Photo: Niken Adisasmito-Smith by Benjamin Kirk
After 14 years of working with native speakers, the Department of Linguistics has released a new Chukchansi language online speaking dictionary, which contains recorded pronunciations by native speaker and tribal elder Dr. Holly Blossom Wyatt.
“It can be reached by anyone in the world. Anyone who is interested to learn anything about this language…to hear words in this language and to also know how the words are being written in this language,” said Dr. Niken Adisasmito-Smith, linguistics lecturer and co-author of the dictionary.
The online tool follows the earlier 2023 release of their updated English-to-Chukchansi and Chukchansi-to-English dictionary. The latest edition is a 280-page PDF that contains words and phrases gathered over the years. Linguistics Department faculty Adisasmito-Smith, Dr. Chris Golston and Dr. Brian Agbayani worked with native speakers and tribal elders Dr. Holly Blossom Wyatt and her sister Jane Wyatt. Together they created a record for each word and phrase. Holly Wyatt also translated more than 30 traditional stories.
The project began In 2009 when the Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians contacted the Department of Linguistics at Fresno State. With support from the tribe, the process of preserving their language began.
“The Chukchansi community was really looking for a way to revitalize the language,” Adisasmito-Smith explained. “As trained linguists, this is something that we can do.”
“Without [Holly Wyatt], it would not have been possible. Her willingness to actually support our project with hours and hours of patience… that has allowed us to understand the structure of the language,” said Adisasmito-Smith.
Adisasmito-Smith said while they don’t know the exact number of people who know the Chukchansi language, it is believed to be less than a dozen people who are all in their 70s and 80s.
Over the years, the preservation efforts have been reported in the New York Times and several other news outlets. The endeavor also caught the attention of academia after Wyatt’s name was listed as a co-author in the article “Chukchansi Yokuts,” published by the Journal of International Phonetic Association, Cambridge University Press, along with Adisasmito-Smith and Dr. Peter Guekguezian with the University of Rochester.
At the commencement ceremony in May 2023, the Board of Trustees of the California State University and California State University, Fresno, conferred upon Holly Wyatt the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.
“I am honored to receive this award for passing on the language that was taught to me by my grandparents and dad,” said Wyatt in a recorded speech at commencement. “I wanted to make sure that families can speak Chukchansi for many generations ahead. Mich Gayis [very good].”
Born in 1941, Wyatt grew up in a time when many Native Americans were forced into all-English boarding schools which punished students for speaking their native language, causing the loss of connection to culture, according to a 2022 investigative report by the U.S. Department of the Interior. Assimilation was the primary goal, and the efforts of the federal government critically endangered or killed nearly all the 300 Native American languages. The practice continued until the last of the boarding schools closed in 1969.
But Wyatt, who graduated from Sierra High School in 1960, was raised by her grandmother, who taught her the Chukchansi language in secret. It was Wyatt’s daughter who later convinced her to shed her oppressor-imposed shame and open up about her knowledge of the language.
“There are more people out there who can talk, but they don’t come forward,” Wyatt told the New York Times in 2012. “I was like that, too. My daughter convinced me I should do it.”
Beyond the work with the dictionary, Linguistics students at Fresno State have also enhanced their scholarship through the project, including through graduate course sections Wyatt co-taught on field methods.
While Adisasmito-Smith and Wyatt have taken the lead on the Chukchansi language efforts, the project has involved others in the Linguistics Department, including Dr. Chris Golston and Dr. Brian Agbayani. The online dictionary was developed by Dr. Adisasmito-Smith’s son Narayana.
The College of Arts and Humanities at Fresno State 