Tribes on their own when it comes to saving languages (fwd link)

[phil cash cash]

Published - Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Tribes on their own when it comes to saving languages
By JASON STEIN | Lee Newspapers

Efforts to save Wisconsin’s endangered native languages receive no real state
investment and only modest federal money, a Wisconsin State Journal review has
found.

The state stopped directly funding tribal language initiatives in 2003, when the
then Republican-controlled Legislature cut the $220,000 a year they were
receiving. That cut eliminated a program, dating to 1980, that helped fund
language and culture classes at five schools for American Indian students in
Wisconsin.

Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, who in the past has sought modest increases for that
program, said the state no longer can ignore the dangers facing Wisconsin’s
five native languages.

Access full article below:
http://www.lacrossetribune.com/articles/2008/06/03/news/z01language2.txt