Education | Opinion

Clara Caufield: Tribes must get serious about language retention

Monday, September 12, 2016

A group of 29 students recently completed a week-long college-level class on Cheyenne language reading and writing hosted by the Chief Dull Knife College on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana. Photo by Clara Caufield

Are Tribal Officials serious about language retention?
By Clara Caufield
Native Sun News Today Columnist
nsweekly.com

All over Indian country, tribal elections will soon be in full swing. We will hear much talk (most of it in English) and certainly many good ideas for improving life on our reservation homelands. But, there is one subject we don’t hear much about from elected officials or those who aspire to be elected: the preservation of our tribal languages.

Instead, the tribal colleges have been taking the lead in the battle to record and save tribal languages and more important to promote the development of new fluent speakers. In many Tribes, such as Northern Cheyenne there is an alarming and very rapid loss of fluent speakers, most of them who are elderly or close to it. At Northern Cheyenne there are only an estimated 550 fluent Cheyenne speakers among an enrolled membership of over 11,000. That is about 10% of the approximately 5,000 who live on the reservation, where the language is most often spoken and thus easiest to learn, especially through formal classes at Chief Dull Knife College.

For the past few years, the issue of language preservation has become commonly discussed in various tribal forums. But not in the Tribal Council chambers. With the assistance of the State, in the past few years each Montana Tribe has received funding to pursue language preservation strategies enabling them to develop and implement many activities which have encouraged a renewed interest and commitment to the language. Generally, the Tribes have entrusted the tribal colleges with this responsibility, offering little or no matching funds. My mother, of the boarding school era commented “Isn’t it funny how times change? When I was a youngster we were severely punished at BIA Schools for speaking Cheyenne and now the government wants the young ones to learn it. They should make up their minds.”