There are nearly half a million Cherokee people around the world, but less than 0.5% of them speak their language natively, prompting educators to turn to iPad and Mac to help preserve the language.

Language is a living thing, and as such, it depends on speakers to not only keep it alive but also ensure its future survival. Some languages, especially those spoken by Indigenous Americans, are in danger of extinction.

Today, there are fewer than 1,500 fluent Cherokee language speakers. Among the world’s 480,000 Cherokee people, only 0.31% speak the language fluently.

In Tahlequah, Oklahoma, teachers and students of the Cherokee Immersion School hope to change that. That’s why Apple is helping to equip its classrooms with iPad and Mac.

“A big part of being Cherokee is you ensuring things like language and culture survive and continue,” says Roy Boney Jr., a Cherokee artist who worked with Apple engineers to bring the syllabary to Mac, iPad, and iPhone. “In previous generations it was just passed down naturally.”

Students are able to record themselves reciting vocabulary on iPad, allowing them to practice their pronunciation at home. It’s a powerful tool teacher Erlinda “Daksi” Soap uses to help students prepare for an upcoming Cherokee Language Challenge Bowl.

“The technology that we utilize with Apple has allowed us to take everything that we really are trying to achieve here, which is the perpetuation and the revitalization of Cherokee language and culture, and use that same technology to make it relevant to the young people that are learning here,” says Chuck Hoskin Jr., the Cherokee Nation’s principal chief.

Teacher Tyler Teague uses Apple technology to share the importance of storytelling with his students | Image credit: Apple

Some students in teacher Tyler Teague’s class use Keynote to create animated stories on iPad. Not only does this give students a chance to record themselves narrating a story, but it also helps encourage storytelling, a key component of how both language and culture get shared from one generation to the next.

Eventually, Teague hopes that he and his students can create a custom machine learning model. The goal is to create an app using Apple’s Swift Playground.

“Without Apple products and the things that we do today, we would not be able to see the language moving as fast as it is,” says Bryan Warner, the Cherokee Nation’s deputy principal chief and former educator.