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Have You Tried the Lakota Audio Series Yet?

Final Full Lakota Audio Series

First reviews of the Lakota Audio Series: A Practical Conversation Course Vol. 1 are posted at the NLD-O web site. We are encouraged!

“My experience with the series so far has been that I am now learning the language in a natural way.”

“What is really wonderful is that my children, who are playing around the house, have started to respond to the audio without any prompting from me!”

That’s the kind of learning experience we hope to inspire!

If you’d rather not tote a 10-CD set around,  the Lakota Audio Series has also become available as a .mp3 digital download at CDBaby.com, suitable for desktop, tablet or mobile device. The 10-hour lesson sequence is divided into two parts (1a and 1b), sold separately – so you can use the first half of the course (CDs 1-5) until you feel ready for the second half (CDs 6-10).

The Lakota Audio Series’ supporting booklets and Glossary are also available as an eBook for download. Look for L.A.S.: A Practical Conversation Course, Volume 1 at BookBaby.com.

If you’ve been using the Audio Series, can we hear about your experience?  Please consider writing a review at the NLD-O web site or at the CDBaby.com page.

Facebook NLD Pro

There’s no end to the interest in the standalone digital version of the New Lakota Dictionary – the NLD-Pro – as both a download and DVDs for both Windows and Mac.

iPhone-5S-NLDM-400x230(2)There’s even one rabbit still left in the magic hat: very soon LLC will release the standalone digital New Lakota Dictionary (NLD-Pro) as a true phone app – an entire interactive language archive in your pocket, no wi-fi or cell service necessary.

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Step Up, Sing Out with the Lakota Berenstain Bears

News!  Matȟó Waúŋšila Thiwáhe will be broadcast on KVCR / FNX (First Nations Experience) television on Saturdays and Sundays starting on March 7, 2015. Times are 10:30 am EST or 7:30 am PST. Channels are VerizonFios (channel 471), DirecTV (channel 24.2), and in the greater Los Angeles area on channel 24.2.

What’s your talent? Do you let it out to play? Let Matȟó Waúŋšila Thiwáhe (the Compassionate Bear Family, a.k.a. the Berenstain Bears) help you with your Lakota language study.

Ep9a Talent_Show

THE TALENT SHOW

Convinced that he doesn’t have any talent to offer for the upcoming school talent show, Brother is recruited to be the talent scout. Guided
 by Teacher Bob’s conviction that everyone has talent, Brother helps the other cubs discover their own special talents, and in so doing, 
discovers he also has a talent just as Teacher Bob suspected – a talent for finding talent.

Each Matȟó Waúŋšila Thiwáhe episode comes with free extras for download: a complete script in Lakota, a vocabulary sheet with English translations, and comprehension questions (in Lakota) to check your understanding of the action.

Matȟó Waúŋšila Thiwáhe is a co-production of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Lakota Language Consortium, Berenstain Enterprises and Nelvana Limited. Episodes were first broadcast in 2011 on Prairie Public Television.

 

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Lakota Summer Institute Seeks Intern

L-R: Thipiziwin Young, Intern Simon Gertler, SRST Education Manager Sunshine Carlow, at 2013 LSI
L-R: Thipiziwin Young, Intern Simon Gertler, SRST Education Manager Sunshine Carlow, at 2013 LSI

The Lakota Summer Institute needs an Intern! This is a full-time, on-site position for the length of the Institute: June 1-19, 2015, in Ft. Yates ND. Accommodations at the Prairie Knights Casino Lodge are provided.

Duties are mostly administrative, as assigned by LSI Staff. Interns need excellent personal communication skills, customer service orientation, grasp of the administrative needs of a large educational event, computer skills with Microsoft Office programs and a strong interest in Native American culture and language, especially Lakota.

For a taste of the LSI Intern experience, here’s what UC-Berkeley student Simon Gertler wrote about his stint at the 2013 LSI.

And here’s what we wrote about his service:

Simon first helped build the 2013 LSI web site, and then he dove into the realities of the Institute, helping with registration, serving meals and coffee, and the hundreds of little administrative tasks that put LSI together.

