Depree's @ U of A

Our Heritage Languages

Our language reflects traditional values and morals, especially when we look at kinship terms. In our kinship terms we find possessive pronominal prefixes, which make our relatives inalienable and inseparable from us. We cannot think of our self as separate from our relatives any more than we would think our hands, toes and heart are not a part of us.

Our children are growing up with a loss of identity. That loss has caused our children to marry cousins and be disrespectful to Elders. They are adopting the dominant class values. The children do not value a good story, our ancestry’s stories, they have no concept of the world held in our in our language. They are getting obese from lack of imagination. The children are relying on external factors to govern their life and playing with games that etch images, new stories and values into their subconscious.

With our language and story telling, we develop a sense of the world and categorize it into new solutions and discoveries. Our language paints different scenery with the Subject-Object –Verb. English is a vague language and can hide many truths but our language is very descriptive. We have a rich language that can tell where things are in relationship to our spatial location in the world. In our language, we can tell when an event occurred by our demonstrative pronouns and whether we can see it, saw it, or if it’s visible or invisible. Our Language talks about how we can look at the world. Our language tells us what things are nonpossessable like wild animals and people other than our immediate family. The dominant language of English opens doors for reinterpretation of existence and morality. There is a constant questioning of reality/existence that freezes the English language in ownership. We may get lost in the rhetoric and question our own identity and existence. English can deceptive and one can interpret a sentence several different ways. This phenomenon is evident by the invention of laws and a whole legal system that defines may words. English words become reinterpreted even when they are written down, look at our treaties.

Nor does English define the animate and inanimate objects of existence in the descriptive way that our language does. Our language places inalienable and alienable in definite positions in our world. There is volition in the animate objects/living beings. In our language we acknowledge the free will of the animate beings to change, to become, to act. The inanimate objects become props and have a hierarchy, which is lower in importance when compared to animate objects or beings. Even within the animate and inanimate categories our language defines what we can possesses and not possesses. This unique world view needs to preserved and used in our lives and our children.

History is written from the perspective of the conquer or the dominate class. For our voice and history to be heard we must write our own history and tell it in our language. In our language, there are descriptive narratives that exist in our grammar, which places each character in a location on the earth, a time in relationship to the speaker’s life or the main subject of the story. Our history is placed in a reference of time and number of participants through singular, dual, and plural forms of our verbs and possessive markers .If we let our rich language die we will lose more than our voice; we lose our past and we allow history to be written from the perspective of the dominant class’s language which is open to interpretation and exploitation. To honor those who died to save our future, to secure us a place in our heritage, we need to speak our language and use it every day.

DShadowWalker Art - Papers - PowerPoints -

Indigenous Languages & Technology Indigenous Languages and Technology (ILAT) discussion list is an open forum for community language specialists, linguists, scholars, and students to discuss issues relating to the uses of technology in language revitalization efforts. Contact the UofA List Owners: Phillip Cash Cash Prof. Susan Penfield	Poetics and Politics Welcome to the Poetics and Politics website, brought to you by the English Department at the University of Arizona. Thanks to many hours of hard work and the miracle of modern technology, we have been able to recreate for you the groundbreaking Poetics and Politics reading series, held at the University of Arizona from February through May 1992. The series, which featured 13 of the country's most accomplished American Indian writers, not only examined the extraordinary emergence of Native American literature, but presented that literature within a living context.
Red Ink RED INK's primary mission is to cultivate and highlight Native American intellectual and creative expression through the media of poetry, short stories, creative non-fiction, scholarly articles, original artwork and photography, and book, music and film reviews. RED INK also promotes an ongoing discourse with students, professors, tribal leaders, tribal members, and other interested communities (Native and non-Native) regarding critical and timely Native American issues.	Visual Methodologies Our world is filled with visual cues about who we are, what we dream about, where we have been, and how we survive this constant parade of images is what visual methodologies is about. What are the subtle popular culture images that keep stereotypes alive and flourishing in this day and age? What about long cherished sources of cultural dissemination such as museums and galleries? What are the images saying about different cultures? Have they been revised for the new digital age of information? Has history revised people from a dead or dying race? Or are we just a Noble Savage? Can we define ourselves in a fast pace world?
Professor Garfield KnowledgeBox and "Garfield the Cat" Expand Interactive Online Learning Environments. Pearson Digital Learning (PDL) has teamed up with Ball State University and Paws Inc., the creative group behind the Garfield the Cat comic strip, to create a free, interactive online learning environment. Called Professor Garfield the Web site features educationally sound games and activities, including a selection of standards-based lessons and material from PDL's KnowledgeBox(r) digital learning system.	Learning Theories@UA This web board conference is dedicated to Indigenous knowledge and methods in education. There is an informal discussion group on Indigenous Education; A collaborative with Hawaii, Washington, Alaska & Arizona; an on going Indigenous Language, Culture and Education Speaker Series. The web board has chat rooms, mailing lists and other resources. There is room for you to house your own group or research project related to Indigenous Knowledge.
Classes @ UA A Technology Preceptorship can enhance your technology skills and fulfill coursework in your degree; this course can be designed by you and your committee.	Indigenous Thinkers Club Our website name has changed, evolved as our Graduate experiences at the University of Arizona challenged us in creating a forum. From those earlier struggles and collaborations, we started the Indigenous Thinkers club supporting indigenous knowledge building in academia. Once this website was called the American Indian Researchers or AIR site, but the People we represent have been here for centuries before the arrival of the Europeans and their system of colonization. John Trudell talks about how our indigenous knowledge stems from ancient knowledge built before the colonization of the Americas’, therefore if we call ourselves, American Indian or Native American, we substantiate that our knowledge and existence began with the naming of the Americas’. John also reminds us that, "All People were once tribal," and that our indigenous heritages worked with the earth and our relationships here in all domains; spiritual, emotional, physical, intellectual. With that thought in mind, this site is focused on bringing forth our ancient knowledge and assisting academia in their focus of knowledge in service of the people. This website will house a repository of research papers, working drafts, thoughts, stories and ideas by Indigenous Thinkers across the globe and provides a space to discuss that research and explore the writing process. Here you can find similar Indigenous Thinkers, upload your writings, thoughts, documents or research for peer review. It is also a place to connect and work on collaborations. This site is a virtual space or "sense of place" where we can co-create and share our Indigenous Literature. You can comment on postings anonymously. If you are not respectful of the authors and the community, you are warned of posting offensive material. The key is dialog, not agreement--but open discourse. The IT site is a place for Indigenous Thinkers and scholars to share their work in progress, academic experiences, maintain connections to peers and colleagues. Create your own blog, stories and get reviews of papers in progress. Our sister site is called The Education of Indigenous Peoples.