Birdtail Sioux adds bilingual street signs with Dakota language

Birdtail Sioux Dakota Nation has installed bilingual street signs in order to promote the Dakota language and increase increase public safety.

A total of 14 bilingual ‘stop’ signs and 10 bilingual ‘slow down’ signs were installed on Sept. 22, Chief Trechelle Bunn told the Sun in a recent interview. The signage serves two goals in the community, she said.

“I thought that was really meaningful to be able to tackle two needs, or two goals at the same time of not only community safety but making sure that our traditional language is visible within the community,” Bunn said. “It relates to community safety, but also to our larger goal of making our language more visible.”

A total of 30 public safety signs were added to the community during the recent day in September, she said. The 24 bilingual signs are important “especially for our young people that are learning and reclaiming the language,” she added.

The project followed after a community safety and justice forum in August in which many participants cited road safety as something to improve in Birdtail.

The chief said that pedestrian safety was brought up during consultation with the public.

“There’s a lot of people walking all the time, and as well as children walking around the community during school, after school, so it was something that the community really called for,” she said. “I guess one of the first steps in trying to enhance community safety.”

The bilingual signs were installed in areas with impacted visibility — as well as a 4-way stop intersection, she said.

“We have a very beautiful community with winding and hilly roads. So I know that there was a lot of very high traffic areas where there’s low visibility in terms of you know like a curve or a hill within our community. Community members were really, you know, adamant that they needed signs in certain areas.”

Bunn said both she and council would be open to further community feedback about where additional signs may be needed.

“I think this is a good kind of phase one first step of having the signage and then hearing where we can also improve and have signage in additional areas of concern.”

The community listed language promotion in its strategic plan, Bunn said. In-school and after school programming includes a lot of effort to revitalize the Dakota language for youth.

Birdtail Sioux elder Joe Bunn helped translate English into Dakota language for the rollout of the signage. Joe told the Sun that it is vitally important that the community revitalize its language because it serves a larger goal.

“We have to bring it back, its not only a language, but a way of life, a discipline,” Joe said. “All things we have lost through the years through interference through the government, we are trying to gain back through language and culture.

“The language ties into a lot of things.”

Joe said that the bilingual signs contribute to an ongoing effort to bring back the Dakota language among youth in the community. He said that classrooms in the local school have also been denoted with Dakota language, as well as items like computers.

“It’s not only the signs, but we’re labeling a lot of our day-to-day things,” he said. “So they’re learning a a lot.”

The community is also planning to build an application that would allow children to tap an English word to translate it into Dakota language, he said. That work is planned to take place over the next year or two.

Joe said the community is “far behind” in culture and language, and investments are being made to help children restore those elements to their society.

“The children are are the one that are gonna have to pick it up and bring it back again,” he said.

» cmcdowell@brandonsun.com