Cultural Survival’s Endangered Languages Program kicked off June with Makepeace Productions and the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project (WLRP), hosting packed screening and panel discussion of WE STILL LIVE Here: Âs Nutayuneân at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian at the two-day conference, “Language Revitalization in the 21st Century: Going Global, Staying Local,” held at the City University of New York’s Endangered Language Initiative and Auckland University of Technology.
WLRP director jessie little doe baird, film director Anne Makepeace, and assistant producer Jennifer Weston described the project’s community impact since the film wrapped in fall 2010, including launching a master apprentice program for three second language learners, and the film’s and Cultural Survival’s contributions to funding two ten-day summer Turtle Camps for Wampanoag youth language and cultural education in 2011 and 2012. Attendees also learned about and received handouts about the film’s companion website Our Mother Tongues that profiles 12 tribal language communities throughout the United States and Canada. Cultural Survival and Makepeace Productions also presented WE STILL LIVE Here: Âs Nutayuneân and Our Mother Tongues at the June Native American and Indigenous Studies Association annual meeting, hosted by the Mohegan Nation in Uncasville, Connecticut.
