This is after reading the article "Tribe Revives Language on Verge of Extinction"
Language is an important part of any society, because it enables people to communicate and express themselves freely. When a language dies out, future generations lose a vital part of their culture. Language is an important aspect of cultural heritage and it becomes especially important to preserve it. New technologies such as pod casts can be used to preserve the spoken version of languages and written documents can preserve information about the native literature and linguistics of languages.
The Siletz people are a Native American tribe from Oregon and an Indigenous people of the Northwest Plateau. Today they are enrolled in the federally recognized Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians of Oregon.
This American Indian language had only five speakers left. It was once dominant but was almost nearing extinction. Bud Lane, who was a member of the tribe had been working on the Siletz Dee-ni talking dictionary for nearly seven years. He had recorded almost all of its 10,000 audio entries himself. He wanted to create a group of speakers large enough for the language to remain existent.
Some people who had listened to their elders like Mr. Lane had picked up the language. Mr. Lane started taking Siletz classes. The Siletz dictionary was impressive. Other tribes adopted their language as their own cultures faded.
Government boarding schools which were attended by generations of Indian children did not allow learning tribal languages. Now the language is taught to sixth graders at the public charted school. The aim of the tribe is to have a proper teaching program in place in the next few years to meet Oregon’s high school language requirements. It would therefore allow Siletz to be taught as a foreign language in its place of origin, which is a great achievement.
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