Walk into the Wuneechanunk Preschool on a typical weekday morning and you’ll be greeted by the smell of burning sage and words unheard anywhere else in the world: Children singing in the Shinnecock language.

Yes, this is the only Shinnecock reservation, and it’s a small one, about 650 people. But the reason the sound of Shinnecock being spoken is so unusual is that thereare no fluent speakers of Shinnecock left — haven’t been for more than a century. With New York City only an hour and a half drive west, the pressure to assimilate has always been intense for the Native Americans of Long Island. That’s the topic of this week’s World in Words podcast. More.

Read the full article and listen to the World in Words podcast by PRI here: http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-01-14/native-american-tribe-long-island-trying-raise-its-language-dead

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