SILETZ NEWS
Siletz News
Confederated Tribes of
Siletz Indians
P.O. Box 549
Siletz, OR 97380-0549
Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians
Delores Pigsley,
Tribal Chairman
Brenda Bremner,
General Manager
and Editor-in-Chief
Vol. 40, No. 4
April 2012
Conference sparks international,
national interest in language program
By Diane Rodriquez
Thanks to the Wall Street Journal and
other news organizations who know an
interesting story when they see one, the
Siletz Tribal Language Program enjoyed
a 10-day run in national and international
news in February.
The original article appeared in the
Wall Street Journal on Feb. 18. Entitled
Talking the Talk, for Posterity/Oral Online
Dictionaries Help Preserve Languages,
Cultures Muted by Modernity, the article
written by Robert Lee Hotz opened with
the unveiling of several "talking diction
aries” by Swarthmore College in Penn
sylvania and the National Geographic’s
Enduring Voices project.
The Athabascan language taught
through the Tribal language program and
its “talking dictionary” were included
during the presentation at this American
Association for the Advancement of Sci
ence conference in Vancouver, B.C.
On the same day, an article written
by Richard Gray appeared in The Tele
graph in London. Entitled Internet may
save endangered languages/Vanishing
languages spoken by only small groups of
people around the world could be saved
from extinction by social media networks
and the Internet, this article also high
lighted the “talking dictionaries:”
Linguists have also unveiled eight
new “talking dictionaries" as part of
a project to save thousands of ancient
tongues from extinction.
The digital dictionaries feature more
than 32,000 written words and 24,000
audio recordings taken from native speak
ers from remote comers of the world.
David Harrison, from Swarthmore
College in Philadelphia, said: ‘‘You can
have a language spoken by only 50 or
500 people, only in one location, and now
through digital technology that language
can achieve a global voice."
"Endangered language communities
are adopting digital technology to aid their
survival and to make their voices heard
around the world. This is a positive effect
of globalisation."
The talking dictionaries initiative
from National Geographic Society's
Enduring Voices project is an attempt to
prevent these ancient languages being
forgotten.
See Language on page 5.
T35 P4
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Photo above by Natasha Kavanaugh
Photo below by Diane Rodriquez
A herd ot elk in a field east of Siletz (above) enjoy a warm sunny day on March 8.
The nice weather didn’t hang around long, though. Just five days later, Lincoln
County residents were treated to up to six inches of snow, The street below in
Lincoln City shows the depths of the snow and how it can cause phone lines to sag.
Nearly every part of the county was cut off from the Willamette Valley or other
areas of the coast at one time or another on March 13 because of the snow and trees
that came down across roadways. See additional photos on pages 10-11.