Indigenous languages in this school · in preparation

Lakȟótiyapi — the Lakota Language

The l-dialect of the Seven Council Fires — the language of Pine Ridge, Rosebud, and Standing Rock, and of one small nation in Saskatchewan.

In preparation — in partnership with the Lakota nations' own speakers. The goal is the whole collection in Lakȟótiyapi: every book to read and to hear, here and in the school. Nothing is published until they have guided and reviewed it.

The language

Lakȟótiyapi is the language of the Lakota, the Teton people, westernmost of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ. Its homeland is the northern plains — the great nations of Pine Ridge (Oglala), Rosebud (Sicangu), Cheyenne River, Lower Brule, and Standing Rock, where Lakota and Dakota live inside one nation and are taught together. One Lakota nation stands in Canada: the Wood Mountain Lakota First Nation in southern Saskatchewan, descendants of the families who stayed when Sitting Bull returned south in 1881 — some 300 registered members, most living away from the reserve.

Fewer than 6,000 people speak Lakota fluently, and the average fluent speaker is about 60 years old. No complete Bible in Lakota alone has ever been published; Lakota readers historically read the Dakota Bible of 1887. Even the spelling of the language is a living community question — the Lakota Language Consortium's standard, Albert White Hat Sr.'s orthography (official at Rosebud), and the older mission spellings stand side by side, and no outsider settles that question.

In this school

In this school, the place of Lakȟótiyapi is being prepared on the same terms as the library's: no Lakota lesson, reader, or word list will be made here until Lakota educators have guided and reviewed it. For the Wood Mountain Lakota First Nation, no dedicated language program was found in the record searched — recorded as none found, not as non-existent; a nation of some 300 members, most living away, whose first language authority is its own council and elders. When the door opens, it opens whole — every level of learning, to read and to hear, in the school as in the library.

Their own schools and teachers

Sitting Bull College (Fort Yates, Standing Rock) — an associate pathway in Lakȟótiyapi/Dakȟótiyapi; the Wahóȟpi Kiŋ immersion nest; the Dakota/Lakota Summer Institute, 500+ teachers trained since 2007
Sinte Gleska University (Rosebud) — the Lakota Studies Department; home of the White Hat orthography
Oglala Lakota College (Pine Ridge) — degrees in Lakota Studies; a Lakota Language Institute serving immersion classrooms
Red Cloud Indian School (Pine Ridge) — an immersion kindergarten growing grade by grade; Lakota studies through high school
Lakota Language Consortium — the New Lakota Dictionary, curriculum materials, and teacher training shared across Lakota schools

Learn Lakȟótiyapi in writing

This room opens first for learning to read and write — and it begins with an honest statement: Lakota spelling is a living question among the Lakota nations themselves, and no outsider settles it. What stands here is the map of the standards in use, and the doors to the Lakota's own teachers.

The writing

The Standard Lakota Orthography

The spelling of the Lakota Language Consortium's New Lakota Dictionary and its Lakȟótiyapi Wóglaka Po! — Speak Lakota! textbook series, used in most Lakota classrooms. The Consortium is a Native-led service organization; it proposes, and the nations dispose.

Albert White Hat Sr.'s orthography

The first spelling system devised by a native speaker of Lakota, carried in his Reading and Writing the Lakota Language and taught for decades at Sinte Gleska University; it is the official orthography of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe's schools.

The older spellings

The Buechel dictionary spellings and the mission-era writing of the 1887 Dakota Bible, in which generations of Lakota readers first read — still met in older books and family papers.

Practice

No single practice sheet stands here, because the choice among Lakota spellings belongs to the Lakota nations. Practice belongs with each nation's own schools and materials, through the door above.

Learn from their own teachers

Lakota Language Consortium — the Consortium's own house — the New Lakota Dictionary, its free dictionary app, the Speak Lakota! textbooks, and teacher training for Lakota schools

The writing is the people's own gift to their learners. The words of the books wait for the partnership.

Hear Lakȟótiyapi today

These voices are the Lakota people's own, published by their own teachers and stations. The link takes you to their house; nothing of their voice is copied here.

Lakota Language Consortium — lessons, the New Lakota Dictionary, apps and audio resources built with fluent speakers
New Lakota Dictionary app — hear each word spoken — over 400 native speakers took part in its making
Owóksape — the Consortium's learning platform: practice in listening, reading, writing and speaking Lakota
KILI Radio 90.1 — Voice of the Lakota Nation — Lakota Communications' own station, broadcasting in Lakota and English, live on the web

An open invitation

Teachers: if you teach Lakȟótiyapi — in a community school, an immersion nest, a college, or at a kitchen table — this school asks for your guidance before it makes a single lesson. In this collection the holy names are never invented: what the Creator is called in a language is for its own speakers to give, and the spelling of every text is theirs to settle. Write to the publisher at [email protected].

Authority stays with the Lakota nations themselves — the Consortium serves the schools but governs nothing — and each nation, Wood Mountain included, will be approached for itself.

To hear it

When Lakȟótiyapi opens here, it will be heard as well as read — in its own voice, spoken and recorded by Lakota speakers. Until then this door is silent in Lakota on purpose: the first voice heard in it should be the people's own.

The other doors

This doorway carries no advertising.