Araráhih–Karuk Language
I have set aside Tuesday and Wednesday mornings to work with my language apprentices. Today Gabe M called to say he can’t make it. Rather than move on to something else (as I might normally do) I will prepare language materials and upload them. You will find them on the Language Page. I plan to implement a series of tutorials to learn the Karuk language. I hope it will be helpful to those of Karuk descent and those interested in Native languages.
Initially I emphasize pronunciation. When I became serious about learning my language I turned to my grandmother, Elizabeth (Conrad) Johnson, of Katimiin. She was not overly enthusiastic about teaching the language. But I persisted and she finally said alright but with certain conditions. One, I must pronounce the language properly. Those of her generation revered the language and all Indian things (i.e., culture). She demanded that I pronounce properly the following two words: apmanikrixúpxup and chími kuyâapkuh.
Once I was able to hear our language properly and demonstrated that I was able to pronounce words and phrases properly we began to work. As a result I, too, strongly emphasize that students work on their pronunciation. Especially for those new to the language. Take time to listen to the words, the short and long vowels, the stresses and tempo of the language. I like to say that musician’s get good by practicing their scales. The same goes for anyone learning a new language. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a new violin student screeching along. It’s torture to hear. It’s the same to hear folks slaughtering our language.
The goal of the tutorials is to teach the fundamentals of the language. And to get the students to build sentences and communicate quickly. The idea is to help students learn to speak in a natural way. With a little hope (and help) we’ll try to build an interactive site so that students can record themselves and send their recordings in and interact with the teacher directly. I will purposely keep the vocabulary down to a minimum. The students will learn to speak–they will use the language and acquire vocabulary as they need it.
The first step is pronunciation. I am working on that currently and will post it soon. The second step is to learn the fundamentals: pronouns, personal/possessive/singular/plural. I have a list of common nouns, adjectives, adverbs and clauses and expressions which will be used as our building blocks for future tutorials.
While I am creating the language tutorials on this site you can still find other language recordings at my Julian Lang site.
So until we meet again,
Julian