Eastern Shoshone is joining French and Japanese and Northern Arapaho on the long list of languages taught at the University of Wyoming.
Reba Teran, Shoshone language coordinator at the Eastern Shoshone Cultural Center in Fort Washakie on the Wind River Indian Reservation, will teach the class. It will meet during the first half of the fall 2008 semester on Saturdays from 1-5 p.m. and Sundays from 9 a.m.-1 p.m.
Teran, an enrolled Eastern Shoshone tribal member, has worked closely with three tribal elders since 2002 to compile a dictionary of the Eastern Shoshone language in both written and digital formats. The dictionary has more than 14,000 words. An audiobook is also available for the class.
"My work with the Eastern Shoshone language has made me fluent again," Teran says. "I dream in Shoshone now. It's a lively and vibrant language and I'm excited to have the opportunity to teach it at UW."
Shoshone was Teran's first language. At the age of six, she began elementary school and learned English. Teran left the Wind River Indian Reservation at age 14 to attend Flandreau Indian School in South Dakota and then earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Utah State University
Teran has participated twice in the Wyoming Art Council's Folk and Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Project, as both master and apprentice for traditional Shoshone arts. She specializes in beadwork and in saddle making.
For more information about language classes in Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho, call the American Indian Studies Program at (307) 766-6521.
