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DKTA 100 Dakota Language and Culture

This course applies an immersion approach to learning Dakota, the Indigenous language of the Dakota people. The language offers key insights into the formation and transmission of Dakota cultural identities and worldviews. The course is part of larger community efforts to retain and use Dakota and contribute to world-wide efforts to preserve Indigenous languages. Students in the course will learn Dakota grammatical structures and build a working vocabulary sufficient for beginning-level conversations.
4 Undergraduate credits

Effective May 9, 2013 to present

Meets graduation requirements for

Learning outcomes

General

  • Students will attain a beginning to intermediate level ability in conversational Dakota.
  • Students will be introduced to the ways Dakota language and culture participate in global processes of linguistic and cultural change that are affecting all indigenous languages. This will help students not only to understand the development of and the changing meanings of group identities in the United States, but also to understand the individual and institutional dynamics of unequal power relations between groups in contemporary society.
  • As students gain a general appreciation of the Dakota language and the value of revitalizing it, they will analyze their own attitudes, behaviors, concepts and beliefs regarding diversity, racism, and bigotry, and will better understand the role of a world citizen and the responsibility world citizens share for their common global future.
  • Students will attain a beginning to intermediate level comprehension of conversational Dakota.
  • Students will begin to build a working vocabulary in the Dakota language.
  • Students will produce natural sounding speech.
  • Students will know how to write in the Double Vowel Orthography.
  • Students will begin to build a grammatical knowledge (i.e. the mechanics) of the Dakota language. This includes a knowledge of the conjugational system of Dakota, word order, sentence formation, the phonology of Dakota, and its stress patterns.
  • Students will learn ways Dakota culture is expressed in the language, and demonstrate knowledge of cultural, social, religious and linguistic differences. This will help provide provide students with communication skills necessary for living and working effectively in a society with great population diversity.
  • Students will understand ways the Dakota language has been shaped by interactions with other cultural and linguistic groups, and they will learn to describe and analyze some of the political, economic, and cultural elements which influence relations of states and societies in their historical and contemporary dimensions.
  • Students will analyze specific intergroup problems related to changes in the Dakota language and consider the cultural, economic, and political differences that affect their solution.

Minnesota Transfer Curriculum

Goal 7: Human Diversity

  • Understand the development of and the changing meanings of group identities in the United States' history and culture.
  • Demonstrate an awareness of the individual and institutional dynamics of unequal power relations between groups in contemporary society.
  • Analyze their own attitudes, behaviors, concepts and beliefs regarding diversity, racism, and bigotry.
  • Describe and discuss the experience and contributions (political, social, economic, etc.) of the many groups that shape American society and culture, in particular those groups that have suffered discrimination and exclusion.
  • Demonstrate communication skills necessary for living and working effectively in a society with great population diversity.

Goal 8: Global Perspective

  • Describe and analyze political, economic, and cultural elements which influence relations of states and societies in their historical and contemporary dimensions.
  • Demonstrate knowledge of cultural, social, religious and linguistic differences.
  • Analyze specific international problems, illustrating the cultural, economic, and political differences that affect their solution.
  • Understand the role of a world citizen and the responsibility world citizens share for their common global future.