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PRAIRIE ISLAND - A device resembling a small computer, called a phraselator, is being used to record and preserver the Dakota language. The electronic interpreter was first used in combat zones.
Dakota language teacher Wayne Wells pulled a chair next to tribal elder Curtis Campbell, who had settled into his favorite living room rocker to begin an unusual recording session. Wells clutched a gray metal box called a "phraselator" an electronic interpreter first introduced in Iraq and Afghanistan for use by U.S. soldiers at military checkpoints and security zones. He handed a microphone to Campbell, and asked him to repeat - in Dakota - decidedly civilian phrases such as "I want some coffee."
Campbell responded, "Pezutasapa mak'u wo." And the words were added to a databank of hundreds of phrases and sentences stared in the device. Word by word, the effort is helping students at Prairie Island Indian Community preserve their fragile native language.
"There's only about two or three people here who speak Dakota fluently, so time is of the essence," said Wells, the language teacher at the community outside of Red Wing. "If the kids don't leant it now, there won't be anyone left who knows it."
Last year, the Prairie Island Community became one of more than 50 Indian communities nationwide to integrate phraselators into...