The Arapaho language or Arapaho proper (also spelled "Arapahoe"; in Arapaho: Hinóno’eitíít ) is a one of the Plains Algonquian languages, closely related to Gros Ventre and other Arapahoan languages. It is spoken by under 300 people over age 50 in Wyoming, and in Oklahoma by "only a handful of people . . . all near eighty or older". As such, it is in danger of becoming extinct. As of 1996, there were approximately 1,000 speakers among the Northern Arapaho. As of 2008, the authors of a newly published grammar estimated there were slightly over 250 fluent speakers, plus "quite a few near-fluent passive understanders". In 2008, it was reported that a school had been opened to teach the language to children.
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“Our goal as a parent is to give life to our children’s learning—to instruct, to teach, to help them develop self-discipline—an ordering of the self from the inside, not imposition from the outside. Any technique that does not give life to a child’s learning and leave a child’s dignity intact cannot be called discipline—it is punishment, no matter what language it is clothed in.”
—Barbara Coloroso (20th century)