To Sheila.

Oh, can't, be, my, you know.

Hey, Chandu.

Welcome to my up will be, my, you know, hey, we choose only one of my uncle, which, plum I created.

Plum I. Yeah.

Okay.

Grandfather, thank you for the pleasure that you have given us.

Grandfather, thank you for the life that you have given us.

Dakota.

What you spent the the keys to the Dakota marriage I've been to in boarding school where we were not allowed to speak.

Was American system.

And we were punished for speaking our language due to that.

Boarding schools.

My parents would not speak language to us, but even though they didn't speak to us, we still kind of heard a few words here and there.

But I didn't know my language.

I am, part of it that I am Lakota, being raised by my grandparents, and learning our our ways, our history, which was children kept in our privacy of our homes and are now on the books.

And now we continue to urge our children without having to be afraid that we're going to be punished.

And it's been a long struggle and knowledge and we have government, put money into teaching it our ways to our children.

We were forbidden to do it without being punished.

And our children and running around speaking and singing those songs and all knowing who they are and of what could and age.

And that makes me feel proud to see a young, if they are, they know who they are in order to revive an endangered language.

The most efficient way to bring it back is to create more speakers and teaching children how to speak.

It is one of the most direct ways that one can do that.

Apart from learning it yourself.

Where you go, Play.

Oh, children, when they're young, they will retain everything that is talked to them and they will not forget or go.

A haka is weekend or go is week.

So we are on the according to Diana you hire she have a good weekend.

Prior to the pandemic when we were still teaching person, you would still hear some English.

A lot of the kids, would communicate with each other in English.

A lot of the time.

And because we have two languages in this school, Ojibwe in Dakota, a lot of the staff's common language will be English, unfortunately.

So, perhaps if we were in separate buildings or something, it would be easier to enforce immersion or target language only.

There is some English, but we have other rules surrounding that, such as, trying to keep it at a whisper and no English in the target language area.

Hallways.

And, whenever there's a visitor who who isn't a speaker of the language, they just try to stay in, you know, they try to be quiet and, and speak softly or not at all.

We've got to continuously.

Develop the new talent and the teachers that are gonna come after us myself.

You know, I'm not old, and I'm not like young men work.

So, you know, we have to, like, think well, who is coming next and start looking at those people and so on.

This person has the part.

Is that could make a great teacher are, you know, they could be great at making a curriculum or they could be great as a, community outreach, you know, and look at those people and start training them to be the next generation so that, when we get to retirement age, that we know we did a good job and we are leaving the language in good hands.

I want to be fluent, but not for me to say I want to be fluent for friends and family and relatives like future generations.

And so that's why I feel like even though I'm not quite as fluent or proficient as I want to be, I try to teach whenever I can because there are plenty of other people who don't have a starting basis, and I feel like I kind of have this almost like a responsibility.

And sometimes it's really heavy to have, but there's almost this responsibility of casting at least what, every little that I know.

Because someday it might not be there, you know?

So, for example, one of our elders, Danny C boy, he just passed away and he was a huge in the Dakota culture language world.

Yeah, he was huge.

And that's just like, heartbreaking.

You know?

But that's why I feel like for me, my goal is to learn as much as I can and pass it on.

We deserve sovereignty at every level, and education is a very big part of that.

And, the language is one of the biggest indicators of a sovereign nation.

So, it's important for not only us second language learners to understand more about the Dakota way of looking at the world, but also for us to be an independent nation and to decolonize ourselves.

There's a lot that goes into being a Dakota person, and it might not necessarily just be languages.

Our culture and lifeways and everything like that.

But the language is definitely, probably the center of it.

This is our language and it's our responsibility to keep it all.

And if we don't.

Nobody else is going.

To do it.