Treasure Language Storytelling – Oakland

​On Sunday 13 December 2015, approximately 65 people representing the Tigrigna, Iu Mien, and Chochenyo languages, plus members of the wider community, gathered at the New Parkway Theater in Oakland for an evening of treasure language storytelling. This page contains videos from our evening together. More are being added...

The Blood Monster

The parable about how the Chochenyo people defeated the blood monster.

Wild Mien story

The day the caveman went to hunt humans against the cavewoman's advice.

This donkey is for our hyenas

What happened after the greedy wedding guest sat on his donkey.

You're as good as buried alive

A strange lawsuit in a lawless land, and how it pays to heed advice.
Welcome, Four Agreements, and Panel

Chochenyo welcome

Vince Medina welcomes us in Chochenyo, the oldest language of the East Bay.

Storytelling agreements

Nadia Chaney explains four agreements concerning storytelling and translating.

Language champion panel

Speakers of Tigrigna, Chochenyo, and Mien on how to keep your language alive.
Program Format
  • Welcome on behalf of the original residents of this place
  • The goals of the evening – connecting us and celebrating our languages
  • The four agreements concerning the gathering
  • Language game – think of a treasured word in any language; how would you communicate it without using spoken language?
  • Stories in the original languages, with paragraph-by-paragraph translation into English
  • Proverbs in treasure languages – allowing us to hear from other languages represented in the room
  • A word about the Aikuma Project
  • The language champion panel – hearing from people who have worked hard to maintain their language and pass it on
  • Suggestions for things to do next
treasure-language-program.pdf
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File Type: pdf
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Credits
We are grateful to our storytellers, translators, language champions, and all the participants, for their participation in the first Treasure Language Storytelling event. We are also grateful to Kumu, the UC Berkeley Linguistics Department, and the Language Conservancy, for their support.