One language dies every 14 days
The Pacific Northwest had hundreds of indigenous languages, today only five remain. The Ichishkín language of Warm Springs, Oregon, today has 20 speakers of its dialect, 95% are over the age of 65. In a recent assessment done by the CRÍID Foundation, the keepers of our language and culture may be gone by the year 2025.
“ The CRÍID Foundation is committed to connecting with generations present, before and after, learning, documenting, and revitalizing the Ichishkín Language.“
- Jefferson Greene
As Executive Director of the CRÍID Foundation and a member of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, I am honored to be one of the very few embedded in the endangered cultural ways of speaking, teaching, and living. I've worked diligently to learn the language my grandmother still spoke after surviving the anti-tribal experience of the boarding school era.
After 5 incredible years, the documentation has since produced the largest Ichishkín Language database to analyze, understand, share, and expand the language community. Working in circles of cultural healing, trauma, arts, history, education, and community development. The CRÍID Foundation continues to help students with a sense of identity, pursuit, and place while surrounded by colonization and assimilation.
The CRÍID Foundation has served over 500 community members, elders, and youth combined in Oregon, Idaho, and Washington.
Our language is the root of our identity and cultural practices, where within in are the understandings of our creation stories and our relationship with the creator.
The work we do is critical. The CRÍID Foundation's mission to preserve, share, and advance indigenous customs, culture, and language by engaging with the surrounding communities of the Columbia River is essential, especially under COVID-19's impact on indigenous communities. Thank you for your support.
Jefferson Greene, Executive Director
The CRÍID Foundation
Thank you for supporting our mission to preserve, share and advance Columbia River Indian customs & culture.