Reclaiming Domains: Pit River Language Needs Analysis

Abstract With language revitalization becoming a growing effort among Native communities, community members and researchers in different fields have begun to explore different methods and approaches to helping these communities regrow their languages. Often an immersion class is touted as the go-to approach in these types of situations; however, not every community has the capacity to implement this due to lack of funding, personnel, and capacity. In this paper we look at the results of a needs analysis that was conducted within the Pit River community and how it informs the materials creation, learning, and teaching approach of the language teachers from the community. We see that the community desires language and is willing to explore the reclaiming domains approach to language nesting and language use in the home for the Pit River language, a community without fluent speakers or a tribal language program.