The Rapid City Journal
Sun, Feb. 08, 2004
Associated Press
OGLALA, S.D. - 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.