New
Kituwah Academy offers full-immersion Cherokee language
program for children ranging from infants to eighth
graders
Video
by Jonah Lossiah and Gabi Palacio
Story
and Motion Graphic by José Valle
CHEROKEE, NC The
New Kituwah Academy opened its doors in 2009 with a full-immersion
Cherokee language program for children ranging from infants to eighth-graders.
The school is designed
to keep the Cherokee language alive by increasing the number of
young fluent speakers, as only 238 people in North Carolina still
speak the Kituwah dialect and most of them are above the age of
55.
"It seems like this past
year or two, the fluent speakers as old as I am or a little older
are all passing away and our Cherokee language is going away with
them," Ann Arneach, a 71-year-old native speaker, said. "We try
hard here to teach these kids Cherokee."
The school starts off
teaching in Cherokee and implements English in the students' later
years, simultaneously meeting North Carolina education requirements.
Arneach, who has taught
at the academy, recalls going to the grocery store with her granddaughter
and experiencing the granddaughter's surprise when there was no
response to her greeting someone in Cherokee.
"That's the way it is
when the kids go out," Arneach said. "They have to use English when
they go out there. But here? Here they can use Cherokee."
Rainy Brake, a first-grade
teacher at New Kituwah, believes that the children have a right
to express their Cherokee selves and culture. She became fluent
in Cherokee by learning from a fluent speaker alongside her students
when the school opened. Brake initially went to college planning
to become a Native American literature professor, but changed her
mind after starting at the academy.
"A lot of times life
tells you where to go, so I don't think I'll ever leave here," Brake
said. "I really, really feel like I've found a calling. I wake up
every morning and I know I'm making a difference and I know that
when I go to bed at night that things have gotten better because
we're here, and we're on a mission."
Above:
Kituwah Academy first grade teacher Rainy Brake sings the
Syllabary Song, which includes some of the characters in the
Cherokee syllabary.
While everyone at New
Kituwah is dedicated to the cause, sometimes the children struggle
to learn Cherokee. The same is true for some college students trying
to learn the language, according to Ben Frey, an assistant professor
of American studies at UNC-Chapel Hill. In his early years, he tried
a full-immersion approach but had to alter his plans when students
were so taken aback by its lack of resemblance to English.
"People can't even wrap
their heads around that it's not related to English," Frey said.
"It's hard to get students to be able to participate. Nowadays,
I'll warn people and say 'OK, this is going to be scary. This is
what's going to happen to you,' and hopefully that helps when I
teach it next time."
Cherokee is only one
of thousands of languages throughout the world facing danger.
The Celtic family is
the first family of languages to be endangered in Europe. In Scotland,
Scottish Gaelic, part of the Celtic family, has about 60,000 native
speakers. Michael Newton, a decades-long Scottish Gaelic scholar,
raised his 5-year-old daughter speaking Scottish Gaelic. While he
attests that teaching a child another language is difficult, he
says it is possible.
"One of the real challenges
in the U.S. is a very monolingual, Anglo-centric mindset," Newton
said. "That in itself is a challenge to overcome, in addition to
learning the language. This kind of globalized approach thinking
that there's one solution, and it's the English language and that's
going to solve everybody's problems by buying into this package
is very problematic."
A similar situation occurs
in Guatemala, where some indigenous people spoke K'iche' Maya, but
were forced to learn Spanish, the country's official language to
obtain better opportunities. This is true for Emilio del Valle Escalante,
an associate professor of Spanish at UNC-Chapel Hill, and it is
the reason he is studying K'iche' Maya, one of 21 Maya languages
spoken in Guatemala, now.
Unlike Cherokee and Scottish
Gaelic, K'iche' Maya has 1.7 million fluent speakers. It is one
of the stronger Maya languages, but efforts are being made and new
technologies are being developed to preserve the other 20.
"With technology, it's
like a double-edged sword," del Valle Escalante said. "We don't
have access to these languages when we turn on the TV or radio or
go on the internet, but we're using technology to revitalize the
language through resources like online dictionaries and videos."
While these and other
languages are facing hardship, Frey thinks there is no true point
to focusing solely on the doom and gloom of it all.
"I don't want to sound
that way and I don't want to end that way," Frey said. "We need
to focus on not on what we're losing and what's disappearing, but
what we can potentially bring with us into the future. People are
motivated by joy, and the Cherokee language has a lot to bring to
the world in terms of the joy it's able to generate and able to
let people share with one another."
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