My study hall students created a word wall for me in my classroom at the beginning of the school year. They determined that these were the Yupik words that I needed to know. To be honest, qanikcuk (snow) is the only one I truly "know" at this stage of the game. Yupik is a language far different from any language I've ever attempted to learn, including Ojibwe (another native language). It has a mixture of gutteral sounds that make is sound like a form of Russian. Here are the basic rules for pronunciation:
1. C sounds like "ch"
2. Q sounds like a gutteral "k" (kind of like you're hacking up something in your throat)
3. A sounds like "ah"
4. I sounds like "ee"
5. E sounds like "ay"
6. U sounds like "oo"
7. Double letters, like II or AA, mean for you to draw out that sound for an extra beat.
Other than that, it's pretty straight forward. Once you know those few rules, you can pronounce any Yupik word. They have fewer letters in the alphabet and way fewer sounds than English.
Here is the list of words that I have been trying to learn this year:
Elitnaurista (teacher)
Elitnaut (student)
Yuut (people)
Waqaa (hello)
Piura (bye)
Arcaa (be quiet)
Caa (What?)
Aqumluci (sit down)
Cayugcit (What do you want?)
Ciin (Why?)
Namell (I don't know)
Caliluci (Go to work.)
Wangkuta (all of us)
Naqiluci (read)
Igarci (write)
Wiinga (me)
Uksuq (winter)
Qanikcaq (snow)
My students occasionally speak Yupik among themselves and we have one Yupik teacher in the high school (the other English teacher, believe it or not!) who switches back and forth between Yupik and English when she's teaching like it's all the same language. It's really amazing to watch. Otherwise, high school is strictly an English forum.
However, it is not like that in the Elementary side of the building. All students are taught in Yupik from Kindergarten through 3rd grade. Then, they have a second year of third grade, called 3T (or transition), when they are taught in English and Yupik. The students are then taught in English from 4th through 12th grade. So, all students spend two years in the 3rd grade, meaning that they are already a year behind the rest of the country by the time they hit the 4th grade (and they've only been speaking English in school for a year). Then, the state standardized tests hit and the failure rate is incredibly high.
It's hard to believe that in the United States, there are public schools that teach in a language other than English. I understand the argument that they are trying to save the culture by saving the language, but at what point did culture education become the school's responsibility and no longer the family's responsibility? Well, that's another blog post...
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Really interesting!
ReplyDeleteMy older son went to Milwaukee Spanish Immersion School from K4-5th grade and they handled it sort of the same (but in reverse). He was immersed in Spanish from K4 through 2nd grade and many times didn't know the English words for things (well, he knew them, but didn't know the exact meaning... such as "backpack" was always mochila... and the days of the week in English were a mystery to him until about 3rd grade). It was really interesting. BUT that's because English was spoken at home (obviously). The idea is... if they start the language learning process early (4-5 years old), it was much easier to have the fluency of a "native"... SO, that being said, I would think that they would want to immerse them in English immediately since Yupik is spoken at home and they should start early to make it a successful process. When learning a 2nd language, it seems that early immersion creates more of ANOTHER FIRST language, rather than a second language.
As for learning the culture, if it's a successful learning environment (I believe) then it can be flawless and a partnership. Not a means of further isolation (which appears to be the case in Kwethluk).