![]() ![]() Her grandmother would become agitated and hit the table with a spoon because she couldn’t understand her children. Though all the children were fluent, they also began to speak English when they would return home. Her aunts and uncles would relate the harsh punishment and strict regimen of the boarding schools to their family. She has said many times that her grandparents would have been happy to have her stay at home with them and not attend school at all. Geneva’s grandmother did not want her sent away. Many of her aunts and uncles went to boarding school at St. She lived with her large extended family all under one roof for several years. Geneva grew up with Numunu (Comanche) as her first language. Though the Comanche were not farming people they were expected to leave their nomadic ways and become sedentary and settle into that lifestyle, which many did. ![]() government during the Native American holocaust in this country. In the case of my relatives this happened after they were released from their captivity and imprisonment by the U.S. ![]() My great-grandfather was “granted” several acres of land due to the Dawes Act of l887 (Allotment Act) in which Native people were “given” land. Geneva grew up to be their English interpreter as neither one spoke English for as long as they lived. She was raised by her maternal grandparents, Frank and Mookemah Nevaquaya. She was born to Esther Tooahimpah Tate and Max Woomavoyah, and is a full blood Comanche. My mother, Geneva Woomavoyah Navarro, was born in the small town of Apache, Oklahoma in 1926. ©2024 Comanche Nation.Terry and her Mom, Geneva Woomavoyah Navarro Nahmaʔai tanʉ nʉmʉniwʉnʉ! Let’s all speak Comanche together! Together, the CLCPC and the CN Language Department will work to revitalize and reclaim the Comanche language. The CLCPC will continue in its advisory capacity as a governing body about our language and to certify language teachers. For updates and further information about using the Comanche language app, please see our departmental webpage at our language page at and our Facebook page for Comanche Nation Language Department Comanche Nation Language Department looks forward to continue working with the Comanche Language and Cultural Preservation Committee (CLCPC). The Comanche language course has launched on the Memrise website and app: and continues to be updated with new levels. Language workshops are being planned to take place during the Shoshonean-Numic language reunion and Comanche Nation Fair in September. Plans in the near future include community meetings, surveys about language use and attitudes, and the development of a long-term strategic plan that will include the following: the creation of a central language archive, development of resources and language curriculum, children’s book series, the creation of an online dictionary and relational database, and local, online, and school and college classes. Recovering Voices will pay for a seven-person team to go to the National Anthropological Archives for one week in August 2019 to work with Comanche language documents that date back to the early 1800s. Her project NʉmʉTekwa (Speak Comanche!) was recently chosen by the Smithsonian Institution’s Recovering Voices Program as one of two projects they will fund for 2019. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters at Florida Atlantic University. ![]() She has worked with Comanche speakers over the last two years and has been awarded grants for her language work from the American Philosophical Society, the Endangered Language Fund’s Native Voices Endowment, and the Dorothy F. Briner is currently completing coursework for a second doctorate that focuses specifically on the Comanche language and revitalization. Hiring for the other two positions in the department, Language Coordinator and the Information & Communication Specialist, is underway. Kathryn Pewenofkit Briner was hired on January 29, 2019, as Director of Language Planning and Development. The department was slated to begin in October 2018 and we are now on the road to the revitalization and reclamation of the Comanche language.ĭr. Through the efforts of our Comanche Language and Cultural Preservation Committee and the Comanche Nation Language Planning Group, the Comanche Tribal Council approved the creation of a new language department on the budget last year. Our mission is to revitalize and reclaim the Comanche Language and to help our people speak and think in Comanche in our own unique ways.
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