Interactive Comanche Language CD

NITI has assisted the Comanche Tribe’s Committee on Language & Cultural Preservation to make their Comanche Dictionary. The Committee requested NITI’s assistance in the production of a paper book dictionary. After NITI staff demonstrated how an interactive CD would work as a dictionary tool, the Committee decided to proceed with the CD. Plans were made to videotape tribal elders pronouncing approximately 200 vocabulary words for the dictionary and five sets of conversations on the following topics:

• Kinship
• Birds
• Trees
• Colors
• Numbers

Paper Dictionary

The Committee has completed the bulk of work on the paper dictionary. They have gathered the words, determined definitions and decided how they wanted the paper dictionary to look. The Committee also raised money to hire a Comanche graduate student to type the words. The Committee felt it was crucial for the typist to be familiar with the look of the language and with the font.

Interactive CD

The CD visuals look like a page of a dictionary with certain words highlighted. The highlighted words, when clicked on make a small window appear with a Comanche elder pronouncing the word in both Comanche and English. The process of embedding each video clip involves very detailed and time consuming hands-on computer work.

There is already considerable interest among other tribes and language preservation groups surrounding this project. A very short demonstration of the CD was shown at the FCC’s ITTI 2000 meeting. Also, the Lawton (Oklahoma) Constitution published an article about this project that was subsequently picked up by the Associated Press and run all over the United States. As a result of the demonstration and the article, NITI has received many calls from tribes wishing to duplicate this project. NITI is hoping to complete the CD by mid-2002.

NITI gratefully acknowledges the support by the Ford Foundation for the Comanche Interactive CD Project.