The Cherokee Nation opened the historic Durbin Feeling Language Center with a grand opening celebration on Tuesday morning in Tahlequah.
The Durbin Feeling Language Center will house all the tribe’s language programs under one roof for the first time. It is estimate that there are less than 2,000 people fluent in the Cherokee language.
The 52,000 square-foot building on Hwy. 62 in Tahlequah features 17 classrooms, a library, archive room, gym, playground and everything inside the building is written in Cherokee Syllabary.
The new language center is named in honor of the late Durbin Feeling, Cherokee Nation’s single-largest contributor to the Cherokee language since Sequoyah. Feeling, of Locust Grove, died in 2020.