squanto was the native american that spoke english with the pilgrims.
squanto was the native american that spoke english with the pilgrims.
who was the native american that spoke english with the pilgrims?
squanto
when the "mayflower" landed in 1620, squanto worked to broker peaceable relations between the pilgrims and the local pokanokets. he played a key role in the early meetings in march 1621, partly because he spoke english. he then lived with the pilgrims for 20 months, acting as a translator, guide, and advisor. he introduced the settlers to the fur trade, and taught them how to sow and fertilize native crops, which proved vital since the seeds which the pilgrims had brought from england largely failed. as food shortages increased, plymouth colony governor william bradford relied on squanto to pilot a ship of settlers on a trading expedition around cape cod and through dangerous shoals. during that voyage, squanto contracted what bradford called an "indian fever". bradford stayed with him for several days until he died, which bradford described as a "great loss".
squanto
a 1991 survey of 682 preschoolers in the navajo reservation head start program found that 54 percent were monolingual english speakers, 28 percent were bilingual in english and navajo, and 18 percent spoke only navajo. this study noted that while the preschool staff knew both languages, they spoke english to the children most of the time. in addition, most of the children's parents spoke to the children in english more often than in navajo. the study concluded that the preschoolers were in "almost total immersion in english". an american community survey taken in 2011 found that 169,369 americans spoke navajo at home – 0.3 percent of americans whose primary home language was not english. of primary navajo speakers, 78.8 percent reported they spoke english "very well", a fairly high percentage overall but less than among other americans speaking a different native american language (85.4 percent). navajo was the only native american language afforded its own category in the survey; domestic navajo speakers represented 46.4 percent of all domestic native language speakers (only 195,407 americans have a different home native language). as of july 2014, ethnologue classes navajo as "6b" (in trouble), signifying that few, but some, parents teach the language to their offspring and that concerted efforts at revitalization could easily protect the language. navajo had a high population for a language in this category. about half of all navajo people live on navajo nation land, an area spanning parts of arizona, new mexico, and utah; others are dispersed throughout the united states. under tribal law, fluency in navajo is mandatory for candidates to the office of the president of the navajo nation.
navajo language