Scrabble unveils American Indian edition

AGENCY VILLAGE, S.D., April 6 (UPI) -- The game-maker Hasbro has teamed up with an American Indian official in South Dakota to produce the first Scrabble game in the Sioux language known as Dakota.

Only 127 American Indians in Minnesota and South Dakota speak the Sioux language, said Tammy DeCoteau, director of the Native Language Program for the Association of American Indian Affairs, the Orange County (Calif.) Register reported.

By that count, Dakota is in stark danger of extinction since when the elders die, the language could die too.

DeCoteau said she hopes Scrabble will help keep the language -- which even she cannot speak fluently -- alive.

"If I spoke, I'd sound like a child who just learned English," she said. "I'd be speaking broken Dakota."

The Dakota were one of three Sioux tribes and the first to be pushed from their homeland in the mid-1800s. When they revolted in 1862, 38 were hanged in the largest mass executions in U.S. history.