The conference proceedings will take place at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center (http://www.pequotmuseum.org/).  A full breakfast and lunch, included in your registration fee, will be provided at the Museum for the duration of the conference.  The banquet dinner will be hosted at the Pequot Lake of Isles golf course (http://www.lakeofisles.com/).   There is limited seating for the banquet; please purchase tickets in advance by referring to the registration form.  There will be daily shuttles to and from the resort hotels, the MPMRC and the banquet; see the shuttle link for details.

PROGRAM

Wednesday, February 20^th      

9:00am           Welcome and Opening Ceremony - Auditorium     

                       Breakfast - Restaurant

9:30                Keynote Address – Auditorium

LANGUAGE REVITALIZATION AND ARCHIVES:
THE “BREATH OF LIFE” LANGUAGE WORKSHOPS
Leanne Hinton
University of California at Berkeley
and the
Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival

Language revitalization is a worldwide movement among indigenous peoples, as a part of the effort to regain control of their own destinies.   But many Native American languages no longer have any native speakers.  How can communities without speakers participate in this movement?  Luckily, many languages have been documented - sometimes there are hundreds of years of documentation - and most of this documentation can be found in archives around North America.  In this talk I will discuss how people who are interested in reclaiming their language can find the materials in archives and how those materials can be mined to develop “usable language,” to create learning materials, and eventually to result in conversational proficiency among dedicated language activists.  The “Breath of Life” language workshops in California will be described, to model the process.

11:00              The  Importance of Recognizing Anishinaabemowin Aesthetics:
                       What Students Need to Know about How Words Contain Meaning
                       Margaret Noori and Howard Kimewon - Auditorium

                        Recovering Something of the Traditional Performance:           
Poetic Form in a Takelma Story                                    
Daythal Kendall - Fleet Room

Noon               Lunch - MPMRC Restaurant

1:00pm           Contemporary Storytelling of the Nuu Chah Nulth Nations
                        Rod Sayers - Auditorium                      

Balance Between Literature and Formal Grammar in Language Study                        
Bruce Pearson - Fleet Room

2:15                 A Reading and Discussion of "Dakota Origins, Imprisonment & Exile"                    
John Peacock - Auditorium

Samson Occom's "Herbs and Roots”                                                    
Terry Dzilenski, Albert Zamora - Fleet Room

3:30                 Documentary on the Process & Progress of the Myaamia Language                                                                    
Darryl Baldwin - Auditorium

                        Indigenous Language Immersion: Lessons Learned From Practice                                                               
Jon Reyhner - Fleet Room

Thursday, February 21^st, 2008                       

8:30am            Breakfast - MPMRC Restaurant

9:00                “Body of Os”                                                                                     
Myrelene Ranville – Auditorium                                                                                        

                        Dialect Preservation in  Meaningful and Purposeful Contexts                                                                                                                          
Leon Valliere - Fleet Room

9:00- 2 pm       Algonquian Dictionary Development Roundtable                                 
CL & P Room                                                                                                    
Moderators: Marie Odile Junker and Robert Leavitt

                        The goal of this roundtable is to present current issues about the creation of (electronic) dictionaries for aboriginal languages of the Algonquian family.  Multi-media presentations and commentaries by the round table participants will be followed by a discussion with the audience.   Presentations will include:

                        Algonquian Dictionary Making in 2008 (Report from a closed door session)
                        Marie-Odile Junker, Robert Leavitt et al.

            All Words Are Not Created Equal: Word Families in Algonquian Langauge      
            Dictionary Development    
            Jon Nichols (University of Minnesota)                                   
           
           Verb Dictionaries Templates (East Cree, Innu and Naskapi)
            Bill Jancewicz, Marie-Odile Junker (Carleton University) and Marguerite Mackenzine  
           (Memorial University)                                

The Cree Living Encyclopedic Dictionary: the Speakers’ Perspective                      
Ruth Salt (Cree School Board, Waskaganish)
Luci Bobbish-Salt (Cree School Board, Chisasibi)

Search Engines for Native Language Electronic Databases
Marie-Odile Junker (Carleton University)

Fonts, Conversions, and Database Structure
Bill Jancewicz (SIL International and the Naskapi Development Corporation)

Keywords and Definitions: the English Part of the Dictionary                                  
Monica Macauley (University of Wisconsin)

Building Language Learning into Dictionaries 
Rand Valentine (University of Wisconsin)                                                     
Mary Ann Naokwegijig-Corbiere (University of Sudbury)

The Plains Cree Dictionary 
Arok Wolvengray and Jean Okimasis

The Pan-Innu Dictionary Project 
Marguerite Mackenzie

Understanding Passamaquoddy-Maliceet Word-Formation and Usage  
Robert Leavitt (Dictionary Co-Author)                                                     
Margaret Apt (Community Research Coordinator)                                         
Julia Shulz (Education Consultant)                                                                 
Ben Levine (Film-maker)                                                                             
David Francis (Dictionary Co-Author)

10:15               Navajo Grammar Taught for and by Native Speakers/Linguists                     
Melvatha Chee and Jalon Begay - Auditorium

                        Second Language, TPR and Immersion Methods                                                                            
Carol Dana - Fleet Room

11:30               Lunch - MPMRC Restaurant

12:45pm         Keynote Address - Auditorium

                  
  THE HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE REVITALIZATION MOVEMENT AND POLICY DEVELOPMENT

                        Professor William (Pila) Wilson & Kauanoe Kamana                                           
Hawaiian Studies and Language Center, University of Hawai’i

                        Federal policy during the many decades of the territorial period of Hawai'i was to eliminate the language of the indigenous minority of Hawai'i.  By the late 1970s, there were less than 50 children fluent in Hawaiian.  A grassroots effort to revitalize the Hawaiian language grew into a community of speakers with its own internal policies for language use and for institutionalizing government support.  Today the state of Hawai'i has the most comprehensive policy in support of a Native American language in the United States. Kauanoe Kamana and William Wilson have been in the leadership of Hawaiian language revitalization movement as a couple, parents, teachers, and policy developers from its initiation in the 1970s.  They will provide updated information on internal Hawaiian language revitalization community policies and the orderly development of government policies in support of Hawaiian.

