[0:12]In the United States more than 130 Native American languages are endangered. Several are on the verge of extinction with only a handful of fluent speakers remaining.
[0:30]A long time ago there were no people, only animals.
[0:43]Eagle our leader said to the animals we must make people.
[0:53]All the animals wanted people to have hands like theirs.
[1:05]My name is Marie Wilcox. My grandmother delivered me Thanksgiving Day on November 24th, 1933. We only had a little one room house. Grandpa and Grandma always spoke our language Wukchumni. I just didn't hear my grandma speak too much English.
[1:44]Mom is our last one speaker now, since my dad's uncle Felix Aicho passed away.
[1:55]When I was growing up, I spoke English. I don't remember hearing mom speaking the Wukchumni language.
[2:24]I left my Indian language behind when my grandma died. I didn't speak the language anymore until my sisters started to teach the kids. Hearing the girls try to speak their language again, made me want to learn again. I was very surprised. She could remember all that from her age, young age that her grandmother had left her. She just started writing down her words on envelopes and papers, you know? And so she'd sit up night after night, typing on the computer, which she was never a computer person. I'm just a picker. I won at a time. And I was slow. Just peg, peg, peg. So when I had all these words together, I thought it would be a good idea to try to make a dictionary. I didn't say that I wanted to save it for anybody else to learn. I just wanted to get it together. Every morning I, you know, have my coffee and I have a sandwich or make me oatmeal or whatever. And then I'd get right on that.
[3:59]It took many years for her to do this dictionary. She loved doing it. She would work many hours late at night and get up and work on it during the day. And the X sound. Oh, that's the hardest one for everybody. It's. I've been working with mom on this dictionary for all the years and I've helped her a lot. The A right here. Oh, there. Oh my gosh. Anyway, the TR sound and the CH sound sounds a little bit alike to me, but I know I'm getting there. I feel it. That's very frustrating because she she wanted to make sure I knew how to say the words right. So if I would say something and she can't hear that well, that's not how I said it, you know, I would kind of get scolded. We got to go through this whole thing again because I didn't like the sentences, they didn't make sense to me. Oh, it just seemed like it would take forever. I am very surprised that we've gotten as far as we have. Don't your jacket? Yeah. Coyote and Lizard wanted people to have hands like theirs. Eagle said, Coyote and Lizard will run a race. Run to the top of the mountain, and whoever puts their hands on top is the winner.
[5:50]Thank you. You're welcome. Are you ready? Yes.
[6:01]Lake, ocean, sea.
[6:09]Leaf. Me and my grandson are trying to record our dictionary from A to Z. The whole dictionary took me about seven years. Language, talk, speak.
[6:39]See, I'm concerned about my language and who wants to keep it alive? Just a few. No one seems to want to learn. It's sad. It just seems weird that I am the last one. I don't know, it just. It'll just be gone when they say, maybe, I don't know. It might go on and on. Put the rice in there. Actually get the... Colander? Yes, the colander.
[7:26]All of it? Maybe. More. That's good.
[7:36]I think she has a little confidence in me. And but I know she has more confidence in Donovan because the way he's really connecting with her and and and learning the language so fast, because I've been working on it all these years, you know, and I haven't been able to speak with her like he does. What now? You need a lid like this for that. A little one. My real life feel is to archive it all. Make sure that it gets documented and put somewhere to where 100 years from now our families will be able to access and to be able to speak.
[8:23]And it will keep going with me and Donovan, I know. Lizard was the first one to put his hands on the big rock and jumped up and down, laughing and saying ha ha ha, I won. I won the race. Now people will have hands like mine.
