The Loss of Language:
Preserving the Keres Language in Laguna Pueblo
Robert Juanico
Laguna Pueblo
The Loss of Language:
Preserving the Keres Language in Laguna Pueblo
Robert Juanico
Laguna Pueblo
Research Log 1: Identity
"Sharing One Skin" Jeanette Armstrong
When reading the article “Sharing One Skin” I really liked how he introduced who and where he was from right in the beginning. When reading a phrase that was translated from Okanagan to English which wrote, “the land-dreaming capacity” to me that would probably mean that they really want people to respect their bodies. “You’re within a family and community” was a line that many could reflect on from it, maybe being a birthday party on an in-laws' side or it being a feast day. This article had many touching phrases that could be used from now on by me to make other people understand. The narrator says “Translation is difficult” but throughout the story, he is trying his best to translate as many words as he can just so we could understand what he is trying to tell us.
Armstrong, Jeanette. “Sharing One Skin: The Okanagan Community,” in Jerry Mander and Edward Goldsmith (eds), The Case Against the Global Economy. San Francisco, CA, Sierra Club Books, 1996. Pp 460-470.
"How place names impact the way we see landscape" B. Toastie
Reading “How place names impact the way we see landscape” really brought information to my mind. A lot of these sacred sites have really deep meaning to the indigenous people and white people are doing their best to try and change their name because they feel like it is offensive to them, but when natives try to or do change names like the “redskins” they feel the reason to have an opinion. When Taho said “when a sacred name persists, it can be an agent of healing.” I feel that she is completely right about what she said. Sacred names that are continued to be used are significantly stronger places in my opinion but even when the sacred names are hardly used for a sacred place it shouldn’t mean that we just forget about how or when it came to existence.
Toastie, B. “How place names impact the way we see landscape.” High Country News: Know the West,
1 May 2022, https://www.hcn.org/issues/54.5/people-places-how-place-names-impact-the-way-we-see-landscape. Accessed 27 August 2022.
Research Log 2: History
"New Mexico pueblo attempts to save language from extinction" Kathy Helms
While searching for an article I found something that relates to my topic which is, “New Mexico pueblo attempts to save language from extinction.” I found that it related to my topic in a sense that it shows how Acoma Pueblo is doing something to try and save their language. Although this specific article isn’t based on Laguna Pueblo itself it gives me an insight of how my pueblo could try and do something to save our language. Reading that Acoma Pueblo only has 100 fluent speakers as of 2018 makes me wonder how many does Laguna have, or do we still have any. Laguna Pueblo had multiple language programs, I remember SFIS having one but then got their funding cut so it is no longer here. Right now I believe that there is only one language class that teaches the Laguna dialect of Keres.
Helms, Kathy. “New Mexico pueblo attempts to save language from extinction.” The Durango Herald,
19 May 2017, https://www.hcn.org/issues/54.5/people-places-how-place-names-impact-the-way-we-see-landscape. Accessed 13 October 2022
"The Keres Language: A Language Family Fighting for Survival" Atomic Scribe
“The Keres Language: A Language Family Fighting for Survival” has stated many great examples of why the Keres language is being lost. Many see language loss as “they’re not even trying to learn their own language.” Looking back into history we see that throughout colonization many native tribes along with languages were being lost. We were at one point told to never speak our language and to only speak English. The article states that pueblo people see Keres as a language that shouldn’t be written because it is sacred to us. Rather, we should learn it orally. Although Keres is its own language, Spanish had an influence on many words that are spoken in Keres. Overall Keres has been impacted not by only one language but two, the Spanish and English languages.
Scribe, Atomic. “The Keres Language: The Language Family Fighting for Survival.” AtomicScribe,
9 June 2022, https://www.atomicscribe.com/the-keres-language-a-language-family-fighting-for-survival/. Accessed 13 October 2022
"Ka'waika (Laguna)" Samantha Thoma, Shaylene Chino, Bradley Silva.
While listening to the first half of the video named “K’awaika (Laguna)” the speakers in this video introduced themselves and they also told their stories in Keres. In the video, they mentioned how traditional ceremonies were never pushed back for work when the languages (Keres) were all great grandparents knew. The ways that were taught and done back then are just stories to our modern day era. Many people nowadays have some sort of electronic device where it has become a problem especially for native languages. The girl in the video states that many new kids are getting to learn the newest technology, but they’re becoming too distracted to learn the tradition and language. With the language loss our community heart hurts because no one is interested in learning the language but rather be on technology.
Thomas, Samantha. Chino, Shaylene. Silva, Bradley. “K’awaika (Laguna).” YouTube.
