Sitting Bull College's Lakota Language Capacity Building Initiative

Sitting Bull College, Fort Yates ND

Investigators

Abstract

The Native American Languages Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1990, enacted into policy the recognition of the unique status and importance of Native American Languages. Native American languages are valuable because, among other things, they contain diverse grammatical features that language scientists have only just begun understanding and analyzing. Yet, all Native American languages are endangered, and many of these languages are no longer spoken or used by fluent first language speakers. It is in the national interest to broaden participation by training Native linguists who are familiar with the culture and communities in which these languages reside; these linguists bring their diverse knowledge and experience to the language sciences, and can more directly help with grassroots language revitalization efforts in their home communities, at least some of which is funded by other federal initiatives. Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), such as Sitting Bull College (Standing Rock Indian Reservation), are often spaces in which these grassroots language revitalization efforts take place. Moreover, many community members are motivated to learn their ancestral language, despite a dearth of indigenous linguists. This project will leverage that motivation to facilitate a better linguistic and structural understanding of a Native American language by TCU faculty and students. Broader impacts include increasing representation of Native Americans in the social sciences, capacity building in linguistics at a TCU, and improved training of TCU participants in second language acquisition and assessment methodologies. This project is co-funded by the NSF Tribal Colleges and Universities Program (TCUP). Sitting Bull College's Lakota Language Capacity Building Initiative hypothesizes that community members often may not know how linguists can help their language revitalization efforts because they do not get to see the processes involved in creating programs, materials, or other resources that help revitalize language. Similarly, community members may not know if they want to participate in language sciences, as language sciences are not usually introduced to students in primary or secondary schools, and are also not always taught or included in language-learner environments and other language revitalization activities. The team will investigate how the development of a deeper and more explicit connection of the language sciences to Lakota language revitalization activities and language learning fosters interest in the language sciences by TCU faculty and students. The Initiative will ramp up existing Sitting Bull College language courses to speed-up Lakota language acquisition among the college's students and staff and in the greater Standing Rock community. Datives, conditional clauses, adverbial clauses of time and other morphologically or syntactically complex structures are used in basic daily conversations, so learners are confronted with them regularly. This project will document these grammatical elements in the speech of both fluent speakers and learners, creating a rich corpus of second language acquisition data in addition to the documentation of fluent Lakota speakers. The strength of the proposed initiative is that it helps students develop a better understanding of the possibilities and limits of the language sciences by teaching the Lakota language in a multitude of ways, such as through grammars, archival materials, as well as through interaction with fluent speakers. By developing student proficiency in and metalinguistic awareness of the Lakota language, this initiative aims to create groups of passionate Lakota language learners who will not only continue to learn and use Lakota in everyday life, but who will also build Sitting Bull College's capacity as a center for Lakota language research and acquisition.