PERSONAL MISSION. Tammy Eastman DeCoteau has helped raise funds for a language revitalization project at Sisseton Wahpeton College. Photo by Pam Wynia

Sometime in the distant future, I will have great-great-grandchildren, and I think about what their world will be like if the Dakotah language is dead. I am working hard to help revitalize the Dakotah language, but I also worry about what I am not accomplishing.  There is no Dakotah word for how many times I have wanted to give up the effort.

Then, I speak with an elder, and I remember why giving up would dishonor those elders who struggled to save their language and culture when these things were outlawed in days past.

I recall a story about Vince Robertson who was beaten by a nun at a Catholic boarding school until his legs were black, and he needed to go to the hospital — because he was caught speaking Dakotah.

I met a woman who learned Dakotah in college and through books. When she speaks, the words are the right words, but the way they are said is not right. Is that the way my great-great-grandchildren will speak, if they learn to speak Dakotah at all?

Maybe some future linguist will be paid a zillion dollars to bring back our language. And I wonder again how my great-great-grandchildren will speak Dakotah.  For example, the word maka (dirt), the word maka (skunk), and the word maga (goose) are pretty close to each other. You know which one it is by the way that the word comes out of your mouth. Will that future linguist teach my great-great-grandchildren how to go digging in a skunk?

Our fluent speakers are elders. If I want to know what sotoju means today, it is a simple phone call away or a trip to someone’s house. But often the elders say, “I am forgetting, too, because I hardly speak it anymore.”

It is getting harder all the time to find a place to listen to the language. There are two or three tribal elders who regularly go to the Dakota Connection in the mornings because they have breakfast for $1.55 if you are 55 or older. I know that it is impolite, but I ask to sit with them just to listen. I try to go to the tribal elderly nutrition center for lunch once a week, too, but lately, there has been no Dakotah spoken there. It is very sad.

Although many people sing Dakota hymns, I would guess that 99 out of 100 don’t know what they are singing. Even some of our most wonderful singers mispronounce words. For example, the sound for  ©a is not the sound for s’a.  They are very different and distinct sounds

Grandparents no longer tell stories to their grandchildren. When people get home after a long day of work, and kids get home after a long day of school, they all vegetate in front of a television. So we depend on the schools to teach our children.

Nathan Thompson says, “Learning the Dakotah language is like building a tipi. You can’t put up all the poles at once – it won’t come out even. You have to put the poles up one by one – then it will be strong. That’s how you learn the language. Take your time. Take your time.”

Lucy Keeble said, “Amapeb gas henuh dehan Dakod iwaye,” which means something like, “Even though they hit me, I still speak Dakota.”

We are lucky. The Lake Traverse Reservation where I live in South Dakota still has many speakers — elders who hold the future of our language in their hands. People say that you don’t realize how valuable something is until you’ve lost it. We need to help our elders to pass it on, so that my great-great-grandchildren can learn Dakotah.

Tammy Eastman DeCoteau is the field manager of the Association on American Indian Affairs Midwest Office, which raised $50,000 for a language revitalization project at the Sisseton Wahpeton College day care center. She is a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe and lives on the reservation with her husband, Darell. She wrote this paper for a contemporary issues class taught by college president Dr. William Harjo LoneFight.