Revitalizing Indigenous Languages

NEH funding helped The Language Conservancy and the Lakota Language Consortium expand the (link: https://owoksape.com/ text: Owóksape) app, which teaches Lakota though a platform akin to Babbel or Duolingo. Image courtesy of The Language Conservancy. — NEH funding helped The Language Conservancy and the Lakota Language Consortium expand the Owóksape app, which teaches Lakota though a platform akin to Babbel or Duolingo. Image courtesy of The Language Conservancy.

The Language Conservancy works with Native American communities across the United States assisting them in the documentation, preservation, and revitalization of their endangered languages. Through training sessions and technological and linguistic support, The Language Conservancy helps build capacity for tribal language programs and helps in the distribution of language resources. In 2020 and 2021, funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities helped The Language Conservancy and its partner organizations—the Lakota Language Consortium and the Crow Language Consortium—create significant resources aimed at revitalizing the Lakota, Arizona Apache, and Crow languages.

The Lakota Language Consortium’s Owóksape e-learning platform uses game-based language technologies, similar to those used by Duolingo and Babbel, to make learning the Lakota language more accessible. It is currently used in about 40 different schools to teach Lakota to youth. An NEH CARES grant helped expand the program, adding new levels of difficulty so that students can increase their proficiency in the language. The program is free for users and is accessible to students and others both in and outside of the classroom.

Grants made through the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act are supporting additional resource creation by The Language Conservancy and its partners. Support for the Arizona Apache Dictionary project is helping make this long-planned resource a reality. Based on 30 years of research conducted by Dr. Willem de Reuse, the online dictionary will include translations, definitions, audio pronunciations, and sample sentences for the language’s three major dialects. It will be the first resource of its kind for the language. In addition, The Language Conservancy is working with the Crow Language Consortium to create educational resources specifically aimed at school students. Published in both Crow and English, the Crow Heroes book will showcase biographies of Crow citizens, including historical figures, Elders, and prominent community members. An additional book and website, Crow People in the Global Context will place Crow history in dialogue with global events, as a way of showing that this history is as deep and rich as the Western history typically taught in U.S. classrooms.