Portland State University is honored to host the Oregon Tribal Language Speaker Series. Our tribal partners will present their language program’s history, revitalization efforts, and future projects.
Coquille Tribal Language Program
Coquille Indian Tribe
Dr. Jaeci Hall, Karuk/Tututni, is currently the language manager for the Coquille Indian Tribe where she teaches her language, the northern dialect of Nuu-wee-ya’ and supports the teaching of Miluk. Both languages are reawakening languages, languages with no remaining L1 speakers and so the process of learning to speak relies on archival resources. Jaeci grew up involved with Indian ed. and started attending Native ceremonies as a teenager. Her father was of the ‘lost generation’, a generation taught by his elders to turn away from native culture.
Yet when he became a parent, he realized the value of his culture and actively re-indigenized his lineage through prioritizing experiencing, learning and protecting his family’s indigenous culture. These community driven experiences deeply tied Jaeci to her indigenous cultures, centering her interest in social justice on repairing the trauma caused by losing cultural knowledge, such as language.
Jaeci began learning the northern dialect of Nuu-wee-ya’ (Tututni) with one of the last remember speakers in 2001. This experience guided her to pursue a Bachelor’s of Arts in Linguistic Anthropology from Linfield College in 2005, a Native American Linguistics Masters of Arts through the NAMA program at University of Arizona in 2008, and a PhD in Linguistics from University of Oregon in 2021 where she wrote her dissertation titled “Indigenous Methodologies in Linguistics: A Case Study of Nuu-Wee-Ya’ Language Revitalization”. This dissertation frames Nuu-wee-ya’ text analysis through a discussion of how to complete linguistic research in a way that supports community needs and interests. To her the most
valuable component of this work is healing intergenerational language transmission. Her children’s use of Nuu-wee-ya’ reflects her proudest accomplishments.
Jaeci began working for the Coquille Indian Tribe in 2022 and is focused on building opportunities to support language use for both languages. She is also the chair of the advisory board for Northwest Indigenous Language Institute (NILI) and a board member for Nuu-da’ Mv-ne, a non-profit supporting the growth of Nuu-wee-ya’.