Module 15: I want to be able to speak to my grandmother

Module 15 introduced Jessie Little Doe Baird's efforts to revive the Wampanoag language. Baird's efforts to revive hWampanoag began in 1992, and while the language has been extensively documented and a dictionary has been created since then, it is still not a fully-restored language.

Wampanoag was the first language in Massachusetts, but as settlers arrived in the Americas, English began to overtake it. In the 18th century, Wampanoag families were forced into debt and their children were taken as servants for English-speaking households to pay off this debt. As a consequence, the children only spoke English when they came out of the households, and by 1907 Wampanoag was dying. By the late 20th century, Baird only knew of a few slang words and geographical names that remained from Wampanoag.

In 1992, Baird had a dream where some of her ancestors were speaking Wampanoag. In 1993, Baird had earned a degree from MIT, and started the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project, aimed at documenting the language, teaching it to children, and eventually letting every member of the Wampanoag tribe be able to speak their language. They first had to produce a dictionary of words to use, and by using legal records, written letters, and a translation of the Bible, they created a dictionary with over 11,000 Wôpanâak words.

Although documented, a language must be spoken by children in order to be revived. That's why Baird set up a school to teach children the language: as we have learned, children and toddlers acquire language a lot faster than adults and teenagers do. The project developed classes for adults as well as classes for children. For children, there is a 3 week summer camp for ages 5-13, and there are no-English curriculums as well as immersion programs for all ages. In 2014, they proposed a charter school taught entirely in
Wôpanâak, and began to create new words for modern objects such as telephones and computers.

Currently, Mashpee, Aquinnah, Assonet, and Herring Pond tribal members are eligible to take classes. The classes are offered free of charge for tribal members and their families, and there are fifteen teachers and several different locations that offer classes. The
Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project also offers translation services, with a fee depending on how complex the translation is. There are also some restrictions on translation services, mainly for some non-native uses such as tattoos and pet names.

References:
Rosenbaum, S.I. 2017. How to revive Massachusetts' first language. Boston Globe.

Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project. http://www.wlrp.org/home.html