Potawatomi preserve language

by Gary E. Mitchell

For the past few months, a federal grant has enabled the Prairie Band of Potawatomi Tribe to start a concerted effort to preserve the language. Although this is not the first attempt to do so, it is the first where cash is involved. Money can buy essential items such as computers, recording devices, pay stipends to fluent speakers and purchase the necessary technology to record the language. Cash is a necessary component for survival of language in the modern world, but the language is far more important. The strategy for the Potawatomi is constant usage.

The program has targeted three age groups. One is in the Child Care Center for mostly pre-school children. It’s not unusual to see pictures of animals or scenes on the walls with the appropriate Potawatomi word and to hear children saying the words correctly. On Monday nights, a class is designed for grades 1-8. What makes this class exceptional is that they want to be there, and a group of twenty is not unusual.

Children in these two classes pick up the words exceptionally well. It is without a doubt that this core of children holds the key to the success of the program. Tuesday nights is a class for adults. For the most part, all three sessions are well attended by people on the reservation.

The 4,274 member tribe has only 20 or so fluent speakers. Luckily, three of those 20 have made a commitment to lend their expertise.

Cecilia "Meeks" Jackson, Alberta "Shaw no gwe" Wamego, and Orlando "Mazhe" Green are the teachers for the three classes. All three are well-respected members of the reservation society and have seen the language go from a point where most of the people spoke the language in their youth, to where it almost faded away in old age.

Their hard work will be carried on for a long time when children repeat those Potawatomi words learned in pre-school and when adults understand what their children and grandchildren are saying. Each session is diligently recorded. The recording allows a true interpretation of the language. Less fluent speakers, elders caution, often have a tendency to say the words in a slightly different way, and, in a sense, a whole new language could develop.

A comprehensive language curriculum will be developed, including text-based language courses, videos, audio cassette recordings of tribal elders, animated coloring and activity books featuring traditional Indian stories, flash cards, overhead transparencies and a story book. In addition, the program will produce several lesson plans with cassette tapes. A dictionary will be developed with English word meaning and traditional Potawatomi and phonetic spellings.

Each year that it is funded, whether by the federal government or the tribe, the field work will continue. Someday, the work done today will pay off for future generations.