Delphine Red Shirt. Photo by Rich Luhr / Flickr
Outsiders appropriating the Lakota language
By Delphine Red Shirt The last grammar for Dakota was first published in 1893. The Dakota Grammar (with texts and ethnography by Stephen R. Riggs) is still published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press. A Jesuit, Eugene Buechel, published in 1939 “A Grammar of Lakota: The Language of the Teton Sioux Indians” through the Rosebud Educational Society. When I returned for a language conference in Rapid City in late October, I received word that a new Grammar will be published soon. It worried me because I teach the language. It made me wonder how we think we can improve on past grammars. I mean those written when the Lakota language was used every day and we didn’t need others to tell us the “rules” of our language. This new grammar from what I can surmise is being written by outsiders, again. It is being written with the advice by “elders” who know the language. My question is what about dialects? At the language conference, my session was about a language institute that is being proposed and supported by a state university within the territory of the Lakota people. History tells us that west of the Missouri river, the hunting area is Lakota. That is important information: The dialect was Lakota. The other stronger dialect was spoken mainly in Dakota country east of the Missouri (see 1862 Dakota War).
Read the rest of the story on the all new Native Sun News website: Outsiders appropriating the Lakota language (Delphine Red Shirt can be reached at redshirtphd@gmail.com) Copyright permission Native Sun News
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