The Lakota Language Consortium has adopted digital technology and social media to make language learning more fun and playful, something you come back to every day.  This Fall we look forward to shipping our new Lakota Audio Series for conversational lessons on everyday topics.

Today we want to spotlight a project that was begun by a few learners and speakers who wanted their own digital gathering place.

One of our Forum members set up a community for beginning Lakota language learners on Facebook, with unexpected success.  “Lakota Language for Beginners” opened up with just 60 members and has quickly grown to more than 8,000.

It is “an open group for those just beginning to learn the Lakota language, or who are completely unfamiliar with it, with downloadable lessons that have an emphasis on introductory phrases, basic grammar, and elementary vocabulary,” according to the site’s introduction.

Founder Charles B. Smith of Gettysburg, SD has help from fluent members as “teaching admins,” to post sentences with translations, and discuss words and grammar of Lakota.  All members are encouraged to use the standard orthography developed for the New Lakota Dictionary, and all are encouraged to try posting remarks and updates in Lakota.

Smith says that of the 8,000+ members, about 100 are “very active” with regular posts and comments. The teaching admin whom members call the “resident teacher” is Les Ducheneaux, a retired Lakota language teacher from Tiospaye Topa School on Cheyenne River.

LLC is proud to see that so many Lakota speakers and learners have set up their own village in cyberspace, to help one another bring back the language.  Wóphila! Taŋyáŋ ečhánuŋpi!  (“Thank you! Well done!”)