英语单词大师：American Dialects

 More than half of the over one hundred native California tongues have disappeared.  Many others have only a few, aging speakers.  When this last fluent generation dies, languages spoken by Californians over centuries, will also die. At a recent gathering² of some 200 Native Americans struggling to maintain their dialects, Robert Geary remembered driving in his car, listening to a tape of his long-deceased great uncle speaking the native Elem Pomo language.

ROBERT GEARY: I was listening to this recording³ and I was so lost hearing my language that I was doing 80 [mph] and I didn't even know it.  I got a ticket, yeah, I got a ticket.

Robert decided⁴ he had to learn his ancestor's language - and immediately ran into a pervasive⁵ problem for California's Native Americans. ROBERT GEARY: There is only one speaker left, her name is Loretta Kelsey. With her also not having anyone to speak it to, the language is even getting lost with her.  (SOUND)At the shoreline of the Pomo reservation on Clear Lake, Loretta Kelsey parts some tule reeds, looks over the blue-green waters to where Mount Konocti reaches for the clouds, then turns toward Robert.  It's not a struggle for her to bring back memories of the lake of her childhood; it is a struggle to tell Robert about it, in Pomo.    LORETTA KELSEY: Amah ko set.  Kuchinwallit.  Mecha wee hah ket kay.  Help me out, Robert.

ROBERT GEARY: She was saying something about eating tules.

LORETTA KELSEY: Where we're at now is where I was raised.  We'd go down to the water, we'd eat the tules.

Robert and Loretta have spent the last five years recovering the language. Now they teach it to others in their tribe.  But it's been an agonizing⁶ process. Pomo was never written down, no dictionaries, no materials to teach the language - Robert and Loretta are inventing those as they go.

LORETTA KELSEY: Now we're just having to do it the way classrooms do it.

(SOUND: Teacher saying words in Pomo)The wind blows off the shore of clear lake as 20 native Americans from 7 to 70 gather along a row of picnic tables, watching Robert write on an old grade-school blackboard. ROBERT GEARY: Tichen, aweyah.  Eee.  Tzama, Tzama. Sixty-eight-year-old Elizabeth Jean spoke¹ Pomo as a child. She remembers her school days.

ELIZABETH JEAN: We spoke very poor English when I went to school. We needed to go to the bathroom and we didn't know how to say it in English.

Jean did learn English, and she lost her Pomo. But with only one remaining Elém Pomo speaker, who herself struggles with the language, it may be beyond recovery. Jocelyn Ahlers, an assistant professor of cultural linguistics⁸ at California State University in San Marcos, is here at the class. She's been studying the attempts to revive the Pomo language.   JOCELYN AHLERS: Most linquists would come to a situation like this and say, I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do, in terms of making this a vibrant⁹ speaking community again.  It's over. I'm sorry.

(SOUND)In today's class, students struggle to learn greetings and names of foods.  If the goal is to revive the language in daily life on this reservation, success may be far away, or impossible.  But Professor Ahlers thinks the common bond of learning the language may be enough. JOCELYN AHLERS: People tend to define linguistic⁷ community strictly¹⁰ as this place where everybody speaks the language all the time, and I think your language community could be the people who share a desire to learn your language with you, people who say hi to you or pray with you.

At dusk, the class winds down and the students gather in the ritual roundhouse to dance and pray.  ROBERT GEARY: The center of it is a pole that's sticking up.  It's kind of like our gateway¹¹ to God.

Robert says that even the limited Pomo now spoken on the reservation is of value, most of all, in prayers to the spirits.  ROBERT GEARY: It makes me feel that much more special to be able to talk to the creator in the language that he gave us.  That's irreplaceable.

Loretta stands at the shore, amid a tangled¹² mass of tule reeds. When she hears the others speaking Pomo, she feels both ancient burden, and new possibility.

LORETTA KELSEY: It seems like I haven't carried it on the way I should have.  Which was wrong.  Because it's not really dying. I refuse to say dying.

(MUSIC)For VOA News Now, from the Pomo Reservation at Clear Lake, California, this is Lonny Shavelson.

1 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

2 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

3 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

4 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

5 pervasive   

adj.普遍的；遍布的，(到处)弥漫的；渗透性的

参考例句：

• It is the most pervasive compound on earth.它是地球上最普遍的化合物。
• The adverse health effects of car exhaust are pervasive and difficult to measure.汽车尾气对人类健康所构成的有害影响是普遍的，并且难以估算。

6 agonizing   

adj.痛苦难忍的；使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦；折磨(agonize的ing形式)

参考例句：

• I spent days agonizing over whether to take the job or not. 我用了好些天苦苦思考是否接受这个工作。
• his father's agonizing death 他父亲极度痛苦的死

7 linguistic   

adj.语言的，语言学的

参考例句：

• She is pursuing her linguistic researches.她在从事语言学的研究。
• The ability to write is a supreme test of linguistic competence.写作能力是对语言能力的最高形式的测试。

8 linguistics   

n.语言学

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• Linguistics is a scientific study of the property of language.语言学是指对语言的性质所作的系统研究。

9 vibrant   

adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的

参考例句：

• He always uses vibrant colours in his paintings. 他在画中总是使用鲜明的色彩。
• She gave a vibrant performance in the leading role in the school play.她在学校表演中生气盎然地扮演了主角。

10 strictly   

adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地

参考例句：

• His doctor is dieting him strictly.他的医生严格规定他的饮食。
• The guests were seated strictly in order of precedence.客人严格按照地位高低就座。

11 gateway   

n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法

参考例句：

• Hard work is the gateway to success.努力工作是通往成功之路。
• A man collected tolls at the gateway.一个人在大门口收通行费。

12 tangled   

adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Your hair's so tangled that I can't comb it. 你的头发太乱了，我梳不动。
• A movement caught his eye in the tangled undergrowth. 乱灌木丛里的晃动引起了他的注意。