Indian community seeks to preserve language (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Indian community seeks to preserve language
7/12/2005 10:18 AM

By: The Associated Press
http://www.capitalnews9.com/content/headlines/?ArID=139762&SecID=33

A Mohawk Indian village founded more than a dozen years ago in the
tribe's ancestral region is seeking to keep its native language alive.

The Mohawk community in Palatine in Montgomery County is hosting the
Mohawk Indian Language Immersion Program. Students participating in the
program said they see the course as a way to embrace their culture.

Richard Nolan, 53, was born in a Mohawk community south of Montreal, but
told the Daily Gazette that he felt he had lost part of himself because
he could speak English, but not Mohawk. He and a dozen other people are
now learning the language of their forefathers through the Mohawk
immersion course.

Some students hail from nearby Schenectady, but others come from Mohawk
Indian communities as far away as Kentucky, Rhode Island and Maryland.

While staying at the 320-acre village, the students pitch in with chores
in between studying eight hours each day for two weeks.

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