Language as old as the hills

In Western North Carolina, Cherokee are on a mission to keep the language and culture of their ancestors alive

Cherokee -- The 10th-graders in Laura Hill Pinnix's class stand in the shadow of Cherokee Central High School as a Cherokee traditionalist explains the rules of a Cherokee marble game. There's something else very traditional and very Cherokee about the scene: the language the students are using.

Pinnix encourages them to speak only Cherokee while playing the game, which vaguely resembles boccie.

"O-s-da!" she calls as a student makes a good toss.

Another student quietly asks Pinnix to translate the words big nose into Cherokee. The teenager then giggles as she taunts an unsuspecting opponent with "ay-kwa ga-ya-so-li."

Pinnix and others at the Cherokee Reservation in Western North Carolina are on a mission to keep the language and culture of their ancestors alive. Cherokee language classes, such as Pinnix's, are required for graduation.

This is a stark contrast to past efforts to rid the Native American students of their culture by assimilation and, in some cases, force.

"I want to make it personal, " Pinnix says of her efforts. "There are a lot of cultural traits that are still existent, but a lot of students, they don't know they have it. ... Nobody has ever said to them, 'This is what makes you Cherokee.' "

Pinnix, who is in her 50s, says Cherokee was the only language spoken in her home when she was a child. She didn't learn to speak English until the second grade.

Now, she teaches her native tongue to students who know very little Cherokee -- if any -- when they enter her class in high school.

A recent study conducted on behalf of the Eastern Band of Cherokees concluded that the Cherokee language is between Stage 6 and Stage 7 of the eight stages of language loss. Stage 1 would be considered dynamic survival of a language, while Stage 8 means extinction.

Of the estimated 13,400 members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians-- about 9,000 of whom are on the North Carolina reservation -- just 460 are fluent in the Cherokee language, the study found. And 72 percent of the fluent speakers are older than 50, and an average of three Cherokee speakers die every two months.

Margaret Bender, associate professor of anthropology at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, says the Cherokee language was eroded over the years by constant contact with English.

Almost from the outset, the Cherokee Reservation relied heavily on tourism to sustain its economy. Thus, many Cherokee assimilated with modern culture and their native language went away, says Bender, author of "Signs of Cherokee Culture: Sequoyah's Syllabary in Eastern Cherokee Life."

Aside from everyday exposure to English, the Cherokee language was once forcefully stripped from the culture of the Eastern Band of Cherokee under the guise of civilizing Cherokee youth.

From 1880 to 1954, Cherokee children were required to attend the Cherokee Boarding School. Originally founded by Quakers, the school was taken over by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1892. At the time, the government was intensifying its efforts to remove Indian culture from native youth.

Cherokee tribe elder Jerry Wolfe, now 82, remembers sneaking up the hill behind the school with childhood friends to play Cherokee marbles, one of many activities forbidden at the school. He also remembers students being punished for speaking Cherokee.

"The disciplinarian would wear that belt across his shoulders crisscrossed," Wolfe says. "If he thought you were even just thinking about speaking Indian language, he'd just about give you a good whack ... one that would really make you hurt."