7000 Languages

08/31/2026

🌎 2027 will mark the mid-term of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022–2032) — and we want to hear from you!

Five years into the Decade, this milestone will be an important opportunity to take stock of progress, identify remaining challenges and strengthen collective action towards 2032.

As preparations begin around the world, we are launching a global mapping of activities, events and initiatives planned around the mid-term.

Are you organizing a conference, community gathering, language initiative, cultural event, campaign or other activity? Share your plans with us!

Your contributions will help us highlight initiatives worldwide, strengthen connections across the IDIL community and build a fuller picture of the global movement for Indigenous languages.

🔗 Learn more and share your planned activities: https://bit.ly/4xhv9ma

08/27/2026

Congratulations to Coleton, one of our dedicated volunteers!

Supported by a U.S. Department of State scholarship, the Brown University doctoral student is spending the summer in Taiwan, sharpening his Mandarin skills to advance research on Indigenous language…

08/27/2026

h@lA Turning Heart (Yuchi and Seminole) is Director of Programs at the Yuchi Language Project nonprofit in Glenpool, Oklahoma. Her name means to “breathe again” in the Yuchi language, which reflects her lifelong journey to restore the natural transmission of Yuchi in her home and community. h@lA is a member of yUsûnûnû Polecat Ceremonial Grounds and spent her youth learning Yuchi as a second language from a handful of Elder Speakers. She is now raising her four children solely in the Yuchi language and they are the first birth-speakers of Yuchi in four generations.

To reclaim educational sovereignty for Yuchi children, h@lA co-founded and leads the shtahaê Ô’wAdAnA Yuchi Immersion School, a member of the Indigenous Montessori Network and a partner of Global Village School. h@lA runs a Yuchi Land Back campaign to establish a Living Language Village, which currently includes 172 acres of reclaimed agricultural land. This initial landbase is a living classroom where the Yuchi Immersion School operates and stewards small herds of native buffalo and other animals.

h@lA’s advocacy work spans the globe as she mentors language programs from Bristol Bay Alaska to the Australian Outback. She is a member of the Global Indigenous Languages Caucus and a delegate to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. h@lA holds a Linguistics degree from Dartmouth College and attended the University of Auckland-New Zealand and Charles University in Prague. She has received awards and fellowships such as the 2021 NDN Changemaker Fellow, Richard D. Lombard Fellowship, Dartmouth Native Knowledge Award, and Igiugig Citizen of the Year Award.

h@lA is published in the field of language revitalization in American Indian Women of Proud Nations (ed. Ulrike Wiethaus, et al, 2016 and 2024), Cultural Survival Quarterly (2005, 2011, 2019), Bringing Our Languages Home: Language Revitalization for Families (ed. Leanne Hinton, 2013), and Indigenous Languages Across the Generations (ed. Romero-Little, et al, 2011)

Register for our 10th Annual Native Language Symposium, Early Bird Ends the end of this month
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/10th-annual-native-language-symposium-registration-1985146426400?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

08/14/2026

08/11/2026

"Grandma saw in a dream that our ways were going to be lost, so it became her life's work to record our ways and share them. She believed that by sharing and recording that she was giving our people a firm rock to stand on and that by sharing the world, Kashia people would live forever," Eric Wilder (Kashia Band of Pomo Indians) said about his grandmother Essie Parrish.

His piece, "Portrait of Grandmother 'Yomta" (Spiritual Leader) is on display for just one more week as part our exhibition "Look Again: Portraits of Daring Women." Make sure to stop by and learn more about the women in the exhibit.

Eric's grandmother, Essie Parrish, was a revered Kashia Pomo spiritual leader, basket weaver, healer, and cultural teacher whose quiet courage gave his family and community widsom, faith, and generosity. Thsi portrait is an offering of gratidutde. Eric says, "it stands out as a reminder that daring women are not always loud; sometimes they are steady heands who weave, pray, teach, and hold culture together, whose strength still lights the path forward."

Eric is a graphic designer and artist. He has served two terms as Tribal Chairman of hte Kashia Band of Pomo Indians and often uses his artwork to serve his people.

08/10/2026

08/10/2026

A traditional Menominee dugout canoe has returned to the waters of the Menominee River, marking the revival of a cultural tradition that had been absent for generations.

The hand-carved canoe, known as Maeqtek-ōs, was built through a community-led effort guided by Menominee Nation water protectors Dawn M. Wilber and Wayne Swett, using traditional carving techniques passed down through Indigenous knowledge.

The journey began at Anaem Omot (Sixty Islands Archaeological Site), a place of deep cultural importance where the Menominee people trace their origins. From there, the canoe began a 48-mile journey down the Menominee River to Minikaneh, an ancestral homeland along the Michigan-Wisconsin border.

The canoe was carved from a 17-foot pine log donated by Menominee Tribal Enterprises. Builders spent more than two weeks using controlled fire and traditional hand tools to shape the vessel, reviving skills that had not been practiced locally for generations.

To help restore this knowledge, members of the project also worked with the Mashantucket Pequot Nation, learning traditional dugout canoe carving techniques before bringing them home to the Menominee community.

The project represents more than the launch of a canoe—it reflects the renewal of traditional knowledge, cultural identity, and the enduring relationship between Indigenous peoples and their ancestral waterways.

What do you think projects like this mean for preserving Indigenous culture and identity? 🛶


Sources:
• Menominee Nation
• Sixty Islands Archaeological Site documentation
• Wisconsin archaeological research on ancient dugout canoes
• Mashantucket Pequot Nation — Traditional canoe carving collaboration.