Ivan F. Star Comes Out. Photo from Native Sun News
Togye iyapi wan (A strange language)
By Ivan F. Star Comes Out
www.nsweekly.com The last community based language meeting I attended was 20 years ago. The other night I attended a small group gathering at Isna Wica Owayawa (Lone Man School) where several concerns were expressed. My enduring contention that we are losing our language was confirmed, but what concerned me even more is that we have a strange new language emerging. My younger brother, Stan Star Comes Out, referred to it as a “textbook language.” He explained that this new development may be the result of awarding Lakota Studies degrees to graduates even though they do not speak the Lakota language. In other words, the hiring of Lakota language teachers is based on a degree, not on language proficiency. An ultimate requirement for these graduates should be that they speak the Lakota language capably. Never mind a letter grade, all they have to do is to establish a level of proficiency by a Lakota language speaker’s scrutiny. Lakota language has always been an oral language and our ancestors transmitted it aurally through many generations, until now. Giving my brother’s concern some thought, the conventional teacher-student relationship is certainly strong creating this new and widely-accepted paradigm which has further fostered this new “textbook language.” It seems to thrive on a learner’s gullibility which is then transferred unhindered to the next generation of learners.
Read the rest of the story on the all new Native Sun News website: Togye iyapi wan (A strange language) (Ivan F. Star Comes Out, POB 147, Oglala SD 57764; (605) 8672448; mato_nasula2@outlook.com) Copyright permission Native Sun News
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