TULSA, Okla — Like many of the Tribes in northeast Tulsa, the Muscogee Nation is working to maintain its culture and language is a major part of that.

Right now they estimate that there are anywhere from 250 to 400 fluent Muscogee speakers in the world.

FOX23 spoke with the director of the Muscogee Language Preservation Program, Eli Rowland-Chang, about what the Tribe is doing to save its language.

Learn it or lose it, this phrase has a sense of urgency and is a scary reality for the Muscogee Nation and its citizens.

For Rowland-Chang this phrase fuels her passion and her purpose.

She said learning a language is easier when it’s bright and fun, but at times the history of the Muscogee language has been dark and unkind.

“Our elders, they were forced into boarding schools where they weren’t allowed to speak Muscogee and they were punished for speaking English. Those that didn’t get forced into boarding school even at their public schools, their teachers would punish them for speaking in their Native languages,” Rowland-Chang said.

Now the Muscogee Nation looks to heal while revitalizing the love of the language.

“If we lose our language, we lose who we are,” Rowland-Chang said.

As someone who started learning the Muscogee language in college, Rowland-Chang looks for creative ways to continue the culture.

She creates these bright posters with Muscogee vocab words and phrases.

She’s gotten a language curriculum into 30 different public schools.

The language program also just launched Zoom classes that are open to everyone and a new website.

“A student has to want to learn it because they don’t ‘have to’ to survive in our reservation,” Rowland-Chang said.

She said she’s proud of Muscogee youth for stepping up and getting excited to learn.

She said her Tribe is not the only Tribe facing the language problem.

Several other Tribes also have language programs.

The College of the Muscogee Nation also just launched a Muscogee Dictionary app to help people learn the language, which can be downloaded on Apple and Android devices.

For more information about the program, click here.