Coming full circle: Language classes bring adult students back to their roots
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ARLEE — For the past year-and-a-half, a small group of Arlee residents have gathered at the Nkwusm Salish Language Institute two evenings a week to do something they weren’t allowed to do when they attended school: speak Salish.
“We’ve come full circle,” student LeAnne Hunter said.
Hunter and husband Clark Matt are two students in a free, beginning Salish class for adults taught by Melanie Sandoval, co-founder of the Nkwusm school. They and fellow student Diana “Scnpaqci” Cote have several grandchildren enrolled in Nkwusm, and when they heard Sandoval would be offering a class for adults, they jumped on the opportunity to learn a language they were forced to abandon as children.
“I heard (Salish) all the time,” Cote said.
As a child, Cote remembers listening to her grandparents and older members of her family who spoke Salish fluently. But speaking the language was forbidden at the Ursuline school in St. Ignatius. You could have your mouth washed out with soap for breaking that rule, Hunter explained.
“Back then, it was the norm,” she said of the practice.
Half a century later, Sandoval and her students are part of Nkwusm’s effort to undo decades of suppression of the Salish language.
“We had (Salish) almost beaten out of everybody … and now we’re trying to bring it back,” Sandoval said.
Fewer than 50 fluent speakers remain, “and they’re all elderly,” she added. “So we have to really make an effort to bring (the language) back … Every time we lose an elder, we lose a speaker.”
Sandoval’s doing her part by learning the language herself, developing curriculum for Nkwusm — a full-time job — and teaching Salish to adults in the evenings in both Arlee and Pablo. She’s driven by a passion for learning and connecting with her cultural roots, as well as a desire to see tribal youth realize their heritage.
Nkwusm is about far more than preserving a language, she explained; the founders’ vision was to see Salish reintroduced to the people as a living, active language.
“It’s not trying to put (the language) on a shelf somewhere; it’s really about revitalizing it,” Sandoval said.
Slowly but surely, her students are making headway. Learning languages becomes more difficult with age, but the adults in Sandoval’s class are dedicated pupils.
“I’m proud of myself; I really am,” Hunter said.
Two weeks ago, after practicing the sentence, “Do you want a sandwich?” 50 times or so, Hunter put the question to her elderly aunt, a Salish speaker.
“She smiled … I thought I said it wrong,” Hunter said.
But the smile was one of approval, and Hunter was overjoyed when her aunt answered her in Salish.
“That was the only sentence I got, but that was one sentence I didn’t have before,” she said.
Salish has several sounds different from English and uses the International Phonetic Alphabet, a Latin-based alphabet that represents the sounds of spoken language.
“So people have to train their ear to hear it,” Sandoval said.
Cote has found that linguistics courses she took in college have been helpful in studying Salish, but she and the other students are glad there are no grades in Sandoval’s class. While they recognize words and sounds they heard as children, being able to speak and understand the language takes perseverance and plenty of practice.
“We go over and over and over the words,” Hunter said.
And the students don’t get to take any shortcuts — over time, many Salish words were shortened to make them easier to say, but part of Nkwusm’s goal of revitalizing the language is to bring back the older, unabbreviated versions of the words.
“We’re hanging in there,” Hunter said, smiling.
Learning Salish is a deep personal experience for her and the other students, one they’re thrilled to share with their grandkids, who study reading, writing, math and all other subjects in both Salish and English at the Nkwusm school.
“When they leave (Nkwusm) they’ll have to go to public school, so we want them to be in touch with the language,” Hunter said. “They’ve got to live in two worlds. We want them to live in two worlds.”
Language is an important part of the identity that elders pass on to their children and grandchildren, Hunter explained, and now that part of the adult students’ identities is being restored.
“We’re learning our language again,” Hunter said. “We’re proud of who we are again.”
“When I hear Salish, it brings back memories. Sometimes I’ll get emotional and I’ll cry ... It’s a happy thing — it’s kind of like going back to where you belong,” Cote said.
