The Concow-Maidu Indians of northern California now live primarily on the Berry Creek, Enterprise, Mooretown rancherias, and neighboring communities. With support from the National Science Foundation, Julie McIntosh (Mooretown Rancheria of Maidu Indians of California) and her team will document the nearly extinct Northwestern Maidu language (also called Konkow or Concow Maidu). It is now believed to have no more than four fluent speakers, and thus the urgency of the documentation effort is great. Although other Maiduan languages, particularly Northeastern (Mountain) Maidu, have received scholarly attention, Northwestern Maidu has so far been the subject of only limited study, and virtually none within the past forty years. The project will make video and audio recording of the speech of the remaining speakers; transcribe selected recordings; create a lexical database from both earlier sources and current speakers, and create an inventory of all extant written and electronic materials relating to the language. All language documentation materials will be prepared in a variety of paper, analog, and digital formats to make them maximally available both to the local indigenous communities and to researchers.
With the silencing of hundreds of languages in the past decades, it has never been clearer that every human language represents a unique intellectual achievement, and that the loss of any language is a loss of knowledge that has repercussions far beyond the local community. The documentation of the Concow Maidu language will set the foundation for integrated research activities for the Maidu community, as well as for linguists. These first steps in documentation will prepare the way for the creation of a variety of resources to be used in language revitalization, both pedagogical materials and a grammar.
