Nora Mable | Great Falls Tribune | November 19, 2020

During the 1800s and 1900s, Native American children were forced to attend boarding schools, where they were punished for speaking Indigenous languages.

As a result, in the last 60 years, the Crow language fluency rate has dropped from about 85% to 20%.

As fewer people engage with the language, critical pieces of Crow history, culture and tradition are lost.

But a new app hopes to change that.

After nearly five years of collaboration among more than 50 Crow language speakers, linguists and programmers, the Crow Mobile Dictionary app launched Thursday.

It was created and developed by the Crow Language Consortium in partnership with the Crow Nation, Language Conservancy and Little Big Horn College.