WCU assists with Cherokee documentary
Two Western Carolina University faculty members assisted on a recently released award-winning film that chronicles efforts to revitalize the Cherokee language in Western North Carolina.
Hartwell Francis, director of WCU’s Cherokee language program, and Tom Belt, coordinator of the program and a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, were interviewed and credited as associate producers for “First Language – The Race to Save Cherokee.”
“Being part of this film project, for me, was about being part of the continuing effort to re-establish, to re-affirm and to revitalize our language,” said Belt, whose first language is Cherokee. Only about 200 of the 13,000 members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians still speak Cherokee fluently, and most are over the age of 55, he said.
The project began in fall 2012 after Walt Wolfram, the William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of Sociolinguistics and director of the North Carolina Language and Life Project at N.C. State University, and Wolfram’s students visited WNC. Discussions with Francis and Belt turned to the challenges of revitalizing the Cherokee language, how WCU supports language revitalization efforts and the work of the Atse Kituwah Cherokee Language Immersion School, where children speak and are taught in the Cherokee language.
The filmmakers made a half dozen trips to WNC for filming, and returned to share versions of the documentary during editing with members of the community. In one scene of the film, a parent of a child in the immersion school tearfully shares the story of how her child responded to a tribal elder who spoke Cherokee in a store — and the elder’s delighted surprise to hear a child speaking the language.
About 75 students take Cherokee language classes at WCU, and the university offers Cherokee language courses online and via distance education technology to other institutions in the University of North Carolina system. The system requires member institutions to have a Cherokee language plan in place, and students from UNC-Wilmington, UNC-Chapel Hill and UNC-Pembroke have taken Cherokee language courses offered through WCU.
The documentary was bestowed the Best Public Service Film award at the 2014 American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco.
A trailer for the “First Language” documentary and order form to purchase copies of the film can be accessed through www.talkingnc.com. In addition, copies are being sold at WNC businesses and venues, and have been placed at WCU’s Hunter Library and shared with schools on the Qualla Boundary and in Swain, Jackson, Cherokee and Graham counties.
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