Oregon Public Broadcasting

On St Patrick’s Day, many in the state and the country celebrate Irish culture – and language.

But, according to a United Nations atlas released last month, Irish language is ‘endangered’.

And according to that same U.N. information, the Pacific Northwest is a ‘hot spot’ for endangered languages.

That’s because of the high number of dying or extinct Native American languages.

Deanna Daniels is the language program coordinator at First People’s Cultural Council.

She says there a number of regional tribes with just one native speaker left – and when that elder dies, so does the language.

Deanna Daniels: “A lot of our words can’t be translated. Some of them do, but it really doesn’t send the message of what you’re saying.”

In Oregon, tribal members on the Warm Springs and Grand Ronde reservations are working to save their languages.

For example, the Grand Ronde tribes teach ‘Chinook Wawa’  in the primary school.