PORT ANGELES – Timothy Montler, a linguistics professor at the University of North Texas, has been spending summers in the North Olympic Peninsula for more than a decade to work with the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe to help preserve the Klallam language.

The professor began work in 1991 after Jamie Valadez of the Lower Elwha, who runs the Klallam language program for the Port Angeles School District, asked him for help.

The language had been nearly lost by two generations, because children in schools were required to speak English – sometimes being punished for speaking Klallam, said tribal members.

“It was hard to remember, sometimes,” said Bea Charles, a Lower Elwha elder who works with Montler to maintain authenticity of the language.

“Especially when we were all together, we sometimes slipped back into speaking Klallam.

“But that got a ruler across the hand.”

So because of the punishment and the social prejudices that prevailed during Charles’ generations, the next two generations grew up learning very little, if any, of their native tongue.

Montler’s first contact with the Klallam language was in the 1970s when, as a graduate student, he worked with Ed Sampson, another linguist, to gather information about the language.

Because of his experience working with the language, he was the linguist Valadez thought to ask for help.

“I had worked with Saanich, which has some similarities, and then a little with Klallam when I was in graduate school,” Montler said.