Indian groups focus on saving languages (fwd link)

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Indian groups focus on saving languages

Posted: July 09, 2008
by: McClatchy Tribune Business News
By Faye Flam -- The Philadelphia Inquirer

PHILADELPHIA (MCT) - In the Lakota language, a single word expresses the awe and
connectedness with nature that some feel looking at the northern lights. In
Euchee, the language makes no distinction between humans and other animals,
though it does differentiate between Euchee people and non-Euchee.

And the Koasati language of Louisiana provides no word for goodbye, since time
is seen as more cyclical than linear. To end a conversation, you would say
something like, ''This was good.''

More than 300 American Indian languages flourished in North America at the time
of Columbus, each carrying a unique way of understanding the world.

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