Language: The Heart of Our Culture

we would play and we would imitate the

whites bomb well number one underwear

maybe and that was it and we played

paper dolls that was our games and we

made up our own toys and stuff like that

so learning English was really hard

imagine the first time you heard a

language that was different than your

own when Nora Dhawan how her first heard

the English language that's what it

sounded like to her just strange sounds

she grew up in Alaska speaking klinken

her native language and was nearly 10

when she had to start learning how to

speak English

Tommy Joseph is also clink 't but his

experience was very different I don't

speak the language I know very little I

understand some of it but um yeah just

not there my my dad my aunt's my uncle's

my grandmother refused to teach them the

language she spoke fluent Slanket and

she refused to teach them because she

didn't want than to be treated the way

she was in just a few short generations

many Native American languages were lost

because the elders were punished for

speaking their native tongues today it's

more common for the younger generation

to speak English but I can't keep

blaming it on my parents you know cuz

I'm an adult now and I can go and you

know get now who dictate and learn it

myself

that's pretty much where I'm at right

now so but one day I will

taking the hand after my throw I said

something I know and is a song that I

don't say that nearly isabel Gonzalez is

a fluent speaker of her Hema squib low

language known as TOA is that important

to you to keep that part of the culture

alive as well the language mm-hmm

because it's so important now that's how

we learn our songs and that's how we

when they're doing songs that's how we

understand what they're saying or what

they're talking about you know Escalade

no pizza cookin mana young hopi matzah

wa no putting up you patty Tolliver

young bhajan moxie wa my hopi name is

why spider-girl and my english name so

sneak is patty Thumba and I am Oh wah

wah corn clan I too grew up speaking

English first I continued to learn my

language because it's the heart of our

culture our ceremonies and our prayers

if we want to teach the next generation

our traditions we can't do that without

knowing the language our elder Charlie

Joseph senior who was very instrumental

and I owe a lot to him and his teachings

him and his wife helped start the Sitka

native education program they were

fluent speakers of the culture and

active in the culture that didn't want

to see our culture die here in this

community so they got some of the other

elders together and said we want our

children to know these things we want

our grandchildren to know these things

so they started allowing them to be

recording the recording on the reel to

reels the history the songs the legends

and I'm a beneficiary of that today

Chuck and his wife allamanda are in

charge of his clink at clan house in

Sitka Alaska

they set it up for ceremonies and keep

the sake of regalia of the clan Chuck

helps lead the prayers and clink it even

though I don't speak the language

fluently

I can still try to imitate what they're

trying to put across I try my best

the problem I'm a very generous estimate

now four fingered speakers would maybe

be 200 maybe realistically it's

somewhere hundred and fifty-eight at 250

we just don't know there's also

understand there's there there's some

younger people who understand quite a

bit but they're quite over the hump for

speaking

Richard Dhawan Hauer has spent the last

20 years working with his wife Nora

teaching the language as well as

documenting and transcribing audio tapes

of clinking speakers well I say to I was

a clear UK that's awesome it was a ghoul

look at me what do i water what do I

want her to say anything whatever you

want

no use it whatever makes you happy

yeah whatever ball that's the correction

because I stop I do that to everybody

but if the fluent speakers don't correct

us then the subtlety of the language is

lost any white horse who is Navajo grew

up speaking her traditional language and

today can easily express her thoughts

about her art in her native language

dainty Shoshanna Nastya Nastya the

thought is Iggy a tall tall tall this is

a piece that I did mostly in blues oh

cool cool blues because I was thinking

about the depths of the ocean depths of

the water and how things flourish under

water Chuck says a native education

program helped him learn more of the

clink at language now his daughter is

taking classes there when I went to pick

her up the other day she showed me a

coloring that she did of the number one

and on the bottom she says

daddy looked and she held it up she says

plase and I said ah okay what she said

to me was the number one and I had the

number one on there and I said I said to

her I said I said yes

good job in our language I didn't speak

our language growing up so 30 years from

now I really don't think we're gonna

have any fluent speakers which is really

scary to think about it's very scary and

we do our very best like my wife and I

we try to learn from the elders as much

as we can

I'm very afraid that we're not working

fast enough I'm not the working fast

despite Nora's concerns the many

language classes they have taught and

books she and her husband Richard have

co-authored are making a difference in

the survival of her Klink Atlanta

ditional languages in the end it boils

down to personal choice and what

importance we each place on our

traditional native languages and whether

we will pass it on to the next

generation