This talk will focus on the challenges and strategies in Indigenous language revitalization. It will emphasize the process of speaker creation for North American Indigenous languages with few remaining fluent first-language speakers or no speakers at all. Drawing from my dissertation and over 15 years of experience as a language worker, I present a framework that bridges academic linguistics and community-based language work. My work aims to support both practitioners and scholars in their efforts to sustain and grow speaking communities. I will address the roles and responsibilities of community practitioners, academic linguists, and tribal policymakers in fostering collaboration and ensuring that language programming is culturally responsive and sustainable. Central to this talk is the methodology of whole language immersion, practical tools and policy considerations for language assessment and program development.

More on Dr. Mosiah Bluecloud: Dr. Mosiah Bluecloud got his undergraduate degree from the University of Oklahoma in linguistics, his Master’s in linguistics from the University of Arizona and his PhD in Linguistics also from the University of Arizona. Mosiah believes that language is life, the glue that holds communities together by connecting past, present, and future. Language enables culture caretakers/language workers to facilitate access to identity and ways of being. Mosiah has thus far dedicated his life to language revitalization and cultural preservation by learning, teaching, and advocating for language revitalization through immersion methodologies.

Sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Department of Native American Studies, and the Native American Language Center.