First Language – The Race to Save Cherokee, a film by the North Carolina Language and Life Project. Image from Facebook

Efforts by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina to preserve the Cherokee language are the subject of a new documentary.

First Language – The Race to Save Cherokee follows students at the New Kituwah Academy, the tribe's immersion school. The facility opened in 2004 and will be expanding to ensure its very first class can continue their studies in the Cherokee language.

North Carolina Language and Life Project: First Language - The Race to Save Cherokee

“Cherokee is a beautiful language to hear. In the film you get to hear a lot of spoken Cherokee. I doubt there is any film that has more Cherokee than this one does,” producer Neal Hutcheson told The Charlotte Observer.

The tribe counts between 300 and 400 fluent speakers of Cherokee in North Carolina.

Get the Story:
Film captures dying language in N.C. (The Charlotte Observer 4/7)

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Eastern Cherokees work to teach language to new generations (03/25)