BERKELEY, CA., 8/16/2026 — The California Language Archive is the largest, most comprehensive physical and digital collection of records of Indigenous language materials in North America.
Housed in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, the archive has preserved California’s dying Indigenous languages since 1949. It has built its records through dialect surveys and donations for many decades and has begun sponsoring similar preservation efforts in Latin America.
“Many Indigenous people will note that language is kind of everything,” said Wesley Y. Leonard, an associate professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Riverside. “It’s part of our peoplehood.”
A citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, Leonard grew up at a time when his ancestral language, Myaamia, had been dormant for decades. In an effort to reclaim his language and other sleeping Indigenous languages, Leonard earned a Ph.D. in linguistics in 2007 from UC Berkeley, where he worked closely with the school’s Survey of California and Other Indian Languages.
Through his dedication to reclaim Native languages, Leonard also works with Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival –– which is “devoted to implementing and supporting the revitalization of indigenous California languages.” One of its programs is the Breath of Life Archival Institute for Indigenous California Languages — a biennial, weeklong institute held on the Cal campus.
During the event, Leonard gives lectures and accompanies community members with the archives where they analyze field notes, academic papers, and sometimes, handmade baskets. He explained that language reclamation is more than just a way of communication — it’s an entire identity.
“[At] Breath of Life, people will come across materials that are the work of their family members in many, many cases,” Leonard said. “And it could be very emotional … usually in a good way.”
The cost of saving history
According to Zachary O’Hagan, manager of the CLA, dialect and survey donations are the backbone of the archive and typically come from outside researchers, Indigenous people, and/or organizations.
In the past, the archive has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Endowment for the Humanities. However, under the Trump administration, the NSF is seeing massive funding cuts across all categories.
While O’Hagan acknowledges that federal funding cuts “definitely cast a pall over the whole landscape,” he added that the archives at Cal are not in immediate danger of losing direct resources as a result of NSF cuts. Instead, they have been operating under non-federal grant resources that will last through 2027, including a grant from Arcadia — a British philanthropic organization — and the campus Linguistics Department itself.
Despite independent financing keeping the archives afloat, Leonard acknowledges the impact that the loss of federal grants has had on his field of work.
“The loss of funding … has been devastating,” Leonard said. “I think [museums and archives] are not being cut because there isn’t enough money in the world; things are being cut for political reasons. I find it disheartening and horrible.”
This story was authored by Chioma Onyema and Scarlett Huang, participants in The Daily Californian summer journalism intensive training program for high school students, The Berkeley Angle. Onyema’s participation was made possible by the Contra Costa Youth Journalism program.
This story originally appeared in The Daily Californian and was also republished in CCSpin.