Success Stories
Native
Languages Course Weaves Linguistics, Phonetics, World Views and Philosophies
by Gloria Biersdorff
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Foundations of American Indian Languages students pose with instructor Don Addison (fourth from right) winter 2003. Photo by student Shanna Elliott.
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A new course graces the curriculum at Lane Community College --Foundations of American Indian Languages. The course revivifies the ancient, complex tapestry of language through the study of linguistics and phonetics, as well as the underlying world views and philosophies suffusing the array of indigenous dialects that once resounded across this country. The course is the first of its kind among Oregon community colleges.
" Language is a song-text," says instructor Don Addison, a Choctaw elder who holds a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology. He enlightens his 50 students, many of them non-native, to "the full constellation" of American Indian languages, among them Navaho, Apache, Lakota and Cree. "I show how they are classified, why, the meaning for the people, and how absolutely vital it is to keep these languages alive."
Addison augments his lectures and class discussions with guest speakers such as Roy Hayes Jr., a Nez Percé elder descended from Chief Joseph. Sometimes he assembles students on the platform of the auditorium-style lecture hall to teach and learn in the manner of his ancestors: in a drumming circle, through song.
" I've
seen tears in students' eyes after singing a song in their native tongue,"
says Addison.Student Tom Craig, 53, emphasizes the course's value to Lane's
Native constituency. About 3.1 percent of Lane's credit students and 1.8
percent of noncredit students are Native American. Craig was adopted into
the Hupa tribe as a young man. "It's proven that Native students
who have their culture are more motivated to achieve within the Euro-American
system," he says, alluding to the impetus behind the Native American
Languages Act of 1990 which supports Native student success through the
learning and use of ancestral languages.
Shanna Elliott, a 26-year-old Cherokee working toward her master's in
elementary education, is taking Addison's course as an elective. She hopes
to eventually learn her native tongue, teach it to her two children, and
imbue her future classrooms with the cultural broad-mindedness she admires
at Lane. "This is proof of the college honoring diversity,"
she observes.
The course debuted winter term 2003 and represents more than three years of devoted labor by a team of instructors and students to create a Native languages program that meets credit and language requirements for associate of arts and transfer degrees. Faculty working on the American Indian Languages Project are Addison; science instructor Jerry Hall; English instructors Pam Dane, Jeff Harrison, Drew Viles and Carol Watt; research coordinator Mary Brau; cooperative education coordinator Tamara Pinkas; and reference librarian Don Macnaughtan. Student participants include Craig, Richard Gebhart, Nalen Hall, Susan Morasci, Michelle Morgan, Dorothy Nunez, and Phoenix Pinson.
In October 2002, the project received a $3,600 Eldon G. Schafer Endowment for Innovation award. The instructor-student team is using the funding to develop a three-term sequence focused on a small number of native languages which they hope to offer next fall. Addison's course will serve as the prerequisite.
" Thank goodness for LCC," stresses Addison. "Thank goodness for President Mary Spilde. Mary and the rest have treated this project with only enthusiastic approval."
For more information contact Addison at 554-5174 or visit http://2011sitearchive.lanecc.edu/library/don/.
