Language Revival
Since the mid-1990s, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma has embarked on a strong language reclamation program . Many Miami members have described the language as "sleeping" rather than "extinct" since it was not irretrievably lost.
The Myaamia Project for Language Revitalization and Cultural Awareness is a joint venture between the tribe and Miami University. It is directed by Daryl Baldwin, who taught himself Miami from historic documents and studies and has developed educational programs. Project members have been translating missionary documents and publishing Miami culture and language materials.
The latter includes the following:
- a children's book of Miami language and culture;
- an audio CD set with vocabulary, phrases, conversation, and the Miami origin story and a companion text; and
- a compilation of traditional stories from the Miami and Peoria tribes, recorded in the early 20th century when the language's last speakers were alive.
The revitalization effort was aided by the work of linguist David Costa. Based on his extensive studies, he published The Miami-Illinois Language in 1994 as his Ph.D. dissertation and as a book in 2003. The book reconstructs the Miami-Illinois language and all its grammatical features. A related project at Miami University is one on ethnobotany, which "pairs Miami-language plant names with elders' descriptions of traditional plant-gathering techniques."
Read more about this topic: Miami-Illinois
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