MacArthur Grant Gives Hope to Dying Language

Tuesday, 28 September 2010 | by Pat's Picks

Jessie Little Doe Baird’s six-year-old daughter is the “only child since the 19th century raised from birth to speak Wampanoag.” But Baird hopes to change that now that she’s won $500,000 as part of a MacArthur Genius Grant says the Boston Globe. A linguist by training, Baird heads the W?pan?ak Language Reclamation Project. She says the Wampanoag were the first American Indian group to develop a alphabetic writing system and they gave English speakers some of our most recognizable words—pumpkin, moccasin, skunk, moose.