Name: Adeline Fox
Tribal Affiliation: Northern Cheyenne
Interview No.: NC025AF060904
Topic: Reservation Language; Gender Language
Language: English
Time Code In: 00:23:18:22
Time Code Out: 00:26:25:27
Tape 1 of 2 - Clone
Q: “What do you do with like the older kids?”
A: “The older ones we learn colors, like the eighth graders I have
just eighth grade and middle school. And numbers and we learn the
Cheyenne alphabet and the Cheyenne sounds and they learn to especially
the Cheyenne songs they learn to sound out each alphabet like ah eh you
know e a h k, glottal m n o p s h t v x you know. Any way they, they
learn to sound them each sound of the letter. Once they learn to sound
it then they’re they able to say the words in Cheyenne and I have
listing of you know they kind of basically just read kind of basic
reading on the Cheyenne alphabet and sounds. So once they learn that
then we start doing phrases then we start doing dialoging,
conversation, like one would speak, would ask a question to the other
one and the other one would respond so they had they’re partners all
the time, they go back and forth in talking Cheyenne, dialoging with
each other like [ ] Cheyenne phrase for how are you feeling? And the
other would say [ ] Cheyenne phrase for I feel good. [ ] Cheyenne
phrase for where are you from? [ ] Cheyenne phrase for I’m from….
Because I have districts in Cheyenne on the wall and that they identify
where which district they’re from like Ashland, Lame Deer, [ ] a
district meaning Busby, you know they say it in Cheyenne where they’re
from and then they go back and forth. One asks questions and then they
go vice versa again, the other one will ask questions on the same
questions and they go back and forth that way. So my each, my each day
my classroom time I have them work with partners. So they select their
partners, every week they come in they have their partners and then
they go by groups that the group team one, team two group. We have two
groups going on. Then at the end of the week I have to have testing
with them because they get grades, scoring so I have to test them at
the end of the week. So my testing is mostly when they have
conversation with each other in Cheyenne. They talk to each other in
Cheyenne and I sit there and listen to them you know they, they, they
either ask questions about the weather or they ask questions about how
are you in Cheyenne and they go back and forth that way. And then I
have interest questions, different things you know like [ ] Cheyenne
phrase for what are you eating? And the other one would say [ ]
Cheyenne phrase for I’m eating bread or [ ] Cheyenne phrase for I’m
eating meat. They just go back and forth like that, you know I’m
eating bread, I’m eating dried meat or I’m eating [ ] Cheyenne word
for fry bread or you know they just go back and forth like that with
each other all the time. So it’s always just a dialoging constantly
every day with the 8th graders and with the high school.”