I spent the second half of this summer working for the Chickasaw Language Revitalization Program on transcribing their collection of audio recordings of traditional narratives, personal histories, and conversations. This collection is the result of a National Science Foundation Grant to Joshua Hinson and Colleen Fitzgerald.
It was a privilege to work with Chickasaw elders who grew up speaking their language and hearing it spoken. We met every day and listened to a recording, we wrote down the Chickasaw words, and then the elders translated the story into English. The finished product – an audio recording, the story in Chickasaw, and the story in English – is so vital to making audio documentation useful for language learners and researchers. But the process is just as valuable! I learned so much through this process. In addition to learning a lot of Chickasaw words and how to pronounce them, I also learned so much cultural history from these elders. I learned about differences in words and phrases that depend on where in the Chickasaw nation one grew up; I learned the difference between minti “come” and mi?’ti “it’s coming”; and I learned about Chickasaw humour and strength of character.
Just imagine how much a young member of the tribe could learn if linguists involved them in the documentation of their language! In fact, this is the next step for the Chickasaw Documentation Project and has already been implemented by Jack B. Martin in the Muskogee (Creek/Seminole)Documentation Project (muskogee.blogs.wm.edu).