Indigenous Language Institute. 2 March 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edio3V6mdPs&t=22s. Accessed 13 October 2022
Research Log 3: Current State of the Issue
"Lost in Language and Language Lost" Laura B. Smolkin, Joseph H. Suina.
I read the article “Lost in Language and Language Lost: Considering Native Language in Classrooms.” It states in the article that American Indian languages finds little space in school classrooms today. The little boy Anthony in the article started kindergarten and was asked by his teacher in English what his name was. Anthony was a fluent in his Native language and didn’t know how to respond to the teacher. He had gained so much support not only from the teacher but also from his peers. He need the help because they didn’t have bilingual teachers to help him communicate well in English. Bilingual education didn’t exist at the time when Anthony was a child. The issue of not having bilingual education for Native children could potentially hurt not only them but the language as it is slowly dying.
Smolkin, B. Laura. Suina, H. Joseph. “Lost in Language and Language Lost:
Considering Native Language in Classrooms.” JSTOR, March 1996, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41484057. Accessed 18 November 2022
Research Log 4: Global Connections
"We don't want to lose the language" Kalle Benallie
In the article “We don't want to lose the language” in Jemez Pueblo where an Early Childhood Learning Center is going to be built. About 100 Jemez Children up to the age of 5 years have participated in early childhood education programs before. The Pueblo of Jemez had received $6.2 million in funding for the early childhood center. Bertha Gachupin from the Jemez Pueblo said, “We don’t want to lose the language.” She has been teaching Head Start for twenty years and was excited because the children were taught the butterfly dance for the ceremony. The Jemez tribal council has converted its Head Start program into full language immersion since 2012.
Benallie, Kalle. “We don’t want to lose the language.” Source NM. 22 March
2022,https://sourcenm.com/2022/03/22/we-dont-want-to-lose-the-language/. Accessed 1 February 2023.
"We are on the brink of losing Indigenous languages in Australia-could schools save them?" Toni Dobinson, Carley Steele, Lisa Lim.
Researching for a second article I found a similar situation to Laguna Pueblo in Indigenous Australia. The article was called “We are on the brink of losing Indigenous languages in Australia-Can schools save them,” and it talks about how one of the world's fastest rates of language loss is in Australia. There were more than 250 Indigenous languages and over 750 dialects that were originally spoken. Now experts expect that only 40 languages are still being spoken and about only 12 languages are being learned by children. There was a poll in 2022 in Australia that 650 primary school students found they wanted to learn an Indigenous language ahead of other, foreign languages.
Lim, Lisa. Steele, Carley. Dobinson, Toni. “We are on the brink of losing
Indigenous languages in Australia-could schools save them?” PHYS ORG. 5 July 2022, https://phys.org/news/2022-07-brink-indigenous-languages-australiacould-schools.html. Accessed 1 February 2023.
"Canada Needs Thriving Indigenous Languages " Khelsilem
In the ted talk the guy who is named Khelsilem from his Indigenous language is a language teacher whos speaks the Squamish language. He had talked about how there are only a handful of speakers who are over the age of 75. The young Squamish people are committing themselves to learning the language so that they won’t see a decline. He had mentioned that there are more people learning and teaching the language. In Canada Indigenous languages had gotten only one million to teach the many Indigenous languages in Canada, but for French and English they got over a billion. In Canada if you’re an English or French speaker you have the right to have your children educated in your language that is not a right that is extended to Indigenous languages.
Khelsilem. “Canada Needs Thriving Indigenous Languages.” YouTube. TEDx
Talks. 30 October 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljBjUbVWmbQ&t=3s. Accessed 1 February 2023.
Action Plan 1 (Fall Semester): Incorporating Keres into Bingo
I had invited many students from Santa Fe Indian School to join me on incorporatin keres words into bingo. I had first sent out a survey the day before to keres speaking people on how they say simple words such as "dog." I used every response that I had gotten from the people to use in the bingo. I did this action plan to see how people would get involved. I was helped by my mentor Howard Humetewa by showing me how he would play Keres bingo within his family.
Action Plan (Spring Semester): Coming together as a community!
For my Spring Action Plan I had wanted to do more then just bring awareness. I am trying my hardest to bring the Laguna Keres language class back to SFIS. It is an ongoing plan so I had brought a community members to my house. I had presented some slides to them and then after had went over the Laguna language dictionary (shown on the right) talking about what all can be offered through the dictionary. We also had discussed who we could talk to about advocating about the language to SFIS board and also the Laguna Tribal Council.