Lakota: The Revitalization of Language and the Persistence of Spirit.
Monday, 08 October 2012By Jason Coppola, Truthout | News Analysis
Back in July, 2012, our Foundation made a $5,000 grant to the Lakota Language Consortium. The Consortium is centrally about preserving and promoting the Lakota Language. I just ran across the above article by Jason Coppola over at Truthout.org. I think it does a great job of not only talking about efforts to preserve the Lakota Language but also talking about the long history of oppression suffered by many Native Americans. In specific, the article talks about the Indian Boarding School system that was set up in the late 1800s in both the US and Canada to force many Native Americans to learn Christian ways and the English language. Sad to say, New Mexico was home to several of these boarding schools. Here’s a quote from the article:
To the Lakota, language is culture. The compartmentalization of all aspects of life is a foreign concept forced on them by western systems of thought, much the way that English was.
I should also point out that our Foundation has supported Truthout.org in the past in large part because of reporting like the above.
