There are a lot of people doing good work in language education; and you can find many talented language learners and polyglots. There are countless resources to learn a language out there, whether immersion programs, classes, software, CD sets, podcasts, online language mentoring forums, and on and on. We respect and value all these… Read more »

24 minutes and 33 seconds. [direct download here] This is the first podcast concerning our weekly WAYK Irish Language Night, with fluent speaker and Marylhurst University instructor Bob Burke. WAYK players have come together to “hunt” Bob’s Irish language, and build a roadmap to fluency in Irish. For whatever reason, in the USA we call… Read more »

If you don’t know yet, as a WAYK player you have a couple resources for connecting up with the community of  language play out there. We have a WAYK google group, with a few months of discussion by experienced players and WAYK staff. Recently, Dave, one of our distant WAYK players, set up a google… Read more »

So, owing to our recent work with helping revitalize Ecclesastical Latin at Wyoming Catholic College, Evan and I finally decided to put  pen to paper and make a written USC road-map from zero to “Getting to the Party”. It’s been an “oral document” (as anthropologists like to say) up till now. We’ve noticed that even… Read more »

WAYK has found play in some unusual corners of the linguistic internet. For a language game that was developed to maintain an unbroken lineage of conversational life, it’s especially odd that players would find it useful for languages that have never been spoken before. These languages are called “conlangs”, short for “constructed languages”. In this… Read more »

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/15491950] In this video you’ll see footage of the September 2010 Latin WAYK Weekend Workshop at Wyoming Catholic College in Lander, WY. Towards the end of the weekend at a typical WAYK workshop, the steadily improving language hunters participate in the “Tea with Grandma” scenario, where attendees hunt language from fluent elders with no… Read more »

Well, Evan Gardner and I (Willem Larsen) both just returned from Lander, WY, where we’ve been helping the good people of Wyoming Catholic College revitalize Latin. Lander has several noteworthy aspects to it – it’s a lovely town to have a steak dinner in, and it’s also the location of the NOLS headquarters (National Outdoor… Read more »

[vimeo 14780588] In this video Iliodor Philemonof, elder speaker of Unangam Tunuu (Aleut), provides the language for some traditional items and art of the Unangax people. This video was filmed during the 2010 “Where Are Your Keys?” Unangax Language Camp at the NW Indian College, on the Lummi Reservation, in Bellingham, WA.

[vimeo 14757931] We feel strongly that we’re doing work no one else is doing – work that teaches communities a particular kind of real-world, practical, all-ages, all-weather skills at learning and teaching language in any environment. “Tea with Grandma” is a prime example of this – at every workshop we do, we run this scenario… Read more »

[vimeo 14724207] This is a video of “the Walk” Unangam Tunuu curriculum, generated by and for the campers at the 2010 WAYK Unangax Language Camp. Note that there are no translations or subtitling, as this is meant as a refresher for attendees.

[vimeo 14723748] This video contains the Unangam Tunuu Universal Speed Curriculum, and is a refresher for attendees of the 2010 Unangax Language Camp at the NW Indian College. It contains no subtitles or translations, and is meant to serve as a guide for improving players’ accent and pronunciation. If you’d like to see Unangam Tunuu… Read more »

[vimeo 14722295] I really think we out-did ourselves this time – Evan and I finally may have brainstormed a format in which you can easily learn the core WAYK game via internet video. This video covers all the techniques needed to play a two to four person game. For larger groups, check out our supporting… Read more »

In partnership with Becky Bendixen, of NW Unangax Culture, the NW Indian College on the Lummi Reservation in Bellingham, WA, and the fluent knowledge of Iliodor Philemonof, Unangax Pribilof dialect speaker, we had 7 days of language revitalization play and learning. The age span was quite broad, from children age 9 or 10 to folks… Read more »

This September 23, 24, and 25, Evan Gardner and Willem Larsen will be holding a WAYK workshop at Wyoming Catholic College in Lander, Wyoming. Believe it or not, Latin still has a living tradition of daily conversational vitality, as carried through the centuries in the church and monasteries. Latin is the official language of the… Read more »

Here’s a bit of long-overdue news – we promised a group photo to the attendees of Vancouver, B.C.’s June WAYK conference hosted by Squamish Nation language instructor Dustin Rivers. Click on the picture to download a large-sized version of the image. Thanks for playing everyone!

Join us in Seattle for our next WAYK workshop. Registration costs only $125 – we won’t be pricing WAYK workshops this affordably for too much longer! Register now, and we look forward to seeing you there.

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As time goes on, techniques are constantly improved or innovated. We’ve recently made a few short videos (below you’ll see the third, click here for the first and second videos) that show the current state of an array of fundamental WAYK techniques as of August 2010. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Ww51iTRpk&hl=en_US&fs=1]