meadowlarkheart.org

This project grew out of a need to connect with the speech communities with whom I work. It also grew out of the trends and spirit of the greater Web 2.0 in facilitating distributed, collaborative content. However, it is by no means a total innovation just one beginning among many.

meadowlarkheart.org is an experimental online language project devoted to the Sahaptian languages of the southern Columbia Plateau region of western North America. This project supports community language revitalization and digital scholarship in the Nez Perce, Cayuse, and Sahaptin languages.

This project has been partially supported through two generous fellowships:

• 2005. Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) Fellowship
• 2007. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/ACLS Early Career Fellowship Program

Who Am I?

My name is Phillip Cash Cash and I am a Ph.D candidate in the Joint Program in Anthropology and Linguistics at the University of Arizona. I am also an enrolled Cayuse/Nez Perce tribal member from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (OR).

My traditional Cayuse/Nez Perce name is pí·tamyanon maqmáqs which translates as yellowhawk. I consider myself a younger speaker of Nu·mi·pu·tímt (the Nez Perce language) which basically means that my storehouse of language and experience in speaking is continually updating and expanding.