Yumma Foka

About

Chokma! I'm Nashoba, of the house Insaktalhafa, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, and descendant of Colbert Ashalatubbi Burris. I am a (soon to be) university graduate with a focus on Native history and culture, as well as a person with ADHD and Dyscalculia. I have wanted to learn Chickasaw for a long time, but often been stymied by time, access, and energy. The recent push by the Nation to create more language programs and outreach has been a huge help, and is how I'm able to even make this page and be as versed in Chickasaw as I am! But even now, I struggle to find a program that works with my brainstyle.

I feel strongly about things being free and accessible - both accessible to people of all different brainstyles, neurodivergencies, and disabilities, as well as accessible to not only enrolled members of the Nation but also un-enrolled people. There are many Chickasaw people who are unable to enroll and access tribal services or information because they were adopted or because they are the descendants of Chickasaw Freedmen (AKA, descendants of slaves owned by the Chickasaw people). I want to use my privilege as an enrolled member to share our culture with these people too.

Even for enrolled members with money and time, accessing Chickasaw language education past the beginning stage can be difficult unless you live in Oklahoma or in Chickasaw territory. There are in-person classes and programs, but they all are within Oklahoma. I have now moved and have to take my Chickasaw education to be entirely online, but even before I moved I struggled to find time between classes and work to be able to drive so far for classes, much less pay for and regularly attend a full term of language classes. There needed to be more Chickasaw resources that were available fully online, and that gave more than basic vocabulary.

This site is a combining of these passions. I will be writing lesson plans following the textbook style I am most familiar with, because that is what I have learned to work with. In particular with a focus on using tables, charts, and graphics in the presentation of information, as well as having each section be accessible at any time. I have the Rosetta Stone, but have struggled to keep up with it because of the way you cannot view all the vocabulary or skip around to access different pages without losing your progress.

Creating this site itself has been an education in the language! I cannot write lessons for things I don't understand, so I am learning more as I write out each section. As of now, there is one one section up, but I have material for much more! However, I need to learn more about the grammar, and so things may take a little while because it is on hold until I can purchase books and study them to learn more about Chickasaw language grammar.

This is a project I create fully in my own free time as a labor of love, so all support is appreciated! At the bottom of this page, you'll find different ways you can support me and this project. Chokma'shki!

History of Chikashshanompa'

The Chickasaw language (Chikashshanompa') is the language of the Chickasaw people, and part of the Muskogean language family. Chickasaw along with Choctaw (Chahta) make up the Western branch of the Muskogean language family. There are different ways the Muskogean language family tree is divided, but no matter the classification system used the other Muskogean languages are Apalachee, Alabama, Houma, Koasati, Mikasuki, & Mvskoke.

Chikashshanompa' is an endangered language. The genocide of Native Americans by both the original colonists (from Britain, France, Spain, and other imperial countries) and later the formal United States has left many Native languages endangered. Language loss began when colonists refused to learn Native languages and would only make treaties or deals with them if they would speak the colonists language, and continued on in ways too numerous to review here.

The forced removal of Chickasaw people in 1837 to Indian Territory (modern day Oklahoma) lead to the deaths of many of our people, especially elders. As well, until 1856 we lived in Choctaw territory under the Choctaw government. Removal era was followed by reservation era, and then by allotment and assimilation era. Allotments were designed to break up Native family units and community in order to assist with assimilation, which was also pushed in many other ways - most notoriously, through residential schools.

The Chickasaw Nation itself founded and ran a few residential schools as they wanted to give Chickasaw children a formal education. But even these prioritized assimilationist skills of English fluency and literacy and discouraged or even banned the speaking of Chikashshanompa'. Many Native people would refuse to teach their children Chikashshanompa' because they were ashamed of it, felt it would make things harder for their children, or they wanted to separate themselves from the non-English speaking Chickasaw. The Chickasaw Nation has, since the days of colonial trading posts, often prioritized English-speaking citizens because they made for the best outcomes in trade and treaty-making. This attitude carried into the residential schools, where a smooth interaction and outcome with White and English society was prioritized.

Cultural knowledge of language and tradition was not seen as needing to be preserved the way it is now - in part, because the Chickasaw people knew that no matter what practices they did or what language they spoke, they were still Chickasaw. All cultures shift and change over time and in interaction with others, and every day people make the decisions they believe to be best for them and their children. Even now, preservation does not seem the right word for the uplifting and re-entrance of Native tradition into modern day. The Chickasaw Nation's language program is titled the Chickasaw Language Revitalization Program for a reason. The language should not being preserved on a shelf as a museum exhibit. We are breathing new life into it by bringing in new speakers, adding new words, and cultivating the living language.

