Building a New Generation of Speakers

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By Chickasaw Nation Media

July 18, 2024

ADA, Okla. - The Chikasha Academy Adult Immersion Program (CAAIP) will soon graduate five highly motivated students who will then teach the Chickasaw language to others, according to Joshua D. Hinson (Lokosh), executive officer of language preservation for the Chickasaw Nation Department of Culture and Humanities.

“The academy’s approach is a highly structured group immersion program that is based upon the Salish Fluency Transfer System, developed by the Paul Creek Language Association located in British Columbia. We worked closely with three Salish communities to develop our own curriculum. Ours is based on Rosetta Stone Chickasaw,” Hinson said. “Principally, the underlying scope and sequence of Rosetta Stone Chickasaw and narratives are drawn from the videos forming the core curriculum. The students – who spend three years learning the language eight hours per day – learn through those stories derived from Rosetta Stone as well as traditional stories told by our fluent, Native speakers.

“Because they get so many contact hours during their learning journey and because we don’t speak English in this immersive approach, they become very good, very quickly,” he said.

When the program began in 2022, the Chickasaw Nation was hoping the program would produce intermediate-mid level conversational speakers of the language. Upon graduation, students will be intermediate-mid to advanced speakers, capable of sustained conversation in Chickasaw.

“I am thrilled with the program’s success. The students have accomplished very quickly what took me, Clovis Hamilton, director of Chikasha Academy and Ric Greenwood, Chikasha Academy manager, an exceedingly long time to learn. This immersion course is extremely focused and was developed through a lot of trial and error. It is so good we believe soon the program may be scaled into a two-year program,” Hinson said.

The five immersion students are Chickasaw citizens and include Briana Mason, Jason Morgan, Jared Walker, Faithlyn Seawright and Elias Brown.

“They are all young, and the astonishing fact is they come from a variety of backgrounds. You have three who have relatives who spoke fluent Chickasaw and a couple who had little prior exposure to the language,” Hinson said.

Jared Walker’s paternal great-grandmother was Pauline Walker, his paternal grandmother was Sally Walker and his maternal grandmother was Pauline Brown, all fluent Chickasaw speakers.

Faithlyn Taloa Seawright was introduced to the language as a child and has been involved with the Chickasaw Nation since, serving as 2021-22 Chickasaw Princess and Miss Indian Oklahoma in 2024.

Jason Morgan grew up in Ada and was a standout athlete at Ada High School. Growing up, he was not familiar with the language.

Elias Brown grew up outside Chickasaw Nation treaty territory and worked in hospitality. Before joining the group, he did not know the Chickasaw language.

Briana Mason’s grandfather, “Wild” Bill Pettigrew, assisted fluent Chickasaw speaker Catherine Willmond and University of California Los Angeles linguist Pam Munro with “Chikashshanompaat Holisso Toba’chi, Chickasaw: An Analytical Dictionary,” published in 1994. Her interest in speaking Chickasaw grew from attending East Central University’s language class instructed by Brandon White Eagle.

“Going into their third year, what they are doing is increasingly having contact with Native speakers and work extensively with fluent speaker Luther John. They also meet with the Chickasaw Language Committee once a month in addition to participating regularly with a smaller subset of fluent speakers a few times per week,” Hinson said.

“They will continue their immersion hours but have already begun to teach other people this material. Once you know it, you teach it to somebody else. In their third year, they undergoing teacher training to prepare them to be full-time language workers,” he added.

Hinson said from 2007 to 2015, the Chickasaw Nation concentrated on a traditional, one-on-one master apprentice program.

From 2015 to 2021, the tribe worked with a modified group approach before Governor Anoatubby approved the Chikasha Academy Adult Immersion Program in 2022.

“All we accomplished and had success with since 2007 has led us to where we are at today,” Hinson said.

“The point is, we have proved in a limited span of three years we can produce newly conversational speakers of the Chickasaw language. These five people will go on to equip other people to do the same thing they have just accomplished,” Hinson said. “We are preparing the next generation of people who can truly have conversations in the language.”

Hinson said working so closely with immersion students and fluent speakers has helped create a real-life speech community, just like those in the past. They are using the Chickasaw language to communicate with one another on a daily basis.

“Beyond the Chikasha Academy program, Chickasaws around the world are using the resources that Governor Anoatubby has made available for them as they too continue their own language journeys,” Hinson said. “These worldwide learning communities are connecting with one another using the language. This is the power of Chikashshanompa' (the Chickasaw language) – its ability to connect us together as Chikasha people, regardless of who we are, where we are from or where we live now.

“This power is accessible to all of us who choose to engage with it. All it takes is a single word. Say something in Chickasaw and see where the language can take you. You might be surprised where you end up – maybe even joining a Chikasha Academy Adult Immersion Program cohort of your own some day in the not-too-distant future.”

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