Che Jim: How do you get a new generation of kids excited about language? For the Inupiat people, one answer is a video game.

In 2014, the Cook Inlet Tribal Council helped create Kisima Inŋitchuŋa, or Never Alone. Players take on a young Inupiat girl named Nuna as she solves puzzles with her Arctic Fox, and the whole game is narrated in Inupiat. 

But why don't these kids already know the language of their ancestors?

Hi, I'm Che Jim, and welcome to Crash Course: Native American History. 

[Theme music]

Language is the foundation of culture and for Native folks, it's how we preserve our oral histories, maintain our laws, pass down knowledge of the natural world and so much more. 

As Diné elder Paul Dain said, "Our language and culture is the window through which we see the world." To lose it is to lose part of ourselves. 

But sadly, fluency rates for Native American languages have been declining for hundreds of years. Today, many of those languages are in danger of disappearing. 

Some scholars predict that over 90% of all Native American languages in the US could disappear by 2050, with no fluent speakers left to carry them forward. 

We're going to talk a lot more about why this is happening and what's being done to prevent it a little bit later. 

But things haven't always been this dire, depending on which scholars you ask.

Prior to the 15th century, there were anywhere between 300 to 2,000 distinct Native languages spoken across the continent. 

Imagine it. Just a few hundred years ago, right here in what's now Indianapolis, you could have heard dozens of different indigenous languages. It might have been hard to get directions, though. 

We can learn a lot about tribal cultures from their languages. Not just from what's said out loud, but also from what's between the lines. 

Like, think about this. Our language reveals something about what we value. Maybe thats why in English, everything's such a big hit or a home run. Unless, of course, you drop the ball. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. 

We get it. You like sports. 

Native languages do this, too. The tribe's worldview is often baked into the language itself. 

Many languages have certain types of nouns and verbs for gender that show its importance in the culture's worldview. 

Like Anishinaabemowin. Spoken by the Ojibway, Odawa and Potawatomi peoples, there are special classes for nouns and verbs for both living and non-living objects, which underscores the cultural idea of kinship, or family relations among people, animals, and non-living elements. 

Potawatomi writer and botanists Robin Wall Kimmerer breaks it down like this.

Of an inanimate being like a table, we say, What is it? And we answer, Dopwen yewe, Table it is. 

But of an apple, we must say, Who is that being? And reply, Mshimin yawe, Apple that being is. 

Or in my tribe, the Navajo or Diné, we use the word Hózhó to refer to a sense of harmony in different situations. 

Like, if someone asks you, Haa'ii'ni? Or, How are you? You might respond, Hózhó, or, It's good. 

But we also use it when concluding a prayer. We say, Hózhó Nahasdlii four times in a row, to mean, All is at peace again. 

So even though there's no direct English translation for Hózhó, you can still get the idea that it represents a state of balance and harmony. 

The point is, to understand cultural ideas, it helps to understand the languages they were originally communicated through. Otherwise, things get lost in translation. 

And not just languages, but ideas and cultures. And for nearly all Native speakers in the US, the window to save them is closing. 

So, what happened? Why are Native languages in danger? 

Well, as with so many other aspects of Native American life, these languages were drastically altered with the arrival of European colonisers in the 15th century. 

For hundreds of years, those colonists and later the US government, committed what’s called linguicide, the deliberate killing of language as part of a broader effort to erase Native culture. 

The attempt to absorb a minority culture into the dominant culture is called assimilation.

But there was one assimilation policy in particular that had an outsized impact on Native languages. Federal Indian boarding schools. 

Now, just a heads up. What I'm about to cover is difficult to hear, so please take care as you watch on. 

Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, thousands of Native children were forcefully separated from their parents and enrolled into boarding schools modelled after a prisonerofwar camps. 

When the students arrived, administrators took their clothes, cut their hair, and bathed them in kerosene to cleanse them and prevent the spread of illness and lice. 

