National Congress of American Indians reposted this
Te Hui Taketake a Te Puna Tahua Toa Rotorua July 2024 Language revitalization Speakers: Anaha Hiini Dan Brant PhD Tania Tapsell Dylan Berger Melanie Benjamin (National Congress of American Indians) Ko te reo kia tika, Ko te reo kia rere, Ko te reo kia Māori Recognise the aspects of learning the language around grammar, pronunciation, flow and think from a Māori / Indigenous perspective. The ways to reclaim your language will vary from person to person, but in summary just SPEAK IT: · Space: Make space for language in your home (and or workplace), either a room or a time of the day where only that language is spoken. · Person: Find the right person to learn your language, find a person you idolise and can follow., find your person / people that you will only speak that language with and someone · Easy: Make learning easy for you, everyone is different, find how you learn best and use that method. · Active: Actively find resources in your preferred medium of learning, don’t wait for it to be handed to you. Watch, listen, read more language content and have the courage to be confidence and speak the language, take it from the page and bring it to life. · Keep: Keep going, learning is a life long journey, if you stop learning then you stop! · Intentional: We all have great intent to do things, but make intentional decisions in your life about using the language, e.g. a time and place where you will only speak your language. · Time: Don’t find the time, make the time and commit to that time Language revitalisation across the worlds is at different stages of reclamation and all efforts to teach and learn need to be invested in, community driven and recognised a valuable to the country. It will be hard, and you will be confronted with resistance and racism from those who fear what having language will do. But just SPEAK IT. You don’t need money to revitalise the language, you just need the people, yes funding helps but if you find the people the movement will come. Some communities are now reaping the benefit of reclamation programmes with the children now speaking languages almost lost. However, some communities are not as fortunate with language speakers dying before it can be passed on. We must act now to stop more loss. When you have language, you need to share the responsibility of using language with others and not bear the brunt of the workload that comes with having the language. If people want ceremony, then teach them the ceremony and have them do it. So be courageous, be a leader and SPEAK IT