The Nęyękwawętaʔθkwahshek Tuscarora Language Program (NTLP) is a group of dedicated language advocates whose mission is to revive a Tuscarora speaking community amongst the families of the Tuscarora Nation, re-establish oral fluency of the Tuscarora language, and ultimately create Tuscarora first-language speakers.

The NTLP created the Tuscarora Language Adult Immersion Program to further this mission. The program is a 2-year Tuscarora adult immersion program, with a fully realized curriculum, complete with unit materials, teaching tools, and digital recordings. The program was translated and adapted into the Tuscarora language from Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa’s (OK) Mohawk curriculum. OK has been operating for 20 years and continues to produce intermediate-high to advanced-mid level speakers in two years of Mohawk language immersion. NTLP’s program is producing Tuscarora speakers, who are the first step in establishing a community of Tuscarora speakers.

The NTLP has continually strived to realize the language goals of the Tuscarora community. The Tuscarora Nation is a community of over 1,400, approximately 1,000 of which are adults. The Tuscarora Language Survey¹ conducted in 2017 indicated that 90% of the community wants the language to survive. These goals were explicitly identified by the survey, which indicated that over 80% of the community believes language opportunities for children to young adults are a priority. The Survey indicates 80% of the community has a desire to speak the Tuscarora language, and indicated that 92% of the community agree that language is vital to the identity and existence as a people.

The survey also illustrated that the community believes that more must be done for children in order to save the language. This includes not only Tuscarora language education within the local school district, but also additional means such as an immersion-style daycare and school.

In response to the survey, NTLP identified all of the areas where the language was offered to the community. The Tuscarora Language Nest Program (NEST) is a volunteer language program that teaches parents and their babies Tuscarora language. NEST allows parents and children aged 0 to 5 the opportunity to socialize in the language and teaches phrases for the parents to use at home. The NTLP coordinates with language teachers in the Niagara Wheatfield Central School District (NWCSD) to enhance the Tuscarora language curriculum offered to children in all grades of education. The NTLP began a partnership with Niagara University and Tuscarora Language 101 and 102 are now courses offered at Niagara University.

The NTLP identified four factors which hampered the development of a fluent community and illustrate the fundamental predicament facing language revitalization in the Tuscarora community:

1. • The school system only allows 2 – 3 hours of language instruction per week, totaling at most 120 hours per year.

1. • New York State Regents’ parameters focus on literacy, which does not align with the most effective teaching methods for the Tuscarora language; immersion with a focus on oral communication skills².

1. • NTLP only had the capacity (opportunity) to deliver 80 hours of adult language instruction per year through an evening adult language class.

1. • Tuscarora language teachers in the NWCSD lack adequate opportunities to further their language skills, which limits their ability to effectively teach the language to fluency.

To help ensure the survival of the Tuscarora language, the Program understands the importance of creating adult fluent speakers. Without these speakers, the children will not hear the language at a conversational level. An immersion-style daycare can not be run without fluent adult speakers, and most importantly, the language needs to be spoken in the homes of Tuscarora-learning children to nurture the language being taught at the schools.

Polysynthetic languages require a minimum of 5000 contact hours to gain fluency. As a point of reference western languages such as French, Spanish, or Italian require an estimated 1500 contact hours to gain fluency. It is unreasonable to expect our Tuscarora language learners to acquire fluency through programs attended in their spare time, totaling an estimated 80-100 contact hours per year. Our languages simply do not have the time to wait on casual learners to bring back our speech communities. Therefore, our Program employs our students for 30 hours per week at minimum wage for 40 weeks, totaling 1200 hours per year.

The creation of a Tuscarora adult immersion program was only the first step in NTLP’s goal of ensuring Tuscarora’s survival, because without consistent exposure to other competent adult speakers after fluency has been achieved, the language of both children and adults will become impoverished. Thus it is necessary to act in a manner which is both quick and deliberate in order to develop and maintain the strength of the emerging Tuscarora speech community, not just inside schools. The length of time before it is possible to meet the long term goal of the NTLP can be measured in generations.

The community needs fluent speakers teaching in schools from pre-K to the 12th grade. They need fluent speakers working in daycare and headstart programs. They need fluent speakers in the homes passing the language onto newborns. The long-term benefits of this program are far reaching and will ultimately help preserve the culture and unique world view of the Tuscarora people , creating a more healthy and whole community.

1 The Survey took place over six months in 2017. Paper surveys made up approximately half of responses collected from: volunteers going to homes, outreach at four Community events, and from high school age students by the NW Language Teacher. The remaining surveys were collected using the website SurveyMonkey and advertised on the NTLP Facebook page @TuscaroraLanguage.

2 -Many published works identify immersion education as a more effective method for language learning than non-immersive language education; this topic is covered in detail in the general