Here is Part 1 of the interview.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sNEFeduc0M&feature=youtu.be

The Masters and Apprentices in action!

Some of the videos prepared by Lang and Tripp are located on the Institute’s site. More are forthcoming. This marks the first week of the new program year. The plan for the Institute is to post a language blog article once a week.

Keep a look out.

The women folks at the luncheon.

The men's table at the Karuk language luncheon

Frank Tuttle suggested that the Karuk language videos be accompanied by a Karuk script or text along with the English subtitles. Good idea and I’ll see what can work best. We’ll try out a few approaches: a second subtitle? (ie, both in English and in Karuk language); a text crawl across the top or bottom of the screen?

KITTY MOVIE:
Here’s the most recent movie created last week. It’s about feeding the cat, Músmuus.
Feeding Músmuus

And if that doesn’t make you rethink who we are as Indian People well sit back and think about sitting there in the morning, freshly scrubbed up and doing THIS!
Coffee Drinking movie

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

The movement among California Native tribes and groups to reclaim their original languages began during the mid 1980s. It wasn’t a well know fact then but California was a great vortex of languages and language families, one of the 3 greatest collections of disparate languages. In fact 80% of all of the indigenous languages of North America are found here in California. Imagine the diversity of language programs this fact might entail. I am happy to announce that I proposed a language program model at one of the first think-tank meetings held in the San Francisco Bay Area–and that program is still current and relatively speaking, thriving. It is the Master-Apprentice program.

I am of the camp that says our languages must not die, yet for some (perhaps for many) it is not that big a deal that Yuki, Nongatl, Sinkyone and many others, might die. There are so many other more important issues facing all of society these days. What we, Native People, must keep in mind is that our heritage is defined and directly linked to the languages spoken by our ancestors. More so than by the blood quantum definition that is employed by the federal government in determining our degree of “Indianness”. William Bright, who was the Karuk language linguist for many years felt that WE, the Native people living today, are Indian precisely because our ancestors spoke a particular Native language.

When we consider the mish mash and cultural goulash that federal laws and policies have made of our legal and political “identities” by relying solely on blood quantum, then we can appreciate defining our Indianness by determining the Native languages of direct ancestors. I vote for it as a more organic and holistic way of self-identity. It is afterall our ancestry that defines us in all other ways.

Our world and how we view it is defined by our language. To lose one’s language one must relate to the world using the psychology and spirituality of a new primary language: English, Spanish or French. But now we are constrained to relate to the natural world within the cultural context of these 3 primary languages. Truth is we will not be encouraged to gain, or to reassert our indigenous languages. We will live and die without our ancestral relationship with the natural world. A tragedy for some and meaningles dribble to others.

This morning’s radio story, Shakespeare Had Roses All Wrong, underlines the power of language to define this self-world relationship. The idea that the earth can possess innate spiritual value equal to the monotheistic God might be hard to take for the garden variety Judaeo-Christian-Islamic man or woman. Yet the majority of indigenous languages will view the natural world using this very equation. Rocks, trees, mountain see and hear. They have feelings and the power to cause change.

With this idea in mind the new Language category contained within this blog site will seek to discuss the power of our indigenous languages. There will be instruction to learn the Karuk language with side trips to visit other Native languages as well. We can think of the Native knowledge contained within our languages as pieces of a huge mosaic. We are starting with a blank wall. We do not know what image we will be creating. We can only work.

Ithivthaaneen ipíkyam,
Fix the world,

Julian Lang