Use it or Loose it - not a joke for Mountain Cherokee Heritage

Before the Pilgrims, before the Spanish and Italians and even before the Vikings this country was populated with people whose heritage - despite what it has to teach us all - has been long disrupted and discarded. But, hopefully, things are changing. Today, a group of Cherokee school children are attending classes at the New Kituwah Academy where, for eight hours a day, Cherokee is the language spoken and English is minimized. The Cherokee language immersion program is part of The Kituwah Language Revitalization Initiative, a project from the Cherokee Preservation Foundation designed to reverse the loss of the Cherokee language and produce a new generation of Cherokee speakers.
Now located in the renovated Boundary Tree Motel property on US 441 in Cherokee, the program began in 1994 with the kindergarten class and will eventually encompass pre-K through grade five. Read more...
Photo and information provided by Postcards from the Smokies