Language
Latest Stories

Health
More Oregonians speak Indigenous languages, but health care interpreters are lacking
Groups are joining Legacy Health to ask lawmakers to beef up the training and accreditation program for interpreters to help people access care, other services.

Weather
National Weather Service no longer translating products, putting non-English speakers at risk of missing warnings
The National Weather Service is no longer providing translations of its products after its contract with an artificial intelligence company was allowed to lapse.

University of Oregon office launches mediation training program for Spanish speakers
In what might be the first program of its kind in the country, the Oregon Office for Community Dispute Resolution recently offered a series of trainings for Spanish-speaking mediators.

Education
Some Washington public schools partnering with tribes to bring Indigenous languages into classrooms
A number of Washington state public schools are partnering with tribes to bring Indigenous languages into classrooms in an effort to rectify the marred history of Native American boarding schools.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is banning ‘Latinx’ from state documents
Huckabee Sanders argued in an executive order that the term, used to be inclusive of non-binary people, is "ethnically insensitive" and not commonly used by the Latino community.

Cow Creek Tribe works to restore once-extinct language
The Takelma language, once spoken by the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe of Indians and others, went extinct in Southwestern Oregon by 1940. Now, tribal members are in the process of restoring it.

Oregon Native language institute marks 25th anniversary, gets new funding
The Northwest Indian Language Institute’s efforts to preserve Indigenous languages are now supported by a new grant from The Roundhouse Foundation that will fund a needs analysis and tribal outreach programs.

How we pronounce Uvalde says a lot about the power of language in mixed communities
The name of the town comes from a misspelled Spanish name. The way people say it traces a long history of racializing Latinos in the U.S.

Think Out Loud
The challenges indigenous interpreters face in Oregon
Oregon now requires health care providers to work with OHA-certified interpreters in order for patients to have accessible, accurate translations, after a bill passed in the Legislature last year. But advocates say this new system has excluded Indigenous speakers.

Bringing Oregon’s Kalapuya language back from the brink of extinction
With the help of a new dictionary, a group of descendants of the Kalapuya people are teaching themselves their ancestors’ language, word by word.