ABSTRACT
In Oklahoma, Cherokee lists around 10,000 total speakers, including children, with North Carolina numbering less than 1,000 speakers. Native Kiowa has around 100 fluent speakers. Along with all of these spoken languages there are countless stories, memoirs, histories, and other oral accounts that tell us in their own way about the people, who they are and so on. In Oklahoma the Kiowa Kids Language Program is a good example of this new and useful kind of work being carried out. Parents and their children attend regular language sessions, including language immersion in this central Oklahoma community where many Kiowas have relocated from Kiowa Country. Singing, listening to guest speakers, preparing special tribal foods, and creating artworks, sculpture, and painting are among the many activities for language learning. Without seeing the value of Indigenous knowledge as a natural byproduct of language, there seems little reason for us to want to rescue living languages from extinction.