2:00                 Rassius Method: Dramatic Techniques for Language Instruction       
Helene Rassius-Miles - Fleet Room

All Words Are Not Created Equal: Word Families in Algonquian Language Dictionary and Vocabulary Development                                                                    
Jon Nichols (University of Minnesota) – CL & P Room

2:00-4:30         Community Language Policy and Process Panel* 
Auditorium                                
Moderator: jessie littledoe
                                                                                                                               

This year we have invited a panel of speakers working in their respective communities on various levels and degrees of policy development for the protection and promotion of indigenous languages. This panel will provide an overview of the obstacles and concerns that communities face as they begin the process of creating, developing, and then implementing policies regarding language projects.   Panelists include jessie littledoe, Professor Pila Wilson, Kauanoe Kamana, Heidi Altman, Cliff Eaglefeathers, and Gail Dana.  For biographical information please see below.

3:15                 Language Revitalization: Freeware for Indigenous Language Resources                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              James Vukelich  - Fleet Room

                        Keywords and Definitions: The English Part of the Dictionary       

                        Monica Macaulay – CL & P Room 

6:00 pm         Banquet: Lake of Isles Golf Resort Grand Ballroom (http://www.lakeofisles.com/). Tickets required, seating is limited, please see Registration form. Complimentary beer and wine served from 6-7; cash bar from 7-9. Your meal will include a variety of delicious appetizers, entrees and dessert buffet.  Bingo and Native-made crafts as prizes is tradition at our banquet!  This year we are proud to present comedian and motivational speaker JR Redwater of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe for evening entertainment. His website is http://www.laughsomemore.com. We hope you will join us.

Friday, February 22^nd, 2008

8:30am           Breakfast - MPMRC Restaurant

9:00                "Language Keepers": Film-making and Passamoquoddy 
Language Renewal                                                                                                                                                                                        
Robert Leavitt, Ben Levine, Margaret Apt and David Francis   
Auditorium

                        Documented Results of Language Learning and Instruction through ASLA          
Stephen Greymorning – Fleet Room 

                        The On-Line Cree- Innu Linguistic Atlas 
Marie-Odile Junker and Marguerite Mackenzie                           

10:15                Film screening:  “Finding My Talk”                                                              
Paul Rickard, Director   -    Auditorium

This one hour documentary film follows the journey of Cree filmmaker Paul M. Rickard as he searches for his own language roots and discovers the tireless efforts of many individuals who are promoting, reviving and preserving the use of Aboriginal languages within their communities. For more information go to: http://shenandoahfilms.com/Finding_My_Talk.asp or http://www.nativenetworks.si.edu/eng/orange/finding_my_talk.htm

Noon               Lunch - MPMRC Restaurant                                                                
Closing Remarks      

*Community Language Project Policy Development Panel:

Pila Wilson [also Keynote speaker] ~ Professor Wilson [University of Hawaii] works diligently to ensure the protection and promotion of indigenous languages. He has drafted legislation both stateside and on the federal level. Professor Wilson works on policies and legislation within the dominant society government institutions. 

Kauanoe Kamana [also Keynote speaker] ~ President of the non-profit 'Aha Punana Leo Inc.  [http://www.ahapunanaleo.org/] with 11 language nests preschools statewide plus several offices -- all run through Hawaiian.  Kauanoe is also the director of the laboratory school program of Ka Haka 'Ula O Ke'elikolani College of Hawaiian language at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo.

Heidi Altman ~ Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Georgia Southern University. Heidi has worked with North Carolina Cherokee communities and on state and federal legislation for the past three years with Renissa Walker, manager of the Kituwah Preservation and Education Program. 

Cliff Eaglefeathers ~ Founding chairman of the Cheyenne Oral Language Committee. Eaglefeathers worked to have Cheyenne recognized as the official language on the reservation and currently works to preserve the language spoken in all traditional ceremonies.

Gail Dana  ~ University of Maine, Passamaquoddy Tribe

jessie littledoe [Policy Moderator and panelist] ~  Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project Director. After 14 years the project is now ready to move forward from a place of having no speakers for over 150 years to the planning stages of a Wôpanâôt8âôk medium preschool through grade 1 school.  It is the policies adopted by those original communities that have stood the test of time and without which the project may not have survived.  Jessie hopes to offer a template of those policies that have ensured the project's continuation and community direction and responsibility. Jessie also works with the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation as linguist for their Language Reclamation Project.

Note:   The SNET Room will be open throughout the Conference as a work/meeting place and a display area for book vendors. On the same floor are the entrances to the Research Center Library and Archives and the Children’s Library (hours are Monday-Friday, 10:00am to 4:30 pm).