2014 is running out of days! This past year was jam-packed with significant achievements and changes for the Lakota Language Consortium.
For one thing – May 26 was our Tenth Anniversary! In May 2004, LLC launched with a small Board, affiliation with just one tribe and 15 Lakota and non-tribal schools ready to participate in a comprehensive, unified language revitalization plan.
Today, LLC’s curriculum is taught at more than 80 schools for five tribes, and reaches more than 24,000 students – not counting the individual learners who pick up the textbooks, CDs and New Lakota Dictionary for self-study. The Board has grown to eight people, with a Lakota Native majority and a mix of elders and young professionals. After a decade of hard, hard work building relationships and watching Lakota language learning take off, LLC staff and Board can verify an anthropologist’s testament:
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead
We’ll break out 2014’s highlights into three sections, even though in reality they were all happening at once!
This is an overview of LLC’s work on New Products in 2014.
Level 5 Textbook
The Level 5 Lakȟótiya Wóglaka Po! Speak Lakota! Textbook began shipping in early April! The K-12 sequence reaches a turning point with Level 5, as this series of lessons will establish the diligent learner as proficient in Lakota – able to not only speak and understand, but able to create meaningful, spontaneous conversations.
The textbook’s curriculum was introduced to teachers at the 2014 Lakota Summer Institute.
Lakota Language Handbook
In 2014 work began on the Lakota Language Handbook: A Pedagogical Grammar for Self-Study and Practice. This is an advanced grammar reference book that is the final study tool in the comprehensive revitalization plan. Wóphila to the Administration for Native Americans (US Department of Health & Human Services) for a major grant to fund most of this project.
New Lakota Dictionary Digital Platforms
Last November, LLC introduced mobile web-access to the New Lakota Dictionary-Online. Nearly 1,400 users have downloaded the free app for instant access to word search and translation on a phone or tablet. In 2014 the NLD got another digital incarnation – not quite what we had originally planned, but more robust, more updatable and easier to use.
The NLD-Pro is a downloadable, interactive version of the NLD for the desktop, independent of Internet or wi-fi. It’s on a software platform called Lingea, that allows us to update the Dictionary regularly and more easily. It also provides the long-awaited audio feature for the Dictionary – at least in part, and that will improve, too, as time goes on. With this first iteration, a word-search in the NLD-Pro includes audio for headwords, so you can hear correct pronunciations of 23,000 of the most important Lakota words.
Lakota Audio Series
The other long-awaited product that has now started shipping is the Lakota Audio Series: A Practical Conversation Course, Vol.1. This 10-CD set provides dialogues, pronunciation and vocabulary guides, and even explanation and demonstration of those Lakota things that sound impossible at first — the stative verb and the ablaut. Want to hear a sample? You can download an audio sampler to your cell phone.
The Series is spoken by fluent first-language elders Ben Black Bear, Jr. and Iris Eagle Chasing, a Lakota language teacher at Takini School in Howes, SD (Cheyenne River). The Audio Series comes with three booklets – including a Glossary – that have been combined into one e-Book available for standalone purchase and download. Watch the LLC Bookstore for the latest product updates. We’ll also announce it on Facebook, Twitter and our blog.
Online Changes
In 2014 LLC made big changes to its online footprint. We have a new Web site design, a new Bookstore design, and for schools a new Assessment Testing interface that will go live in Spring 2015. We’re also doing more social interaction on Facebook and Twitter. Plus our Flickr photostream is full of images from 2014 events like the Summer Institute! And who could do without a look at our YouTube channel?
A really BIG deal for those of you who would like to support more often: if you shop online at Amazon – for anything — you can link your purchase to AmazonSmile and 0.05% of the purchase amount is donated to LLC!
That’s right – the easiest way to give just a little bit to Lakota language revitalization all year long is to do your regular online shopping! The donation drops into our account within five minutes of your payment to Amazon. It’s a great way to support a cause you care about.
