November 2024
The Cherokee Nation and Middle-Earth are converging in a powerful new project that will give the language of the largest tribe in the United States a new global platform.
For more than a year, Cherokee Film and the Cherokee Nation Language Department have been working with Amazon to dub the first season of the online retail and streaming giant’s hit Prime Video series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” in Cherokee.
“When I was a young college student trying to learn Cherokee, with elements of popular culture, I think I would have responded better than to the sterile environment of a Cherokee-English dictionary and classroom instruction,” Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. told The Oklahoman.
“Doing something mainstream, like part of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ universe, is a way to reach particularly younger people.”
As part of an ongoing collaboration between the Cherokee Nation and Amazon, Hoskin announced this week a new initiative to dub and subtitle select titles within Prime Video’s full library of original content into the Cherokee language.
“The Rings of Power” Season 1 is the first project in the initiative, which the chief announced during an annual gathering of first-language, fluent Cherokee speakers. The event honored the tribe’s 1,500 Cherokee speakers and hundreds of second-language learners and celebrated the tribe’s momentum in perpetuating the Cherokee language.
“In our efforts to preserve, share and promote our language, Cherokee Nation continually illustrates the importance of immersing both speakers and learners in Cherokee as much as possible, and not just in a classroom,” Hoskin said as part of the announcement.
“This is the first of many endeavors in what we envision as an incredibly beneficial and long-term relationship with our allies at Amazon. Together, we are making great strides to bring the Cherokee language to a global audience.”
Movies and television shows can be powerful tools for learning a second language, Paden said.
“It will allow people to sit in the leisure of their own home and enjoy a good show in their own language … and they can comprehend what’s going on vs. just listening to something that’s on tape,” he said.
“Any time somebody hears a language, and they can comprehend what’s happening and they’re able to dissect it, it puts a certain understanding of that language in their mind.”
“The Lord of the Rings” prequel series isn’t the first mainstream film or TV show to be dubbed in an Indigenous language. The spaghetti Western “A Fistful of Dollars” and Disney/Pixar animated hit “Finding Nemo” both have been translated into Navajo, while “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope” has been dubbed in both Navajo and Ojibwe. The “Predator” prequel “Prey,” which follows a Comanche warrior fighting a fearsome alien adversary, has been dubbed in Comanche, and in New Zealand, Māori have entire TV stations showing a variety of series and movies in their language.
But Paden said “The Rings of Power” Season 1 is the biggest project to be translated into Cherokee and one of the biggest dubbing projects to date to be undertaken by a tribe in the continental U.S.
“This is going to get bigger, and other nations are going to see it and do bigger things, too,” he said. “It gives confidence and empowers Indigenous people worldwide.”
Dubbing for this project is being supported by Kiwa Digital’s localisation software VoiceQ.
Credits:
Article: Brandy McDonnell, The Oklahoman, November 9 2024
Images: Icon for Season 1 of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” in Cherokee. Amazon.
Kourtney Vann and Roy Boney Jr. work on dubbing Season 1 of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” in Cherokee. The Cherokee Nation.
