Language Program Directory Information
Which Tribal/Indigenous community is your program/institution affiliated with?
Couer d'Alene
How many staff members work for your program/institution?
3
How long has your program/institution existed?
Since 1995 (25 years)
What is the contact information for your program/institution (e.g. mailing address, website, Facebook Page, etc.)?
850 A Street, Plummer, Idaho
Please provide a brief description (approximately 5 sentences) about your program/institution.
We offer language classes for the community as well as in the area schools. We work to create new adult speakers to pass on the language. We no longer have first language speakers of Coeur d'Alene so we rely heavily on our documentation. We simultaneously teach while working to stabilize and preserve our documentation that we have gathered with speakers and from archives, museums, and libraries.
What are challenges your program/institution has faced?
Our main challenge is the lack of interest and motivation to attend classes. We need more people to help revitalize the language. We are a small program that can only reach so many people.
What are existing projects your program/institution is working on?
We teach an adult class daily and four evenings a week we have beginner classes. We are currently digitizing our audio of fluent speakers to use for curriculum, teaching, and to share with the community. We also are involved in multiple collaborative projects with different universities working on curriculum as well as archiving our materials.
What are the short-term goals for your program institution (present-day – one month from now)?
To teach our current students as much as possible. To spread awareness of our language to get more people involved.
What are the long-term goals for your program/institution (1 year – 5 years from now)?
To create more adult speakers of the language. To stabilize our documentation materials and have them in a more accessible format.
From your perspective, how do you view the language activity in your tribe?
We always could use more people to help with this work so that there is more language activity in the tribe. Right now it don't seem like much but we do the best we can.