UMass prof makes it her mission to help keep Navajo language alive (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

Try this link, otherwise just cut and paste the headline into Google
news and it should bring up the news item.  Sorry about that, I did
not know it did that.  Phil

http://www.gazettenet.com/2011/04/04/umass-prof-makes-it-her-mission-help-keep-navajo-language-alive?SESS60cf743b079e48a558ea8944a4951c42=gnews

On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 11:28 AM, Phillip E Cash Cash
<cashcash at email.arizona.edu> wrote:
> UMass prof makes it her mission to help keep Navajo language alive
>
> By STEVE PFARRER
> Monday, April 4, 2011
> USA
>
> AMHERST - While many native American languages have disappeared or
> become endangered, spoken mostly by tribal elders, Navajo has
> survived, with its speakers numbering over 100,000, possibly as many
> as 177,000 - the highest number of speakers of any native language in
> North America.
>
> But Margaret "Peggy" Speas, a veteran linguist at the University of
> Massachusetts Amherst, says Navajo faces an uncertain future - a
> victim, like other native languages, of U.S. policies from the late
> 1800s to mid 1900s that compelled many American Indians to stop
> speaking their native tongues. Today, she notes, fewer than 5 percent
> of Navajo speakers are children under age 5.
>
> Access full article below:
> http://www.gazettenet.com/2011/04/04/umass-prof-makes-it-her-mission-help-keep-navajo-language-alive
>