WAYK Podcast, Episode 5: Revitalizing Chinuk Wawa, Part 2

Technique “Craig’s List”: Want…

WAYK Podcast, Episode 5: Revitalizing Chinuk Wawa, Part 2. 32 minutes and 18 seconds.

[direct download]

[Note: Chinuk Wawa is a very endangered indigenous language native to the Pacific Northwest. Please keep in mind that we make no attempt to teach anyone to speak Chinuk Wawa by podcasting about our Chinuk nights, and during the podcast we limit our discussions to improving the use of WAYK techniques and gameplay. You won’t be able to learn Chinuk by listening to these podcasts alone. The WAYK instructors’ goal is to give tribal members the tools to revitalize their own language.]

At the WAYK immersion house, we have a weekly Chinuk Wawa potluck and conversation night, Wednesdays from 4pm to 8pm. Much like with the Squamish conversation night at Dustin Rivers’ house, speakers and WAYK players are invited to drop in and play whenever, and however long, they wish. This creates a festive, community atmosphere that makes the language play extra fun and relaxed.

By podcasting the debriefs and discussions about WAYK Chinuk Wawa potluck nights, we hope to give WAYK players insight on how we apply the game to spoken languages, in this case specifically to the case of revitalizing a highly endangered language. Issues that we discuss in this podcast:

1. Technique “Set-up”: Justin explains his “set-up” for playing “What’s That?”

2. Evan and Willem disagree. It happens.

• At issue: how and when do we apply technique “bite-sized pieces“?
• Peter chimes in, able to relate how it has felt to experience various techniques as a new speaker, and how that has changed over time.
• We agree that we need to experiment with the different “set-ups” of techniques “bite-sized pieces” and “riddle-me-this“, and see what happens.