As for his communication skills:

Simon proved he is good at establishing relationships – always asking how he could help, talking to people and making solid friendships.

If this sounds like you, please send a cover letter and resume to help@lakhota.org by February 15.

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2015 Lakota Summer Institute Registration

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Mark June 1-19, 2015 on your calendar – the next Lakota Summer Institute is getting underway!

Registration is now open online. Start your registration today!

Join the Lakota community event that gets to the heart of the culture – the language.


 

If you need to mail in your registration, just print out this document:  2015 LSI paper Registration Form and mail to

Sunshine Carlow, SRST Education Manager

Agency Ave., PO Box D

Fort Yates, ND 58538

Phone : (701) 854-8583     Fax: (701) 854-2175

Sunshine Archambault Carlow, Education Manager for SRST
Sunshine Archambault Carlow, Education Manager for SRST

We’re Bringing Another Advance …

LSI leaps forward again with the introduction of the Lakota Language Handbook – a comprehensive grammar reference that makes the formidable Lakota system accessible and above all, learnable by anyone – it’s not just for teachers or linguists.

The Handbook is the final reference text in the language education infrastructure envisioned by the Lakota Language Consortium’s founders in 2004. What the New Lakota Dictionary began, the Handbook completes. Material from the Handbook was incorporated into a 2014 LSI course, “Teaching Lakota Grammar,” which consolidated earlier courses in Morphology and Syntax. In 2015, “Teaching Lakota Grammar” will be based entirely on the information and exercises in the Lakota Language Handbook, which will be the course textbook for all participants.

 

… Lakota Language Tech …

LSI is a co-venture of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Sitting Bull College and the Lakota Language Consortium – and in this past year, the Consortium has wired technology to handle the power of Lakota.

Lakota language learners who want to go the tech route to support their study can attend an LSI class about online study and resources for creating your own learning path. That class doesn’t have a name yet, so keep an eye on this news feed for updates.

Kim Campbell and Waniya Locke, LSI 2014
Kim Campbell and Waniya Locke, LSI 2014

… and Lakota Human Connection

It’s no secret that LSI has blossomed into an important community-focused event. Families and individuals arrive, hungry for a sense of who else out there is doing this crazy thing called learning Lakota. There’s a palpable sense that something important is happening when strangers play silly games and speak complicated words together.

Flashcards1LSI2014
Young students at LSI 2014 play the flashcard game

 

You can support your “Lakota thinking” with these sequenced classes:

  • Intensive Lakota for Beginners 1-3
  • Intensive Lakota for Upper-Beginners 1-3
  • Teaching Lakota 1-5 Methods
  • Intensive Lakota for Pre-Intermediates I-III
  • Intensive Lakota for Intermediates I-III
  • Reading I-II
  • Traditional Lakota Flute
  • Northern Plains Sign Language
  • Neologism Development 1-2

 

Intensive Lakota for Beginners I – III will be offered in the evenings as well, for non-teachers and families.  Thus this course series will be much more user-friendly because the examples and activities are geared towards the interests of a student in Lakota, rather than a linguist.

Once again, Ben Black Bear, Jr. will lead a class in Neologism Development, tracking ways Lakota has changed over time and how it can be consciously adapted to new situations like going to a hospital or playing basketball. Kevin Locke returns with Teaching Traditional Lakota Flute , now with a finished song/lesson book so participants who build and play their own Plains-style flute can practice at home. Dr. Lanny Real Bird will return with the Northern Plains Sign Language course he has taught for the past two LSIs.

Join us! CLICK HERE to begin your registration.

Sitting Bull College will open up its student housing again to provide inexpensive accommodations right on the SBC campus – the site of LSI. Other lodging is available at Prairie Knights Casino or area campgrounds.

SEE YOU IN JUNE!

 


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Pillow Fight with the Lakota Berenstain Bears

Let Matȟó Waúŋšila Thiwáhe (the Compassionate Bear Family, a.k.a. the Berenstain Bears) help you with your Lakota language study while warming your heart.

