Preserving Native American Languages April 2013 | Page 11

Miami Tribe in Ohio

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Moreover, in the state of Ohio, Daryl Baldwin, the member of the Miami tribe of Oklahoma works to preserve, promote, and research Miami Nation history, culture, and language (Myaamia Project). He is the Director of the Myaamia Project at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio (Myaamia Project).

The Miami Language Reclamation in the Home: A Case Study, carried out by the Myaamia Center, reports on a successful case of reclamation in 2007, "Deemed “extinct” in the 1960s when the only speaker of the language passed away, the Miami language underwent a 30-year period of silence. However, working with 300 years of documentation, the Miami community has begun the long process of bringing the language back."

Tribal member Daryl Baldwin is a leader in this process; he began learning the language in the early 1990s and using it with his family. Daryl, his wife, and their first two children have since become conversationally proficient. Two more children were born in the late 1990s and are being raised with Miami as a native language (2).

The seal of the Miami tribe