On American Indian Languages

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I went through an interesting exercise recently……exploring rare languages, the status on them, interest level and of the ones left that I am consciously aware of, what is their potential lifespan?

I grew up in upstate New York (Richard Russo territory) and have always been fascinated by the heritage of the Mohawk Indians and the Iroquoian culture and language. I never knew about Mingo however, which is an Iroquoian language native to the areas of western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and West Virginia. Like so many like it, Mingo is a seriously endangered language, with very few native speakers remaining.

Lang
Source: Mingolanguage.org

Check out this interesting chart (its a tad out of date), but it is a fascinating list of percentages of the population that speak American Indian languages in their homes. Cherokee has many dialects for example and one of them alone (Tsalagi, an Iriquois language) claims 22,000 speakers.

While learning a language with a large number of speakers (Spanish, Chinese) becomes a smart career decision as we choose language classes in schools (most Americans skip the choice rather than embrace it — because there isn’t enough of a compelling need to…..), don’t you find it odd (and sad) that Americans know SO little about native American Indian languages and culture?

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