A film on the Osage language, directed by Osage artist Ryan RedCorn, will be shown at the Mother Tongue Film Festival in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 22.
The film festival, hosted by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, highlights Native languages.
Invisible Nations
The film, executive produced by Allison Herrera, reporter for PRI Public Radio International and producer of Invisible Nations, and FireThief Productions, brings a glimpse of the formation and success of the Osage Nation’s language revitalization efforts.
An interview with Herman “Mogri” Lookout narrates the efforts of saving a language many thought to be lost. Decades of acculturation to the Osage tribal members threatened to wipe out the language, but through efforts by Lookout and the many other Osages living on what was once their reservation, they developed a unique orthography to aid in pronunciation of the words many have described as “difficult to learn.”
Current efforts such as language classes for adults, online classes, immersion techniques for Osage youth and a language app on Quizlet is helping to connect Osages throughout the United States and the world.
Invisible Nations is a multimedia project investigating and exploring the lives of Native people in their communities as part of the Finding America series, which pairs independent producers with public media station incubators.
By
Osage News
Original Publish Date: 2017-01-06 00:00:00
