BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Sept. 15 (UPI) -- The language of the Assiniboine people, an American Indian group centered in Saskatchewan, Canada, is being preserved by University of Indiana anthropologists.
Only about 50 speakers of the language survive, researchers say. The Indiana project will include two volumes of oral histories and a dictionary as well as analysis of recordings made in the 1970s and 1980s using modern technology.
The project is being funded with a $250,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities "We The People" program.
The Assiniboine did not get much attention for a long time, scholars say, because their language and customs were believed to be close to those of the Sioux. Raymond DeMallie, a director of the American Indian Research Institute at Indiana, said they were also confused with the Stoneys, an Alberta tribe.
"Through intermarriage with Crees many elements of Cree oral tradition were introduced into Assiniboine oral literature," DeMallie said. "And at the same time the Assiniboines intermarried with French and Canadian fur traders and their mixed-blood descendants, and the result is that elements of European folktales found their way into Assiniboine stories as well."
