The Language Healers (NR)

synopsis

This film tells the story of Native peoples striving to revitalize their languages. We learn about the importance of Native languages and cultures in Alaska from a Yup'ik dog musher and then from a Tlingit carver of wood and metal. The film then takes us to a school in Wisconsin where we hear the story of a seventh grade girl who was recently punished for speaking a few words of the Menominee language. We learn more about the fight against language loss through visiting a Euchee immersion school in Oklahoma where only four fluent elder speakers remain. Finally, we travel to Montana where an inventive professor has been perfecting a method to quickly save these disappearing national treasures.