WHAT:
Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr., Deputy Chief Bryan Warner and other Cherokee Nation leaders will join the tribe’s language department to celebrate three years of the innovate Speakers Services program.
WHEN:
Tuesday, Jan. 7 at 1 p.m. – 2 p.m.
WHERE:
Durbin Feeling Language Center
16489 US-62
Tahlequah, Oklahoma
WHO:
Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr.
Deputy Chief Bryan Warner
Cherokee Nation Cabinet
Council of the Cherokee Nation
Cherokee Nation Language Department
Cherokee Speakers
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — The Cherokee Nation on Tuesday will celebrate the three-year anniversary of the tribe’s innovative Speakers Services program, which was launched in 2022 to provide dedicated outreach and resources to fluent Cherokee speakers.
Since the inception of the tribe’s Speaker Services program in 2022, the Cherokee Nation has completed more than 1,700 projects ranging from home replacements, building ramp walkways, assisting with utility payments and replacing home appliances for first-language Cherokee speakers totaling more than $34 million.
“Three years ago we launched Speaker Services as a way to help make our language revitalization efforts more wholistic, tending to the grass roots of Cherokee culture,” Chief Hoskin said. “Our Language Department has made incredible progress by reaching out to our remaining population of first language fluent speakers, lifting them up and improving their quality of life.”
The Cherokee Nation estimates only 1,500 fluent Cherokee speakers remain.
Speaker Services was developed during the largest expansion in Cherokee language revitalization efforts in history under the Hoskin/Warner Administration’s Durbin Feeling Language Preservation Act of 2019.
Since 2019 the tribe’s Language Department, formerly a program within its Education department, has grown from an annual budget of $4.6 million to the current year budget of $20.7 million. Staffing in the Language Department has grown from 60 to 110, since that timeframe.