Column: Reflections on language losses this Indigenous People's Day

The country may be divided over what to call this coming Oct. 9 – Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples’ Day – but if Americans knew the facts, they’d have to agree that Indigenous languages must be rescued before they disappear. And we’re running out of time.

For decades, Native American languages have been dying out at alarmingly high rates, with more than 200 already eradicated. This is due in large part to U.S federal assimilation policies that started in the early 1800s, mandating that Native American children be sent to boarding schools.

In many cases, they were forcibly removed from their homes and parents who resisted were incarcerated. The purpose? To eradicate their language, their culture, and their identity. So effective was this policy that intergenerational language learning was largely ended by the mid-1950s. To exacerbate the issue, the last generation of first language speakers are now in their 70s and 80s, and COVID has taken a particularly taxing toll on Native groups. This isn’t a problem. It is an emergency.

The United Nations has named 2022–2032 the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, yet language loss is largely ignored compared to other global crises. So, why is this so important, and why should we care?

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Why it’s so important is pretty simple. What if the language you learned at home and spoke every day was falling silent right before you? What if your children weren’t learning to speak that language in school and lost interest in speaking it in public and at home? What if there was no documentation of your language so that as you and other first language speakers passed on, there was no record of it? What if – within your lifetime – your language, history, and culture completely disappeared and, with it, family traditions, music, and dance? Because that’s what is happening in Indigenous communities around the world, and especially in North America, which is the epicenter of the crisis.

The good news is that a lot is being done to preserve these languages. Groups like ours, The Language Conservancy (TLC), a nonprofit dedicated to preserving, protecting, and promoting endangered languages, is currently partnering with 52 Indigenous communities to revitalize their languages. In collaboration with Native communities, elders, teachers, state governments, and other nonprofits, we document endangered languages, develop dictionaries, apps, teaching guides, vocabulary builders, and other tools people can access for free on their smart phones.

Results are tangible: a dictionary can be created in as little as one year and serve as the basis for all subsequent learning and teaching materials. One example is the New Lakota Dictionary, which we released last year. It is the largest Native American dictionary in existence. Its companion app is making it easy and fun for Lakota youth to learn their Native language. Nonprofit groups like ours must work together with Native communities in need to make more resources like this available.

This Oct. 12-14 in Bloomington, Indiana, more than 40 Indigenous communities from around the world will gather at the International Conference on Indigenous Language Documentation, Education, and Revitalization (ICILDER), hosted by the Council of Indigenous Language Organizations (CILO). The goal is to collectively address the crisis and empower Indigenous communities with proven solutions and methods of saving their languages. ICILDER participants will showcase Indigenous dictionaries, e-learning platforms, picture books, vocab builders, and apps alongside the music, songs, and dance that bring their cultures to life. Just a few of the diverse communities sharing best practices and the daunting challenges they face are Ho-Chunk, Dakota, Crow, Ute, Yavapai, and Gwich’in. We have no doubt this conference will make a historic contribution to language preservation and offer numerous opportunities for other organizations and supporters to join our cause.

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So, why does this matter? Because losing language means losing a community’s history, culture, and heritage. We believe that all languages have the right to exist, yet Native American languages are facing certain death if new resources, funding, and advocates, don’t come together to keep them alive. And we don’t have a lot of time; language preservation is literally a race against time.

Language is the lifeblood of culture and the core of identity. Now is the time for funders, foundations, philanthropists, and other nonprofits to help us stop even one more language from falling silent. This Oct. 9, please take a few minutes to think about the plight of Indigenous languages and join us in taking action to address the issue.

Wilhelm Meya is CEO of The Language Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving Indigenous languages from dying out.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Bloomington conference aims to share how to save Native languages