The children were given English names and forbidden from speaking their Native languages. 

If a student spoke just a single word of Indian, they were punished, which could include whippings, solitary confinement, starvation, and even withholding medical treatment. 

Bill Wright, a Patwin Indian elder, spoke out about the abuse he and other Native children suffered in these schools.

In an interview with NPR, Wright said that he lost his culture, his language, and even his name, telling reporters, "I remember coming home and my grandma asked me to talk Indian to her and I said, 'Grandma, I don’t understand you...'"

And when she called him by his Indian name, Tarum, he told her his name was Billy. 

And if it feels like these schools are a part of a long ago past, Wright passed away in 2021. 

In fact, there are still boarding school survivors alive today fighting for recognition, justice, and healing. 

By 1900, 20,000 Indian children were in boarding schools.

That number jumped up to more than 60,000 just 25 years later. And by 1926, nearly 83% of Indian school aged children were attending boarding schools. 

It wasn’t until 1972, when Congress passed the Indian Education Act, thanks in part to pressure from Native groups, that control of the schools passed to tribal authorities.

But by then, the damage had been done. A 2024 federal report found that at least 973 children died at these schools, while acknowledging that the true total is likely much higher.

And many thousands of children left these schools having lost all connection to their traditional languages. 

Those who did remember them now associate those languages with deep lasting trauma. Many former students chose not to pass their language on to their children and grandchildren in order to spare them from that same pain. 

This generational loss has rippled across communities.

In places like Alaska, language loss has been linked to higher rates of poverty, substance abuse, and suicide. In 2016, the governor of Alaska declared a linguistics emergency in the state, recognising the loss and potential extinction of the official 20 Alaskan Native languages. 

Which brings me back to the Inupiat, and their attempt to revive their language. 

Unlike other video games, Never Alone doesn’t reward players with trophies or points, but rather traditional stories from Alaskan Native culture. 

At the same time, important aspects of that culture are built into the gameplay, like the hero Nuna often relies on spirits to help guide her on her journey.

Since its release, a classroom guide has been created and distributed, along with copies of the game to every school district in Alaska. 

Elsewhere, Native folks are incorporating their languages into music. 

Like Wade Fernandez, a singer-songwriter from the Menominee Nation. His song Sawaenamiyah, or We Are Blessed, combined contemporary melodies with his traditional Menominee language. 

Plus, it's a total banger. 

In places like Hawaii and Arizona, Native language immersion schools encourage students to wear traditional clothing, speak languages, and engage with their cultures. 

A complete 180 from the boarding school era. 

Studies have shown that Native students in immersion schools have better test scores, stronger cultural connections, and higher rates of graduation compared to Native students in public schools. 

The programs have been so successful in Hawaii that language programs have expanded to the college level. Students there can now attend university courses taught entirely in Native Hawaiian. 

And its having a big impact. In the early 1980s, fewer than 50 people below the age of 18 could speak fluent Native Hawaiian. 

Thanks to immersion schools and revitalisation efforts, over 18,000 people now speak Hawaiian statewide. And a language that students were once punished for speaking is now protected by law. 

These efforts are even working their way into broader culture.

Like, the original Star Wars film was dubbed in Navajo in 2012. And in 2022, the movie Prey became the first film to fully be dubbed in the Comanche language. 

Can every movie be like this?

Dorothy LeBeau, Oceti Sakowin Elder, once said, "Losing the language means losing the culture. We need to know who we are because it makes a difference in who our children are."

Before Europeans arrived, North America was full of diverse languages that carried not just meaning, but history, culture, and entire ways of knowing. 

Thankfully, revitalisation efforts are making headway today preserve what might otherwise been lost forever. 

Next time, we'll explore the Land Back Movement, and I will see you then. 

Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course: Native American History, which was filmed at our studio in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was made with the help of all these nice people. If you want to help keep Crash Course free for everyone forever, you can join our community on Patreon.