In Rapid City, South Dakota last week, a gathering of Lakota elders took place to discuss the erosion of Lakota language and culture. The Lakota Language Consortium held the meeting to explore methods of teaching Lakota at elementary through college levels. Though there was disagreement as to how to reach this goal, especially in light of budget cuts, there was unanimous agreement that preserving the language is vital. One challenge is the pressing need for qualified instructors and effective curricula, with elders becoming more difficult to recruit for teaching positions. Though there are still fluent speakers, most are elders, and there are few in the younger generations. Leonard Little Finger, a teacher at Loneman School on the Pine Ridge Reservation, laments, “In 1975, 90 percent of the students at Loneman School spoke Lakota. Now only three percent of the kindergarten students speak the language. We must revive the language to understand the culture and be able to spread and understand who we are.” Teachers have received help from the Lakota Language Project of the University of Indiana, which has designed software to help teach the language.
