Learning More was a Challenge

I had all these Ichishkín words, phrases, and commands (?) in my head from way back, some were more common than others as some are still used and said throughout the community, naturally. 

I wanted to learn Ichishkín every day. I would look for words, read words, say words, hear words, but I couldn’t really put them into sentences without remembering it in a phrase. I had been a visual learner since way back, I knew that, so I would write the language however I heard it and did my best to spell it how it sounded.

If elders were speaking, I could pick out words if they so happened to use those words, but I was pretty much wondering off in space sometimes whenever I would hear a long speech in Ichishkín. Most times, I didn’t have a clue. But I appreciated hearing the language every day.

I’m not sure we were learning as fast as some elders would’ve liked though because sometimes we’d get fun-poked at us to get a giggle out of themselves, but it was alright, we just liked seeing our teachers and elders smile. We still gave it heck, but it was obvious we needed to try harder or something.

‘Maybe it wasn’t for me,’ I’d doubt myself. ’Maybe there’s just too much English around’ all mad.

Later, I was introduced to writing in Warm Springs Ichishkín; a whole writing system that probably took months, seasons, or years to create with elders before I was ever born. The elders must’ve seen or felt something was coming or changing even then. 

A writing system was developed in that time period.

Seeing the Ichishkín words, I sort of remembered their spelling, and therefore, what a word looked like, and maybe an idea of what it sounded like. I couldn’t use them just yet though, so I just asked about their meanings and how to use them. Sometimes I understood, other times I didn’t. I was surely trying.

Our teachers, Suzie and Arlita, could write in Ichishkín really well. Watching them enticed me to learn.

Reading even old texts, some of them really long, confusing, complex, I was learning the ‘orthography’.

I could tell that not all elders agreed with writing or recording the language, elders from all walks of the region. I was just a student provided recordings and writings for homework so that our teachers can get home to their families too after class.

A little homework doesn’t hurt if we’re tasked with having to remember, its right in there with repetition. 

When classes were over, I’d continue with the text. 

I was tasking myself with having to learn how to read and write and pronounce our language in the written form as well as the spoken form. Hearing and seeing the language both helped me. 

I would go to class, hear the language, try the language, write the language, not write the language, remember the language, interact with the language, think about the language, look at the language, and then speak the language just to sometimes forget the language or phrase.

I wasn’t quite sure where I was going but it was fun, enlightening, and I was getting somewhere.

Maan? (Where to?)