NEW ORLEANS — Brenda Lintinger decided to do more than learn a new language — she set out to resurrect the ancient tongue of her Tunica Indian tribe, words not uttered for more than 60 years.
In spring 2010, the 51-year- old Tunica Tribal Council member had been searching the website of Tulane University in New Orleans when she noticed the school specialized in lesser-known languages.
“And I thought, they don’t get much more unknown than ours,” said Lintinger, whose maternal great-great-grandfather was a tribal chief in the 1930s, the last decade the language was spoken.
So she sought the help of Judith Maxwell, who heads the Tulane interdisciplinary program in linguistics.
“It was a very exciting prospect,” Maxwell said. “Especially since the tribe is so enthusiastic about it.”
The Endangered Languages Fund turned down Maxwell’s application for a small grant, so she put together a group of students who donated their time.
The Tunica tribe aligned with the French and later the Spanish during Louisiana’s colonial period in the 1700s and was granted land by the Spanish in what is now Louisiana. But encroachment cut tribal holdings to about 130 acres by the mid-1900s, Lintinger said.
The Tunica, which says it has 1,174 members and is concentrated in central Louisiana, combined with the Biloxi tribe, whose roots are in Mississippi, and the tribe was granted reservation land in 1981. The Tunica opened a casino and hotel in Marksville, La., in 1994, employing almost 2,000 people.
The casino sparked a renewal for the tribe, allowing it to fund programs and training, Lintinger said.
But the language seemed unlikely to come back before the Tulane efforts. There were a few old, wax phonograph cylinders, but years of wear and background noise made the chants impossible to decipher, said Kathleen Bell, a graduate student with the project.
Researchers were able to refer to past work by academics.Mary Haas, a linguist who worked with American Indian languages, worked with a tribal elder, writing down stories and bits of Tunica history.
A children’s book based on the language was presented during the tribe’s annual powwow in May, Lintinger said.
About 650 copies of the book — featuring the Tunica tales “Deer and Turtle” and “Fighting Eagles” — were handed out. Two tribe members read the stories aloud.
“When we got up and read them in our language, I wish I could tell you how excited everyone was,” Lintinger said.
