{"id":23805,"date":"2022-05-02T12:53:17","date_gmt":"2022-05-02T16:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/?p=23805"},"modified":"2022-05-02T12:53:18","modified_gmt":"2022-05-02T16:53:18","slug":"underscore-news-native-family-works-to-preserve-kalapuya-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2022\/05\/02\/underscore-news-native-family-works-to-preserve-kalapuya-language\/","title":{"rendered":"Underscore.news: Native family works to preserve Kalapuya language"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Esther<\/a>
Esther Stutzman and her granddaughter Aiyanna Brown embrace outside of Stutzman’s home in Yoncalla, Oregon. Photo by Leah Nash\/Underscore.news<\/figcaption>\r\n
\u2018You Lose a Language, You Lose a Culture\u2019<\/div>\r\n
The recent publication of a four-volume Kalapuya dictionary and a separate ongoing effort to build an expansive digital archive have brought renewed attention to an Indigenous language that has been dead in spoken form for more than a half century. <\/strong><\/div>\r\n
Monday, May 2, 2022<\/div>\r\n
By Myers Reece, Underscore.news<\/div>\r\n
Underscore.news<\/a><\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nOn a drizzly January morning, Esther Stutzman\u2019s dining room table is covered with sticky notes, worksheets, notepads and several bulky Kalapuya dictionaries. Seated next to Stutzman are her two daughters and granddaughter, all Kalapuyan descendants and enrolled members of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians. Their jovial banter belies the gravity of their mission: to revive the lost language of their ancestors. The scattered documents form a paper trail to their heritage.

<\/p>\r\n\t\u201cThis is probably the biggest group of Kalapuya speakers in the world,\u201d Stutzman said during a semi-regular language study that she launched at her Yoncalla home in western Oregon after the dictionaries were published in December. \u201cAnd we speak the language at a preschool level.\u201d

<\/p>\r\nThe dictionaries are the product of a decade-long passion project by the late Paul Stephen McCartney, Sr., whose fascination with Kalapuya compelled him to devote his post-high school teaching years to compiling and organizing it, and to reach out to the Stutzman family for their assistance. McCartney, who passed away last year at 81, wasn\u2019t a trained linguist but loved language and thought Kalapuya was \u201cbeautiful,\u201d according to Aiyanna Brown, Stutzman\u2019s granddaughter. He poured an enormous amount of energy into the dictionary project.

<\/p>\r\n\u201cHe wanted to keep the language alive,\u201d Brown said.

<\/p>\r\n\"Kalapuya<\/a>

From left to right, Melissa Tuttle, Aiyanna Brown, Shannin Stutzman, Heather Moore and Esther Stutzman convene a Kalapuya language study on January 31, 2022, in Yoncalla, Oregon. Photo by Leah Nash\/Underscore.news<\/figcaption>\r\n\r\n

<\/P>\r\n\tMcCartney had access to a trove of written materials and a few audio recordings from ethnographic interviews with John Hudson, a Santiam Kalapuyan who died in 1954. Hudson has often been called the last \u201cL1\u201d Kalapuya speaker, meaning he grew up in a household where the language was spoken first. But linguist Henry Zenk, who holds a Ph.D. in anthropology and is a foremost authority on Oregon Indigenous languages, says at least one other L1 speaker lived longer than Hudson: Stutzman\u2019s great-aunt, Laura Blacketer Albertson, n\u00e9e Fearn. According to Stutzman, Albertson passed away in 1971.

<\/p>\r\n\u201cShe was very likely, as far as we know, the last speaker who had grown up with the language from childhood,\u201d Zenk said.

<\/p>\r\nThe audio files of Hudson from the 1930s into the 1950s are the lone historical sources of spoken Kalapuya, except for recordings of Kalapuya songs from 1914-1915, according to Zenk and fellow linguist Jedd Schrock, both of whose published works were among the diverse array of essential sources for McCartney\u2019s dictionaries. Additional audio recordings may be housed in the Library of Congress, although researchers haven\u2019t yet located them.

<\/p>\r\nZenk and Schrock, who have previously collaborated on Kalapuya research, are both linguistic consultants for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, where many Kalapuyan descendants are enrolled citizens.

<\/p>\r\nThe two scholars note that McCartney\u2019s dictionaries aren\u2019t rooted in foundational linguistic practices, which renders them largely unviable as academic resources. But they say the extensive glossary-like wordlists serve as an accessible gateway into the language for non-academics. That assessment is echoed by David Lewis, a professor in Oregon State University\u2019s anthropology and ethnic studies department who advised McCartney early in his efforts.

<\/p>\r\n\"Kalapuya<\/a>

Kalapuya dictionaries are stacked on a table at Esther Stutzman’s home in Yoncalla, Oregon. Photo by Leah Nash\/Underscore.news<\/figcaption>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nThe publications\u2019 usefulness outside of scholarly circles is evident in the informal language sessions at Esther Stutzman\u2019s house. Schrock points out there\u2019s no single way to measure a language or perceive its meaning.

<\/p>\r\n\u201cDifferent people think about language in different ways,\u201d he said. \u201cTo me, language is more behavior than math. We have this enormous mountain of data, but that\u2019s not what language is. It\u2019s not really about all those rules. It\u2019s about what people do together. That\u2019s what makes it a language. The people who can bring back Kalapuya are the Kalapuyan people. So it\u2019s great that Esther and her family are doing this.\u201d

<\/p>\r\n\u201cLanguage is a thing of heritage,\u201d he added. \u201cIf it hasn\u2019t been spoken in a long time, it takes a lot of courage to try to speak it again.\u201d

<\/p>

<\/ins>