its voice again. The threat to Lakota comes from two sources. One is history itself: for many decades the American government tried to defuse what its leaders saw as "the Indian problem" by deliberately eliminating all aspects of Indian cultures. From 1879 on, thousands of Lakota (and other Native American) children were sent away to English-only boarding schools like Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which cut off their hair, enforced Christianity, and routinely beat children for the offense of speaking their native languages. Native Americans, it was thought, could only be assimilated into mainstream American society if they spoke English and only English exclusively. After years of attempting to destroy North American culture and annihilate Native American languages--too often with great success--the government eventually did an about-face. Today the United States officially recognizes the value in diversity in both culture and language.
Alayna Eagle Shield, a teacher at the Lakȟól’iyapi Hoȟpí / Lakota Language Nest, appears in Rising Voices. Photo from Facebook
The Lakota language expresses the history of the tribe and its culture, and serves as a point of pride and tribal connection to the Lakota people. The history of the Lakota language is interwoven with two other elements in the film: 1) present-day scenes of people wrestling with both the language and the hard facts of their lives, and 2) four short films about the culture, created by Lakota filmmakers and artists themselves especially for Rising Voices/Hótȟaŋiŋpi. Rising Voices/Hótȟaŋiŋpi , a film by Lawrence Hott and Diane Garey, is a production of Florentine Films/Hott Productions, Inc. in association with The Language Conservancy. The project is funded by The National Endowment for the Humanities, The Administration for Native Americans, The Dakota Indian Foundation, the South Dakota Humanities Council, and the North Dakota Humanities Council and Vision Maker Media with major sponsorship provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Executive Producer for The Language Conservancy, Wilhelm Meya; Executive Producer for Vision Maker Media, Shirley K. Sneve. © 2015. The film is distributed through American Public Television (APT.) Rising Voices, a one-hour documentary, is now available on www.shopvisionmaker.org. U.S., 2015, 57 minutes, Color, DVD. The video companions to the one-hour film include full-length versions of the four Lakota filmmakers’ works. Dana Claxton, Alayna Eagle Shield, Milt Lee and Yvonne Russo’s short films are available on this website, along with five bonus videos telling more stories from Lakota Country.
Scenes from bonus footage on the Rising Voices DVD. Images from Vision Maker Media
The Rising Voices/Hótȟaŋiŋpi playlists features selections from the internationally known hoop dancer, musician and educator Kevin Locke. The music selections are annotated on this site and can be streamed on Soundcloud. The project also includes extensive educational materials that will help learners at all levels explore the importance of language, the dangers of language loss, as well as the Lakota language itself. The resource links include tips on using the Lakota Language Forum, an online community of language warriors, dedicated to learning the language and keeping it alive. Find the award-winning Lakota Country Times on the Internet, Facebook and Twitter.
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