TULALIP – Some of the students in the Lushootseed Language Class at the Tulalip Indian Reservation are as young as 5 years old, but their teachers have given them an important mission.
“I let my students know that their families don’t know Lushootseed,” teacher Rebecca Posey said. “They should go home and try to teach their families. If that continues, then we’ll get our language back.”
This week, about 50 young tribal members are attending Lushootseed Language Camp.
They are learning with game show-style quizzes, with computer programs developed by the Tulalip Tribes, and by practicing a play that uses English and Lushootseed phrases. They will perform the play this morning at the Tulalip Amphitheatre.
Only a decade ago, Lushootseed, an ancient language used by Coast Salish American Indian tribes along the northern coast of Washington, was a mystery to most Tulalip tribal members.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, tribal children were forbidden to speak their native language when they were sent to boarding schools, a federal experiment designed to absorb Indians into mainstream culture. Knowledge of tribal languages dwindled until the words were only distant memories.
In the 1950s, linguist Leon Metcalf traveled to American Indian reservations in northwest Washington to record tribal elders speaking their native language.
Metcalf recorded whatever they remembered of Lushootseed and also offered to deliver recorded messages to their friends on other reservations, said Toby Langen, a linguist who works for the Tulalip Tribes’ Language Department.
“That way, he got a lot of conversational Lushootseed,” Langen said.
In the 1960s, linguist Thom Hess picked up where Metcalf left off.
Hess compiled Lushootseed grammar, which was published by the Tulalip Tribes in 1995, Langen said. “That’s the basis of what we have.”
Hess devised an alphabet for Lushootseed, which had never been a written language. Now the Tulalip Tribes own rights to a computer font for that alphabet.
There is much more work left to do, Langen said. She would like to conduct a widespread project that gathers extended families to learn together. Once families begin using Lushootseed in their homes, the hope is that the language will come to life.
The tribes’ Language Department doesn’t have enough staff to do that themselves, Langen said.
But it’s a dream.
“That’s the goal,” she said. “People here want to see that in their lifetimes.”
According to research conducted by Northern Arizona University, only 20 tribal languages of the 300 or more once spoken in North America are fully vital, and used by tribal members of all ages.
Even those languages, including Navajo and Crow, are at risk of dying because younger generations have lost interest in them.
“Our main focus is to keep all these kids interested,” Lushootseed teacher Natosha Gobin said as children at the language camp swarmed a makeshift stage to practice their lines.
At Posey’s table, children shouted out answers to questions she asked in Lushootseed.
“Salmon!” “Springtime!” “Orca!”
“In Lushootseed,” Posey insisted. “Remember, this is our language.”
The children closed their eyes or looked at the ceiling, thinking, then said the words in Lushootseed.
They remembered.
Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@ heraldnet.com.
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