A national movement is afoot to revitalize the hundreds of native languages that once flourished across North America and the Hawaiian islands.

By Peter Eichstaedt

Laramie, Wyo.

To the average ear, the words and sounds of Arapaho are from another world. But to Felicia Antelope, they’re the sounds of home. Antelope is a student at the University of Wyoming and an Arapaho from the Wind River Reservation in the central part of the state. She is one of a dozen students in Wayne C’Hair’s twice-weekly Arapaho language class.

Although Antelope, 35, grew up speaking her native language at home, she quickly forgot it after her elementary school teachers told her she had a problem.

“I was told I had a speech impediment,” she says. “But I don’t. I was speaking what they call ‘lazy English,’” the basic English she heard on the reservation. As a result, “they stuck me in a speech class.”

With her self-esteem damaged and her parents disappointed, the family stopped speaking Arapaho so she wouldn’t be held back a grade.

Antelope’s experience typifies that of American Indians — from upstate New York to the Hawaiian Islands — who have lost not only their native language but also their unique culture. But like thousands of other American Indians, she is recapturing her cultural and linguistic heritage.

“It gives me more of an understanding of my culture,” she says of the Arapaho class.

It also has rekindled interest in the language among her family and friends, who also had all but forgotten the language.

“I got a really good reaction,” Antelope says, about trying out words and phrases on her parents and grandparents. “They smile, but they will correct me in a heart beat. They know they have to speak slowly to me, but at least I try.”

Antelope and C’Hair are part of a national movement to revitalize the hundreds of native languages that once flourished in the continental United States and Hawaii.