Lakota

I learn Lakota.

I speak Lakota.

Mary's mother is Lakota and her father is a Mongol.

I'm learning Lakota.

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon on the White Plume ranch, several young Lakota men and women are hard at work helping to attach gutters to the roof.

During the spring of 1931, Ben Black Elk translated his father's words for writer John Neihardt. In the years that followed, and particularly after his father's death in 1950, Ben Black Elk became one of the last links to the "old ways" of his people. He often visited local schools to retell traditional stories of Lakota history and culture to students. Some of those sessions were recorded by Lakota educator Warfield Moose, Sr., who entrusted the tapes to his son in 1996.

The language is Lakota, one of three dialects of the people collectively called Sioux, a tribe of hunters and warriors that once roamed all over the northern plains.

But the university offers classes in Lakota for both Indian and non-Indian students and Trimble says this helps keep the language alive.

The language is divided into three dialects — Dakota, Nakota and Lakota — but any person who speaks one dialect can understand the others.

Gabe Black Moon, who co-teaches Lakota with Moore, remembered his time at one such school.