Shit cousins, all jokes aside, I’m going to share a tiny thread about how lonely and sad languages revitalization is. I’m just really sad right now and going to tweet at you ndns to make myself feel better about myself lol

Growing up on the Rez everyone laments about how important the language is but with respect to people who actually go out and learn it and teach it *effectively* the percentage plummets

So we are being told to value something that we don’t really see people valuing themselves. As for myself, I started learning and gathering all the info I can and become obsessed. Literally carried all the various dictionaries with me where ever I went and combed through them

Pretty soon I started figuring out the grammar and how to navigate through the language then wanted to speak to the dudes that spoke about how important language was while I was growing up

Sadly, by being excited and naive I exposed the truth... many didn’t speak but knew just enough to trick those knee nothing... and rather than be happy for me I became their enemy. This broke my heart and it’s still broken

Language revitalization is politics... as a linguist (ya, I’m embarrassed to admit it) and an arm chair speech pathologist I have realized that 1) we write our language very poorly 2) we will continue to write our language 3) we need an effective writing system...

So I went on an 8 year journey looking for a writing system and found it in Brocket. A Piikuni man created it... I looked at it sith my professional eyes and instantly saw that it was the way. I have made it the requirement in the schools I teach

But it’s challenged all day everyday by non-speakers... ‘oh, I never learned that way’ or ‘we never wrote our language’ and the ‘my grandma never had to write it... she just spoke it’... things I hear all day... i just say, ‘we used to never ride horses, too’ lol

There’s no ultimate point to this thread... just trying to clear my mind and write before I go to sleep so im not that sad as a few minutes ago. Just having a crisis. Feeling regret that this is the life that chose me, but I can’t change cause this is who I am

any of you young native out there learning your language, I respect you. It’s a lot of investment... time, money, spirit, emotion. Some days it feels like the world and the Rez is against you but there’s those good people who love you and support you

Protect your well being and your spirit. We need you.

Language revitalization could be lonely. You end up spending a lot of time with headphones on listening to an audio file over and over. Just letting you know, we can be lonely together...

The spirit of the people is fed when we speak our language, we need people to take that burden... and if you can do it, gosh damn I love you... we can look at each other eye to eye and know what’s going down and, in that moment, hopefully lift each other up

Ok, so... now that you made it this far... who wants to fight??