I totally agree and wonder what steps can I take to truly learn my native Chicashsha language. spent my entire life wondering what bloodline am I affiliated with: Lakota, Cherokee, Sioux, etc. I am Chicashsha; and raelly would like to envelope myself in not allowing my ancestors culture die off. I have an abundance to learn.
Thank you so so much for this determenation of keeping the language and the spirit alive ....Im feeling a strong connection to this pride / blesing....
This makes me sad and happy at the same time. My Grt. Great Grandmother is Full blooded Chickasaw, Dialthia Wolf born in Tennessee. none of us kids had the opportunity to learn our language and culture. I'm so glad some of the Chickasaws are learning their native tongue an way of life.
My grandmother was full blood, my father half, I am 1/4…. But when my Grandma was growing up she didn’t talk about her heritage. She was treated badly so she didn’t pass anything down to her family. My heart cries to feel like I belong to my people… but I don’t know enough about my tribe or heritage, so I don’t belong there either. But my heritage is in my blood, I am a silversmith. My jewelry will have to speak words I cannot. I know my craft was passed down through a very proud blood. We will have to learn as much as we can about our heritage and pass what we can down to our kids and grandkids.
@@deenacastleberry8838 Hello, Thank you so much for replying to me. I Nj0yd reading your comment. I would like to see your silver work. Don't give up your heritage. The Government can't stop us anymore. Reach your tribe and see if any of your relatives are listed on the daws rolls. Be safe, ThiS is crAzy times we're living in. God bless you
Chokma'ski to all the elders who are giving the gift of language! Chikassha saya ki' yo, but I hope someday to become a linguist and help endangered languages be passed on.
I hope they have used technology to their advantage and recorded conversations with the elders and fluent speakers. But great work by all those whose mission it is to keep their language and therefore their culture alive, beginning with those who decide to compile a dictionary.
"It is a sacred obligation," says the Golden Hill Paugussett Chief, Big Eagle. "Indian people must keep their languages alive. If the language is not spoken, it must be made to live again."
i only can have some conversations and can understand a bit i am only a teenager but i want to become fluent in chickashshnompa i have been learning since i was in grade school chokmashki to all the elders and everyone helping teach us younger generation learn our language ❤
Good point that it is not just Chickasaw, but every Native American language is endangered; and this applies not only in the United States of America, but to all native languages of the Americas.Whatever is left of the native languages of The Americas.
I can relate to families in the past discouraging kids from speaking Chickasaw ,they probably saw it as to no good for them. Such as many did not teach Spanish,Portuguese, French,German,Polish,Chinese etc. to their children and within 1 or 2 generations language was lost.
Dorothy Lamar-Mclemore, the last Wichita speaker died N 2016, she recorded it before she died. Marie Wilcox, the last speaker of Wukchumni dialect, of the Yokut of CA. died N 2021. She recorded her language & wrote a Wukchumni dictionary. Fidelia Fiedling, last Mohegan Pequot speaker, died in 1908. They are trying to revive it.
Its incredible how with so many years of separation the Chickasaw ,the Choctaw, and. the Seminoles retain ,so much of their similar Creek roots.,weather in Oklahoma, Choctaws in Louisiana ,Alabama and Seminoles in Florida; they retain so much.They all dress very similar and the English pronunciation,I can hear the Creek influence in all of them; all Natives have a certain way of pronouncing : etonation
Did the Chickasaw ,Choctaw and Seminoles go to white boarding schools or not ? I ask cause many other natives lost their language and culture in the white boarding schools for Native American / Indians
The pressure to speak English and forbid other languages was not only confined to Chickasaws , in other parts of the USA .Teachers would say to students , "Do not speak Spanish " or do not speak ..... make it shameful, to speaks one language.They knew they were fluent in English, but they wanted people to totally abandon their language. Assimilate,
on dress, what the Seminoles in Florida call Seminole patchwork, but I see all the descendants of the Creek Confederation have similar dress : Chickasaw, Choctaw , Seminole , Creek, Muskogee, , Mikasuki .Does anyone know the history of the dress ;where it originated from ?
@Stone pony '$5 Indian' Black ppl R imported Nigerian, Igboo, Congo Negroes, who have no business whatsoever 2 B envious of indigenous ppl of America, but Blacks R & they hate Indians & slander them just 2 B hateful ppl I suppose.