Campbell is an elder in the Mdewakanton Sioux tribe that makes up the Prairie Island Indian Community, and he is one of a small number of Minnesotans fluent in a particularly old dialect of Siouan. He is a key part of a tribal project, overseen by Wells, to record the Dakota language so it can be programmed into an instant electronic translator that seems like something out of "Star Trek."
Known as the Phraselator P2, the handheld device already is being used by U.S. soldiers in Iraq to help them communicate with Iraqis. A person can speak into the Phraselator P2 — a unit just slightly bigger than a paperback book — and a pre-programmed voice repeats the phrase, translated.
For example, say "What is your name?" into the Phraselator P2 that Wells uses, and it responds with the Dakota equivalent, "He toked eciyapi he?"
The device can carry different chips for different languages. The military, law enforcement and medical personnel have used it for a while, but American Indian tribes recently have begun using it to preserve their native tongues.
I enjoyed the PBS series The History of English with Robin McNeil when it aired way back when, etymology is always fascinating. But this is an even more important project. Languages evolve and disappear. In the past we had no way of preserving them properly as the written word loses much of the nuance of a language. This is living history with a practical side. Remember the use of Navajo Code Talkers of WWII?
(Seen at Lucianne.com)
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