<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default"><h1 itemprop="name headline" style="font-family:'HelveticaNeue Condensed','Roboto Condensed',sans-serif;font-size:32px;padding:0px;margin:0px 0px 10px;line-height:37px;color:rgb(88,88,88)">
Chickasaw Nation: The Fight to Save a Dying Native American Language</h1><ul class="" style="font-family:HelveticaNeue,Roboto,sans-serif;font-size:13px;padding:0px 0px 10px;margin:0px;list-style:none outside none;font-style:italic;line-height:20px;color:rgb(51,51,51)">
<li class="" style="padding:0px;margin:0px;float:left;width:72px"><a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/reporters/mary-ann-russon" rel="author" style="padding:0px;margin:0px;text-decoration:none;color:inherit"><img src="http://d.ibtimes.co.uk/en/thumb/1371842/mary-ann-russon.jpg?w=54&h=54&l=62&t=45" alt="Mary-Ann Russon" width="54" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px; max-width: 500px;"></a></li>
<li class="" style="padding:5px 0px 0px;margin:0px;width:254px;float:left"><span style="padding:0px;margin:0px;color:rgb(158,158,158)">By </span><a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/reporters/mary-ann-russon" class="" itemprop="author" rel="author" style="padding:0px;margin:0px;text-decoration:none;color:rgb(240,80,50)">Mary-Ann Russon</a> <br style="padding:0px;margin:0px">
<span class="" itemprop="datePublished" style="padding:0px;margin:0px">May 8, 2014 11:06 GMT</span></li></ul><div><font color="#333333" face="HelveticaNeue, Roboto, sans-serif"><span style="line-height:20px"><i><br></i></span></font></div>
<div><font color="#333333" face="HelveticaNeue, Roboto, sans-serif"><span style="line-height:20px"><i><br></i></span></font></div><div><font color="#333333" face="HelveticaNeue, Roboto, sans-serif"><span style="line-height:20px"><i><br>
</i></span></font></div><p style="font-family:HelveticaNeue,Roboto,sans-serif;font-size:15px;padding:0px;margin:20px 0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);line-height:22px">A 50,000 year-old indigenous Native American tribe that has weathered the conquistadors, numerous wars with the Europeans, the American Revolution and the Civil War is now fighting to preserve its language and culture by embracing modern technology.</p>
<p style="font-family:HelveticaNeue,Roboto,sans-serif;font-size:15px;padding:0px;margin:20px 0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);line-height:22px">There are 6,000 languages spoken in the world but linguists fear that 50% of them will become extinct within the next century. In the US, 175 Native American languages are spoken, but fewer than 20 are expected to survive the next 100 years.</p>
<p style="font-family:HelveticaNeue,Roboto,sans-serif;font-size:15px;padding:0px;margin:20px 0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);line-height:22px">The language of the Chickasaws, known as "Chikashshanompa", is a 3,000-year-old living language that is categorised by Unesco as being "severely endangered".</p>
<p style="font-family:HelveticaNeue,Roboto,sans-serif;font-size:15px;padding:0px;margin:20px 0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);line-height:22px">The last remaining monolingual speaker of this language, Emily Johnson Dickerson, 93, died in December. Now the tribe is scrambling to make sure that its language does not become lost.</p>
<p style="font-family:HelveticaNeue,Roboto,sans-serif;font-size:15px;padding:0px;margin:20px 0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);line-height:22px">Access full article below: </p><div style="font-family:georgia,serif;font-size:large"><a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/chickasaw-nation-fight-save-dying-native-american-language-1447670">http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/chickasaw-nation-fight-save-dying-native-american-language-1447670</a><br>
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