Culture is Language and Language is Culture

We are living in a time of mass language extinction, with a language going extinct every two weeks. Many of these languages belong to indigenous people. According to the UNESCO Atlas of Languages in Danger, there are 6,700 languages spoken in the world, 40% of these languages are in danger of going extinct. According to Ethnologue, of the 115 Indigenous languages spoken in the U.S. today, two are healthy, 34 are in danger and 79 will go extinct within a generation without serious intervention. In other words, 99% of the Native American languages spoken today are in danger of extinction. 

Established in 2006, The Alliance of Early Childhood Professionals D.B.A- Wicoie Nandagikendan is a small non-profit with a national reputation for language immersion at the early childhood level. Minnesota’s first language; Dakhota is on the critically endangered language list with one first language speaker (first language was Dakhota) left in Minnesota! The Ojibwe language is not far behind in terms of being critically endangered.

This year, Wicoie Nandagikendan is celebrating our 15th year of revitalizing our Dakhota and Objibwe languages. Partnering with families and the community, we were the first indigenous urban preschool language immersion program created in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

By continuing language revitalization at the early childhood level with our children, their families and the community we are revitalizing and sustaining these languages for the future generations while building self esteem and self efficacy in our children and the community.

We are asking you to partner with us in our mission of language revitalization. We are working to provide scholarships for 10 students. For this we will need to raise $7,500.00. You can sponsor a student with 3 bi-monthly payments of $250.00 or make a donation of either $100.00, $75.00, $50.00, $25.00 or a contribution you feel is appropriate. 

Please consider making a contribution to help save Minnesota's endangered languages today.

“Ultimately the survival of Indigenous languages depends on the will of the community,” said Lahoucine Arnouzy, researcher from the Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture of Morocco. 

“The most important thing to me is to teach the children, so that our culture never dies.”

Blackhawk SanCarlos, Mohawk and Apache

“You’ve got to know your language to understand your culture.”

Beatrice Taylor, Ojibwe