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.
Burns Paiute Tribe
Thierry Veyrié (Culture & Heritage Director) is a sociocultural and linguistic anthropologist, as well as ethnohistorian, focusing on indigenous Northern Paiute culture, language and history. He started learning from Paiute Elders in Burns and McDermitt in 2012. In 2017 and 2018 he conducted 13 months of fieldwork in McDermitt NV, the most sizable community of speakers of the Northern Paiute language with 200 fluent speakers. From this work, as well as research in the US National Archives, he composed his doctoral dissertation in anthropology entitled A Historical Ethnography of the Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone (2021). Subsequently he was hired as Language & Traditional Culture Manager at the Burns Paiute Tribe and was instrumental in starting Tehzi Tuaki Tehsutabe’i ‘Awakening Little Children’, a Paiute language immersion preschool. In 2022 he received a large federal grant from the Administration for Native Americans for the Fort McDermitt Tribe to develop and implement a K-12 Paiute language curriculum in the McDermitt Combined School. This and other grants that he received for the Fort McDermitt Tribe were consolidated into the Fort McDermitt Language Program for which he was the first director. In January 2026, Thierry came back to the Burns Paiute Tribe to serve as Culture & Heritage Director.
Adina Thomas (Language & Culture Coordinator) is an enrolled member of the Burns Paiute Tribe and a descent of the Ft. Mojave and Mtn. Maidu tribes. She was born and raised on the Burns Paiute Indian Reservation. She is a third-generation descendant of Chief Louie. Her family has worked tirelessly to preserve the culture and language of the Wadatika since the colonization of their people. Her great grandma Marion Smoke Jim-Louie was a historian of their people and started the preservation of their language, stories, and history. Her grandmother Myrtle Peck was also a part of the implementation and development of their language program along with a group of other elders. She is proud to be a part of the revitalization and preservation the Wadatika language. She is the language and culture coordinator for the tribe. Her passion has been passed down from generations of work from her family for the people of the Wadatika. As a proud member of the Burns Paiute Tribe, she has been a part of the implementation and immersion of the Paiute Language. She works with youth ages 5-18 years old within the schools and at their after-school program. She has also been responsible for their community and staff language classes that they have once a week. As a young speaker and learner, she takes her time to listen to her elders and acknowledge the teachings and culture surrounding their language. She works diligently with other departments to implement language and culture teachings throughout their community. She has been a part of the tribe's planning committees for their powwow, round dance, and Native American Heritage Month. It is vital to their community to continue their traditional teachings and continue to learn to become culturally rich, she believes we can make a difference within our communities by being the example. Pisa me, for allowing me to be apart of this series.