Ep 8a SlumberParty

SLUMBER PARTY

Ensured by Sister that she knows the meaning of responsibility, Mama and Papa allow her to go to a sleepover at Lizzy’s house.
 However, Mama and Papa are totally unaware that the Bruins have gone out and left a babysitter in charge. When practically every cub in town shows up at the party it gets so out of hand that when the Bruins return they call all the parents to come and take their cubs home. Although Mama and Papa agree that Sister is partially to blame, they also realize that if they had been a little more responsible themselves, they would have found out about the baby sitter early enough to nip it in the bud.

Each Matȟó Waúŋšila Thiwáhe episode comes with free extras for download: a complete script in Lakota, a vocabulary sheet with English translations, and comprehension questions (in Lakota) to check your understanding of the action.

Matȟó Waúŋšila Thiwáhe is a co-production of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Lakota Language Consortium, Berenstain Enterprises and Nelvana Limited. Episodes were first broadcast in 2011 on Prairie Public Television.

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Lakota In Your Pocket

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Now there are two ways to access a Lakota-English Dictionary on your smartphone or tablet.

The first is the optimized Web link we released in 2013, that allows your phone browser to tap into the New Lakota Dictionary-Online (NLD-O).

The second is a true app, the NLD-Mobile, which does far more than just access the online dictionary.

The NLD-Mobile is the full NLD-Pro, the downloadable interactive dictionary with audio files that LLC released in December.

The NLD-Mobile really is a talking dictionary in your pocket! No Internet connection is needed to use it anywhere —  and no cell service, either!  Just power up the phone and there it is.

NLD-Mobile will be live at GooglePlay and the iTunes AppStore starting Friday, February 6.

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Priced at $19.95, NLD-Mobile works with Android smartphones and iOS iPhones. It downloads all of the same features as the desktop NLD-Pro:

  • 24,000 verified words
  • Audio files for each word
  • Male and Female voices
  • Search-and-translate function
  • “Close” spelling recognition – correct spelling not needed
  • Mac (iPhone) and PC (Android) compatibility
  • Can be downloaded to iPads and other tablets as well as phones
  • No Internet connection needed to use NLD-Mobile
  • No cell reception needed to use NLD-Mobile

 

The only limitation? We can’t just email you a link — you have to download it directly from GooglePlay or the iTunes AppStore. You can get to those app stores from links at our online store.

We put our products through rigorous testing, but once they are in use, you are the reviewers other users will trust. GooglePlay and the iTunes AppStore have product review pages, so please drop by there and talk about your experience. Also, please pass the news of NLD-Mobile on to product-review bloggers you may follow.

Knowing the technopshere, there will soon be other devices and programs to carry the NLD. We intend to see the Lakota language on all of them!

Final NLD Mobile Icon

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NLD-Mobile Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Lakota Language Consortium

Contact: Wilhelm Meya, Executive Director (available on 2/2 and 2/6)

Phone: 1-888-525-6828

meya@lakhota.org

Final NLD Mobile Icon

SMARTPHONE APP FOR LAKOTA IS A MULTI-MEDIA DICTIONARY

 

PIERRE, SD – To combat language extinction, the Lakota (“Sioux”) people of the Northern Plains have a new digital tool that puts the language in their pockets.

The full 24,000-word New Lakota Dictionary will be released as a mobile device app on Friday, February 6th, 2015, through GooglePlay and iTunes app stores. It was developed by the Lakota Language Consortium, which first published the New Lakota Dictionary in print in 2008 (2nd Edition 2011), put it online in 2008 with a Lakota-English search-and-translate function, and in 2014 published a standalone desktop version (NLD-Pro) for PC and Mac, with audio for every word. The audio recorded for the NLD-Pro has been added to the NLD-Online.

Priced at $19.95, NLD-Mobile works with Android smartphones and iOS iPhones and can be downloaded to compatible tablets.

