Kiona — Meaning "brown hills," this name is made famous by Mary Kiona of the Tai’t na-pam tribe (also known as the Upper ...

One of the many ways Native American influence shines through the United States is in our place names. In more cases than one may think, geographic names were derived from a Native American word or ...

I was hired at the University of Colorado Boulder in 1995 as a language professor. I relocated from Hawaii, where I had learned the Hawaiian language. When I arrived in Colorado, I decided I needed to ...

Stacker explores American locations with indigenous roots. The name Alaska comes from the Aleut tribe and their word “alyeska.” When translated, it means "great land," drawing inspiration from the ...

How many words do we know? It turns out that even language experts and researchers have a tough time estimating this. Armed with a new list of words and using the power of social media, a new study ...

A traveling version of the thought-provoking Smithsonian exhibition “Americans” will begin a six-year national tour in August. Based on the major exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the ...