The United States is home to 562 recognized American Indian Nations each with its own language.
Yet the number of native. Americans with the ability to speak their tribe's language has decreased over the past century.
Now, Indian Nations are trying different ways to expand the number of native speakers, and increase interest in their communities to learn tribal languages.
Since the late 1800s many American Indian children have attended boarding schools. At that time, Indian children were required to attend schools by law, and the government forced Indian families to send their children to such schools.
The children were separated from their families. and given English name The teachers often taught native American students in English, instead of the language of their parents. They were told they needed to learn English in order to get a job, earn money and buy a house or nice things.
However, fearing a loss of history and culture, the Indian Nations are experimenting with new ways to increase the language ability of tribal members.
At least one organization is turning to modern technology—The Sealaska Heritage Institute, a nonprofit group, has developed two apps for speakers of the Tlingit language.
The "Learning Tlingit" app serves as a reference for important language topics such as conversation phrases, number, and letters.
The Tlingit tribe has about 10, 000 members. They live mainly in southeastern Alaska. But as of 2013, the tribe had only 125 native speakers left. in addition, very few young people are able to speak Tlingit.
Currently there are two apps, called "Learning Tlingit" and "Tlingit Language Games". The "Learning Tlingit" app serves as a language guide. It provides Tlingit words and expressions, the tribal alphabet, as well as a basic list of the words included. With the "Tlingit Language Games" app, users are given a choice of different places of environments, like a house, forest or ocean.