Credits and Sources

This project is a synthesis of many different Chickasaw resources, all of which are useful in their own right. All of these will have been mentioned in the Resources section.
Consider this is my annotated bibliography.

Language

A Concise Chickasaw Dictionary and the online project of A Chickasaw Dictionary have been invaluable resources for me as I started using Chickasaw more in my daily life. Practicing vocabulary by naming the things around me in Chickasaw (my wifi network and password, file names, naming my poems, and more) seemed trivial at first, but has helped me retain vocabulary and a constant awareness of the language and my interest in it. I have used these two resources, particularly the online dictionary, constantly throughout the process of making this site.

Another resource I have consulted consistently while making this site is the Chickasaw Language Basics website (or as I call it in my head, the anompa web app). It truly has many of the basics, and so large portions of this site (in particular in Kashapa Chaffa and Apisali anowa Asilha) are from the Chickasaw Language Basics site.

I was lucky enough to get a copy of the newer Chickasaw language flashcards from my grandmother who was often at tribal meetings and events. The designs fueled my ongoing work to embrace traditional Chickasaw symbology in my art, and the cards themselves included very useful (though minimal) information on sentence construction and grammar.

Though not used for this site, I have enjoyed owning a copy of Anompilbashsha' Asilhha' Holisso, the Chickasaw prayer book, as I've been able to weave Chickasaw into important life events like the passing of elders and my own marriage ceremony. I was also recently gifted a copy of the Humes Chickasaw Dictionary by a friend. I also own many other books about the Chickasaw people or from the Chickasaw Press, though so far none of them have figured into my study of the language or the creation of this site.

Uniskript

The uniskript used throughout the site is due to my previous purchase of the eBook Initial Introduction Uniskript Chickasaw which really sparked an interest in bringing this uniskript font into more usage. The symbols are so tied into our history, and I love having a unique syllabary that can represent both the sounds unique to Chickasaw that are not in the English language as well as our rich cultural history & the cultural importance this language has.

I purchased the Uniskript Chickasaw font and keyboard chart PDF in order to use it on this website.

Site Creation

This website is hosted on Neocities, where I now pay $5 a month as a supporter so I can bring this site to its full potential.

The website layout I am using is Slightly Fancy by EGGRAMEN with a large amount of changes, subtractions, and additions from me.

Fonts used are the previously mentioned Uniskript Chickasaw font, Open Sans/Droid Sans/Calibri/Sans-Serif, and the Six Hands font pack by Alexander Lubovenko and Alexandra Korolkova, namely Six Hands Marker and Six Hands Black.

The icons/symbols I sometimes use that are not Unicode or from the Uniskript font are from my free account with Font Awesome.

The graphics created for this site (the banner, the graphics in Kashapa Chaffa) are put together by me with the help of my Canva Pro subscription, where Canva supplies graphics, photos, and more for your use in creating designs.

Support & Contact

This project is made by just one person (me!) for the use of anyone who wants to learn Chickasaw and help bring this language back into regular use across the internet and the world! This is a hobby and passion project I do in my free time, but it can be a lot of work. Monetary support is not expected but is always welcome. You can tip me on Ko-Fi or through PayPal if you appreciate the project and want to help me be able to continue working on it.

If you have any questions, you can reach out to me via email at nashoba.insaktalhafa@gmail.com - keep in mind that this is a hobby project though, so if I'm busy it may take some time for a reply.

I also want to use this project to document all Chickasaw language resources, particularly older ones that have fallen out of use or been forgotten. If you have something Chickasaw language related not mentioned by this website, please contact me, I would love to add it! This includes everything from locally made resources like booklets or audio recordings to textbooks, lesson plans, documentary footage or interviews about the language, or simply recordings of people speaking Chickasaw.

With that in mind, another way you can support me is by sharing scans or copies of resources, buying them for me, or sending me money to put aside for buying them. I would prefer copies in good to very good condition: preferably no writing or other markings, with all the pages readable and undamaged. That said, if I don't have a better copy already, I will take copies in any condition.

At the moment I am looking for copies of:

• Chickasaw Basic Language Workbook I
• Chickasaw Basic Language Workbook II
• Introduction to Chickasaw (1993) workbook, no CDs or cassettes needed
• Let's Speak Chickasaw: Chikashshanompa' Kilanompoli' textbook and CD
• Chikashshanompaat Holisso Toba'chi, Chickasaw: An Analytical Dictionary

I personally am not fluent or near fluent in Chickasaw. Creating this project is in part my self-education on the language. If you have questions for a fluent speaker, you can try the We Speak Chickasaw-Language Learning Group on Facebook.

cokmagSke,
naSoba insaktaLafa