Documentation of Northern Cheyenne Sacred Language

该奖项是根据2009年《美国复苏和再投资法》(公法第111-5号)资助的。目前的奖项(国家科学基金第0854299号)建立在先前的一个试点项目(国家科学基金第0756035号)的基础上，该试点项目为私人投资机构提供了密集的语言培训，并允许拍摄传统的太阳舞仪式和录制伴随而来的夏延族人的神圣语言。根据目前的奖项，这种语言将被转录和分析，以确定神圣语言的特殊特征，以及它与日常夏延语的不同之处。有一些在过去115年中制作的圣歌的田野录音，将对它们进行检查，以确定在这些歌曲中表达的神圣语言的持久性和变化。神圣语言是许多土著语言的专门组成部分，从成年人转移到成年人，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使用，也从未被记录在案。夏延族北部的神圣语言仍然至关重要，流利的说话者人数越来越少，但还没有文献记载。这是一个难得的机会，可以与一群精通仪式的男男女女充分合作进行田野工作。这个规模不大但地位显赫的演讲者群体约有20人，他们在成年后一直受到礼仪长老的指导，而长老又向他们的礼仪导师学习。他们抛开了长期存在的不信任，这是通过多年的历史斗争形成的，以便充分记录这种神圣的语言，这对保护夏延文化是如此关键。流利的夏延语是学习神圣语言的平台，所有说流利夏延语的人都在50岁以上，这意味着这种垂死的语言可能会在一代人之后消失。现场录音和录像连同现场笔记将存放在印第安纳大学传统音乐档案馆，其中约10%的藏品将用于教育用途，这是最敏感的文化信息。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).The present award (NSF #0854299) builds on an earlier pilot project (NSF #0756035) which provided intensive linguistic training for the PIs and allowed for the filming of the traditional sun dance ceremonies and the recording of the accompanying sacred language of the Northern Cheyenne. Under the current award, the language will be transcribed and analyzed to determine special features of the sacred language and how it differs from the everyday Cheyenne language. There are a few field recordings of sacred songs that have been made over the last 115 years and they will be examined to determine persistence and change in the sacred language that is expressed in these songs.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 in use by a shrinking number of fluent speakers, but it has not been documented. 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. They have put aside long-held mistrust, forged through years of historic struggles, in order to fully document this sacred language which is so crucial to the preservation of Cheyenne culture. 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 field 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.