MINNEAPOLIS — Introduced in fall 2023, the University of Minnesota’s new Dakota language major is part of the movement throughout Dakota communities to increase the number of Dakota language speakers ...

PRAIRIE ISLAND INDIAN COMMUNITY -- It's Spring Break, but Kennesey Taylor Western Boy is spending her time off memorizing the Dakota words for things like fry bread and sweet rolls. “Oooh. You've got ...

Joe Bendickson comes from a Dakota Indian family, but he didn’t know about his ancestors’ language until he was in high school. "When I was little, my parents never told me we had a language," he said ...

The University of Minnesota’s unique Dakota language and Ojibwe language majors allow students to pursue several paths involving their culture. Students are allowed the opportunity to learn the ...

RED WING — One thing Barry Hand is trying to get across to his students is this: Language is power. For the first time in years, students at Red Wing High School can take a class in the Dakota ...

When Joe Bendickson was growing up, first on the Lake Traverse Reservation near the Minnesota-South Dakota border and then in St. Paul, he did not speak Dakota, his ancestral tongue. Few did.

Dustin Morrow, a student earning his master’s degree in linguistics at the University of Minnesota, remembers the first time he heard someone casually speaking Ojibwe. He was 25 years old and ...