Culturally appropriate means of conducting language research among American Indians is critical for maintaining cooperation and for increasing the depth of data collected. The apprentice-elder and fictive kinship models used in research with two Siouan-speaking tribes are discussed, as well as their practical applications, the importance of…

Academic fieldworkers in language-endangered communities must be able to undertake all aspects of linguistic work, elicit linguistic information from speakers, document naturally occurring speech data, present research results in a comprehensible manner to the community and to academia, and develop cooperative programs based on mutual trust.…

To successfully maintain endangered Native American languages, Native communities must collectively recognize their language's vulnerability and commit to its continuity. Linguists need more experience with fieldwork and pragmatics, knowledge of various language transmission practices in cultures other than their own, an understanding of cultural…

Linguists working with endangered American Indian languages must realize that fieldwork is a cooperative venture, requiring that control be relinguished to the community. The relationship with the tribe must be negotiated, and linguists must return something concrete to the community in terms of language revival. Working in language teams that…