Language preservation goes grassroots in ‘Chocasaw’ Country

MADILL, Okla. – Ask the Chahta Anumpa Preservation Society about language being a living, breathing thing and they are likely to mention that they want to resuscitate Choctaw in the same breath. During a weekly in-class session, this grassroots language organization finds itself amid an effort to lasso Indian languages back from the brink of being forgotten.

The sleepy, rural town finds itself in unofficial territory.  Located in the Chickasaw jurisdiction, Madill is along the intersection of the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations.  The town of 3,700 lies in what locals call “Chocasaw” Country, a hybrid Indian consciousness in southeast Oklahoma.

Inside the First United Methodist Church of Madill, the Chahta Anumpa Preservation Society gathers to study and speak Choctaw or “Chahta.”  They are led by Yannash Ushi Scott, a former Iraqi War veteran and, at one time, a prisoner in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections (OKDOC).

Scott served one year for concealing stolen property - including assault and battery with a dangerous weapon during a domestic altercation. It was then that his father urged him to cling to his identity. He began to develop a curriculum for his language in the penitentiary. After his release in 2010, Scott began a language class that he says mirrors conversational Choctaw common in southeastern OK.

The fluent Choctaw speaker combines his in-person group with online classes via Facebook (300+ friends) and YouTube. Scott writes a Chahta curriculum and posts short videos because “it’s one thing to see the written language and another to hear it spoken.”

The Chahta Anumpa (Choctaw Language) Preservation Society is independent from the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and receives no tribal funding or support. The Durant-based tribe has an official language department which has been used by hundreds of students.  Their separate efforts undergird the tribe’s language in the hopes of boosting fluency across the board.

Having grown up around traditional Choctaw speaking grandparents, Scott said speaking the language was a basic necessity.  His kind of upbringing (fluent speakers raising immersed ones) is fading quickly, according to language watchdogs.

The Intertribal Wordpath Society, an online group that keeps track of the state’s Native language speakers, estimated in 2006 that the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma had about 4,000 speakers. In a tribe that now officially numbers more than 270,000 this is but a fraction of the Southeastern Oklahoma based nation. Roughly, 26 of the state’s 38 tribes still have speakers, the organization estimates.

Using the latest mediums to reach potential students is just part of an emerging strategy for language revitalization.  The Chahta Anumpa Preservation Society has also adopted new word formations in Choctaw for “cell phone” and “text message.” The new words are phrased just so, combining practical aspects of old words and melding them together.  Once the “new” word is formed, Scott said a committee made up of fluent tribal elders either approves or discards the phrase.

“I’m not just making up words,” Scott said.  “For example, cell phone is ‘By way of speaking.’”

Members who tune in online or come to Scott to learn Choctaw from scratch do it for their own reasons. The students (ages 6 to 92) all use the same curriculum, one that differs from the traditional emphasis or approach to learning Choctaw. The standard version is modeled on the Byington method, which Scott finds outdated.

“I’m trying to keep it current,” Scott said. “I’m taking baby steps with all the courses.”

Scott asserts that the Byington Method, developed by Presbyterian minister Cyrus Byington, was developed as a means to reach the Choctaws theologically.  It gave them the Gospel in a written way they could understand circa the 1860s.

Choctaw is multi-faceted and features regional dialects, said one of Scott’s online students. The language is spoken in pockets throughout Oklahoma, Louisiana and Mississippi. Roy Burst, Assistant Chief of the Louisiana Band of Choctaw Indians (Louisiana state recognized), has been taking Scott’s class for several months after seeing the class posted on a buddy’s Facebook page .

A speaker of “broken Choctaw” since he was a boy, Burst said dialects differ and speakers from different areas will often poke fun at the other listening for differences. Scott’s version is helping him expand linguistically, Burst said.

“It’s close to what I’ve already learned,” he said. “He goes slow on the videos and that helps me a lot.”

But some say that Scott’s method inverts the subject-verb order and is Anglicized rather than the traditional version.  Meanwhile, others insist letting a tribal language flex is a natural outgrowth of revitalization, said Leanne Hinton, a linguist with the University of California, Berkeley.

Hinton has extended her efforts with California’s Havasupai Tribe and written a book, “How to Keep Your Language Alive: A Commonsense Approach to One-On-One Language Learning.”

“In a language that is still spoken every day by its people, new words would develop naturally either through borrowing or through the mechanisms available within the language,” Hinton said by e-mail. “But when a language ceases to be used, then new things and new concepts pile up without any words to describe them.”

Hinton said a lingering debate in the Native language movement is whether it will change too much and “lose its original soul.” Speaking a tribal language is for those who are using it in a traditional manner to express their life’s experience and for those who see it as a channel to tune into their tribal identity. Both approaches have merit.

“I believe a language can grow to encompass both the old and the new,” the Berkeley linguist said.

California faces a different peril than Oklahoma, linguistically. Most tribes there have fewer members making the situation double edged. Smaller means more people can learn a language but not everyone in a tribe is interested.  The Golden State has about 107 recognized tribes and around 50 non-recognized bands.  All the while, the clock ticks on fluency, cultural officials said.

Scott has walked a divergent path in his life; church, Army, family, jail and classroom. He hung onto his language in all weathers. Chahta, his mother language, anchored him, he said. Meanwhile, a new group is preparing to graduate from Chahta Anumpa Preservation Society in late April.

“I want someone in Bosnia to hear ‘Halito (hello),’ and know what that means,” Scott said. “I want to hear my language spoken again.”



Yannash Ushi Scott teaches a Choctaw language class inside the First United Methodist Church of Madill in southeastern Oklahoma.
COURTESY PHOTO