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["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

U.C. Berkeley has a set of tapes (maybe 15 or 20) that were recorded by the
*supposed* last of the speakers.  Uncle Ernie didn't die until about 2000
and he still spoke the language.  There were several others but they weren't
willing to sit down with anyone that vaguely smelled of government.  They
had been to the boarding schools and had the stuffing knocked out of them
for speaking the language.

Our library in Humboldt County has a set of the tapes.  HSU might have a
set.  My cousin has been speaking to someone who might have a set of the
tapes.  If you are really interested, I can ask her if she might be able to
get a copy of the Wiyot tapes.

The Yurok (the Wiyot and Yurok were next door neighbors, inter-married a lot
and had no trouble conversing even though the languages aren't identical.
Think Spanish, Italian, Portugese) also speak an Algic based language.  If I
remember correctly, we are most closely related linguistically to the Cree
and Ojibway.

The Yurok still has native speakers, or did when I was still living there
and history tapes were being made.

You might try linginfo AT berkeley.edu and ask them if they still have the
Wiyot tapes.  I know they do have a Yurok language project going on.

Here's a link to the Yurok Tribe, they have had a language renewal going on 
and they might help you  http://www.yuroktribe.org/contactus.html

As to the Osage, my connection goes back to Alcatraz and then ongoing
radical stuff from days of AIM and so forth and so on.  I still have boxes
and boxes of stuff on what happened to 4 Corners, the Osage, Alaskan natives
(the AIDS tainted Hep B vaccine trials) and so forth and so on.

As to the Wiyot, my Grandfather was the historian for our "family" and his
"mothers" were "medicine" for the tribe.  I am in the process of putting it
all together in a book.  I was fortunate in that I knew and spoke to uncles,
cousins and others that were born before the arrival of the white man here,
who survived the massacre and who remember living in the area and never
seeing a white man until they were in their 20s.  My aunts and uncles,
mostly, survived the boarding schools.  So it is all first hand information
and needs to all be written down before it all disappears.

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com>
> OK. Officially fascinated here.  Wiyot and Osage??
>
> Which culture do you have contacts with, if it isn't an impertenent
> question?
>
> I've got some materials on the Osage Language, which is of the Lakota
> group
> (I know it's 'officially' called the Siouan Group, but I can't imagine
> abiding
> that ethnic slur).  It is more far afield from the bulk of Lakota
> languages,
> including Catawba that only the lunatic fringe linguist surely sees the
> connection.  But I only have a small sampling so that is probably unfair.
>
> But I've long wanted to get my hands on some Wiyot material.  I understand
> that last speaker died in 1962.  My fascination is to look into an
> Algonquin
> language two thousand miles away from the Algonquin languages I've looked
> into.
> So far I've beena able to unearth nada!
>
> Any help there?
>
> James   </HTML>
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