Strengthening the Literacy of an Indigenous Language Community:Methodological Implications of the Project Čyeti čälled anarâškielân, ‘One Hundred Writers for Aanaar Saami’

• Main Authors: Olthuis, Marja-Liisa, Trosterud, Trond, Sarivaara, Erika, Morottaja, Petter, Niskanen, Eljas
• Other Authors: Virtanen, Pirjo, Keskitalo, Pigga, Olsen, Torjer
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Brill 2021
• Subjects: language revitalisation; language planning; Indigenous writing; community perspective in research; widening language domains; /dk/atira/pure/person/fieldofscience2010/5/16/2; General education; /dk/atira/pure/person/fieldofscience2010/5/20/6; Methodology; Inari; Inari Sámi; saami; Sámi
• Online Access: https://research.ulapland.fi/fi/publications/c1c8dee1-68f4-4c79-9b0b-f122d4db80cf; https://brill.com/view/title/56605

Aanaar Saami (Inari Sámi) literacy is weaker than that of majority languages in the sense that reading and writing Aanaar Saami is less common. In order to strengthen literacy, we argue for an approach that represents a methodology for participatory research from a community and an in-group perspective. We also discuss the implications this has for Indigenous research. The chapter presents a strategy for producing new readers and writers, both native and non-native. Whereas the language revitalisation process of the last decades has successfully created new speakers in the younger and middle generations, literacy is still lagging behind, and thus we prioritise strengthening lit-eracy. The strategy, called Čyeti čälled, is a set of actions taken to encourage people to write, creating new domains for writing and supporting people in their writing pro-cesses. We argue that in order to succeed, revitalisation needs a pluralistic approach, including the involvement of all generations and the inclusion of both spoken and written language.