The number of fluent Spokane Salish speakers has more than doubled after the first graduation of a pilot adult immersion program: ‘This is historic’

WELLPINIT, Wash. – Felicia Pichette was overjoyed the first time her grandson told her “no.”

It wasn’t what he said, but how he said it: in Spokane Salish, the endangered Indigenous language of the Spokane tribe.

Pichette, a tribal member and student of the language, offered to carry a large root-digging stick for the toddler, but he stubbornly refused to let it go. Pichette speaks to her grandkids in the native tongue with the hopes that something will rub off on them. Evidently, it did.

“That right there, that little moment was like, ‘They do hear me,’ ” Pichette said.

Pichette is one in the first cohort of adults in a Spokane tribe -sponsored Salish language -immersion program who graduated on Tuesday in a tear- and laughter-filled ceremony in Wellpinit, Washington. After two years