In 2012, the blockbuster movie “The Avengers” was released, where a group of superheroes like Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow and Hulk saved the world.
The roles included Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo.
Now the stars have reunited and dubbed the film into the Lakota language, a less common language among Native Americans. The language is only spoken by between 2,200 and 6,200 people in the world in the United States and Canada.
62 people who speak the language have been involved in dubbing the film, where the project is supposed to lift up and create awareness about an endangered language.
– You have the most famous movie series in the world and some of the most famous actors, celebrities and characters who speak our once forbidden Lakota language. So a really beautiful thing about the project is that our language doesn’t have to hide anymore,” says Ray Taken Alive in a behind-the-scenes video on Youtube.
“A difficult language”
The most involved in the project among the movie stars is Mark Ruffalo, who plays the Hulk, as he recently produced a documentary about the Lakota people’s efforts to reclaim and defend their identity.
– This project came from my relationship with the Lakota people and this was a fun thing that they wanted to do, says Mark Ruffalo and continues:
– Everyone was really on board. It’s a difficult language and there are sounds that we just don’t have in our language that they have in theirs. But once you get the hang of it, it feels really good, he says.
The work of dubbing the film took 15 months to complete and the film is now available to stream in the Lakota language on Disney plus.