Premier of 'Navajo Star Wars' centerpiece of Native language institute program

ARLINGTON, Texas – Less than two weeks after the passing of Chester Nez, one of the original Navajo Code Talkers, the University of Texas at Arlington hosted the Texas premiere of ‘Navajo Star Wars’ at CoLang 2014, a major institute on language revitalization focusing on Native American and other endangered languages.  Nearly two hundred people, representing twenty-nine different tribes and indigenous communities from the Americas and countries ranging from Australia to Japan and Ethiopia, participated in events at CoLang in June and July.

As part of the public events, the first Texas screening of ‘Navajo Star Wars’ took place.  The Navajo Nation Museum worked with Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox to create a Navajo language version of the science fiction classic, with dialogue dubbed into Navajo and accompanied by English subtitles.  Navajo Language Academy Executive Director Irene Silentman commented on the movie’s significance.

"It’s one way of preserving the language, it’s one of the most fun ways to do it. It’s a major motion picture.  It brings the language up to par with English, in a sense. I know a lot of people, when they first viewed the movie in Navajo, they were so proud. It’s something to be proud of, to show off the language, and to show it in other forms.  You can use it [Navajo] in any form, you can use it in any field," said Silentman.  Earlier in the day, Silentman gave a public talk about the endangered status of Navajo and showed how to teach Navajo in an immersion approach, using volunteers from the audience.

The institute received significant funding from the National Science Foundation from to a grant awarded to UT Arlington linguistics professor Colleen Fitzgerald, and bringing internationally known instructors to Texas to teach and to share methods of documenting and revitalizing indigenous languages from all over the world.  The roster of instructors included Chickasaw Nation’s Joshua Hinson, Cherokee Nation’s Roy Boney, Jr., Ryan Mackey, and Candessa Tehee, and Lorna Williams, representing Lil’wat First Nation in British Columbia.

Williams, who also serves as Chair of the First Peoples Cultural Council, offered a powerful opening day public talk on the impact of colonization, noting how "education as tool of colonization" served to divide children from their families and communities, having a significant negative impact on the intergenerational transmission of indigenous language and knowledge systems.  She laid out an approach to reviving and revitalizing languages by creating "sites of restoration" to "understand and help to heal the pain, trauma, consequences of colonial practices and policies."

The curriculum offerings included nearly sixty courses, ranging from technology to immersion teaching methods to linguistically-focused approaches to documenting language.  CoLang Director Fitzgerald noted that the offerings and number of participants exceeded previous institutes.  "It was incredibly rewarding to see so many people here to focus on their language.  We worked very hard to reach out to Native American communities and were able to offer a number of scholarships to help people attend. CoLang is also a great opportunity for linguistics students to learn how to collaborate ethically with community language programs, and to give back in useful and meaningful ways to Native communities," said Fitzgerald.

Most of the activities spanned the first two weeks of the institute. The final month was a series of four classes where participants worked with one or two speakers of an endangered language.  Three of the languages in these ‘field methods courses’ were from the Americas. Jonelle Battise, a citizen of the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas, contributed as a speaker of the Alabama language.

"As language speaker for one of the Field Methods classes, I learned a lot about my language and how I can take back what I learned and help my community with language revitalization," said Battise.

For people who were unable to attend, the CoLang website for a number of the courses includes readings or other helpful resources, Fitzgerald said.  The website is at http://tinyurl.com/colang2014 for those interested.

The host of CoLang 2016 will be the University of Alaska at Fairbanks in June and July 2016.