For centuries, the Arapaho have called Colorado and Wyoming home. The tribe gave names to places like the Kawuneeche Valley, the Never Summer Mountains, and Mount Blue Sky.   

But the language the Arapaho have spoken for centuries is at risk of disappearing, as fewer members of the tribe have learned the language.  

A team of language experts at the University of Colorado Boulder is working to change that. They’re compiling an online database that includes recordings of the Arapaho language and can be used as a learning and teaching tool.  

Andrew Cowell is a linguistics professor at CU, and faculty director of the Center for Native American and Indigenous studies. He helped launch this project more than two decades ago.   

He spoke with Erin O’Toole in January  about how he hopes the digital database helps future generations learn and continue to speak the Arapaho language.  We’re listening back to that conversation today. 

You can access the Arapaho Language Project here. 

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Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.