Language Crisis: The American Indian Reality

In the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, a few more elderly native speakers of Cherokee silently pass away every few months. A language spoken for at least three millennia in the region faces extinction. The estimated 250 remaining native Cherokee speakers comprise less than two percent of the 13,000-member Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians in the western highlands of North Carolina. This is not an uncommon plight -- it is the norm for American Indian Languages. The world's overall linguisti...