Native American languages like Crow, Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, and Lakota are at the heart of cultures to which they belong. These languages connect speakers to their roots, give speakers a sense of pride, and a sense of self. In Native communities, revival and reclamation of American Indian languages is becoming away to fight low self-esteem, poor graduation rates and participation in schools, suicide epidemics, and unemployment The Language Conservancy has produced a documentary Rising Voices/Hothaninpi that depicts the exhilarating effort by Lakota tribal members to save the Lakota language. Although the Lakota nation has over 170,000tribalmembers, only 30% are fluent Lakota speakers and the average age of these speakers is now almost 70 years old. Rising Voices tells the story of a passionate, dedicated and diverse group of people from both inside and outside the Lakota community who are working together to save the language. *The goal is to enable Native youth to become language activists and to learn their languages before they disappear from common use.
