Editing Yuchi language (section)

==Current status==
[[File:Yuchilanguagespeakers.jpg|thumb|right|Sisters Maxine Wildcat Barnett (1925-2021) (left) and Josephine Wildcat Bigler (1921-2016);<ref name="Cultural Survival">{{Cite web |title=One of the Last Remaining Native Yuchi Speakers Passes |url=http://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/one-last-remaining-native-yuchi-speakers-passes |access-date=2020-12-13 |website=Cultural Survival |date=June 2016 |language=en}}</ref> two of the last elderly speakers of Yuchi, visiting their grandmother's grave in a cemetery behind Pickett Chapel in [[Sapulpa]], [[Oklahoma]]. According to the sisters, their grandmother had insisted that Yuchi be their native language.]]
Due to [[cultural assimilation|assimilation]] into [[Muscogee language|Muscogee]] and [[English language|English-speaking]] culture, only a few elderly speakers of the Yuchi language were left by the 21st century.

In 2000 the estimated number of fluent Yuchi speakers was 15, but this number dwindled to 7 by 2006,<ref>{{cite web |last=Anderton |first=Alice |url=http://ahalenia.com/iws/status.html |title=Status of Indian Languages in Oklahoma |website=Intertribal Wordpath Society |access-date=7 Feb 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090316221101/https://ahalenia.com/iws/status.html |archive-date=2009-03-16}}</ref> 5 by 2010,<ref name=survival>{{cite web | title=Our partners and advisors: The Euchee Language Project | website=Cultural Survival | url=https://www.culturalsurvival.org/current-projects/native-language-revitalization-campaign/partners-links |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160408135541/https://www.culturalsurvival.org/current-projects/partners-links | archive-date=8 April 2016}}</ref> and 4 by 2013.<ref name=survival/> In 2016, Yuchi elder Josephine Wildcat Bigler died. Speaking Yuchi as her first language, she had been active in recording and preserving the language for future generations.<ref name="Cultural Survival"/> Her sister, Maxine Wildcat Barnett, was the last [[tribal elder]] to speak fluent Yuchi, passing away August 27, 2021.<ref name="RaceAgainstTime"/>

The Yuchi Language Project (YLP) taught Yuchi classes in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, free of charge.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://eucheelp.org/_wsn/page3.html |title=Classes |website=The Euchee Language Project |access-date=7 Feb 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100322212342/http://eucheelp.org:80/_wsn/page3.html |archive-date=2010-03-22 |url-status=dead}}</ref> The YLP opened the Yuchi Immersion School in 2018 where English is not spoken, despite an Oklahoma state law passed in 2010 declaring English the state's official language.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Yuchi Language Comes Home |website=First Nations Development Institute |url=https://www.firstnations.org/stories/the-yuchi-language-comes-home/ |access-date=2023-07-31}}</ref> 

The Yuchi people and language are the subject of a chapter in ''Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages'' (2003), a book on [[endangered languages]] by Canadian writer [[Mark Abley]].<ref name="Abley2005">{{cite book|first=Mark |last=Abley|title=Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0SW69lrac8QC&q=%22unseen+and+unheard+Yuchi%22&pg=PA53|year=2005|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|isbn=0-618-56583-3|pages=53–82|chapter=4. Unseen And Unheard: Yuchi}}</ref>