Columbia River language taught by native speaker at University of Oregon.

I don’t know what about this story from Spokane, Washington’s Spokesman Review I love the most:

– Here is a state university (University of Oregon) offering a course in Yakama Sahaptin, one of the native languages found along the Columbia River.

– A student thinks it’s “cool” to learn it.

– And, best of all, the teacher is an 87-year-old native speaker of the language, born in a bear cave, earned a degree in anthropology, authored Yakima Language Practical Dictionary in 1975, earned a master’s degree in bilingual and bicultural education, and (oh, by the way) is now working on her Ph.D.

The University of Oregon’s Northwest Language Institute recently held a conference for Sahaptin language teachers.

Kudos, all around!