On March 8 and 9 the Linguistics Program at the University of Virginia hosted citizens from across the Virginia Tribes to participate in a language revitalization workshop on reclaiming everyday life domains for Indigenous languages and on immersion learning and teaching. The weekend convening was in Brooks Hall Commons, home to Anthropology and Linguistics at UVA.
The workshop was organized by UVA Linguistics Director Mark Sicoli and Laura Grant of the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival and was supported in the participation by Linguistics faculty Armik Mirzayan, Linguistic Anthropology PhD candidate Bania García Sanchez, and UVA student assistants Meghan Powers (Linguistics and Spanish) and Em Gunter (Anthropology). It was made possible by the organizational help of Linguistics and Anthropology staff Karen Hall and Millie Dean and through support of a donor gift to Linguistics for the purpose of building collaborative relationships for language revitalization with the Indigenous Nations of the land UVA serves.
This in-person convening followed three virtual workshops hosted over the last year: the first introducing Reclaiming Domains as a method for using more of an Indigenous Language in daily life, the second including report-backs from the Tribal language workers on Reclaiming the Language of Gardening, and the third on the method of Total Physical Response and on Reclaiming Conversational Repair.
This in-person convening provided a more extended time together over a day-and-a-half with opportunities to share meals, stories, and conversations. It was attended by people representing all three language families in Virginia with Monacan (Siouan), Nottoway and Cheroenhaka (Iroquoian), and Chickahominy, Patawomeck, Rappahannock, Mattaponi, Pamunkey (Powhatan-Algonquian) people in attendance. Attendees traveled to Charlottesville from across Virginia and from as far as Maryland and Kentucky.
The workshop was opened by Teresa Pollak of the Monacan Indian Nation, who was asked to deliver the opening welcome for the workshop through the UVA Tribal Liaison Kody Grant (Pueblo of Isleta and Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians), demonstrating correct protocol for respectful relations between UVA and the sovereign nation on whose land it is built. The Tribal Liaison position was initiated by UVA administration after consultation with faculty and staff, and a meeting between the UVA president and a council of Tribal Chiefs. We thank Kody Grant for his work as the UVA Tribal Liaison and thank Teresa Pollak for welcoming us to Monacan Territory for this convening of the Tribes.
Mark Sicoli introduced the event as representing peoples and languages that are still here on this land bearing knowledge, life and community today. Sharing inspiration from Ojibwe author Anton Treuer’s work to learn and teach Ojibwe. He conveyed a story Treuer shared of his father buying a piece of land that had been clearcut by settlers and then working to plant trees, one at a time, over years, with the help of his children—restoring health to the damaged land which has since grown into a diverse forest. Treuer writes “when I look out the window at the forest he planted and wonder how we can revive [our language] after all the damage that has been done to it and us, I just remember: We don’t have to move that mountain in one day. We just have to keep planting the seeds. We really can change everything.” “Fairness is not given, it is made. So we have to engineer it ourselves.”
Treuer’s story and the story of his community are not isolated developments. They connect to the incredible stories of the people that gathered this weekend, “part of an upswell, a resurgence, a revitalization of indigenous languages and cultures started by language warriors in many places.”
We made introductions and shared stories of the ongoing work and goals of all participants and then Laura Grant led workshop sessions using monolingual and embodied methods she demonstrated by teaching through the Kawaiisu language of California throughout the day. Saturday morning sessions were on “Revisiting the Steps of Reclaiming Domains,” “Language Hunting – Planning, Immersion and Debriefing,” “Practicing Nonverbal Communication,” and “Gathering Survival Phrases in your language.” We enjoyed lunch in the sunshine on the front steps of Brooks Hall. Saturday afternoon sessions were on “Repetition and Total Physical Response,” there was time for participants to practice the methods and develop curricular material in their languages. Participants then had some free time to walk Grounds and rest before coming back together for dinner.
We gathered again Sunday morning to practice Communication-Based Instruction and for an Action Circle combining sentence patterns with actions and communication-based instruction. Over the closing lunch participants reflected on the workshop and discussed next steps. Participants suggested coming together for a face-to-face inter-tribal workshop annually, asked that we continue our video conferenced Reclaiming Domains workshops to keep up the momentum we’ve built, and suggested creating a collaborative and inter-tribal newsletter as a place to share methods and stories of ongoing work. It was suggested that we might also take Reclaiming Domains on the road where UVA faculty and students can visit with Tribal language committees where they are working to share their expertise in collaboration with the goals of the Tribal language programs. We were also asked if UVA could be asked to provide cloud storage for tribal heritage resource management as Berkeley already does for the California Indian Languages, and if we would coordinate with other public universities in Virginia to distribute our universities talents and resources to build good and supportive relationships with the original peoples of this land.
Participants described the workshop as animating and an important boost to the ongoing work of Virginia Indian Nations for linguistic and cultural reclamation. Participants shared expressions of gratitude and an eagerness to bring back the immersion learning methods of the workshop to their language programs and daily lives. They described the atmosphere we created as protective and healing wounds by inclusion. Brooks Hall Commons was described as a space for all people where sharing knowledge feels safe.
Photo credits to Em Gunter and Mark Sicoli. Flyer credit to Laura Grant.