MVSKOKE RESERVATION – Help for beginners taking the first steps in learning the Mvskoke language can be found in online Zoom classes. The sessions, presented by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Mvskoke Language Program, have been held for quite some time and provide these resources to help students keep practicing even after the sessions end.
Though they aren’t meeting right now, they will start back up soon.
MCN Mvskoke Language Program Project Coordinator Johnny Childress (Mvskoke) explained the program’s goal of hosting online sessions and what they do during the hour-long sessions.
Childress said that this had been going on for a long time before he started working at their department. Childress shared that he even took online Zoom classes for months and months before coming to work with the department.
Sometimes people can’t make time to attend a Mvskoke language class, or they have responsibilities that get in the way, which is why they offer these classes. Participants can join from their phones or computers.
“The goal is to further people who may not have an opportunity to come in to go to the college and learn or won’t have an opportunity to go to the community classes. So it’s for people that either live too far away from these places, or kind of living on the go,” Childress said.
“This is to offer language learning to people who don’t have those traditional ways of getting it, and also kind of establish foundations for people to start learning; those are the big goals.”
Typically, their online classes run in six-week increments, but due to events in the spring and their upcoming camps, they aren’t able to complete a full six weeks. So they call these shorter online classes “mini-mesters,” which splits them in half.
During these online Mvskoke language learning sessions, their own staff will teach the classes.
What they plan to teach is geared toward the beginner level of learning the Mvskoke language, because new groups of citizens join at different times.
“You never know who’s going to be in there, and oftentimes it can be newer folk. So it tends to skew to the beginner side of the learning spectrum. A lot of the foundational stuff we want to give them so that they can feel comfortable to move on with the learning on their own or find ways to study, in traditional ways. I’d say, they’re going to get a lot of the foundations that they need to get started learning,” Childress said.
Any citizen enrolled through MCN or with direct Mvskoke ancestry can join these sessions, according to Childress.
When teaching online sessions, Childress said there are sometimes as few as 6 or as many as 50, depending on the day.
While being able to do this, Childress feels that it is amazing that their program does offer these online Mvskoke Language Zoom sessions.
“It shows the difference in attitude from when I first started trying to learn 10 + years ago. The only available stuff online was what the college had; little phrases on their website. The Red Stick Warrior Association had just started putting stuff out, I remember back then but there wasn’t much opportunity to learn and get to be part of sharing all this wonderful information we have, it feels really good to get to do that,” Childress said.
Childress encourages anyone who does have the time to hop into the Mvskoke language online Zoom sessions, even for a few minutes, to get some exposure to the language.
“Don’t be afraid of anything about the language. It’s not daunting. I like to point out in my classes how much more straightforward that it is than English in a lot of ways so don’t be scared to take part,” Childress said.
For future online Mvskoke Language sessions or if you have trouble signing up using their QR code, you can contact Childress at 918-549-2963 or their main number at 918-304-3362.
To follow along with their program, events, or new online sessions of Learn Mvskoke Online, follow them on their Facebook page, Mvskoke Language Program.
Their program offers resources to take steps into learning the language on their website at mvskokeopunvkv.com
