A new three-year initiative that seeks to preserve and sustain traditional communication practices among Navajo and Lakota communities has received grant funding of $449,877 from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation, amid concerns over the loss of indigenous languages and cultural knowledge.
The project, "Documenting Diné and Lakota Ways of Communicating through Community-Driven, Collaborative Tribal Organization-University Partnerships," is a collaboration between the Phoenix Indian Center, the Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation, and the Institute for Indigenous Knowledge within the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington.
The project aims to document traditional Ways of Communicating (WoC) in Navajo and Lakota communities through digital audiovisual recordings of naturally occurring language use of these two endangered languages. Notably, the project recognizes language as more than just a set of grammar rules and vocabulary; it views language as a process deeply embedded in social and cultural contexts. The goal is to document natural language use and the associated cultural knowledge in these communities and subsequently use it in language revitalization initiatives.
"This project is integral in language revitalization efforts," said Emmy Her Many Horses, a project co-principal investigator (Co-PI), the Lakota Language and Education Initiative Director at the Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation, and a citizen of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. "Because of the rate at which our community has lost first language speakers in recent years, we need to more thoroughly understand every aspect of communication in our language. Thunder Valley is thrilled to be conducting this research with our partners."
Jolyana Begay-Kroupa, CEO of the Phoenix Indian Center, enrolled member of the Navajo Nation
"This project is a vital step toward honoring our ancestors and empowering future generations to connect with their roots and contribute to a more diverse and inclusive society," said Jolyana Begay-Kroupa, a Co-PI and the Chief Executive Officer of the Phoenix Indian Center and an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation. "Each Indigenous language carries unique perspectives and traditions that enrich our collective human experience."
"This collaborative, community-driven project has the potential to be transformative for Navajo and Lakota communities, as it builds additional capacity within them to carry out their own research on their languages," said Dr. Richard Henne-Ochoa, the PI and the Director of IU's Institute for Indigenous Knowledge. "We have designed this project within a paradigm of decolonizing and indigenizing research, in keeping with the mission and vision of the Institute and IU's Center for the Documentation and Revitalization of Indigenous Languages."
Richard Henne-Ochoa, Director of IU's Institute for Indigenous Knowledge
The project addresses key aspects of language documentation as outlined by UNESCO's "Making a Decade of Action for Indigenous Languages" statement, issued in 2020. By aligning with these principles, the project seeks to enhance Indigenous involvement and empower communities through an interdisciplinary approach to studying their languages.
This collaborative effort will involve Diné and Lakota language teams that include community language specialists, interns, and videographers. These teams will undergo extensive training in language documentation at workshops this spring. Navajo and Lakota communities will also receive ongoing support through community site visits by Henne-Ochoa, and by language revitalization specialist Brad Kroupa (Arikara Nation) and linguist Logan Sutton, who are the two consultants on the project, and biweekly virtual meetings with project leaders and consultants.
Two years into the project, the teams will teach workshops on documenting traditional Ways of Communicating at The Institute on Collaborative Language Research (CoLang 2026), to help build capacity in other indigenous communities to do such work.
The project seeks to advance several key objectives. First, the project co-leads will seek to develop a research framework that builds on existing efforts within communities and the wider research community to enhance the project teams' ability to record, document, and archive traditional ways of communicating within their communities.
In addition, the project will record and archive digital audiovisual recordings of Navajo and Lakota language use, as well as conduct interviews and listening sessions with community members to gather insights into the cultural and linguistic nuances of their communication practices.
Further, the project will collect data and analyze communities' Ways of Communicating to create preliminary classifications of traditional communication methods-known as taxonomies-which will provide a model for future analysis help guide other researchers in documenting WoC in different language communities.
A unique aspect of the project its innovative approach to documentary linguistics. By focusing on language socialization within its cultural contexts, it aims to expand research in communities experiencing language shift and language loss. The initiative also fosters dialogue between Western and Indigenous perspectives on language and communication, including by ensuring that communities steer the project, versus academics or institutions.
In addition, the project co-leads aim to develop a community-driven model for documenting language and cultural practices, which will not only help preserve and analyze traditional communication, but also support language revitalization efforts.
Importantly, by creating digital recordings and detailed taxonomies of traditional communication practices, the project will aid in teaching new generations of Navajo and Lakota speakers how to use their languages in culturally meaningful ways. Further, the documentation will reinforce the connection between linguistic expressions and their cultural contexts, empowering community-led language revitalization.
This project represents a significant step toward preserving the rich linguistic heritage of the Navajo and Lakota communities, ensuring that their traditional ways of communicating are documented, understood, and maintained for future generations.
