Native American Languages - Sam Noble Museum

Founded in 2002, the Native American Languages collection at the Sam Noble Museum provides invaluable resources to researchers, educators and students. The collection includes audio and video recordings, manuscripts, books, journals, ephemera and teaching curricula, including lesson plans, from more than 175 Native North American languages. This collection is intended to be a resource center where scholars and community members develop mutually beneficial relationships by preserving language resources, conducting research, providing services to Native American communities and educating the community about the importance of Native American languages and cultures.

Materials have been donated to the collection from a variety of individuals and groups, including tribal members and families, linguists and anthropologists, community language projects, teachers and students and other archives. Through outreach programs like the Breath of Life workshop and the annual Oklahoma Native American Youth Language Fair, the collection also fosters public education opportunities so that visitors can develop an awareness, appreciation and understanding of Native American languages.

The collection and activities sponsored by the department are aimed to preserve valuable linguistic resources, support language retention and revitalization, celebrate linguistic diversity and further the intellectual heritage of these languages.

For an overview of the collection, the activities of the department, and our facilities, check out this presentation.

Please feel free to contact us at 405-325-7588 for general information and programming, 405-325-3332 for accessing the collections, or email us at language.samnoblemuseum@ou.edu.

Support the Native American Languages Department

Are you interested in supporting the museum? By donating to the Native American Languages Department, you will help us continue to inspire minds to understand the world through collection-based research, interpretation, and education. Any dollar amount can help your museum continue to serve the people of Oklahoma.

Review the following areas to see where your donation can make a difference:

Donate to the Native American Language Youth Fair Support and Operations Fund: This fund supports the Native American Language Youth Fair, an annual event at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History.
Donate to the Native American Languages Fund: This fund is used to support the development, care, and research of the Native American Languages Collection.
Donate to the Native Language Fair Honor Fund: This fund is restricted to use for the Oklahoma Native American Youth Language Fair and will be endowed upon reaching $25,000. The Fund will be used to honor Native American speakers by supporting the Oklahoma Native American Youth Language Fair.