Endangered Native Languages Popular in Classes

Alison Headrick was surprised when her college adviser recommended she take a Native American language class.

Headrick had just started delving into her nursing program and wanted to focus on her science classes, but she still had to take two foreign classes to meet her general education requirements.

"I am glad I took it because I only had to go three days a week instead of the five that most beginning language classes have," Headrick said. "It was a lot better than going home and studying Spanish every day and a lot more interesting."

Headrick, a senior, does not plan to pursue any more Kiowa training.

She, like most OU students who take Native American language classes at OU, took Kiowa because it had a reputation for being easier than the classes in which more widely-spoken languages are taught. But for the native speakers teaching these classes, this trend is a painful reality as they watch the number of speakers of their languages dwindle.

The decline of speakers

Despite the small number of speakers of Native American languages, five Native American language classes are taught at OU: Cherokee, Cheyenne, Choctaw, Creek and Kiowa. The classes are taught through the Native American Studies Program in the Department of Anthropology.

Each of the languages has fewer than 20,000 speakers nationwide, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2000 census.

"I think the students who finish the courses gain a sense of accomplishment in knowing that they're not one of 10 million people in the world who speak a very rudimentary French or don't really speak Spanish but understand it," Joe Watkins, director of the Native American Studies Program, said.

"I think in some ways it's seen in a bit of a high regard to have been able to complete it and be one of the few speakers who may understand it," Watkins said.

Oklahoma has a large percent of the speakers of each of the five languages.

Oklahoma claims 91.8 percent of the 953 people in the United States who speak Kiowa, according to the census data. Cherokee is spoken by 16,069 people, 45.3 percent of whom are in Oklahoma.

Cheyenne is spoken by 2,089 people nationwide, 26.3 percent of whom are in Oklahoma. Creek, or Muscogee, is spoken by 6,860 people in the U.S.; 60.6 percent are in Oklahoma. The state also has 48.5 percent of the nation's 11,172 Choctaw speakers.

Greg Drowning Bear, an OU Cherokee instructor, is worried about the decline in the number of Cherokee speakers, he said.

"I think that seeing the decline is what pushed me to pursue Cherokee as a career," Drowning Bear, who learned Cherokee as a child, said. "We lose speakers every day, but we're not producing speakers every day to replace them. We need another generation of speakers."

Kathleen Coachman, manager of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Language Program, agreed. Most people who speak Creek fluently are older than 50, Coachman said.

"We're striving hard to keep our language alive," Coachman said. "We're developing curriculums for schools and developing our own materials so it can be taught. It takes a lot of time."

Unless people are raised with a language as their first language, they likely will not be fluent, Coachman said. Many can understand a language but have a hard time speaking it themselves without constant practice.

While the declining and aging population of Native American language speakers is having a major impact on the number of speakers, Watkins, the Native American Studies Program director, worries that proposed Oklahoma legislation might create another problem for the languages: discouragement from speaking them.

Voters will decide whether to amend the state constitution to make English the "official language" of the state on Nov. 2, 2010. The initiative, House Joint Resolution 1042, by Rep. Randy Terrill (R-Moore) and Sen. Anthony Sykes (R-Moore), calls for an amendment that "states that English is the common and unifying language of the state," according to the text of the bill.

Watkins worries that the bill gives "an incorrect perception that English is the only important language," he said.

The bill does, though, state that, if it were to become law, it "could not be construed to diminish or impair uses of Native American languages."

Despite numerous phone calls and e-mails, Terrill could not be reached for comment.

Native American languages at OU

Though the Native American languages taught at OU are declining, the undergraduate classes fill up quickly, Watkins said.

This semester, most of the 1,000-level Native American language courses are at or near capacity.

All four 1,000-level Cherokee classes, which have 22 seats apiece, are full, according to enrollment data on OU's enroll.ou.edu Web site. Two of the three Choctaw classes are full, and the other is half full.

The one Cheyenne class has 13 of 22 seats filled, and both Creek classes are at capacity. Two of the 1,000-level Kiowa classes are full, and one has 20 out of 22 seats filled. The other is half full.

Headrick, who is a registered Choctaw, attended Kiowa classes that were mostly full of students simply getting the easiest language requirement fulfillment they could, she said.

"People get in there to study really quickly and then get out," she said.

Though the tribes are desperate for younger speakers, the Native American language classes at OU are as much about teaching culture as they are about teaching the language, Watkins said.

"I'm not sure that many of the instructors feel that it is their job really to proselytize more student speakers," Watkins said. "I think they all use it as a way to gain more fluency and to gain more understanding of their own culture."

Drowning Bear understands the degree-fulfillment allure of his classes, so he makes them about learning about Cherokee culture as well as about language, which is just as important, he said. Some of the cultural lessons he has taught within his Cherokee 1715 class include basket weaving and blow-gun shooting.

Of his 44 students, maybe three, including one graduate student, will pursue Cherokee beyond the introductory class, Drowning Bear said.

"You feel lucky to have those three people that, once they start to learn, they have a passion," Drowning Bear said. "You open their eyes. When you have a few students who have the same passion as you do or who have a real interest in it, that really means a lot."

Though students rarely discuss the decline in the Native American languages in the introductory language classes, they do often in the upper-division Native American Studies classes, Watkins said. Native American Studies faculty are hoping to expand the program into a formalized department so more students will learn about tribal issues, Watkins said.

Headrick will not be taking any more classes within the program, but she is glad she took the introductory Kiowa classes, she said. She remembers most of the words she learned because "they're so weird that you can't forget them," Headrick said.

Though Headrick took Kiowa, she has reconnected with her own tribe since taking the classes. Headrick has tried to increase her participation in tribal events, she said.

"When I talk to people in my tribe, the classes give me a cultural heads up," Headrick said. "You appreciate more what it means to be part of a culture and to speak a language."

In her classes, Headrick was surrounded by people who, for the most part, were not interested in becoming fluent in Kiowa, she said. But that did not stop her teachers from being passionate about teaching the language.

"I think they feel like it's worth it to educate and inform and bring something that's so personal to them to the attention of people who would never see that part of their culture," Headrick said. "I'm glad I took the classes."