KRWG: Mescalero Apache Nation using grant for language work

Wednesday, September 14, 2011  

"A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) will help the Mescalero Apache Tribe and a New Mexico State University professor preserve and maintain Apache languages on the Mescalero Apache Reservation, about 100 miles northeast of Las Cruces near Ruidoso.

Professor Scott Rushforth, an anthropological linguist, received a $321,200 award from the NEH Documenting Endangered Languages Program. The funding will enable Rushforth and Nd Bizaa, the Mescalero Apache Tribe Language Program, to develop a dictionary, grammar and multimedia archive. Nd Bizaa staff members include Director Oliver Enjady, Caroline Blake, Ben Blake and Walter Scott, an Apache language media specialist who obtained his degree from NMSU.

Today, there are fewer than 200 fluent Apache speakers at Mescalero.

"The Apache languages at Mescalero are not being learned by children, so we are using modern technology to document and preserve those languages," Rushforth said."

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Major Federal Grant For NMSU Las Cruces (KRWG 9/13)