Arapaho language

The Arapaho (Arapahoe) language (Hinónoʼeitíít) is one of the Plains Algonquian languages, closely related to Gros Ventre and other Arapahoan languages. It is spoken by the Arapaho of Wyoming and Oklahoma. Speakers of Arapaho primarily live on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, though some have affiliation with the Cheyenne living in western Oklahoma. Arapaho is an Algonquian language of the Algic family. By the 1850s, Arapaho bands formed two tribes: the Northern Arapaho and Southern Arapaho. Since 1878 the Northern Arapaho have lived with the Eastern Shoshone on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and are federally recognized as the Arapahoe Tribe of the Wind River Reservation. The Southern Arapaho live with the Southern Cheyenne in Oklahoma. Together their members are enrolled as the federally recognized Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. After World War II, the Northern Arapaho tribe tended to use English, not Arapaho, when raising their children. However, Arapaho speakers within the tribe still primarily speak Arapaho amongst each other. The Northern Arapaho additionally have had relatively less intermingling with other tribes and non-Native Americans compared to the Southern Arapaho who live amongst a predominantly non-Native American population. The exact number of Arapaho speakers is not precisely known; however it has been estimated that the language currently retains between 250 and 1,000 active users. Arapaho has limited development outside of the home; however, it is used in some films and the Bible was translated into the language in 1903. According to one source, under 300 people over the age of 50 speak the language in Wyoming, and in Oklahoma the language is used by "only a handful of people . . . all near eighty or older". As of 1996, there were approximately 1,000 speakers among the Northern Arapaho. As of 2008, the authors of a newly published grammar estimated that there were slightly over 250 fluent speakers, plus "quite a few near-fluent passive understanders".