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Omaha–Ponca — the Omaha–Ponca Language

¢egiha — one language spoken by two nations, the Omaha (Umoⁿhoⁿ) and the Ponca (Paⁿka), who are named separately wherever they are named, and never merged.

Recovered texts are here to read. The people's own curriculum doorway is in preparation — in partnership with the Omaha and Ponca nations' own speakers. The goal is the whole collection in this language: every book to read and to hear, here and in the school. Nothing is published until they have guided and reviewed it.

The language

The book on this shelf names the language ¢egiha — the Omaha–Ponca language, Dhegiha Siouan — in James Owen Dorsey's own words, “the language spoken by the Omaha and Ponka tribes.” It is one language spoken by two nations, the Omaha (Umoⁿhoⁿ) and the Ponca (Paⁿka); the book's title and headings spell the second nation's name “Ponka,” and that spelling is kept wherever the book's own wording is quoted.

Both nations name the need in their own words and answer it in their own houses. The Omaha Tribal Council's own resolution records “the dire need to preserve our Umonhon language” and the creation of the Omaha Culture and Language Preservation Department; the Umóⁿhoⁿ Language & Cultural Center at the nation's own public school states its mission — to revive Umóⁿhoⁿ language use by the children and people of the community, learning from Elders and Culture Teachers, and to develop and train Umóⁿhoⁿ speakers to teach others. The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska's Culture Department aims, in its own words, to restore and preserve the traditions, culture, customs, language, genealogy, and history of the Ponca Tribe, and carries Ponca language learning resources and classes.

Their own teachers

Two nations, two houses of teaching, and this door links both. For Omaha: the Umóⁿhoⁿ Language & Cultural Center at Umóⁿhoⁿ Nation Public School in Macy, Nebraska — the nation's own centre, whose teachers are its Elders and Culture Teachers. For Ponca: the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska's Culture Department, with its Ponca language classes, learning resources, dictionary, and keyboard.

Umóⁿhoⁿ Language & Cultural Center — Umóⁿhoⁿ Nation Public School — the Omaha Nation's own language and culture centre: its mission and its teachers
Ponca Tribe of Nebraska — Culture and Heritage — the Tribe's own Culture Department: Ponca language learning resources, its dictionary and keyboard

The writing

Dorsey's phonetic spelling stands throughout the recovered witness, unchanged, with his own Explanation of characters — the book's key to that spelling — transcribed entire on the recovered page. The writing taught today is the nations' own: the Umóⁿhoⁿ centre's mission includes promoting the community-wide use of the existing standardized orthography, and the Ponca Tribe publishes its own dictionary and keyboard. The old spelling and the nations' spellings are not the same: read the witness in its own dress, and learn the language at the nations' houses in the nations' writing.

Recovered reading

One recovered book stands here: Omaha and Ponka Letters (Bureau of Ethnology Bulletin 11, 1891), recorded, edited, and translated by James Owen Dorsey — the front matter complete (title page, Contents, Introduction, the Explanation of characters entire, and the Abbreviations) and the first complete letter whole, in all its printed layers: the letter written by Heqaga Sabĕ — Black Elk — a chief of the Ponka Wacabe gens, addressed to H. G. Nichols of Brooklyn, N. Y., in ¢egiha with its interlinear gloss (printed pp. 9–10), Dorsey's notes (pp. 10–11), and his free translation (pp. 11–12). The letters themselves are the writing of named Omaha and Ponka men — the work's authors in the truest sense. Not included: everything from the next letter, on printed page 12, to the end of the volume (p. 127); the remaining letters stand for continuation. It is the nations' own witness, recovered as a historical text — not a Sacred Name edition; the collection's own edition in this language waits for the partnership. Read the front matter and first letter of Omaha and Ponka Letters (1891)

An open invitation

This door stands open by invitation. If you are a speaker, teacher, or language keeper of Omaha–Ponca, or you carry its authority, this programme asks to work with you — to be guided, corrected, and reviewed by the people whose language this is. 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].

The first doors are the Umóⁿhoⁿ Language & Cultural Center and the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska's Culture Department.

To hear it

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

The other doors

One small advertisement stands at the bottom of this page — never inside the reading text. The words of the book stand more prominent than the advertisement.