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Press Release
July 26, 2004
SEALASKA HERITAGE TO OFFER TLINGIT IMMERSION RETREATS
Sealaska Heritage Institute is offering two Tlingit immersion retreats in Hoonah and near Sitka this summer in an effort to revitalize the endangered language.
Tlingit speakers and serious students of the language will live in a Tlingit-speaking world 24 hours a day from Aug. 9-19 during the institute’s Tlingit immersion retreat at Icy Strait Lodge in Hoonah.
A second retreat is scheduled Aug. 11-21 near Sitka at Dog Point Fish Camp, called in Tlingit Waashdáanx’ (The Sitka retreat was announced in May but later postponed until August).
Participants will arrive at the retreats ready to leave the English language behind for 10 days of immersion in the ancestral language of the region. Students and teachers will cook their own food, wash dishes, and do other daily chores – in Tlingit – just as their ancestors might have done a century ago. Families and pairs of friends are encouraged to attend to carry on the language in the home after the retreat.
“The program gives both speakers and learners a habitat where Tlingit can flourish,” said SHI President Rosita Worl. “The immersion approach appears to accelerate the rate at which learners acquire the Tlingit language.”
Daily activities will include gathering and processing Native foods while fluent speakers give directions in Tlingit to language learners. During the institute’s 2003 retreat at Waashdáanx’, participants subsisted on halibut, salmon, gumboots, deer, beach asparagus, seaweed, and wild celery. Participants also will sing, drum, dance and tell stories in Tlingit, allowing even further integration of culture with language.
This is the second year of a three-year Tlingit language project funded through a federal grant awarded to the institute in 2002. The grant from the Administration for Native Americans funds two language immersion retreats per year in 2003, 2004 and 2005 in Sitka and the Glacier Bay-Hoonah area. Approximately 74 percent of the project, or $148,000, will be funded through federal dollars and 26 percent will be funded through non-government sources this year.
Native language revitalization is a priority for the institute, a Native nonprofit founded by Sealaska Corp. to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures. The institute strives to integrate Native language and culture into school curriculum because studies have shown Native students who are exposed to their culture in class do better academically.
Tlingit speakers and
learners who want to participate may contact the institute at 463-4844
for more information.
CONTACT: Rosita Worl, SHI president, 463.4844