UMass prof makes it her mission to help keep Navajo language alive (fwd link)

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UMass prof makes it her mission to help keep Navajo language alive

By STEVE PFARRER
Monday, April 4, 2011
USA

AMHERST - While many native American languages have disappeared or
become endangered, spoken mostly by tribal elders, Navajo has
survived, with its speakers numbering over 100,000, possibly as many
as 177,000 - the highest number of speakers of any native language in
North America.

But Margaret "Peggy" Speas, a veteran linguist at the University of
Massachusetts Amherst, says Navajo faces an uncertain future - a
victim, like other native languages, of U.S. policies from the late
1800s to mid 1900s that compelled many American Indians to stop
speaking their native tongues. Today, she notes, fewer than 5 percent
of Navajo speakers are children under age 5.

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