This is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples. This language would be from a linguistically distinct community that has been settled in the area for many generations. Indigenous languages may not be national languages, or may have fallen out of use, because of language deaths or linguicide caused by colonization, where the original language is replaced by that of the invading language. Native Language Music, founded in 1996 by musicians Joe Sherbanee and Theo Bishop, is an independent adult contemporary record company based in Southern California that produces, markets, and distributes premium jazz, world, and new age music. ... The term indigenous peoples has no universal, standard or fixed definition. ... This article needs a complete rewrite for the reasons listed on the talk page. ... In linguistics, language death (also language extinction, linguistic extinction) can be thought of as a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given language idiom is decreased. ... Linguicide is a little used term describing the intentional causing of the death of a language. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Colonialism. ...
Language scholars believe that prior to the arrival of Columbus, approximately 300 languages were spoken in North America; since then, the number of indigenouslanguages has dropped considerably.
It is difficult, however, to determine a precise census of speakers of these languages, and Krauss suggests that reasons for this difficulty include confusing US Census language definitions and biased responses by some respondents.
NCBE is funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs (OBEMLA) and is operated by the George Washington University, Graduate School of Education and Human Development, Center for the Study of Language and Education.