  • 24,000 verified words
  • Audio files for each word
  • Male and Female voices for gender-different words and verbs
  • Search-and-translate function
  • “Close enough” spelling recognition – correct spelling not needed
  • Mac (iPhone) and PC (Android) compatibility
  • Can be downloaded to iPads and other tablets as well as phones
  • No Internet connection needed to use NLD-Mobile
  • No cell reception needed to use NLD-Mobile

 

These are all of the same features as the desktop NLD-Pro, which gave the NLD a true Lakota voice. Six Native Lakota fluent speakers gathered in Bismarck, ND in 2013 to record the Dictionary’s 24,000 words, supported by a grant from the Endangered Language Fund’s Native Voices endowment.

The first mobile access program for the NLD-O was an optimized web link for phone browsers, introduced in 2013.

The Lakota Language Consortium is a grassroots, Lakota-led non-profit dedicated to the preservation and revitalization of the Lakota language. LLC’s multi-media curriculum publishing and teacher training activities are undertaken with the involvement of the speaking communities and follow recognized best practices for endangered-language revitalization.

 

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The Whole Tooth with the Lakota Berenstain Bears

Let Matȟó Waúŋšila Thiwáhe (the Compassionate Bear Family, a.k.a. the Berenstain Bears) help you with your Lakota language study on these long cold evenings.

Ep1b VisitDentist

VISIT THE DENTIST

When Sister gets her first loose tooth, Brother teases her that the dentist will extract it with a big yanking tool. After Sister watches 
Brother get a cavity filled, she discovers that her dentist is a very gentle fellow and he assures her that most baby teeth don’t need yanking. They fall out all on their own.

Each Matȟó Waúŋšila Thiwáhe episode comes with free extras for download: a complete script in Lakota, a vocabulary sheet with English translations, and comprehension questions (in Lakota) to check your understanding of the action.

Matȟó Waúŋšila Thiwáhe is a co-production of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Lakota Language Consortium, Berenstain Enterprises and Nelvana Limited. Episodes were first broadcast in 2011 on Prairie Public Television.

 

 

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Four-Legged Lessons with the Lakota Berenstain Bears

When is a puppy not so cute? Let Matȟó Waúŋšila Thiwáhe (the Compassionate Bear Family, a.k.a. the Berenstain Bears) help you with your Lakota language study.

Ep4a TroubleWPets

TROUBLE WITH PETS

Brother and Sister adopt one of Farmer Ben’s new puppies and soon discover that having a pet is a big responsibility. When the two
 pet owners leave to play with friends, the puppy stays behind and destroys the living room. As a result, the puppy is banished to the
 backyard. Brother and Sister apologize for neglecting their duties and Mama and Papa decide to give the cubs and the puppy a second chance.

Each Matȟó Waúŋšila Thiwáhe episode comes with free extras for download: a complete script in Lakota, a vocabulary sheet with English translations, and comprehension questions (in Lakota) to check your understanding of the action.

Matȟó Waúŋšila Thiwáhe is a co-production of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Lakota Language Consortium, Berenstain Enterprises and Nelvana Limited. Episodes were first broadcast in 2011 on Prairie Public Television.

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NLD-Pro Now Available in DVD Format

NLD Pro Photo 2

 

Last week LLC announced the digital download of the NLD-Pro, the interactive, audio-enhanced software version of the New Lakota Dictionary for Mac or PC. By all measures, the release has been a success – NLD-Pro has been adopted quickly as a vibrant alternative to the print dictionary, with positive reviews all around.

For customers and users interested in a DVD version of the software, instead of a download, LLC is pleased to announce that the DVD version of NLD-Pro is now available for sale at the LLC store.

NLD Pro Photo 1

 

The NLD-Pro DVD is designed for both Mac and PC. Since it installs completely to your machine, it works regardless of your Internet connection. It has the same software as the download, providing search and translation with added audio files providing word pronunciation.

The DVD version will be a good choice for some users – especially those who prefer to have a physical backup of the software, or if you have a slow Internet connection.

 

NLD Pro Photo 3

 

We hope this new version of the NLD-Pro will continue to get the most advanced Lakota-English dictionary on the planet into the hands of eager learners.