Annotated Field Documentation of Northern Cheyenne Sacred Language [ISO 639 chy]

神圣语言是许多土著语言的专门组成部分，在成人之间传递，并在哲学话语，祈祷和仪式的背景下使用。随着土著语言的衰落，许多北美部落的神圣语言不再被使用，也从未被记录在案。北夏安族的神圣语言仍然很重要，使用这种语言的人越来越少，但没有记录在案。今天，语言迅速流失的现实和灾难性的社会后果压倒了这些担忧，北夏安族的神圣语言使用者社区渴望记录这种语言的特殊使用。在一个为期一年的试点项目中，Karyl Eaglefeathers博士（纽约州立大学帝国学院）将利用美国国家科学基金会的支持，开始在仪式背景下录制神圣语言的音频和视频。这是一次难得的实地考察机会，与一群精通礼仪的精英们充分合作。这个人数不多但很杰出的演讲团体大约有20人，他们在成年后一直由他们的礼仪长者指导，而这些长者又从他们的礼仪导师那里学习。这些仪式中蕴含的知识和独特语言形式的潜力使这种演讲类型引起了研究这种文化和语言的学生的极大兴趣。流利的夏安语是学习这门神圣语言的平台，事实上，所有日常夏安语的流利使用者都在50岁以上，这意味着这种垂死的语言很可能在一代人的时间内消失。音频和视频记录以及附带的现场笔记将被存放在印第安纳大学传统音乐档案馆，在那里，除了大约10%的收藏之外，所有这些最敏感的文化信息都将用于教育用途。

Sacred language is a specialized component of many indigenous languages, transferred from adult to adult and used within the context of philosophical discourse, prayer, and ceremony. With the decline of Native languages, many North American tribes' sacred language is no longer in use and has never been documented. The Northern Cheyenne sacred language is still vital and used by a shrinking number of fluent speakers, but it has not been documented. Today, the reality of rapid language loss with perceived calamitous social ramifications overrides these concerns and the Northern Cheyenne sacred language speaker community is eager to document this specialized use of the language. In a pilot, one-year project, Dr. Karyl Eaglefeathers (SUNY Empire State College) will use the support of the National Science Foundation to begin audio and video documentation of sacred language in the context of ceremonies.This is a rare opportunity for fieldwork in full collaboration with an elite group of fluent ceremonial men and women. This small but prominent speaker community, numbering about 20, has been instructed throughout their adult lifetimes by their ceremonial elders who, in turn, learned from their ceremonial instructors. Both the knowledge embedded in those ceremonies and the potential for distinctive linguistic forms make this speech genre of great interest to students of the culture and the language. Fluency in Cheyenne is the platform for learning the sacred language, and the fact that all fluent speakers of the everyday Cheyenne language are above the age of fifty means that this moribund language will likely be gone in a generation. The audio and video recordings with accompanying field notes will be deposited in the Archives of Traditional Music, Indiana University, where all but about 10% of the collection, the most sensitive cultural information, will be available for educational use.