By Guatemalan Human Rights Commission (GHRC)

By Madeline McGill

Many Indigenous languages, once prominently spoken across North America, have been threatened as their speakers continue to age and new generations are born into an English-dominant society. For numerous Tribal Nations, the number of native speakers has fallen dangerously low, often into the single digits.

It has been through the efforts of elders, educators, and interested youth that Nations have started to see a movement to re-vitalize endangered languages.

By Alex Glomset

Indigenous and Afro-Indigenous rights have always been a contentious issue in many parts of Latin and South America including Venezuela, and though progress has made on several fronts, there are still concerns that equal rights are not being given to these groups.  In the September 2014 review of Venezuela by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, several of these issues surrounding Indigenous and Afro-Indigenous children’s rights were addressed.

Cultural Survival Quarterly contributing arts editor Phoebe Farris recently spoke with Tony Castanha, author of  The Myth of Indigenous Caribbean Extinction: Continuity And Reclamation in Boriken (Puerto Rico) [Palgrave Macmillian, a division of St.Martin’s Press, New York, NY, 2011] about his recent work.

Haga clic aquí para la versión e español 

By Sophia Mitrokostas

In 2008, Eyak became the first Native language declared extinct in Alaska. Now, with the help of the internet and a grant from the Administration for Native Americans, Eyak is also on its way to becoming the first language in the state to be brought back to life.