The goal to revitalize our almost extinct language is, in my opinion, what dreams are made of. But how quickly those dream can turn nightmarish. My life long desire to speak fluently has been wrought with many ups and downs; tears both happy and sad; high, high, hopes and low, low, reality checks. My experience of language reclamation has been a rollercoaster ride. I’m glad to say that the good definitely outweighs the disappointments. It has nonetheless been an extremely daunting, time intensive, confusing, and expensive experience. We are lucky to work with an amazing linguist, Dr. Sheri J. Tatsch. I can’t imagine what this journey would have been like without her guidance, experience, and expertise.
Prior to colonization, California had hundreds of Tribes who spoke their own distinct languages. Nearly all of these languages had many dialect variations some of which were only partially intelligible to one another. Diversity truly abounds throughout Tribal groups Indigenous to what is now the State of California. When it comes to language diversity, California can only be bested in number by the Indigenous Tribes of Papua New Guinea. Tribal people carved out their individual identities through cultural expression, geographic location, and the way they spoke to others in their dialect region. The Nisenan called these dialect regions language districts.
California Tribes who survived the destruction of the rush for gold were subject of study by early explorer-enthusiasts, linguists, ethnologists, and other academics disciplines. These people came to document the last wild Indians before they were completely erased. More than 150 years later, their data is now a storehouse for research. Unfortunately, much of the collected data is incomplete, incorrect, and/or, terribly misinformed, leaving the researcher on their own to sort through what is accurate and what is not. Sometimes, these discrepancies end up putting Tribal knowledge carriers into conflict with those researchers taking archival data as absolute fact. In these cases, its my strong suggestion that the Tribal knowledge carrier have equal if not greater credibility than the archive material.
Over the years we have experienced our own confusing encounters while searching for language materials. Mislabels, misfiles, misunderstandings, misogamy, and other mysteries, can make this already difficult task seem insurmountable. We have been lumped together with other Tribes and incorrectly labeled by outsiders. Our language has been filed in the wrong Tribal folder. By pure luck was our linguist present when a colleague was sorting the file materials and said “Hey, Sheri. Do you recognize this language? It doesn’t belong in this folder”. Sheri was able to recognize it as Nisenan. What are the odds,.,.
In the end, the hard going is worth it when I hear the young and the old speaking Nisenan. Ya, that is pure magic. I wish it was easier and I wish we could have Rosetta Stone - Nisenan Edition and digital language curriculum for the computers. :-) But we are making progress and that is a really good thing.
I authored my first book and our first Nisenan Reader this year (2021). The story is based on my Grandma, 'Ani'to'o'pe. Dr. Tatsch illustrated the book and did the translations. You can purchase it at our online store at chirpca.org.
To close, it’s important that we know who we are, where we come from, and do our very best to keep what pure, remaining, Nisenan Culture as undiluted as possible. We continue the fight against assimilation. We are still here. We continue to be. Any grain of NISENAN CULTURE is a blessing.