The Choctaw Language Preserves Tribe’s Heritage

Imagine speaking English your entire life and being forbidden from speaking it in public outside of your own home. Hard to imagine, isn’t it? Unfortunately, that was life for our Choctaw ancestors after the trail of tears when attending American schools on the reservation.

For years our ancestors had to hide the very thing that made them who they were. Our Choctaw heritage was not allowed to be freely expressed. Our proud Choctaw history was never allowed to be discussed. Our language, our heritage and our culture were all censored by a society that promoted one way of learning, expressing and living in the United States.

Our ancestors fought back to regain our Choctaw way of life, our self-empowerment, our sovereignty and our Chahta language. Once again, as a powerful sovereign nation, we were allowed to express ourselves in the way we see fit and to teach our young ones the Chahta heritage and promote our language to future generations.

It is important that we as Chahtas remember who we are, where we came from and where we are going. Without a firm foothold in the past, we will never get to the promises of our future as a strong, sovereign tribe of Chahta people. Our numbers are growing, our heritage is intact, and we are attracting more and more young Chahta to our language and culture services here at the Choctaw Nation. We need to ask ourselves what we can do to ensure that the Choctaw Nation remains a strong tribe that can take care of its people and neighbors well into the future.

To remain a strong, self-empowered, sovereign nation the answer can be as simple as going to the Choctaw Nation website to take a language course or apply to the Chahta Anumpa Aiikhvna (School of Choctaw Language). The Choctaw Nation language department has courses for every skill level, and we have extremely knowledgeable instructors who can guide you in the language of our people.

The Choctaw Nation needs you! I would love to see all our Choctaw language classes at full capacity and we graduate language students in large numbers every year who go on to become teachers and ambassadors for the Choctaw language. We, as Chahta, should challenge ourselves to do this for our tribe and to ensure that the Choctaw Nation grows in knowledge and in first-language speakers, so we remain members of a strong, sovereign tribe.

Choctaw Associate programs, such as, You Had Me at Halito, helps promote the Chahta language at all tribe properties and I encourage each of you to use Yakoke (thank you), Halito (hello) and Chi Pisa La Chike (until we meet again, see you later) in your everyday conversations. My hope is that the Chahta language thrives along with all Chahta everywhere and you take great pride in your Chahta heritage.

Afterall our Choctaw Code Talkers helped win two wars with our Choctaw language – that is how important our ancestral language is to history. The best way we can honor all of those who have come before us is to learn our language, heritage and history that they fought so hard to preserve.

Yakoke and God Bless!