8 February 2004
Associated Press Newswires
English
(c) 2004. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
OGLALA, S.D. (AP) - The Lakota language, once spoken exclusively
in most American Indian homes and communities on the Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation, is no longer learned at a rate that keeps up with the death of
fluent-speaking elders.
"Nationally, it's critically endangered," said Wayne H.
Evans, a professor in the school of education at the University of South
Dakota.
"The Lakota language status is critical to the point
of being lost," added Stephanie Charging Eagle, graduate department
director at Oglala Lakota College.
At Loneman School on the reservation, students speak, think and
learn almost entirely in English, a dramatic change from just a couple of
decades ago, according to officials.
"Twenty-six years ago, 90 percent of the student body were
fluent speakers," said Leonard Little Finger, cultural resource educator
at Loneman. "Today those statistics have flip- flopped."
One reason for the decline is the language is no longer valued,
said Deborah Bordeaux, principal at Loneman School. As an administrator, she
works to achieve federal and educational standards of a Bureau of Indian
Affairs school. But keeping and maintaining the Lakota language isn't one of
those standards, she said.
"We as a people need to validate that. We need to value the
language to save it," she said.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization estimates 6,000 members of South Dakota's American Indian tribes
are fluent speakers of Lakota.
But because English is the language of education, business and
government, interest in learning the Lakota language has dwindled, said Little
Finger.
At a recent Oglala Sioux Tribal Council meeting, council members
debated agenda items, talked about financial reforms and agreed to sell its
tribal farm and ranch -- all while speaking entirely in English.
"Only about half of the council speaks Lakota," said
Lyman Red Cloud Sr., a council official who is bilingual.
Even though an Oglala Sioux Tribal Council resolution states that
the Lakota language is the official language of the Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation, speaking Lakota at council meetings is the exception rather than
the rule.
"That's why we have difficulty with the council talking to
the people in their districts," said Red Cloud. The older population is
more comfortable speaking in their native language, and also have limited
understanding of English, he said.
Little Finger said his first language was Lakota, but education
drew him off the reservation and eventually into a career that took him
throughout the United States.
"If you can't speak English, you're out," Little Finger
said. "That's our struggle."
Yet the loss of native language includes a loss of cultural
history, and to lose the language is to lose understanding of a unique people,
he said.
The Lakota language encompasses not only culture but a spiritual
belief system, said Charging Eagle.
"Usually healers, spiritual leaders and specialized healers
will acquire their power through a dream or vision," she said.
Today, more of those healers are not speaking the language and it
is not being passed down from healer to healer, Charging Eagle said.
"We're losing our spiritual strength," she said.
While fluent conversations in Lakota still take place at social
gatherings, a revitalization of the language is needed in the areas of
education, governmental affairs and business, said Charging Eagle.
Evans said he was able to maintain fluency in Lakota even after
his family moved off the reservation when he completed eighth grade. But he
realizes that keeping up with Lakota has become increasingly difficult for
young people.
"There has to be a sustained environment; there has to be a
need to use the language," he said.
Computer games, books, movies, magazines, radio, music and TV
saturate the lives of Lakota youth in English, he said. "From the time you
get up and every time you turn around, you're bombarded by it," Evans
said.
Both the Pine Ridge and Cheyenne River Sioux reservations have
started projects aimed at keeping Lakota alive. But time is running out for
students to learn Lakota from native speakers, officials say.
If any the language classes have produced fluent speakers, Evans isn't aware of them. "I don't see the results of that," he said.