The fate of imperiled Native languages

For many indigenous people world-wide, language is an endangered species, and when language dies, so, too, in many ways, does a people. I've seen it in more veiled, deceptive circumstances in the non-indigenous world, such as in Italy where the replacing of perfectly useful Italian words by English is a signpost for the Americanization of the whole society. The disappearance of Native American languages, though, is even more portentous, as it signals the absorption of a people into the culture that historically would rather have been rid of them completely.
Kara Brigg's article in India Today is both a perceptive analysis and a call to action.

Revitalizing Native Languages Campaign

After weeks of intensive advocacy by Cultural Survival, tribal leaders, the National Alliance to Save Native Languages, and leading Native American policy groups, the United States Congress has appropriated an additional $1.5 million over the enacted 2008 budget (which was $2 million) for the Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act. This means that there is $3.5 million in the 2009 budget for Native American language restoration, programs, or schools, in addition to the funds that the Administration for Native Americans makes available out of its overall budget for language revitalization. Cultural Survival and the National Alliance to Save Native Languages also pushed for $5 million in Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) funding in the federal economic stimulus package for "shovel ready" projects at Native language immersion schools desperately in need of repairs and renovations. The BIA's Office of Economic Development Workforce Construction Training Programs will be funded at $6 million, according to the best current estimates available from NCAI, but it is still unclear how much of this allocation will support local renovation projects at immersion schools. The National Alliance continues to monitor local language school construction projects. Read the Alliance's congressional testimony submitted to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs summarizing immersion school facilities needs.