Collecting Texts in Endangered Languages: The Chickasaw Narrative Bootcamp

While data collection early in the Americanist tradition included texts as part of the Boasian triad, later developments in the generative tradition moved away from narratives. With a resurgence of attention to texts in both linguistic theory and language documentation, the literature on methodologies is growing (i.e., Chelliah 2001, Chafe 1980, Burton & Matthewson 2015). We outline our approach to collecting Chickasaw texts in what we call a ‘narrative bootcamp.’ Chickasaw is a severely threatened language and no longer in common daily use. Facilitating narrative collection with elder fluent speakers is an important goal, as is the cultivation of second language speakers and the training of linguists and tribal language professionals. Our bootcamps meet these goals. Moreover, we show many positive outcomes to this approach, including a positive sense of language use and ‘fun’ voiced by the elders, the corpus expansion that occurs by collecting and processing narratives onsite in the workshop, and field methods training for novices. Importantly, we find the sparking of personal recollections facilitates the collection of heretofore unrecorded narrative genres in Chickasaw. This approach offers an especially fruitful way to build and expand a text corpus for small communities of highly endangered languages.National Foreign Language Resource Cente

Chikashsha alhihaat Chikashshanompa' anompoli katihma: Chickasaws are still speaking Chikashshanompa'

Holisso mako̲ anompa toklo' ishtiiholissochitok, Chikashshanompa' micha Naahollimanompa'. Hopaakikaash Chikashsha mó̲ma'at i̲yaakni' sipokni' áyya'shattook. 1837aash Naahollo i̲naalhpisa'at pomokloshi' wihat kanallichittook. Pomokloshaat Hattak Api'ma' I̲yaakni' onat tahattook. Pomanompa'at impállaminattookookya kaniya'ookya iláyya'shakmat Chikashsha ilittimanompohó̲li katihma. Chikashsha alhihaat ittimanompoli aaissa ki'yokittook. Chikashsha sipóngni'at imanompa' imaabahánchi bíyyi'kanattook. Mako'no imaabahánchi katihma. Pomanompa'at ikshoka'chi imahoobookya ki'yokittook. Anompa'at tibi' kolofa' chohmittook. Ittonchololit ishtayattook. 2007aash po̲minko' Bill Anoatubbyat Chickasaw Language Revitalization Program ikbittook. Sipóngni', anompa' shaali' cho'maat ibaatoksalit ishtayattook. Chikashsha alhihaat Chikashshanompa' anompoli katihma. Pomanompaat bílli'yacha bílli'ya. This Chronicle, written in both Chikashshanompa' (Chickasaw language) and English, reflects on the efforts of Chikashsha okla (Chickasaw people) to reclaim and revitalize Chikashshanompa'. Over time and for a variety of reasons—including Removal, English-only schooling, intermarriage with non-Chikashsha, and economic depression—many people stopped speaking Chikashshanompa'. Still, those who cared deeply for the language tended to it, making it possible for future generations to learn and to speak Chikashshanompa'. Because of the Chikashshanompa' revitalization and reclamation work, undertaken by many, Chikashsha alhihaat Chikashshanompa' anompoli katihma—Chickasaws are still speaking Chickasaw.Ye

Chikashshaat asilhlhat holissochi [Chickasaws are asking and writing]: Enacting Indigenous protocols in academic research and writing

As Chikashsha [Chickasaw] scholars and Chikashshanompa' shaali' [Chickasaw language learners/carriers], we utilize a dialogic and autoethnographic approach to explore the continuance between ancestral and community protocols for research. An account of the Chickasaw Nation’s language revitalization efforts is followed by a discussion of how Indigenous scholars engage in the writing of Indigenous research, with an emphasis on writing about language and culture revitalization. Focusing on our experiences writing our master’s theses and dissertations, we discuss how we enacted Chikashsha asilhlha [asking in a Chickasaw way] and Chikashsha holissochi [writing in a Chikashsha way]. Arguing that Indigenous research methodologies should account for all stages of the research process, including writing for dissemination, we contribute to a growing body of scholarship which centers Indigenous protocols for sharing knowledge and has important implications for researchers who work at the nexus of academic institutions and communities.Ye

Centering relationality in online Indigenous language learning: Reflecting on the creation and use of Rosetta Stone Chickasaw

Drawing on the authors’ experiences developing Rosetta Stone Chickasaw (RSC), an asynchronous online Chikashshanompa' (Chickasaw language) course, this article shares examples of how relationality is enacted in online Indigenous language learning. We discuss the RSC interface and ways that it created opportunities and barriers to centering Indigenous and Chikasha (Chickasaw) relational epistemologies in which people are related to one another, the land, the spirits, and to the language itself. Our reflections on relationality in RSC are guided by the following questions: What relationships are required to create an online Indigenous language course? How do people create and strengthen relationships in online education spaces? How can online language work be re-emplaced in off-line relationships? Sharing examples from RSC, we consider relationality in video, audio, images, written instruction, and assessment. We conclude by returning to our guiding questions, offering our reflections and encouragement to others who may undertake similar work.National Foreign Language Resource Cente

'Ilittibaatoksali' 'We Are Working Together': Perspectives on our Chickasaw Tribal-Academic Collaboration

