Bill seeks funds to save Penobscots’ language

AUGUSTA – The days in which Penobscot children were admonished for speaking their native language in school are long gone. But the Penobscots still need to do more to rebuild a language that was nearly lost forever, a tribal lawmaker says.

Michael Sockalexis, who represents his tribe in the Legislature, has introduced a bill that would add $300,000 to a Penobscot Language Preservation Fund operated by the state Department of Education. The money would be matched by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Many Penobscots know some words or phrases but few are fluent. Precise figures are hard to come by, but Sockalexis said there are only a handful of “traditional speakers” among the tribe’s more than 2,300 members, more than 1,000 of whom still live in Maine.