Sustaining Indigenous Languages: Connecting Communities, Teachers, and Scholars

Edited by Lisa Crowshoe, Inge Genee, Mahalia Reddle, Joslin Smith, and Conor Snoek
Northern Arizona University (2021)
194 pages

Review by Janine Pease

Sustaining Indigenous Languages: Connecting Communities, Teachers, and Scholars is an anthology of chapters on Indigenous language revitalization, each written by American Indian and First Nations scholars on reservations, reserves, or in academic settings. The tribal voices we hear in this work are from the Southwest—the Hopi, Pueblo, and Diné; the Northern Plains—the Assiniboine, Blackfeet, Northern Cheyenne, Chippewa Cree, Plains Cree, Crow, Dakota, Gros Ventre, and Salish-Kootenai; the Midwest and Great Lakes—the Ojibwe and Anishinaabe; and the North Country and Arctic—the Inuit and Inuktitut.

The Native scholars generously narrate Indigenous language revitalization efforts, including research methodology, language programs and projects’ practices, language teaching and learning methods, materials development, collaborative curriculum development, teacher training, and educational theory. Approaches to language revitalization are described, reflective of Indigenous knowledge. The approaches honor stakeholders, including ancestors, elders, youth, and generations to come.

Sustaining Indigenous Languages is a journey into Native communities. Among the First Nations in British Columbia, we meet activists, teachers, and paraeducators engaged in partnerships between schools and their tribal communities. In Alberta, we witness Cree teachers collaborating in materials and picture book design. We learn about proficiency testing and teaching methods conceived and implemented by consortia of schools with university scholars serving Anishinaabe, Cree, Inuit, and Inuktitut learners. And we see Cree master language speakers with apprentice teachers whose teamwork instructs second language learners.

In this book, you may witness a weeklong, intensive language course for adults based on traditional Hopi stories or the Anishinaabe Medicine Circle framework. Or you may hear the Indigenous language rhythm, tone, and spirit embedded in Blackfoot words and songs. You can see collaboration and the implementation of an effective Ojibwe team-teaching model, Hopi lesson plan templates, Cree storytelling maps, an Anishinaabe picture book series with compelling artwork, and video recordings of traditional Ojibwe stories connected to tribal lands.

In this journey, you will come face to face with challenging conditions for fluent Hopi language speakers and paraprofessionals whose lack of certification lowers their standing and wages in community schools. You can hear discussions among Montana tribal nations on structural barriers to needed language resources and frustrating attempts to access national repositories of language materials. You can observe second language learners’ reticence to hear their own voices speaking the Haida or Dakota languages, or witness heritage and passive speakers’ arduous Inuit language learning, or learn about how years of academic failure are brought to yet another Dakota classroom. You may find novice teachers designing materials while the Anishinaabe students are learning. Among the Inuktitut of Labrador, assessment and testing language acquisition presents a puzzle, as language comprehension almost always exceeds language production for new learners.

Without exception, these Indigenous authors demonstrate unwavering commitment to the life of Indigenous languages, ways of knowing, and student learning. Their goal is increasing the number of Indigenous language speakers, stressing the need for a freedom to craft new, usable, and innovative language learning approaches and materials. These language advocates face, define, and try to solve the challenges confronting them.

Sustaining Indigenous Languages is a fascinating read, whether you have a general interest in Indigenous languages, are a second language learner, a master teacher of an Indigenous language, or a tribal languages planner. You may choose a specific article by tribal nation or language group, or by the description of an approach to language teaching and learning. Entries are written in accessible language, but a few have specialized linguistics terminology. No matter where you come from, your reason for reading, or your level of Indigenous language expertise, I highly recommend this volume for your bookshelf as a reference on sustaining Indigenous languages.

Janine Pease, PhD (Crow), is the founding president of Little Big Horn College the coordinator for the Crow Language Dictionary Project.