Mashantucket — The Mashantucket Pequot Tribe announced it has received an $82,609 federal grant in support of its work to preserve Native American languages.

The Administration for Native Americans Emergency Language Preservation Grant was made available as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, which is funded through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families.

The project is called Nuskeehchooun (“our medicine”), a term for the healing that occurs when a people learn, share, and exist within the language of their ancestors. Language is a medicine that has been proven to assist indigenous communities in the healing of generational trauma and lowering of suicide rates.

The Nuskeehchooun project will create Pequot language resources and make them available to all ages of the Mashantucket Pequot tribal community. The tribe’s Cultural Resources Department will utilize the funds for the development of language learning materials for instruction at the Mashantucket Child Development Center (ages 0-5), the tribe’s after-school Youth Program (ages 6-14), and with high school students and adults who participate in language classes.