The Origins of the Dakota Language

The Dakota language was the first of our languages to appear in print. missionaries thought it would be faster for us to learn the Dakota language than it would be for Dakota people to learn English. But as I talk about in the book, they mistranslated that language. They infused the language with a number of Christian beliefs and biases. And once these missionaries had knowledge of our language and literature, they were able to dispossess Dakotan people internally and externally. It took them 40 years to start translating the Dakota language.