With support from the NSF/NEH Documenting Endangered Languages Program, this project focuses on the development of a documentary film that chronicles the return of the Wampanoag language, indigenous to Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard. This Algonquian language has remained unspoken for more than a century. Since 2000, when Jessie Little Doe received her Master's degree in Linguistics from MIT, the Wampanoag communities of Mashpee and Aquinnah have been bringing their language back from the dead. This is the first time an American Indian language with no native speakers has been revived in this country.
Accomplished film maker and PI, Anne Makespeace, is working in conjunction with the Jessie Little Doe and the Wampanoag community to bring this story of reviving language through documentary records to the public. The film, Âs Nutayuneân, which is expected to reach millions of viewers during its PBS broadcast, will enlighten the public about the importance of preserving indigenous languages, and at the same time serving as a model for native communities seeking to re-discover, document, preserve, and revive their own languages. The project will broaden the participation of many Native American communities that are seriously underrepresented, inspiring many to begin or continue learning and documenting their languages, and to partner with scholars who can help them reach their goals.
Since its completion at the end of 2010, We Still Live Here - Âs Nutayuneân has had terrific exposure at with screenings in academic institutions, at film festivals across the country, and in both Native and non-Native communities. A few of the screenings to date are: at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC as part of the Environmental Film Festival; in the prestigious Stranger than Fiction Series at the IFC Center in New York City; at the Endangered Language Archive festival at the University of London, at the Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium in Albuquerque, at the Beeld voor Beeld anthropological film festival in Amsterdam, and at the Library of Congress, during the National Native Language Revitalization Summit, at the Aquinnah Cultural Center, and at the Linguistics Society of America Summer Institute in Boulder, Colorado. The film will also screen at the LSA’s annual conference in Portland next year. To date, We Still Live Here - Âs Nutayuneân has won two important and prestigious awards: the Inspiration Award at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, a $5000 prize; and the Moving Mountains Award at Telluride MountainFilm. The Moving Mountains award is given to the NGO portrayed in a film that has the most important social impact. And the $3000 prize that went directly to the Wampanoag Language Reclamation Program. WLRP is using the prize money for their first ever language immersion camp for children, to be held this month (August 2011). The film will reach its largest audience on November 17th, 2011 when it airs nationally on PBS’s Independent Lens series. The PBS News Hour will devote a segment, with clips and interview material, to promote the film during the week before the broadcast. Independent Lens has also chosen to feature the film in its Community Cinema program, for which they will organize screenings with expert panel discussions in 100 cities across America. Other upcoming events include screenings of the film at the New Bedford Whaling Museum and at Plimoth Plantation in September; at the National Indian Education Association conference in October; and at the Society for Visual Anthropology Film Festival in Quebec and the Margaret Mead Film Festival at the New York Museum of Natural History in November. Please see www.makepeaceproductions.com/Press-WeStillLiveHere/index.html for a full list of past and planned screenings and events. Many more similar convenings around Native language revitalization are slated for the year ahead. Some of these venues include: the Conference on Endangered Languages and Cultures of Native America (Utah), the National Congress of American Indians in October (Oregon) and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association June 2012 Conference on the Pequot Reservation (Connecticut). We are also in preliminary conversations with the American Indian Higher Education Consortium to arrange screenings at up to 30 tribal colleges across the United States. In addition to these larger presentations at schools and conferences, a central component of the campaign will be to heighten Native Language Awareness among people within their own communities by holding a series of smaller, grassroots events on reservations and other Native enclaves. These will be intergenerational and inspirational gatherings that bring together youth with questions to ask and elders with stories and knowledge to share. Our co-Producer Jennifer Weston’s strong relationships, through Cultural Survival (culturalsurvival.org) with over 300 Native communities will enable us to quickly make contacts, gain trust, and organize these gatherings effectively. We have also received a grant from the Independent Television Service to produce a wide-ranging interactive website, tentatively called Native Tongues, about the issue of endangered languages, featuring eleven language programs from Alaska to Oklahoma. The website will launch in conjunction with the PBS broadcast in November.
