An interview with Steven Pinker on the nature of language, and
the window it provides into the human psyche and mind, is
available on The New York times website. It would be an
interesting short video to show to classes. Wampanoag is the
language of the tribe that coexisted with the Pilgrims. Their
language disappeared in the 19th century, but has recently been
reconstructed by a Wampanoag woman, Annie “Little Doe” Baird,
who won a MacArthur “genius” Award for her work. A whole
fascinating article can be found here. A film about Baird and
the Wampanoag reconstruction, We Still Live Here – Âs
Nutayuneân, was shown on PBS in October, 2010. A short PBS news
report about the project can be found here, and a DVD can be
purchased at this site. The article concludes: “Why should you
care about Wampanoag, or any extinct language, for that matter?
As Noam Chomsky says in the film, “A language is not just words.
It’s a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a
whole history that creates what a community is.