CHE article

[McCone, Gary]

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A Race to Rescue Native Tongues


By ELYSE ASHBURN

Do you speak American? Ojibwa, Inupiaq, Navajo, or Tututni? These languages once described everyday life in America, with words like dibik-giizis (moon), láá'íí (one), and tulxata (water) as common as latte, Big Mac, and yes are now.

But along with other Native American tongues, they have faded even more quickly than their tribes have. In 2000 only about 380,000 people in the United States spoke an indigenous language at home, and about 1 percent of people were of Native American descent, according to census figures. Of the 300 or so native languages once spoken in North America, only about 150 are still spoken - and the majority of those have just a handful of mostly elderly speakers.

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Gary K. McCone
Associate Director, Information Systems
National Agricultural Library
10301 Baltimore Avenue
Beltsville, Maryland  20705-2351 
(301) 504-5018
Fax.  (301) 504-6968 

"We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing."  -- R. D. Laing 

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