Educators who focus on American Indian or First Nations languages often have the privilege of bringing tape recordings of songs and stories to their students in the classroom. Learning the protocols for such sharing of the treasured gifts of ancestors is made easier by the good examples of teachers in and out of the classroom, who share such gifts…

Ethnographic "New Literacy Studies" question the idea that literacy as such has any uniform effects, arguing instead that effects of literacy inhere in the social practices that impart it. What change, then, does literacy produce where it arrived from two opposed sets of practices? In Quechua-and Aymara-speaking villages on the high…

In this testimony, Dr. Willard Sakiestewa Gilbert talks on behalf of the National Indian Education Association with regard to the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) and challenges facing BIE schools in improving student achievement. Founded in 1969, the National Indian Education Association (NIEA) is the largest organization in the nation dedicated…

The importance of Native languages to Native Americans and the effort needed to maintain them are discussed in this keynote address at the ninth Native American Language Issues Institute. It is noted that the current cultural transition has demeaned Native languages and cultures and that strategies must be devised by Native Americans to counter…

The ordering of bound Dakota person affixes is discussed. Data are introduced showing that the ordering is patient before agent. Schwarz suggests that the ordering refers strictly to person. An overview of the Dakota verb system and related points are also discussed. (PMJ)

Raises questions regarding the conclusions reached in the previous article. (JB)

Examines topicalization in Haida, describes its role in the language, and describes the particles used to mark it. (Author/AM)

Examines constituent order in Haida sentences. (AM)

Discusses and critiques the ideas presented in Joseph H. Greenberg's 1987 book, "Language in the Americas." The book has been greeted with dismay by many specialists in Amerindian linguistics. (38 references) (JL)

Reports on the progress of a project to produce a dictionary of the Jicarilla Apache language. Jicarilla, an Eastern Apachean language is spoken on the Jicarilla Apache reservation in Northern New Mexico. The project has revealed much about the role of literacy in language standardization and in speaker empowerment. Suggests that many parallels…

Discusses recent research that has examined the early stages of language development in signed and spoken languages as well as suggestions that there is an advantage for the acquisition of signed languages. Specific attention is focused on whether or not a single timing mechanism underlies early milestones in the acquisition of both vocabulary and…

The allophonic variation in the quality of the resonant consonants of two Missouri River (Siouan) languages, Crow and Hidatsa, has not previously been studied adequately. Evidence is provided in this paper that /m/ and /n/ are the best representations for the underlying resonants in Hidatsa as well as Crow and Proto-Missouri River. Establishing…

A special word, "naynaa," which occurs in the Jamul dialect of Diegueno, a Yuman language spoken in the San Diego, California, area is described. Jamul has subject-object-verb word order, and its major word classes are noun and verb. Lexical pronouns are not required. Clauses may be connected by means of switch reference marking, and/or…

Analyzes samples of American Indian oral narrative forms to demonstrate that patterning in the narrative structure (such as systematic recurrence of lines) may embody an explicit logic of experience and rhetoric of action. Suggests that patterning occurs in the language of any community, a fact that has implications for teaching language to…

As was this author's usual habit at the university in Nebraska where she was teaching, she picked up a copy of the campus newspaper to read during her office hours. She was dismayed at a story entitled "Lakota May Appear on Sheridan County Polls." It read, in part: "Sheridan County's polls may have to add an unexpected language to…