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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“The necessity of poetry has to be stated over and over, but only to those who have reason to fear its power, or those who still believe that language is “only words” and that an old language is good enough for our descriptions of the world we are trying to transform.”
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