There were 1,520 Cherokee speakers out of 376,000 Cherokee in 2018 according to Ethnologue, which classified the language as "moribund", meaning children are not learning and speaking the language. Only a handful of people under 40 years of age are fluent in Cherokee, and about 8 Cherokee speakers die each month. The Eastern dialect present in North Carolina was known by about 220 Eastern Band speakers in 2018. UNESCO considers the North Carolina dialect of Cherokee "severely endangered". In June 2019, the Tri-Council of Cherokee tribes—the EBCI, the Cherokee Nation, and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians—declared a state of emergency for the language due the threat of it going extinct, calling for the enhancement of revitalization programs. A tally by the three tribes had garnered a list of ~2,100 remaining speakers. There is also the Cherokee Immersion School in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.
History and operations
In the 1990s, Cherokee Chief Joyce Dugan oversaw the creation of the Cultural Resources Division of the EBCI. The idea of an immersion school came up as other native peoples worldwide, such as the Māori, Hawaiians, Mohawk, and Piegan, had successfully created their own immersion programs. Later, in April 2004, a preschool immersion program was opened in the Dora Reed Childcare Center; these children comprised the first kindergarten class when the school opened. Chief Michell Hicks was largely responsible for finally establishing the academy, which before opening in its current location underwent a $6.5 million renovation funded by the EBCI and a $1.3 million grant from the Cherokee Preservation Foundation. The academy is located on the 309-acre site of the former Boundary Tree hotel and resort. After four years of moving between buildings, New Kituwah opened in its newly-remodeled, permanent building on September 8, 2009, and the school held its grand opening ceremony on October 7, 2009.
Cherokee language instruction is a feature of New Kituwah, and inside the school is a prominent sign that states "English stops here." However, in order to meet North Carolina's education standards, the school begins to introduce English to students in the later grades. Similar to many other indigenous languages, there are few living fluent speakers of Cherokee, so many of the school's instructors are not fluent themselves. As of 2019, after 15 years of operations, the school has not yet produced a fluent speaker. The school was featured in the 2014 documentary First Language: The Race to Save Cherokee, which focuses on the dialect of Cherokee spoken in North Carolina, and was also the focus of an undergraduate honors thesis project in 2017. Tribal elderMyrtle Driver Johnson, who was given the title of Beloved Woman from the EBCI and is fluent, has been an active volunteer translator for the school. For New Kituwah, Johnson translated E. B. White's Charlotte's Web; one copy was given to the White estate and New Kituwah kept 200 books. Other posters and materials in Cherokee are designed by local artists and printed nearby. New Kituwah was accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in January 2015.
