Cultural Survival’s Endangered Languages Program and Makepeace Productions are teaming up once again, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts’ ARTWORKS program and the Center for Independent documentary, to develop enhancements for the OurMotherTongues.org companion website to the award-winning documentary Âs Nutayuneân—We Still Live Here. The film

The film We Still Live Here - Âs Nutayuneân tells the inspiring story of the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project’s work to bring their language home after nearly 150 years without fluent speakers in their tribal communities.

On Tuesday, May 15, 2012, at the 11th session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York, Cultural Survival, Living Tongues Institute, National Museum of the American Indian Film and Video Center, and Underrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) Montagnyard Youth Project are organizing a side-event on language revitalization tools. Join us.

On May 4, 2012, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya, concluded his official twelve-day visit to the United States. This is the first time a UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has visited the United States to investigate human rights abuses of Indigenous Peoples. In the statement below released on May 4, 2012, he urged the United States to strengthen federal and state measures to address the significant issues affecting Native American, Alaska Native and Hawaiian peoples throughout in the country. Mr.

More than 600 Native American youth from tribes across Oklahoma and beyond gathered this month at the University of Oklahoma’s Sam Noble Museum in Norman for their tenth annual two-day Youth Language Fair.

“Our language is the number one source of our soul, our pride, our being, our strength and our identity.”-- Indigenous Language Instructor, Cultural Survival Quarterly, 2010

Languages are vanishing

Language experts believe that 90% of the world’s estimated 6,000 languages could disappear entirely by the end of this century. Indigenous Peoples face myriad socio-economic pressures and discriminatory policies forcing youth and adults alike to replace tribal languages with the dominant languages of the larger societies in which they live.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Professor James Anaya, will carry out an official visit to the United States of America from April 23 to May 4, 2012. He will examine the human rights situation of Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians (estimated population of 2.7 million). His visit consists of meetings and consultations with federal and state government officials, as well as with Indigenous nations and their representatives in the Southwest, Midwest, Alaska, Pacific Northwest and Washington, D.C.

By Matt Gilbert

Most would agree Native suicide is the pressing issue of all in rural Alaska. In the Athabascan and Yupik regions, it has been a grave and growing concerning for decades. Native leaders raised it as an emergency during the 2010 Alaska Federation of Natives Convention. I spoke to Inupiaq, Yupik, and Athabascan youth and Elders across the state and they had much to say.

Inupiat tribal leader, Caroline Cannon, is one of this year's recipeints of the Goldman Environmental Prize for her exemplary work towards stopping oil exploration and drilling in the Alaskan Arctic.

The Goldman Environmental Prize is awarded annually since 1990 to six grassroots environmental activists, one from Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island Nations, North America, and South and Central America. The prize includes a  monetary award of US$150,000 per recipient.