The Passamaquoddy Tribe of Maine recently received a $73,329 grant from the Administration for Native Americans.

The tribe will use the money, along with other funds, for a $125,000 language preservation program. Fewer than 500 people -- mostly elders -- live on the Pleasant Point and Indian Township reservations, according to Wayne Newell, a director of native language and culture programs.

“You take an isolated community and expose it to all of the things of the modern world, of which television is a significant part, and that’s the outgrowth of it,” Newell told The Bangor Daily News.

A recent survey showed that few young people understand the Passamaquoddy language. “The results, I think, really woke up our tribal council a bit, to see that this is a crisis,”Donald Soctomah, the director of the tribe's Historic Preservation Office, told the paper.

Get the Story:
Tribe receives language revitalization grant (The Bangor Daily News 12/3)