Starting this fall UO students
can learn one of the Northwest's
original languages and at the same
time help preserve it from extinction.
The language, Sahaptin, used to be the primary language of thousands of Native Americans living along the Columbia River. Today it's spoken mainly on the Umatilla, Colville, Warm Springs and Yakama reservations. And very few speak it fluently.
Members of Oregon's tribes decided it was time to do something to ensure its survival. In response to their request, the UO has added a three-year series of classes in Sahaptin to the curriculum. The hope is to encourage young people from all backgrounds to take up the language, which is known for its extreme complexity -- one Sahaptin word can convey an entire English sentence.
An 86-year-old Yakama elder and Sahaptin expert, Virginia Beavert, will be the instructor of the fall series. Beavert received UO's distinguished service award this spring in recognition of her decades of work in recording and preserving Sahaptin.
The new courses will be taught through the UO's World Languages Academy with support from the linguistic department's Northwest Indian Language Institute (NILI). The NILI mission is to help tribes preserve languages through collaborative projects such as this.
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