Native American Language Program Offers 8 Indigenous Languages in Spring 2016

Since its creation in Summer 2015, the Native American Language Project (NALP) has grown to offer eight Native American languages to over two-dozen Native American Cultural Center students and community members.

Building upon the successful ‘community class’ model for Choctaw instruction in Fall 2015, NALP now offers Cherokee, Mohawk and Choctaw in community classes meeting twice weekly. Nearly twenty students attend these classes which are open to all interested students and are conducted via Skype with advanced/fluent Native language instructors from Cherokee, Choctaw, and Mohawk communities in Oklahoma and Canada.

A brief schedule of these classes and their locations are found below. Choctaw and Mohawk meet at the NACC and Cherokee at the Yale Law School, where approximately half a dozen members of the Native American Law Student Association are taking the class twice a week. (see photograph)

Community classes –

Choctaw – Sundays and Tuesdays, 7-8pm; NACC, 26 High St

Mohawk – Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5-6pm; NACC, 26 High St

Cherokee – Mondays (rm 111) and Wednesdays (rm 113), 6-7pm; Yale Law School, 127 Wall St

In addition to these community classes, NALP provides continuing instruction for individual language study in Hawaiian and Salish. NALP is also offering Navajo, Klallam, and Western Shoshone. Such instruction is based on the Directed Independent Language Study (DILS) model developed by the Center for Language Study.