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About SAIVUS
Founded in 2008, SAIVUS ("save us") provides online course material for Native American languages currently spoken in the United States.

"Native Americans" are the aboriginal peoples of the Americas, otherwise known as "American Indians" or "First Nations." Legally, this term also applies to Alaskan Natives and Native Hawaiians, who have separate origins but share a similar history.

Over the next century over half of at least three hundred north Native American languages are expected to die. Language revitalization is a truly massive undertaking, but hopefully we can fulfill a small part of that need. One of the largest obstacles native languages face today is a lack of quality educational materials.

Many native peoples must resort to self-study to learn their own languages for a variety of reasons. Some work menial jobs and have little time and energy for classes. Since the 1950s, groups of American Indians have flocked to major cities looking for work i.e. "urban Indians" where their descendants are isolated from the main speaking body. Sometimes parents intentionally discourage their children from speaking indigenous languages to shelter them from prejudice or teasing. After all, for much of the 19th and 20th centuries American Indian children were forced to attend boarding schools where they were beaten for speaking a non-European language.

SAIVUS was established to provide comprehensive grammar tutorials, word lists, practice exercises and other materials vital to modern language health. Not only are these materials completely cost-free, they can also be printed out and distributed to people without internet access. If you want to learn French or Spanish, you can find websites that will teach you at the click of a button. We hope this can some day be the case with several Native American languages.

Our Name
SAIVUS pronounced like the phrase "save us," stands for Society to Advance Indigenous Vernaculars of the United States. Everyone who uses our online tutorials constitutes the "Society" part, and by "Advance" we basically mean "help to prosper." "Indigenous Vernacular" is the technical term for a language that is spoken by the original inhabitants of a colonized region; such as the United States.
Our Lessons
A few organizations create native language textbooks, software and in rare cases college level courses, but there is a paucity of free, quality language lessons on the web; despite the fact websites have numerous advantages over traditional distance language learning techniques:

1) They are free to view. Textbooks cost money to produce. SAIVUS offers quality tutorials for free and all of our tutorials are optionally printable so they may be distributed to others lacking internet access. This is cheaper and less wasteful than having books mass produced and marketed, as no books remain unsold.
 
2) They are easily accessible. Many textbooks on native languages are difficult to track down and are usually housed in specialty locations like American Indian craft shops. In fact, is unlikely you will find any at your local bookstore or public library. On the other hand, anyone with internet access can visit SAIVUS. Public libraries and other institutions offer free internet access to citizens lacking computers.
 
3) They can contain sound files and interactive elements. Books are sometimes accompanied by CDs or tapes, which are expensive and require one to own a CD or tape player. SAIVUS' sound files can be played instantaneously with the click of a button; you do not have to replay an entire track or fast-forward/rewind excessively. New software like Flash is currently helping us program interactive quizzes and games for helping students memorize and apply concepts.
 
4) They can be updated constantly. Books are updated infrequently since each new edition must be reprinted, and in fact many books have fallen out of print. SAIVUS' tutorials can be updated instantly and infinitely.

Our strategy is to first produce a pronunciation guide and/or writing system guide for a given language. These components of language can be studied in isolation from grammar, which is much more intensive. If all goes well, we then start writing a grammar guide for that language.

Since many readers do not have an educational background, we explain every term we use from 'noun' or 'verb' to 'nominalizer' and 'participle'. We do our best to break down complicated notions, relate grammatical concepts to English, and do justice to every school of thought on an issue. However, we strongly avoid "dumbing things down", viewing native languages from a Eurocentric framework, and harboring bias on controversial issues. We are confident everybody can know these languages like the back of their hand, once they are explained in the correct light.

Knowledge of American Indian languages for the tutorials comes primarily from two sources:
a) direct experience with native speakers or written discourse
b) academic research papers

Option a) is preferred, but unfortunately fieldwork is very expensive. In some cases we collaborate with existing research efforts, but are otherwise forced to rely on option b) only.

Where do print sources come from? Many people are under the impression that the selection of commercial books, newspapers and magazines in a bookstore or public library is the scope of man's knowledge on a topic, when it is really just a small percentage. Actually, the majority of works on Native American languages exists in the form of academic books, out of print sources, unpublished manuscripts, Ph.D. dissertations and Masters theses, peer-reviewed journal articles, and conference proceedings. The following flow-chart outlines how the research process works.

academiadiagram (314K)

There are several drawbacks to performing research using print sources alone. Most crucially, outdated sources can contain mistakes. For instance, it was once a common practice to solicit English translations of words and sentences from native informants, instead of working with authentic discourse, which has tainted some descriptions of pronunciation and grammar. These flaws can trickle down to our lessons.

However, in most cases these drawbacks are minimal to the point where creating some kind of resource is better than remaining inactive. Keep in mind that the information we provide is on the market in some form already; we're just making it easier to get. Our linguists do our best to sift out highly questionable claims and convert scientific data to laymen's terms. Note also that once a new study on a language is performed, we will update our lessons with their superior findings.

Our Policy

It is our policy never to publish language resources if the majority of the native group pertaining to that language is opposed. We recognize that a Native American language is the intellectual property of the native group that has historically spoken it.

SAIVUS takes precautions in order to insure that we publish language resources only if those materials will primarily benefit the native group pertaining to that language. Before language resources are published, we coordinate with cultural centers and top academic professionals in order to anticipate the prospective degree of positive or negative public response.

If it is predicted that the native group pertaining to a language would predominately oppose the creation of language resources, we will refrain from publishing them. Even if we have already published resources for a language, we will take those materials offline once it is confirmed their existence becomes detrimental to the native group pertaining to that language. In addition, we announce our prospective language projects several months in advance, giving individuals a chance to express their predictions and concerns.

Some organizations choose to restrict access of language learning materials to specific American Indian tribes. However, this approach is not always practical. Large tribes often have several reservations consisting of numerous communities of speakers, which in some cases leads to conflicting attitudes on their language as a whole. Furthermore, for a variety of historical reasons not every native person has a Bureau of Indian Affairs enrollment number. Some groups like Native Hawaiians are denied tribal status, and many tribes are denied state or federal recognition.