What do these four words have in common: Teaticket, pumpkin, Ashumet, skunk?
Here's the answer: they're all Anglicized spellings of words that come from Wôpanâak, the original language of the Wampanoag people.
jessie little doe baird of the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project is on a mission to bring the language back to her people. CAI's Gilda Geist spoke with her to learn about her latest efforts.
GG Can I just have you start by introducing yourself, please?
JLDB I'm jessie little doe baird. I am from Mashpee Wampanoag territory, and I lived there as well. And I am a teacher and the co-founder for the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project. It's a grassroots project initially between the Mashpee Wampanoag and Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribes and later joined by Assonet Band and Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe.
GG So you recently were in this community working group with 14 other Native language experts. Can you tell us about what you were working on?
JLDB What we were working on was a national language survey to look at the health of Native American languages. This grew out of what's called the Durbin Feeling Native American Language Act that passed in January of last year, and it asks agencies to carry out the rights of Indigenous people to reclaim their languages. One of the things that really has to happen is a proper survey of the health of Indigenous languages.
You know, languages are where they are in the United States because there were laws of assimilation. The overarching theme was, Indigenous people should not be Indigenous people. They should be "American," whatever that means. The languages were discouraged and many children were punished and beaten for using their languages in school. People weren't hired to work at places if they used their Indigenous languages. And the federal government was the agent of these policies and laws. So that's how we get to the state that we are at with Indigenous languages. And I think our society is taking ownership for that now and trying to make things different.
"The health of language is extremely important—no less important than the land under our feet."jessie little doe baird
GG What was your main goal in participating in this working group?
JLDB My main motivation was sort of beyond Wôpanâak language, to really assist in helping the federal government and agencies craft something that really recognizes the sovereignty of tribal nations and recognizes language reclamation and language use as an act of sovereignty. A lot of people may not be aware that using language—particularly for youth but also for adults in prayer, etc.—has a lot of protective and healing factors. It not only represents the philosophy and the deep knowledge that tribes have about the world, the universe, their relationship to the environment, but it also represents our spiritual place in creation. The health of language is extremely important—no less important than the land under our feet.
GG So many names for places here in Massachusetts come from Wôpanâak. Do you wish non-natives here understood the influence of Wôpanâak language here in our everyday lives? Or do you feel like your focus is more on bringing your language back to your own people?
JLDB I don't think it's an either/or. For Wampanoag language specifically, we have the largest collection of Native written documents on the entire continent of any Indigenous language. We also had no speakers for six generations. So the resources and the speakers that we have, we've had to develop from scratch over the last 30 years. That takes a lot of effort and a lot of resources. We have 4,000 Wampanoag people to serve. So our focus really is that population, because that's what we have the resources for right now. But would I love that every English speaker realize that we're not in England and that there are Indigenous languages here that need support and respect as well? Absolutely.
GG What's next with this? I know the survey is coming at some point. Do we have any idea what that timeline looks like?
JLDB So in the first eight to 12 months, we're going to be having a test group, and then between months eight and 12, we'll make revisions. And then in years one and two, we'll be doing a field test. And then in years three to five, we're hoping to roll out the national completed survey.
This transcript was lightly edited for clarity.
