The White Mountain Apache Tribe (WMAT), located in east-central Arizona on 1.6 million acres, is the fourth largest reservation in Arizona with 12,500 tribal members and is the third largest Arizona Indian tribe in population. Nationwide, the WMAT is in the top ten for land area and population of federally-recognized indigenous nations (Adley-SantaMaria, 1997). White Mountain Apache (WMA) is an Athabaskan language; Athabaskan language subgroups are Northern, Pacific Coast, and Southern Athabaskan. Western Apache and Eastern Apache are Southern Athabaskan languages. Eastern Apache varieties are Chiricahua, Mescalero, Jicarilla, Lipan, Kiowa-Apache, and Navajo. Western Apache includes the WMA, Cibecue, San Carlos, Northern and Southern Tonto, and Yavapai-Apache language varieties (Adley-SantaMaria, 1997). Michael Krauss, president of the Native American Language Center at the University of Alaska and a well-known language expert, places the Western Apache and Navajo languages among those in Category A (indigenous languages still spoken by children) of the threatened language categories (Krauss, 1992).
At face value, Krauss's classification makes the prospects for preserving the WMA language look good, but when one examines the rapidly-changing dynamics of shift to English occurring in these same speech communities, there is cause for concern. That knowledge led me to select my thesis topic last year. The premise for my thesis, "White Mountain Apache Language Shift: A Perspective on Causes, Effects, and Avenues for Change," is that the illumination of linguistic and non-linguistic causal factors that negatively affect transformations in the White Mountain Apache language is a priority, not only to reverse continued language shift to English, but also to preclude holistic changes in White Mountain Apache culture and society.
The theory adopted in my thesis is that language is linked, directly and indirectly, to the content in cultural teachings of indigenous...