Here we present research resulting from a tribal-academic collaboration between the Chickasaw Language Revitalization Program (CLRP) and the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). This collaboration began three years ago, with a UTA service-learning trip to Ada, Oklahoma. The Chickasaw Language Revitalization Program is vigorously engaged in many activities to support language use by the remaining 70 or so fluent speakers. Communities facing such stark endangerment must address revitalization and documentation simultaneously, and in a way that maximizes resources. Our partnership addresses this challenge. This paper draws on the principles of Community-Based Language Research, defined in Czaykowska-Higgins (2009: 24) as a model that “not only allows for the production of knowledge on a language, but also assumes that that knowledge can and should be constructed for, with, and by community members, and that it is therefore not merely (or primarily) for or by linguists.” Benefitting from an action-research model, our collaboration supports the Chickasaw community by developing revitalization-driven documentation and training materials for learners that both feed into and are drawn from documentation. Both sides of our collaboration are committed to the transfer of knowledge, especially sharing our findings and knowledge with other endangered language communities. ----- Nous présentons ici des recherches issues d’une collaboration tribale-académique entre le programme de revitalisation chickasaw (Chickasaw Language Revitalization Program, CLRP) et l’Université du Texas à Arlington (UTA). Cette collaboration a commencé il y a trois ans dans le cadre d’un voyage de service-apprentissage à Ada, Oklahoma. Le programme de revitalisation de langue chickasaw consiste en de nombreuses activités destinées à appuyer l’emploi de la langue chez les 70 personnes restantes environ qui parlent couramment la langue. Les communautés linguistiques confrontées à une grande menace de disparition doivent aborder la revitalisation et la documentation en même temps, et ce d’une manière qui maximise les ressources. Notre partenariat s’attaque à ce défi. Cet article s’appuie sur les principes de recherche linguistique issue de la communauté (Community-Based Language Research), définie dans Czaykowska-Higgins (2009: 24) comme un modèle qui permet la production des données sur une langue mais qui présume également que ces données peuvent et doivent être construites pour, avec et par des membres de la communauté, et qu’elles ne sont pas uniquement (ou même principalement) produites par ou destinées aux linguistes. Profitant d’un modèle de rechercheaction, notre collaboration soutient la communauté chickasaw en développant des matériaux de documentation et de formation pour des apprenants, centrée sur la revitalisation, qui alimentent et sont tirés de la documentation. Les deux côtés de notre collaboration se sont engagés au transfert du savoir, surtout le partage de nos découvertes et de notre savoir avec d’autres communautés de langue en voie de disparition

Book Review of \u3ci\u3eLet’s Speak Chickasaw: Chikashshanompa\u27 Kilanompoli\u27\u3c/i\u3e by Pamela Munro and Catherine Willmond

Let’s Speak Chickasaw: Chikashshanompa’ Kilanompoli’ is a landmark achievement in Chickasaw language revitalization and fills a wide gap in the available literature. A Chickasaw Dictionary (1973), compiled by the late Reverend Jesse J. Humes and his wife, the late Vinnie May James Humes, is an English-Chickasaw word list, an effort on the Humes’ part to preserve the language in written form. Chikashshanompa\u27 Holisso Toba\u27chi: Chickasaw: An Analytical Dictionary (1994) is a remarkable effort of over 12,000 entries and includes a chapter on “The Structure of Chickasaw Words,” a brief though thickly constructed examination of Chickasaw syntax, morphology, and phonology. Let’s Speak Chickasaw greatly expands this earlier material and provides interested language learners and scholars with a rigorously detailed grammar of the Chickasaw language and, perhaps most importantly, its first truly comprehensive Chickasaw language textbook. Let’s Speak Chickasaw is composed of twenty chapters covering in considerable detail the basic sounds of Chickasaw, sentence construction, active and stative verb forms, the function of various switch-reference suffixes, and the pattern and function of Chickasaw’s complex system of verb grades. Chapters are broken down into lessons with detailed discussion of subject matter and examples of the structures followed by exercises. Each chapter includes a vocabulary list, a section on reading and speaking, often with practice dialogues, as well as notes on aspects of Chickasaw culture and stories in Chickasaw, accompanied by audio recordings of Catherine Willmond and other fluent speakers retelling the stories, including the story of Rabbit and Buzzard as told by Lizzie Frazier, a masterful example of traditional oral narrative and a rich example of the complexity of Chickasaw switch-reference suffixes

Multisite implementation of a workflow-integrated machine learning system to optimize COVID-19 hospital admission decisions

Abstract Demand has outstripped healthcare supply during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Emergency departments (EDs) are tasked with distinguishing patients who require hospital resources from those who may be safely discharged to the community. The novelty and high variability of COVID-19 have made these determinations challenging. In this study, we developed, implemented and evaluated an electronic health record (EHR) embedded clinical decision support (CDS) system that leverages machine learning (ML) to estimate short-term risk for clinical deterioration in patients with or under investigation for COVID-19. The system translates model-generated risk for critical care needs within 24 h and inpatient care needs within 72 h into rapidly interpretable COVID-19 Deterioration Risk Levels made viewable within ED clinician workflow. ML models were derived in a retrospective cohort of 21,452 ED patients who visited one of five ED study sites and were prospectively validated in 15,670 ED visits that occurred before (n = 4322) or after (n = 11,348) CDS implementation; model performance and numerous patient-oriented outcomes including in-hospital mortality were measured across study periods. Incidence of critical care needs within 24 h and inpatient care needs within 72 h were 10.7% and 22.5%, respectively and were similar across study periods. ML model performance was excellent under all conditions, with AUC ranging from 0.85 to 0.91 for prediction of critical care needs and 0.80–0.90 for inpatient care needs. Total mortality was unchanged across study periods but was reduced among high-risk patients after CDS implementation