Good Morning!

First, thanks to Edwin Benson, Nu’eta elder in Twin Buttes, N.D., for working with our community and sharing his knowledge of the Nu’eta language, one of three languages spoken on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota.

Indigenous languages are disappearing in the blink of an eye. Within the next decade, 70 Native languages in the United States are expected to disappear. Many of the remaining speakers are 70 years and older. As an enrolled citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, I am working relatives in my community to help each other share and learn the endangered Nu’eta language, which is the language of the Twin Buttes community on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. I will work with Cory Spotted Bear to make the language available to anyone who wants to learn. I am working on adding audio clips to the words spoken by Edwin Benson, the last man alive born into Mandan as a first language. Edwin is 78 and lives in Twin Buttes.

Here is third word. I will begin to post words five at a time with audio.

#3.   mikosh       no

Thanks.

Jodi Rave

Edwin Benson, the last man alive born into Nu’eta as a first language.

Photo courtesy: Cory Spotted Bear.