TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — The Cherokee Nation provided a first look of the tribe's latest effort to preserve their ancient language.
The tribe shared renderings Monday of the future Durbin Feeling Language Center in Tahlequah, Okla.
A converted casino is going to be the new home for all of the Cherokee Nation's language programs and five new houses will be built nearby for native speakers, according to the Cherokee Nation.
The new language center is named after Durbin Feeling, a celebrated Cherokee language preservationist who died this year. In a video posted on the Cherokee Nation's Facebook page, Feeling's wife said he would've been proud of the language center.
"The effort that the Cherokee Nation has put into it... It excited him," Christine Feeling said. "Because he knew something was going to be done about it finally. And that was his dream."
The tribe said they hope to have the language center finished by September 2021.
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