Shoshone Indians making effort to relearn native language

Thursday, May 7, 1998 | 10:36 a.m.

Lois Whitney of the Dosa Wee band of the Shoshone tribe is leading the class, which started about six weeks ago.

"It's wonderful to see the older people teaching the children," Whitney said. "The children have been great and the adults have been really helpful bringing what they know to the class."

Whitney wants the class to provide a forum for the Shoshone tribe to help recapture its language and pass the knowledge to the next generation.

"It's important to keep our language, because it's also our history, lifestyle and traditions," she said. "It's who we are. We look at our own culture as foreign, and that is not the way it should be."

One young adult agreed, explaining she came to the class to help keep her language alive.

"I spoke Shoshone when I was little, but when I went to school I forgot most of it," said Marla Stanton-Woods. "If I tried to use it, I was smacked, so now I only know a few words. I want to remember what I lost. It's part of my heritage, part of my tradition."

Mabel Martin has come to the class to learn and also share her knowledge of the language.

"It's fun, and it brings back memories," Martin said. "A lot of words have come back after coming to the class. We have to hold on to what we have, and help other people learn. It's part of who we are."

Whitney encourages Shoshone speakers to visit the class.

"I'm not an academic. The class depends on the people who come," she said. "I'm a facilitator."

There are no quizzes or tests.

"We want the class to be sensitive, a place of respect for people to come and feel comfortable learning their language," Whitney said. "We want people who have something to share to come, but not to criticize."

Class members not only study the Shoshone language, they also learn Shoshone culture and tradition.

"We teach the children to respect their elders, but we also tell them they are an important part of the Shoshone tribe," said Whitney.

Learning Shoshone is not easy, she said.

"For several hundred years our language was taken from us, and it will take a long time to get it back," Whitney said.

Whitney, an upholsterer, spoke Shoshone fluently when she was a child, but she began to lose her knowledge of the Shoshone language when she started attending public schools.

Now, she has encountered several hurdles in her personal pursuit of learning the Shoshone language over the last several years.

"Each band had its own dialect," Whitney said. "There are a lot of dialects just in Elko, because so many people have come here from various areas."

Another hurdle is learning some common English words that are nowhere to be found in the Shoshone language.

"There is no word for 'thank you' or 'please' in Shoshone," Whitney said. "My children would always ask why grandmother didn't say, 'Thank you' when they did something for her. It didn't mean she was rude, there just wasn't a word for it. You would say, 'It is good."'

Whitney hopes more members will attend the class to bring their knowledge and experience.

"Our language wasn't meant to be written, and so much of it is just understand and not spoken," she said. "It takes a lot of people (to learn Shoshone)."