Searching for lost city

the long version

What do we lose when a language disappears? Today, Choctaw, Creek, Comanche, and Ponca are just a few of the Native American languages quickly moving towards extinction. The question of what is lost--after all, speakers themselves often wonder whether it's worth the trouble of keeping their dialect alive--sparked the interest of journalist Elizabeth Seay, who returns to her home state of Oklahoma to research what is left of tribal languages and the customs that surround them. Seay meets a man who weaves spells; the last Comanche code talker; a woman whose Cherokee language was literally taken from her; and two brothers who use Native words in their hip-hop lyrics. The "lost city" of Ross Mountain seems elusive, however--an Ozark enclave where almost all the inhabitants speak Cherokee. The place becomes a metaphor for language itself, and Seay's narrative opens a window onto the quirks and intricacies of speech, leaving readers with new ways to look at the world.--From publisher description.