![]() Alvena and her fellow elders have a plan to give the Arapaho language to their youngest relatives entering elementary school-kindergarten and first grade students-and they will not be held back, even by "the big dollar sign," Alvena says matter-of-factly from her office at the Wind River Tribal College in Ethete. ![]() ![]() She is the director of the new Hinono'eitiino'oowu language immersion grade school on the Wind River reservation in Wyoming, which just opened on October 17. And that's precisely Alvena Oldman's mission in life. If this language is to survive, it must be learned and spoken by young people. Scholars and community leaders estimate that fewer than 200 people on the Northern Arapaho reservation now speak it as a first language, and they are almost all over 50 years old. Photo by Jonathan Barela, Northern Arapaho Public Relations DepartmentThe Arapaho language, like most remaining Native American languages, is on the brink of disappearing. Alvena Oldman stands in front of the Arapaho flag at the Wind River Tribal College in Ethete, Wyoming.
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