Native Americans the Introduction of Essay

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A lot of the written language comes from records about people's conversion experiences.

Slide One: The Wampanoag language is the eponymous language of the people of Southeastern Massachusetts, the area that includes Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and the adjacent land. Prior to the arrival of the Pilgrims, the people had lived as far north as Cape Ann and throughout New England but were mostly wiped out by a yellow fever epidemic. After that English arrived, they began publishing Bibles in Wampanoag in order to hasten the conversion process. Through the 17th and 18th centuries, there were extensive written records in the language including both civil documents and stories about issues of the day, including conversions. This gives Wampanoag the largest written corpus of any native language in North America, something that has proven beneficial in reviving the language. The language would eventually be discouraged and the last fluent speaker died over a century ago.

Slide Two: There is a now a revival effort underway. Jessie Little Doe is a Wampanoag lady who had a dream about bringing the language back. She spearheaded an effort to bring back the language, working with Ken Hale and other linguistics at MIT. They used the old texts and pronunciation from other Algonquin languages.

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A program to teach Wampanoag has been underway for about ten years now.

Slide Three: Learning the language has revealed things to the people about their culture. This is a sample of a Wampanoag Bible, which was the first Bible printed in North America. For example, they learned their creation myth, about the first man and woman being created out of pine trees. A lot of civil documents referred to people losing their land, which his referred to as either losing one's feet or falling down, which indicates that traditionally there has always been a connection to the land, and this being removed is very traumatic. They had animate and inanimate nouns, so for example the stars move around the sky making them animate nouns. The sun does not move, so it is an inanimate noun, something the Wampanoag learned millennia before Europeans did.

Slide Four: Today, the Wampanoag are holding classes and teaching adults the language. They had a prophecy that after seven generations the language would return and now the first native speakers in seven generations is being born, children of those adults who have learned the language. The Wampanoag people believe that this is the next step in bringing the language back......

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