Lakota language critical to preserving South Dakota history

In 1869 General William Henry Harrison Beadle was appointed surveyor-general of Dakota Territory.

"Tȟuŋkášilayapi, tȟawápaha kiŋháŋ." So opens the Lakota Immersion class at General Beadle Elementary School in Rapid City. Today, Lakota is considered "critically endangered." The Lakota Language Consortium in 2016 reported that 2,000 first-language speakers were alive, down two-thirds from a decade earlier. It's more than just learning the diacritics and glottal stops (which creates a popping sound), but values. [Lakota language immersion expanding at General Beadle]

Arabic, Mandarin, Spanish in South Dakota schools? Sure, that's cool; but, schools where students are steeped in American Indian languages are giving the next generation of Natives opportunities to preserve their cultures.

Mato Standing High practically lived at our house in Spearditch from 1983 until he and my stepson graduated high school in 1994. As both my step kids did he got his Bachelors of Science at the University of Wyoming. A Bush Fellow and a member of the Sicangu Oyate, he is an attorney having received his Juris Doctor at University of Montana Law School. He has also taught at Black Hills State University, a leader in American Indian Studies. No doubt he has heard me expounding on the importance of preserving indigenous languages as i have been ranting about it for nearly thirty years. My young nephews called him "My Toad." Mato is Lakota for bear.

In South Dakota white people steal money slated for American Indian education and murder their families when the jig is up then place a complicit attorney general at the head of the investigation. South Dakota is home to numerous sculptures that idolize genocide visited upon American Indians. Mount Rushmore is the state's premier example of racist ideology. Its sculptor was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

It is the opinion of this blog now that South Dakota's highest geographical point is named for Black Elk, a holy man who rejected the Roman Church, it should be in the Lakota language: loosely translated as Paha Heȟáka Sápa.