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Virginia Indians Revive Language

Lesser Chief Walk 'n Crow and Latin teacher Becky Guy revive the nearly lost Algonquin dialect spoken by their great grandparents and Pocahontas. Wayne Newton and Patawomeck Chief Robert Green achieved official recognition of the Virginia tribe in 2020.

Patawomeck was a Virginia Indian language that was dying until three years ago, when Lesser Chief Gary Cooke (Walk 'n Crow) asked Becky Guy, a high school Latin teacher, to teach the local tribe their nearly forgotten language.

At first Guy was a bit overwhelmed by the idea. "Just because I teach Latin doesn't mean I can teach any language" she said initially. There was no textbook or existing course for her to work from, but she could not deny her Patawomeck heritage and took on the challenge to revive the native language of her family, Wayne Newton and Pocahontas.

With the help of Walk 'n Crow, Guy has lead a group of eight to 10 White Oakers in Patawomeck language lessons every Sunday afternoon at the White Oak Fire Station near Fredericksburg.

The lessons are an experience of communal learning with an atmosphere of nurturing community. In their pursuit of reviving the old language, a dialect of Algonquin which was the shared language of 31 Indians along the Eastern Coastal area, the group discusses as much about the ways of their ancestors as the vocabulary.

"To understand language you have to understand the people who spoke it" Guy encourages, "The language is onomatopoeia; the words sound like what they are."

The two-hour lessons are more of a conversation than a class beginning with greetings and ending with a few updates of tribal news. The majority of the agenda is a roundtable vocabulary exercise in which the learners each choose a word from their language dictionary for the group to learn.

Each word elicits conversation and it is an evolutionary learning process of trying to agree on a pronunciation and exploring the synonyms and cultural context in which the word might be used.

Early on the Patawomeck language class sought consult from a linguistic professor Dr. Blair Rudesof the University of North Carolina but after his sudden passing they choose to carry on alone rather than enlist another linguistics expert. His approach had been dauntingly academic to many of the elder tribe members and made learning to speak the language challenging.

The Patawomeck language class ultimately worked primarily from the legacy of William Strachey who compiled the most comprehensive resource available on the Algonquin language in 1612. Strachey's A Dictionarie of the Indian Language was intended as a guide for the British to conduct trade with the Indians and Strachey, who was the official scribe to Jamestown, learned the language by interacting with the Indians.

"Strackey worked with two people from our tribe" Walk 'n Crow accounts, "one was an Indian who died of scurvy living in the compound with him and the other was Pocahontas' brother."

The Patawomecks remind each other that Strachey "wrote with first hand knowledge from what he heard White Oakers say" but the group is mindful that Strachey wrote the words as he heard them and Becky Guy frequently reminds them "We must be very aware of the filter through which languages comes."

Wingapo -- hello, Tanaowaan -- where have you been, Patch nah rungen -- Pass me the butter!