Like most tribal communities in North America, the Crow Tribe in Montana faces challenges in keeping its indigenous language alive, but also finds that the work of revitalizing language brings the community together.
Compared with many other tribes, the Crow has a relatively large number of speakers at about 4,200. However, the share of tribal members who speak Crow fluently saw a sharp drop from about 85 percent 60 years ago to about 30 percent today. The decline is particularly sharp among young speakers. A 2011 survey of three-to five-year-old children attending Head Start and a child care program showed that only 3 percent were fluent, indicating that most children were not speaking Crow as a first language in their homes…
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