According to UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization) more than 2,400 languages are in danger of
extinction and 192 of these are Native American Languages.
Following European colonisation and governmental policies of the
mid-19th century, the USA has already lost a third of its native
languages, the Alaskan language of Eyak being the most recent when
it's last remaining speaker Marie Smith Jones died in 2008.
Steps are being taken though to expand tribal language teaching
in schools "Progress is being made through immersion schools,
because if you teach children when they're young it will stay with
them as adults and that's the future," says Mr Nahwooksy, a
Comanche.
Such native language teaching programmes are commonplace in
Hawaiian schools but UNESCO still class Hawaiian as an endangered
language with less then 1000 native speakers.