The Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana will be breathing new life into its language with the help of modern technology. The revival is being made possible with Rosetta Stone software.

Kimberly Waldon, the tribe’s cultural director, said the community had been trying to bring back the language for about 13 years, more than 50 years after the last Chitimacha speaker in the community died. To help revitalize the language, the Cultural Department had been using wax cylinder recordings and field notes made more than 65 years ago by a linguist. But, that was not effective enough, and Waldon says it was also too academic for some.

She said the tribe looked to the trademarked software program to enhance what the community already had, “We wanted to use Rosetta Stone to supplement what we had already been doing since 1997 with trying to bring back our language, which was unpsoken since 1940. And we really looked to Rosetta Stone to have that technologic component that is interesting for our young people and also because the program is immersion based.”

The software for the program was completed in January, after a little more than three years. Marion Bittinger, manager of the Rosetta Stone Endangered Language Program, said creating the software wasn’t easy. “It was very challenging. It was inspirational. It was fascinating. It involved a lot of other challenges we had never encountered before.”

Bittinger said the Chitimacha software is the fourth project for Rosetta Stone’s Endangered Language Program. Software has been prepared for the Mohawks of Kahnawake in Quebec, Canada, the coastal dialect of Inupiaq in Alaska, Inuttitut in Labrador, Canada; and software for North Slope Inupiaq and Navajo is currently in the development stage.

The Chitimacha Tribe applied to the company’s Endangered Languages Program for a corporate grant to develop software for the community. But, Bittinger said under company policy, the amount of the grant cannot be disclosed.

Software created through the Rosetta Stone Endangered Language Program is the intellectual property of the sponsoring nations. “Rosetta Stone does not sell the software when the software is completed,” Bittinger said. “It’s sold and distributed only by those Native groups that have sponsored its development.”

She said it was a good thing the tribe hired a linguist several years before going to Rosetta Stone because he had compiled a lot of data from the wax cylinders left behind from another linguist.

“It’s tough to create software for the Endangered Language Program anytime with few speakers. It was especially difficult to create a program for the Chitimacha Tribe since the language had not been fluently spoken in more than half a century.”

It took quite a number of people – in the community and at the company – to create the software for Chitimacha. “I think the team members from the Chitimacha Tribe, maybe against their will, became linguists,” Bittinger joked.

She said team members worked hard to study language patterns to create new words and small phrases to fill in the gaps in the language.

Rosetta Stone enables users to learn the language in an immersive atmosphere rather than using translations and memory drills. The computer software works by using constant interaction so the learner can hear, write and pronounce the words and phrases, then match them to coordinating pictures. Learners are also prompted to complete phrases aloud as well as refine pronunciation.

It has not been quite one month since the tribe began to roll out the program at its community school and the sounds of the language have already begun to bounce off the walls. Cheery “Qaxtiai’s” are heard from student and teachers alike, greeting each “Hello” in Chitimacha. Qaxtiai is pronounced aush-tee-ee. The “q” is silent and the “x” makes a “shh” sound.

Children in the school spend about 30 minutes a day working with the software to learn the language. Waldon said teachers have begun incorporating greetings, words and short phrases into everyday learning.

This is something Waldon has never been able to enjoy while she grew up. She was envious of other Native people who spoke their language, and she’s excited to see and hear the language in the community.

Waldon said revitalizing the language in the community is not only close to her heart, but the heart of the community. “The community is excited, the kids are excited. It says a lot for our identity, if you look at our language, it really fits us, our area. Our basketry art has always continued, so our basket makers are excited to have all of the basketry knowledge.”