An article about Blackfoot language revival efforts written in… Botswana.

Check it out:

In 1987 … [Darrell Robes] Kipp, with others, 14-years ago, [opened] the Nizipuhwahsin (”Real Speak”) Center. It was intended to be a place where the Piegan language of the Blackfeet people, could be learned-less than one hundred people could still speak the language. This “immersion school for grades K-8 has become a model for indigenous peoples worldwide. Tribes from as far away as South Africa come to the remote Blackfeet Reservation, often at the rate of two a month, to observe Nizipuhwahsin’s work”. Mmegi Online :: Issues In Education

(Read more about Darrell Robes Kipp’s work at Ed Magazine and The Piegan Institute)

One reads a lot about the imminent demise of a huge chunk of the world’s language. And it’s no joke, we’re losing languages at a frightening rate.

But something you don’t hear about so much, at least in the media, is that language groups using the internet to network, and share techniques for reviving languages.

Collaboration in language revitalization across languages is nothing new. The Welsh language has benefited from techniques ported from the revival of Hebrew: the Ulpan system has since been applied to other languages (although apparently its current status in Israel is in doubt).

But it would seem that the internet has opened up a lot more doors. Nowadays it seems less and less surprising to hear about folks from Botswana studying what some innovative folks among the Blackfoot are doing in Montana.

I for one think we shouldn’t assume a pessimistic attitude with regard to the future of language. Where there’s a will (and some collaboration, and maybe a bit of technology, oh, and some funding…), there’s a way.

It really only takes a generation to save a language. Stay tuned…